THE CENTURY AND THE SCHOOL ?&&&■ THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO DALLAS • SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO The Century and the School and Other Educational Essays BY FRANK LOUIS SOLDAN Late Superintendent of the St. Louis Public Schools THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1912 AU rights reserved <6^ Copyright, 1912 By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Set up and clectrotyped. Published February, 1912. ©■CI.A3(in«34 PREFACE The essays brought together in this volume were selected, by a group of his intimate asso- ciates, from the manuscripts of Superintend- ent F. Louis Soldan, after his death. They felt that the spirit which had exerted so strong an influence upon public education might be kept alive in the minds and hearts of teachers through its expression in the literary appeals it had made while in the full force of its activity. The selection of subjects for this purpose could not have been more happily made. They cover a wide range of related thoughts and exhibit the man in his many-sided touch with developing youth and the social institu- tions of which it was both the care and the in- spiring hope. His treatment of the subjects is that of a critical though sympathetic student of school plans and methods. He laughs shams out of court and defends with the courage of intelligent conviction the ideas and practices which long experience has tried and justified. He manifests a soul in VI Preface tune with literary expression. His power to catch the dominant chord is manifested in his characterization of the aim of Dickens as, "The unveiling of divine things in human." His analysis of moral values is keen and has the precision of a chart of conduct while estab- lishing the obligation of individual decision. In "Folklore and Fairy Tales" we see his intimate acquaintance with the soul of the nat- ural child and his practical sense in the use of this knowledge in adapting instrumentalities and processes to the child's education. These essays are informing, but their great- est worth is in their buoyant confidence in the power of high purpose and strong character. His conception of the noble aim of teaching is thus expressed: "A hand ready to help, a contented mind, an appreciation of those treasures that are higher than life itself, this is the ethical task which the century demands of the school." Ben Blewett. St. Louis, December, 1911, CONTENTS The Century and the School Morality and Education What is a Fad? .... Teachers' Duties .... Educational Ideas in Dickens' Novels A Visit to German Schools Reading in the Higher Grades Folklore and Fairy Tales i 38 58 77 100 139 172 191 vn THE CENTURY AND THE SCHOOL We are told by philologists that our fore- fathers in making the myths which we find in their poetry and legends were wiser than they knew. In these myths modern philology has discovered wonderful truths. It professes to know more about Apollo than the Greeks, more about Jupiter than the Romans, and more about Thor than the Saxons of the North. When it is thus the practice to invest ancient myths with modern meaning, we may be allowed to select one of these myths for the purpose of this paper, and try to find in ancient lore the foreshadowing of a modern view. There is no story more prevalent in north- ern mythology, than that of little beings, gifted with extraordinary powers. In the tales of Scotland and of old England the little Brownies play an important part. They sweep the floor which the servant has neg- lected, they do the work which the lazy mortal has forgotten to do. They are the working spirits, the little active principles. So, in the 2 The Century and the School mythology of the Norse peoples, the giants and gods, powerful in stature and deeds, seem in reality dependent for their weapons, armor, and all their worldly goods upon the diligence of those little dwarfs, who are the types of wisdom and industry. To their skill the gods and giants owe the arms by which alone they retain power and sway. And yet these little beings live removed from the eyes of the world and from the light of day. In modest retirement they are the guardians of the highest treasures of mountain and mine. In the darkness of the caverns they toil and labor, they ply the hammer and make for Odin the never-missing spear, for Thor the terrible hammer; they build for Freya the free ship, and they weave the golden hair of the goddess of the earth. If we are allowed to carry into this story an explanation of our own, it seems as if the ancient myth foreshadowed a discovery of our century, namely, the truth that the events of nature and of the world are not brought about by Titanic revolutions, but are the result of the silent and persistent forces which work quietly and unobservedly in every atom and cell. Apparently insignificant processes which surround us everywhere and at every moment. The Century and the School 3 are sufficient to account for all the changes in nature. The little forces shape the world, and not the gigantic revolutions of which former theories spoke. This recognition of the power of the silent and little forces of nature, which work out of sight, in the depths of the world, is the view peculiar to the science of our century. Our century has discovered these little powers and observed their work in nature. While former theories saw in the surface of the earth the result of great revolutions and sudden up- heavals, the science of our century has found that all these forms of geological life are due to the steady work of forces which surround us and which we can observe in their activity every moment. It is the little and insig- nificant cause which creates and sustains the great and gigantic phenomenon. Before the examining glance of science, whatever is great dissolves itself, and appears to be the work of what seems small and powerless. Those bold cliffs and mountains which protect the south of England against the fury of the sea, appear to the inquisitive eye as untold myriads of little shells which in slow accumulation have formed mountains. Society too has its little powers which compared with the 4 The Century and the School gigantic interests of modern times, with poli- tics, commerce, and the wheel-works of manufacture and transit and trade, appear insignificant and small, but which neverthe- less in modest retirement drive the wheels and move the loom of time. Among these small powers, in which our century has recognized a creative and preservative power which sup- ports the state and sustains social life, there is none humbler but at the same time more significant than the school. Like those little mythical beings of the old Norse story who wrought the arms by which the giants of the world maintained their sway, the school creates for the state the arms against bar- barism and crime, the school in the opinion of our century builds the throne on which liberty can safely rest, it covers the earth with the golden harvest of the peaceful arts. Like the Brownies, who were the guardians of great treasures, education and the school are the guardians of the great treasures of humanity, of knowledge, morality, and law. According to the view which our century takes of education, the school should not only be the guardian of the ethical treasures of mankind, but also the servant of the aims and the objects of the times. The Century and the School $ All callings have a narrowing influence on those that follow them, and the teacher is not free from the narrowing influence of his humble vocation. "In narrow work the mind itself grows narrow" is a true saying. Too easily we cling to what is traditional and old and a time-honored custom, and it is some- times necessary to remind ourselves of the old saying of the Roman teacher: "Do not educate the child for the school but for life!" It is a just demand that the school should move along with the progressive movement of society at large. Thus it appears that the school should be guided by the wants of society; but the features of society change more quickly than the waves of the river, and never more than in this age of quick growth and quick decay. The work of adapting the school to the changing demands of the times is not an easy one. But that system of schools which does not move and develop with the motion of the times, is not carried along on the fresh wave of public opinion and loses its place in the sympathies of the people. To keep pace with the development of society and science, to assimilate what is new, with- out discarding what is good in things tradi- tional and time-honored, to appreciate new 6 The Century and the School demands and new interests without injustice to what is old and tried, this is the task of that education which means to be what it ought to be, namely, the true servant of the noblest aims of our century. The pupil shall enter life not with his face turned backward, like one who has been trained in the lore of the past only, not like a wanderer in the bewilder- ing mazes of an unintelligible, unknown world, but rather as a new reaper steps into the field to engage in work for which his edu- cation has endowed him with taste and ability. Thus, growing upon the fresh soil of the century, the school sends thousands of strong roots into the life of the nation and sucks new power out of the throbbing heart of the cen- tury. Those epochs in education are the greatest in which the school has been roused from dreams of the past, and linked afresh to the bright life of the present. The glorious rise of the school during the time of the refor- mation began with the moment that Latin was displaced from its universal position in all the schools, and the vernacular was taught to the people to enable them to read the newly- translated Bible. What seemed to many the ruin or the giving up of the characteristic task, the teaching of Latin, was in reality the begin- The Century and the School 7 ning of the modern era in education, during which schools have grown so wonderfully that no mediaeval mind could conceive of such a growth, and no historical parallel can be found. The next powerful impulse was given to the school by Bacon when he confronted the humanistic book-wisdom and the Aristotelian authority by emphasizing the neglected study of nature. With the moment that Pestalozzi's spirit conceived the idea of educating the masses, an idea ignored by Locke as well as by Rousseau, with the moment that Pestalozzi wedded the school to the life of the nation, be- gan the new era in education in which we live at present. The school of our days will not lose anything by embracing fully and unreservedly the spirit of our century. The influence of the school is powerful and stir- ring in proportion as it conceives and recog- nizes the noblest aims and endeavors of the century and tries to teach in accordance with them:. Not only usage and traditional meth- ods, but also reason and progress should regu- late school institutions. "Custom calls me to it — What custom wills, in all things should we do it, The dust of antique time would lie unswept, And mountainous error be too highly heaped For truth to overpeer." 8 The Century and the School Thus then our century demands that the school be the guardian of the best aspirations of the times, but it should also be the servant of those interests which do not belong to any particular time, but to all times, namely, the general ethical interests of humanity. Our century deserves that the school be subservient to it, for no other age has, even approximately, recognized the value of edu- cation as much as the present, or expressed its appreciation in such an active way, by the establishment and support of the most won- derful educational systems. "He who controls the education of a na- tion," says Leibnitz, "controls its future." The assurance of the duration and perpetuity of free institutions lies in the possibility of edu- cating a nation so as to make the masses with whom ultimately the government of a country rests, intelligent and responsible rulers in their own affairs. There is probably no other institution which has been made so extensively the subject of attacks and abuse as the school. It has been blamed for educating too much and for edu- cating too little. It has been censured on account of not doing enough to prevent crime and criticised for not doing enough to pro- The Century and the School 9 duce wealth. It has been arraigned as an enemy of physical health of youth. Every class of specialists has demanded that the school should do something for the promotion of its art, and has denounced it for not doing enough. In all these things it is evident that much is expected from the school. But even in the unreasonable demands made upon it, there is an element not entirely unsatisfactory to the friends of education, namely, that all these demands imply an almost boundless confidence in the power of education. It is reasonable to suppose that the school can do much, but it is foolish to imagine that it can do everything. The century has great faith in the efficiency and power of the school. In all the evils which beset the body politic, the school is expected to furnish some remedy which will cure or prevent them. This belief is characteristic of the century, and we do not find fault with it, even when it speaks in exaggeration of what the school can do for the state, and when it forgets that there are many educational factors besides the school, that life, family, civil vocations, the press, the pulpit are just as important and responsible factors in education as the school. Neglects and errors in education cannot and io The Century and the School should not be charged to the school alone. There are two distinct classes of demands, however, which the century makes upon the school. The one is, that the school shall be in harmony with the practical aims and with the spirit of the times; and the other, that it shall help to guard those interests which are as old as the human race itself, namely, the ethical interests which alone constitute — make or render man a civilized being, and make uprightness and charity part of his nature. The demands of the century on the school are then, first, of a practical, and second of an ethical character. If the practical demand is that the school should accord with the spirit of the century, it becomes necessary to inquire what the spirit of the century is, so that we know according to what standard the school should shape its course. Every age has its own features which ap- pear strongly marked in its history, art, science, religion, politics, and society; and, as the features of a human being change and are ennobled in the course of a thoughtful life, so the features and the aspect of the times change with each newly discovered truth, with each world-historical deed. The eternal The Century and the School n fountain out of which the deeds and thoughts of a nation arise wells up forever. The poet says, "Ever over the path of mankind flashes, like lightning, eternal truth." And thus the features of the time are subject to perpetual changes. May we then be allowed to draw, with a few lines, an image of the times, as they appear to us, without ignoring the truth that the times are not always as they appear to the painter; remembering, however, that much of the portrait depends on the artist who draws it. The one may paint his century with the brush of Tintoretto, with bright lights and deep shadows, while the other may portray his century in a picture after Rembrandt's fashion ; the head and brow radiant with light, but the heart covered with black shadow and gloom. In the beginning of the eighteenth century American life was still knit together with the life of England; and the history of Europe was that of America, and therefore in consid- ering European history for a moment we con- sider what was then American history as well. In the latter half of the eighteenth century mankind seemed to rise and to shake off the fetters of medievalism, which still clung to 12 The Century and the School its limbs and held it in a state of social and political bondage. The dormant energy of the race awoke; an era of new activity sprang suddenly into existence. In politics, in sci- ence, in art, a new epoch began. It was a revival which was perhaps more transitory, but certainly not less important than the great revival of the fourteenth and fifteenth centu- ries. As in the earlier revival of learning, when art broke with the conventional and Byzantine models, it seized again upon the classical art-forms of antiquity, so, in the revival of liberty, the last century resuscitated the political forms of antiquity, the idea of the Republic was revived, and into this old form the century poured its new life. Yorktown ended forever the dream of a monarchy in America, and the success of the new state in its struggle reanimated the ideas of liberty in the old world. New America and New France arose. Fresh light shone forth from the fields of science and art. As on one side were the political, so on the other, were the scientific systems remodeled and re-created. The French revolution brought about a new order of society, French science produced a new classification of the kingdoms of nature, French legislation gave us the only The Century and the School 13 thoroughly modern code of laws, French com- merce adopted a new division of weights and measures. All this manifests the strong revo- lutionary character of the period. In the department of letters the same strong pulsa- tion was felt, and the heart of the world throbbed again with a great period of literary and intellectual life. The great names of this movement tell its history. In philosophy, Condillac, Voltaire, D'Alembert, De Lamet- trie, Hume, Kant; in literature, Beaumarchais, Diderot, Marmontel, Montesquieu, Rousseau; in science, BufTon, Daubenton, Brisson, Geof- froy-Saint-Hilaire, Cuvier, Jussieu, Biot, Saussure, Watt, Franklin, Jenner. It is hardly necessary to say that this re- vival of the scientific and literary spirit was not confined to France alone. The Italian Canova, for instance, the Dane Thorwaldsen, the greatest sculptors of modern times, Goethe and Schiller, the great poets of Germany, belong to the same period. This time of al- most feverish activity in science and politics was followed by decades of complete prostra- tion caused by the fearful wars of the Napo- leonic episode. A period of languid reaction in all the fields of intellectual work ensued. England, after 1815, rested exhausted and 14 The Century and the School almost broken from its gigantic but futile efforts against the American colonies, or the United States, and against France. France, whose revolutionary arms had over- run all Europe, had fallen into the hands of a soldier of genius, whom the combination of all the powers of Europe had dethroned and chained to the rocks of Saint Helena; and now began throughout Europe a time of political oppression. The kings of the old world had called on their people to drive out the French conquerors, but they soon became afraid of the spirit they had conjured up. They sup- pressed every manifestation of popular polit- ical activity. The press was shorn of its rights and deprived of its remaining freedom. All Europe was exhausted and rested languidly. The era of progress, so suddenly begun, found as sudden an end in a period of political decay which extended through the first half of the nineteenth century. The hope of humanity had fled across the Atlantic. America had separated her fate from that of the older countries, and was the only oasis of freedom in a universal desert of tyranny. While Europe had broken with the free political traditions of the eighteenth century, and was uprooting them with merciless fury, they were The Century and the School 15 cherished and put into practice in America. The history of the United States forms a quiet contrast to this in the growth of the noblest ideas which the revival of liberty had brought forth in Europe. Literature gave evidence of this sudden downfall. The struggle against the existing order of things, in society and law, was vividly depicted in the productions of the leading writers of this period. Highwaymen and corsairs became ideal types in fiction and prose. Byron in England, Alfred de Musset in France, Heine and Lenau in Germany, and perhaps Wordsworth, whose poetry turned away from man and society and glorified nature, were the representative names of the literature of this period of political slpth, inactivity, and stagnation. A kind of apathy had taken possession of the European mind, and the literature of this period has not un- aptly been called the literature of world- despair. The more active elements of the European races turned their back to the land of brutal oppression and found homes in the valleys and prairies of the great republic. The era of indifference gave rise even to a new school of philosophy. Kant's school, represented after his death by Hamilton, 1 6 The Century and the School Comte and others — which had arrived at the conclusion that there could not be much cer- tainty about external things anyway — and the Hegelian school with its encouraging optimism, was followed by the dreary school of Schopenhauer who saw in death and rest the only true happiness of man. The political atmosphere was stifling; the governments were leagued against their peoples. But what was invulnerable to attack was not safe against aspersion. Satire and skepticism, Punch and Thackeray, took their place in the literature of the day and in the art of the period. In- activity became a political doctrine. A kind of ethical materialism arose in refined society which sought to ameliorate the emptiness of existence by sensuous enjoyment. While this was the drift of the surface culture, a fresh under-current gradually but steadily welled up from the deepest heart of the people, and a wonderful wave from eco- nomic and social springs led to a regeneration of public life. Creative power, of which governments seemed devoid, still lived in the sinews and marrow of our civilization, and it burst forth through the channel of the indus- trial activities and invigorated afresh the old world. Practical life lightly blew away the The Century and the School 17 cobwebs of the literature and metaphysics of quietism. The era of indifference came to a sudden end when a new revolution, like an electric shock, passed over the world in 1848. Thirty years of political commotion followed, during which great nations like Italy and Germany sprang into existence, and the noble new republic of France was established in the midst of unspeakable difficulties. During all this time the star of our republic had risen higher in the western skies, and growing in splendor until it outshone all other constella- tions, dazzled the eyes of the world. A peo- ple had risen out of nothing to rank as the first nation of the earth. The depression of the old empires served only to raise the new em- pire higher. The miseries of Europe were the prosperity of America. Each act of op- pression, each new revolution choked in blood had thrown myriads of strong men and women on the shores of the republic. This period of decomposition and destruction of the old world was an unceasingly creative era for the United States. Here a continuous, peaceful growth had matured the political ideas which the last century had taught, and on whose destruction and uprooting the European governments had wasted their energies. Here, out of separated 1 8 The Century and the School colonies a confederation of states arose. It was the era of a more perfect union which cul- minated in the creation of the United States. A process of unification had begun, and its first stage went on through sixty years of the nine- teenth century, during which time, in the fermentation of political agitation, the disin- tegrating questions arose to the surface, ready to be taken off. Up to the time of the civil war, the nation was still divided by the incom- patible systems of slave labor and competitive work, and by an honest diversity of opinion in regard to constitutional provisions. But these distinctions having been removed by the results of the war, we have, in place of what the Constitution calls a more perfect union of the states, the most perfect union of South and North, a union which will last forever because it is now based on a community of in- terests. The past history of America, more wonderful than a fairy tale, is but "an earnest of what shall be." We see the process of uni- fication going on and completing itself in a thousand ways. What a wonderful history was ours, even while the land was divided in itself! What untold possibilities are there in the future now when South and North have the same hope, the same aspiration and The Century and the School 19 mingle their energy in one mighty current! Before the beginning of this era one might have drawn a line across the continent and said: "Here ends the community of interests; here is the North and there is the South ; here is agriculture and there is manufacture and commerce; here is black, there is white labor; here are emigrants, there are slaves; here is public, there is private education." But where is this line of demarcation now? It has vanished in the quick process which now is forming the most perfect union of all times. Already it is impossible to designate the South as an exclusively agricultural and the North as the exclusively manufacturing division. North or South, it is the same people, the same characteristic energy. Already it is impossible to draw the line between North and South and to say: public schools here, private schools there. Much remains to be done yet, but on the other hand there is no feature of the last twenty years that calls for more sincere admiration than the noble work done by the South to educate her people, both white and black. The political features in the history of the nineteenth century, great as they are, brilliant as they appear, are after all only details. The 20 The Century and the School spirit and essence of the century lie not in the great political actions of the age, not in the pomp and splendor of war, but finds its motive powers and levers rather in the quiet shop of the artisan, in the busy counting-room of the merchant, and in the retired laboratories of science. By the invention and perfection of machines the labor of the artisan and me- chanic has lost its old form. The production and manufacture of articles for the needs of human society has experienced almost infinite expansion. The constant cooperation of many hands necessitated by the new form of production, and on the other hand the desire to facilitate the exchange of the multi- tude of products, has led, with other causes, to the incomparably rapid growth of cities in Europe and America, and new problems for legislation and education have been created by city life. Production on a vast scale requires also extensive means of transportation, and there- fore the development of the latter keeps pace with the steadily increasing growth of fac- tory work. The new means of transportation stand in the closest connection with the growth of manufacture, for without the machine labor of our century and its mass of productions, The Century and the School 21 without the involved necessity of instant and extensive distribution of the manufactured articles, neither railroad nor telegraph could exist. The limit of the development of the one is the limit of the growth of the other. Our century has printing presses which can print, cut, fold, and fasten a vast number of sheets per hour, and the invention is capable of further development, but the true limit lies in the demand, in the number of readers or sub- scribers. It is useless to manufacture articles by the million which are demanded by the hundred only. This mass production which is characteristic of our century presupposes vastly increased consumption. The existence of countless factories and machines is in itself a proof of the fact of increased consumption. The enormously increased rate of production is intelligible only on the presupposition that each individual human being enjoys a greater share of those things which make life pleasant. If it is true that the possibility of civilization depends on a certain amount of luxury, and that no nation can make any progress in the former unless its labor has procured for it wealth and luxury, it follows that in a period like ours, where the individual commands more wealth, greater comfort, civilization and 22 The Century and the School refinement can spread more widely and be- come the attributes of the masses of the people instead of remaining the privilege of the few. Of these characteristics of the century the school must take cognizance. In the past period of individualized labor each mechanic worked for himself, independent of all his fellow-workmen. The article made in the shop received its whole form, from the raw material to its finished state, through the same hand. For this reason each workman had to be trained so as to master the whole process ; the mode of production which our century has invented demands extreme division of labor. A piece of work passes through many hands before it is completed. The individual worker no longer needs the knowledge of the whole process, but skill in a small part only of the process. It has become easier to learn a trade than it was formerly, but, for the same reason, the workman is less sure of retain- ing his position. In this complex system of divided labor each individual becomes de- pendent on the other, and individual inde- pendence in work has disappeared. The new mode of production gives to labor the character of restlessness. The individual must do his work quickly and hand it over to The Century and the School 23 the waiting hands of his fellow-workman, or the movement of the whole chain will be in- terrupted. The golden, comfortable easy time of the artisan of the past era, the pleasant, slow rhythm of rest and work has disappeared, driven away by the whir of spindle and spool. Rip Van Winkle would wait in vain today for master-tailor and master-shoemaker to accompany him to the linden tree before the inn for their Monday morning potion. The romance of rest with intervals of work, the romance of easy individual labor belongs to the past. In our century each man must labor as one of the grand army of workers, and obey the commands of his calling at all times, at all hours. If he wants to work at all, he must move in the strictly circumscribed course, and with the regularity and precision of a wheel in a never-resting, huge machine. The feverish, restless motion which ma- chine labor requires has exerted an influence on the mind which extends beyond the prov- ince of manufacture and commerce. It has marked the whole age with its characteristics, so that all the callings of peace and war bear the stamp of highest strain and energetic haste. The other characteristic of the century, namely, the rapidity and far-reaching impetus 24 The Century and the School of the means of transit, has perhaps contrib- uted still more than the changed forms of labor, to give to this period the peculiar char- acteristics of which we have spoken. For railroads and steamships and telegraph and postal facilities do not serve for the distribu- tion of material wealth merely, they also com- municate and distribute intellectual treasures and spread and scatter human sympathy and thought all over the world. The peaceful victories and conquests of mankind in trade and commerce, the inventions of genius, the wisdom and folly of political experiments are daily communicated by telegraph and press to all the cultured people of the earth. They also serve the ends of universal justice: the wicked tremble when they hear of crime denounced and punished; when they hear of the vindicated majesty of the law; and noble hearts beat higher when they see that human- ity, without distinction of language or race, defends and admires what is good and just. The sufferings of a nation, of a country find a thousand tongues and a responsive echo in the help of distant lands. Traveling and the facilitated communica- tion by letter, the press, the telegraph educate man's political sense by teaching him the The Century and the School 25 political methods of other states. Nations be- come acquainted with each other, and discover qualities and interests which they possess in common. The existence of the American republic is a constant lesson and invitation to the nations of the earth, and France has profited by it in our own time. In no former age has the cause of self-government expe- rienced such an advance as in our day. Our century has given to liberty a new foundation. On the basis of economic inter- ests modern civil freedom has arisen and be- come strong. As a subordinate result of the perfection of the means of communication, it deserves to be mentioned that the stable or localized char- acter of the civilization of former centuries has suffered considerable change. Nations intermingle, they see and know more of each other than formerly. To these characteristics of our century, our own country owes much of its wonderful growth. An event unheard of in all history begins and continues through the century, inaugurated by the leveling, equal- izing tendencies of the eighteenth century. From all the parts of Europe a mighty stream of all races and tongues issues forth and pours its waves into the prairies and valleys of the 26 The Century and the School new continent, and with marvelous rapidity they form a new nation, with sharply defined national characteristics; a nation welded to- gether so indissolubly by the cohesive forces of free institutions that even a terrible civil war cannot sever it. In former ages a small fraction of mankind was called the floating population. Today the name may be given in a certain sense to almost the whole world. The individual no longer knows with absolute certainty that he will finish his days in this or that town. Not many persons today will resemble Kant, the philosopher, in this re- spect, who never in his life went twenty miles beyond the limits of the little city in which he was born. I have attempted to draw a picture of the century in which we live. We cannot with- draw from its influence. Goethe says : "As if driven by invisible spirits, the sun-horses of the times run away with the light vehicle of our individual fate; and nothing remains for us but to grasp the reins with undaunted en- ergy and, guiding to the right and to the left, to turn the wheels from rocks and precipice. Whither we go — who knows? Why, we hardly know whence we came." It remains for us to consider how the school The Century and the School 27 may be made serviceable to the spirit of the century. The demands of the present period are not to be taken as substitutes for the ethical and generally human aims of the school of all times, but rather as their complement. The latter must not be contradicted by the former, for the ethical aims are of imperishable and everlasting value. The education of the child to truth, virtue, humanity, to charity, and manly strength, aspires to aims as eternal and immutable as the stars above. But to these ethical aims the demands of the century are added. They are not new, but the old de- mands have become more pointed, more in- tense, and the tasks have been raised to a higher power. Our age is an age of effort, work, and labor. The activity of the school is therefore di- rected toward a double task: the imparting of knowledge, and the formation of a habit of unremitting, steady industry. No principle needs more thorough inculcation than that: "I will do what I ought to do." Harmony between duty and will is the basis of moral culture and of individual happiness. Not only skill in his work, but love for labor and activity should be the gift of the school to the young being when he enters upon his path in 28 The Century and the School life, if he is to find there satisfaction and hap- piness. In former epochs the aim of the civil education of the mechanic or artisan in his craft was the adaptation to and training for a special trade or calling, and the method was to lead him to isolated, independent work. The culture of our century demands work with others. Its principle is no longer inde- pendence, but interdependence. In the place of the knowledge of the whole process, the condition for excellence now is the utmost manual skill and dexterity in the detail. Formerly man completed the work and the tool was his assistant, now the machine per- forms the task and man helps it. Formerly his knowledge of the craft afforded to the workman protection against being pushed out of his place ; now, in some trades the process can be learned by a tyro in a few weeks or days. Not unfrequently trades disappear altogether when a new machine has made them superfluous. Formerly the country boy might be trained exclusively for country life and the city boy for the city. Now, no cer- tainty of future occupation can be inferred from present position. These conditions the new school must con- sider. When the special trade no longer The Century and the School 29 affords any security of continuous employ- ment, a more comprehensive and more thor- ough schooling can impart to the boy greater powers of adaptation, and open to him a wider field. Machine labor has never lessened the value of intelligence and of steady character. For the very reason that the mechanical, spiritless work is done by fettered nature her- self, the intelligent human power is enhanced in value. With every new machine intelli- gent directive power becomes more indispen- sable, since by bungling or stupid labor the danger is multiplied of immense loss. The further the abilities of man are developed, the greater is the field in which he can choose a vocation. How many fields of labor, to mention a single illustration, are opened to the boy by a knowledge of a single study, that of drawing, which without such knowledge would remain closed to him. School education, then, which does not merely educate the memory, but also the senses and the hand, tends to increase the more stringent conditions of existence. Not so much the mass and quantity of things known form the test of a good school, as the strength and skill of hand and eye, of judgment and will. The things taught are means, not ends. 30 The Century and the School The century demands that the school should work for life. The changes made in the most progressive school systems, as for instance the introduction of drawing, of the manual train- ing of the kindergarten and its cultivation of the senses, all these innovations give evidence of the responsive tendency of the school and of the teaching profession to do justice to reasonable demands. It is both unwise and unjust in criticising the schools to dwell ex- clusively on what ought to be done, and to ignore the great things already accomplished. Enough, it is true, remains to be done by school and teacher, and may the day never come when professional self-sufficiency thinks that our schools cannot be perfected. But the fact that there are things that have not been accomplished by the school is rather a basis for hope than for criticism. " Labor with what zeal we will, Something still remains undone, Something uncompleted still, Waits the rising of the sun." Widened and extensive intelligence, narrow and intensive activity, contact and sympathy with universal interests, and devotion to the special vocation are the peculiar conditions of our century's life. The former teach man The Century and the School 31 to find his place in life, the latter how to fill it. The school is carried along by this current. That flaunting wisdom which knows a little of everything and nothing well is worthless — "of all things a little, but one thing well" is a much better principle. The school must refuse to teach more than can be taught well. But, since the whole field of science cannot be grasped even in its elements, it re- mains the task of the school to fix its attention on those things which may be well learned by the child. The former mountebank systems of teaching, which shouted in street and market how many things they could teach and which spread over everything, were shallow in all things. The principle of school educa- tion is depth and thoroughness in a few things, and then if there is time general knowledge. Man may study a multitude of things, but one thing, and if it were the smallest, he should know well. In regard to the selection of the subjects the decision rests on the question what is most important for the life of the day and for the life of humanity. In one thing that is thoroughly grasped, the mind seizes the whole world. "That teacher," says Goethe, "who understands how to present a single noble deed, a single good poem, so as to rouse 32 The Century and the School the child's feeling performs more than one who teaches a whole series of lower forms of nature by shape and name; for the whole re- sult is what we may know without all this trouble; namely, that man bears in himself more perfectly and more uniquely than all other beings the image of God. The indi- vidual may be at liberty to busy himself with what attracts him, what he delights in, or what he considers useful, but the proper study of humanity is man." The school should be of service to the na- tion also. Without intermission, year after year multitudes of emigrants arrive at our shores. The parents speak a hundred tongues, the children soon speak but one, the language of this country. To each child the school gives a new tongue, to each home it sends a youthful interpreter of American life and in- stitutions. The school is building up the na- tion. The child that has gone through a pub- lic school is an American, no matter where he first saw the light of the sun. Thus language, in all its forms, becomes the most important study of the school. It contains the key to all things, human and divine. There is another demand of the nation on the school. Lessons of history should be The Century and the School 33 taught and taught not simply as chronological curiosities, but as truths appealing to thought and to rouse and train patriotic feelings in the young mind. \ Since the school is to prepare for life, both subject-matter and method of instruction should be living and real. The printed page is and ever will be a great medium for the con- veying of information, but it is not the only medium. Besides mastering the printed page, the child should learn how to derive informa- tion from the greatest of all sources of infor- mation, greater even than books, namely, the world without and the mind within. Words remain empty caskets if left without a knowl- edge of things, which the child may gain by using his senses and by cultivating his power of observation. Things then should be studied, as far as the nature of the subject allows, and not merely their weak reflection in books. Without sense-training and the knowledge of things, words have but a dream-like existence. The school must not be merely a reading-room or recitation room, but must present, both in its selection of lessons and its apparatus, a piece of reality and life. In regard to methods of teaching, our cen- tury has firmly established the principle of 3 34 The Century and the School self-activity and industry. The pupil cannot be independent, he is a child and needs guid- ance. He cannot be allowed to have his own way always. Nothing is more apt to weaken the child than the favorite maxim, to let the child alone, to let him do what he pleases. He must struggle for freedom from his own whims and caprices. He must learn to do what he should do. On the other hand, the boy must become independent intellectually, and, for this reason, he must learn to find knowledge in the objective world by his own eyes. Knowledge must be conquered, in order to be wholly possessed. The teacher may guard the pupil against hurtful errors, he may point out to him the road to knowledge, he may lead him, but he must not attempt to carry him. Without the charm of self-activity even the new toy ceases to be of interest to the child. In the process of learning, therefore, the mind of the pupil should not be in the attitude of receiving, but rather in that of grasping knowledge. Schopenhauer says bluntly, but truly: "Truth that is received merely and committed to memory, sticks to man's organization like an artificial limb, a false tooth, a wax nose. . . . But knowledge gained by one's own thinking resembles the The Century and the School 35 natural limb; it alone belongs to us fully." The century has a democratic, equalizing, and harmonizing tendency, and the school partakes of it. The increase in the facilities of intercommunication gradually effaces the external differences between nations 1 , and dulls the sense of the individual in regard to these distinctions. Here again the school is guided by the spirit of the century. No caste, no social barriers which separate man from man are recognized in the school. The school unites in its precincts the children of the rich and of the poor, of all classes of society, of all nationalities and of all creeds; all receive the same education. Education has become the temple of the nation; all be- lieve in it, all are united in its support; in its walls dwells the whole future generation. Everywhere becomes apparent the tendency to efface unreal distinctions, and to make the individual the image of the noblest features of humanity. The school has become the most universal of all human institutions. In all of them there are divisions, in it there is none. Education embraces with the same love Jew and Gentile, for it sees the type of humanity in each child. Let us devote a moment to that side of edu- 36 The Century and the School cation which no age can transform, and no century can alter; to that side of education which does not prepare for the macrocosm of life without, but which seeks to build up a world within; that schooling which educates man not for others, but for himself, and which teaches him to find happiness in himself and in his deeds. Religion is taught by church and pulpit, but the school cannot remain idle in the work of ethical education. The school, it has been said, should edu- cate for life. Man's life, however, glitters in double colors. He lives a life within and a life without. His eye sees the sun of the world, but deep in his heart rise the stars of his own fate. The struggle for existence which life brings with it is not always a physical struggle; it may be a strife for spiritual treasures, for unsullied name and untarnished honor, a struggle for ethical existence. The deepest soul of man must become the anchoring ground of the truth that man's higher nature must not be allowed to suffer in the struggle and in the race for gain. Higher than the treasures of the world he must learn to esteem justice and truth; higher than worldly gain the love of home and kindred, The Century and the School 37 of neighbor and friend, and faith and fidelity to the state. These teachings school and family must foster, and engrave them in the soul of the child so that they sink deep into the innermost nature of the man. The life of man is a strug- gle for better days toward which hope beck- ons with a smile. All hunt for treasures, which few only find. Unmixed happiness is a rare guest in the house of man, but disap- pointment and care come like the days of the year. We cannot escape the sorrows of life, for we carry them with us. " Behind the rider sitteth dark-faced care, And with the sailor sails she through the waves." If thus life mingles light and shadow, if happiness cannot be found in market and street, education must teach the child to find content and happiness where alone they will not flee — in his own heart. A hand ready to help, a contented mind, an appreciation of those treasures that are higher than life itself, this is the ethical task which the century demands from the school. MORALITY AND EDUCATION Morality and intelligence are closely con- nected. This does not mean that an intelli- gent man is always moral, nor that a person, in order to be moral, must have attained a high degree of intelligence. Both proposi- tions would be obviously untrue. Still there can be no morality without the gift of intel- ligence. The animal, because it is devoid of personality and reason, is morally irrespon- sible. As long as the infant has not arrived at the age of reason, he is incapable of moral or immoral action. The insane person, through his loss of reason, is placed beyond the sphere of morality. Sin cannot have a beginning in the world until man has eaten from the tree of knowledge. While the connection between intelligence! and morality is evident, there is, on the other hand, the fact that the education of the head does not run in a line exactly parallel with the training of the heart, and the development of intelligence does not carry with it a cor- responding progress in morals. Rousseau as- 38 Morality and Education 39 serted in his famous Dijon prize essay that the progress in science and art contributed nothing to the purification of morals. The question whether the advance of knowledge has been accompanied by a corresponding de- gree of moral progress has been discussed frequently, and is not likely to be closed. With every intellectual conception of right, there is inseparably connected the idea of the undeniable duty of doing what is known to be right. The living connection between know- ing what is right and willing it, between moral intelligence and moral intention is obvious. The absolute and last bases in intelligence which morality must necessarily have, is the distinction between right and wrong, and the conception of right doing as an imperative duty and hence a constant intention of the soul. An action in order to be moral must flow from a moral intention. Dr. Johnson said: "The morality of an action depends upon the motive from which we act. If I fling half a crown to a beggar with intention to break his head, and he picks it up and buys victuals with it, the physical effect is good, but with respect to me the action is very wrong." With all this intimate connection between 40 The Century and the School intelligence and morality, there is a bridge between the knowledge and intention, on one side, and action, on the other, which must be passed to constitute a moral deed. The moral frailty of human life consists not so much in not knowing what is right, nor in the lack of a genial and very general intention to do the right thing, but in failing to join the action to the intention, in given cases. To know what is right is evidently not morality, nor is, strictly speaking, doing what is right moral- ity, because when such deed is merely acci- dental and has nothing to do with the will of the person, it is deprived of its moral element. Moral action combines knowledge of the right and the intention to act in accordance with such knowledge. Connected with intel- ligence on one side, morality is connected with action on the other. There can be no morality if it remains a matter of contempla- tion. Good intentions are important as the beginning of morality, but if they find no fruition in action they may be the cheap pride of a soul that is on the road to perdition. In active life alone can moral virtues arise. Not every kind of activity has the moral element in it. The moral element does not appear when man is dealing with things, but Morality and Education 41 rather in his dealings with other human beings. One of the earliest views of the nature of virtue is Aristotle's, who defined it as "a proficiency in willing what is in conformity to reason.'' He believed that virtue might be developed from potentiality to actuality, which is to say from a possibility of a virtuous life to a virtuous life in fact, through constant practical action alone. Morality is insepa- rably connected with action. Aristotle has this connection of virtue and moral habit in mind when he says that the word ethics, which de- notes the principles of moral virtues, is prob- ably derived from a similar word meaning custom, since it is only by repeated acts that a moral habit can be acquired. In Aristotle's definition there is already contained the ap- preciation of the value of habits of life that tend in the direction of virtue. The educa- tional transition from unreasoning habit to conscious moral action in human life may be made through the early compulsory practice of a virtue commanded by external force. The early habit, originally acquired through the compulsion of parent and educator may, in the end, become the cherished and revered object of the free individual will. There is profound wisdom in the saying of Hamlet: 42 The Century and the School "Assume a virtue, if you have it not. That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat — Of habits evil — is angel yet in this, That to the use of actions fair and good He likewise gives a frock or livery, That aptly is put on. Refrain tonight ; And that shall lend a kind of easiness To the next abstinence : the next more easy ; For use can almost change the stamp of nature, And master thus the devil, or throw him out With wondrous potency." Morality and Institutional Life While morality assumes three directions, namely, towards self, towards others and towards God, its rise as a factor of human life seems to be more intimately connected with the rise of human society. It is only when man has intimate intercourse with others that the moral sentiment will be developed. Sewall says that morality is the relation between per- sons, not between persons and things. As long as man lived in a savage condition morality can hardly be said to have existed, because the hand of the savage is raised against every other not in immediate family or tribal connection. Morality begins with the beginning of institutional life. With the advent of tribal organization among the un- civilized nations, their first code of ethics must have had a beginning. Morality and Education 43 Not only is institutional life the condition of the beginning of morality, but family, state, society and church continue to promote its development. That the state is, in itself, a moral agency, even the ancients recognized, and the middle ages, in their wisest repre- sentatives reiterated the same conclusion. In Plato's ethical doctrines general happiness was shown to flow only from the general good. The ethical aim with him was to strive towards resemblance to God, in whom moral intelligence, moral will, and moral action were identical. The divine will, therefore, which the individual should study, Plato found inscribed in the state as well as in the human conscience; he held that in the insti- tutions of the state the moral law was written in larger letters than in the individual mind. Dante, too, connected private and public morality with institutional life. The fearful depravity of society during his age he attrib- uted directly to the degeneracy of civil and political government, and expected a revival of public morality from regeneration of institutional life. All moral training naturally takes the two directions of repression and of stimulation. There is a third higher element, that of a self- 44 The Century and the School poised rational and moral will, identifying itself with the moral law. To moral action and self-denial it adds the insight that in these two is found the eternal law of God and the universal will of the individual soul. Moral action precedes, full moral insight must follow. Repression and stimulation, the spiritual "Thou shalt not" and "Thou shalt", form the everlasting phases of moral reflection. In the schoolroom the "don't" and the "do" alternate. Dante in speaking of the moral influence of institutional life illus- trates restraint and stimulation in image of bridle and spur. Coleridge speaks of Chris- tian ethics and their definition in a similar way. "What the duties of morality are, the apostle instructs the believer in full, compri- sing them under the two heads of negative and positive; negative, to keep himself pure from the world; and positive, beneficence from loving-kindness, that is, love of his fellow-men (his kind) as himself. Last and highest come the spiritual, comprising all the truths, acts and duties, that have an especial reference to the timeless, the permanent, the eternal, to the sincere love of the true as truth, of the good as good, and of God as both in one. While in the consideration of the principles Morality and Education 45 of morality we found it based on the presup- position of intelligence, in the moral training of the child the processes seem reversed. All moral instruction appealing to intelligence is preceded by fixed moral habits and years of practice in moral action. It is, in fact, the latest step in moral training that the indivi- dual is led to conceive that what was first done by habit and custom, perhaps enforced by dis- cipline, is an inviolable moral law to which absolute obedience is a duty. As a further step in the growth of moral consciousness, the human being discovers that the moral law coming from without is reflected and echoed by his own soul and conscience within. He finds that his best self, his strongest and most persistent will, tends, unbidden, in the same direction as the eternal commandment. His will has become identical with the divine will. When man in acting the moral commandment acts his own individual will he has attained freedom. This is the thought in Tennyson's lines, "Our wills are ours to make them thine." This seems to be the meaning of Aristotle's peculiar doctrine of the dianoetic or intel- lectual virtues which he explains as being science, art and reason, while he calls justice 46 The Century and the School and the ordinary moral habits of civic life the ethical virtues. To rise above the mere prac- tice of virtues, and find in moral action the divine commandment, as well as the impulse of our best reason, is the highest spiritual phase of ethics. If we turn, for a moment, towards the steps by which the moral movement may be carried on as a process of self-education, we find that it implies the subjugation of the natural self to the purposes of civilized life and of ra- tional aims. The subordination to the divine will is not simply an abstract or theological thought, but it means the practical moral task of subordinating the individual to the general law in the human world, which finds its strongest expression perhaps in institutional life. It is more, however, than mere subor- dination, for this has an element of passivity in it, which is contrary to the characteristic of morality, as a form of activity. Besides the duty of subordination to the general law, there is the other moral duty, of at least equal value, of giving real existence externally to the promptings of the moral self within. Identification of the human will with the divine implies that the former should be actively engaged in creative, practical work Morality and Education 47 and enlist its energies persistently in the serv- ice of the true, the beautiful and the good, so that they may be realized in the life of man and his institutions. The preceding exposition has attempted to show that morality is closely connected with action, as well as with will and intelligence. It has laid stress on the dependence of moral- ity on institutional life. We shall need these premises in discussing the question as to the means school education has at its command in inculcating morality. When the moral influences of school teach- ing are discussed, some stress is usually laid on the merely external and formal influence which is found in the silence that prevails in the schoolroom, on the regularity and punctuality of attendance, and the like. There can be no doubt that each of these and a mul- titude of other school practices imply lessons of self-control, which cannot fail to have a moral tendency. But, after all, these prac- tices are merely external, and are by no means characteristics peculiar to the school alone. Regularity and punctuality form part of a large number of occupations, but it is never claimed that they make these occupations any more moral than they would be without them. 48 The Century and the School Silence may accompany sin and crime; it is the practice of thief and boodler, and has, evidently, in itself, no inherent moral mean- ing. While conceding that the indirect effect of these so-called schoolroom virtues tends towards self-control, and that habits of self- control have a moral tendency, it is neverthe- less true that their moral value is relative. School, however, may exert a moral in- fluence through its government. It is an organization in which many join hands in a common purpose, and unite their efforts in common activity. A well-organized school is a commonwealth and has an institutional life which makes it resemble (on a small scale, yet large enough for the child) the great institutions of society and state. In view of the frequently expressed opinion that the school in order to have any moral influence whatever, must embody some formal lessons in morality in its curriculum, it will be well to dwell for a moment on the moral influence which the school exerts by its organization, aside from the influence of direct intellectual or moral lessons. With the beginning of school instruction two new elements are in- troduced into the child's life; a new purpose and a new social relation. Until then his Morality and Education 49 principal duty had been to behave himself. His life was largely self-centered. Now he is taught to subordinate his self to some exter- nally imposed duty. He is expected to show devotion to the task of learning. It is a characteristic of the period of school educa- tion that the child must learn to forego his childish inclinations and give himself to the first steady, serious work of life. "Self" no longer thrones supreme in the child-soul; he learns the first lesson of sub- ordination to the purposes of life. The home life of the child which precedes the school is based on the ethical elements of natural affection and love. Love and obe- dience form the ethical circle of family life. The parent's will is the child's law. When the child enters the school his individuality is brought into contact with his equals. The conditions which originally caused the rise of morality in the history of the race are here reproduced, for, in a measure, the child in going to school becomes a factor in a kind of communal life. To his own will there are opposed the limits of other wills, and he has to respect the rights of their individuality. His subjective inclination can no longer rule his actions ; he meets an objective law to which £o The Century and the School the government and discipline of the school enforce obedience. He gets the first invalu- able experience of the power and influence of public opinion. He learns gradually to ad- just himself to standards of deportment, and to comply with rules of action, which are the same for all. He learns to make his conduct conform to a universal law; this training, imparted in many ways in every school, en- forces the principles which lie at the very root of all moral action. The pupil's relation to the teacher is sur- rounded by moral influences. In the eyes of the child the teacher is the objective embodi- ment of the general law to which he is bound to yield obedience. Nor is this simply a ficti- tious relation. In the public school teacher, appointed by the representatives of the people, paid by the whole community, the authority of the state is represented as a matter of fact, and the child feels instinctively that in the order and discipline of the school there is a reflection of the law of the community. The full moral effect of the school, as representing the child's first contact with institutional life, is best attained when the teacher, in directing, governing and disciplining his pupils subdues the merely personal element of caprice in him- Morality and Education 51 self, and bases the rules of conduct which he lays down for the individual child on the obligation of the latter to respect the rights of others. Even the petty schoolroom offenses, such as talking, disorder, can, as a rule, be shown to be infringements of the rights of the other children, who have a claim to the whole time of the teacher and the full benefits of the school. Respect for the rights of the school community and subordination of individual caprice to the needs of the common task are the central ideas that should underlie the dis- cipline of a room. School government, however, carries the moral training of the child beyond this first stage. At the beginning, the absolute force of the universal law is represented through the public opinion of the class, and the authority of the teacher. As the child's power of reasoning and his intelligence de- velop, he sees in the rules of conduct, in the order that has been imposed by the teacher's authority, the necessary conditions for the progress in the lessons which he desires to make. When advancement in the studies has become the child's delight and his serious purpose and intention and pleasure, the rules of order that were first imposed on him ex- 52 The Century and the School ternally become the objects of his own wish'. He identifies his individual will with the general law of the school, and this mental attitude when once attained marks an im- portant epoch in moral training. There is a subjugation of the natural self, of the desire to play, and of caprice, involved in the devo- tion to a task imposed by the school. There is constant self-abnegation, the substitution of superior aims and duties for individual caprice. While in this respect the school does not differ from any other community organized for the purpose of joint work, it certainly, as a matter of fact, is the earliest opportunity which the child has for this im- portant kind of moral training. The incidental virtues of school work, namely, the habit of application and of in- dustry, rank high in the agencies that shape a moral life. As idleness is the mother of vice, so industry is one of the elements of a noble life. For this reason school government, in enforcing habits of industry, not merely looks towards the accomplishment of the tasks of the day, but it builds by degrees character and moral personality. If the school could give nothing else to the child but this fixed habit of steady application to work and duty, Morality and Education 53 this alone would constitute it a moral agency of much importance. The school exerts a moral influence through the resemblance which its little community and organization bears to the great spiritual institutions of man. There is, however, a more direct influence. Life in the school it- self, with its many phases, presents oppor- tunity for incidental yet important moral training. In antithesis to the old Roman say- ing that we should educate our children not for school, but for life, some modern teachers have replied that school does not educate for life, but is life. This modern idea, striking as it is, seems only partly true. School is life, but school is not all life. It is not even all of the child's life. It is but a fragment of life compared with the larger life which the child is leading at home, and will lead, after leaving school, in the social and civic world. School life is but a fragment com- pared with the life pulsating beyond its walls. School education as far as it goes, is life, and should be conducted with the observance of every virtue for whose display there is any opportunity. Love of truth, kindly honesty in opinion, statement and action, mutual trust, sympathy, good will, unselfishness, are factors 54 The Century and the School for whose practice every day, every hour of school education give opportunity. The obli- gation to teach and to study these lessons is important for teacher and pupil alike. Moral lessons, like many others, can be taught much better objectively and by example than through precept. No greater gift can a kind Providence bestow on a young being than to lead it to a schoolroom where some good, strong man or woman, truthful, honest, can- did, yet sympathetic, is the soul of the lit- tle community. The teacher's individuality creates the spirit of the school, and the latter is chief among the agencies of moral educa- tion. While the teacher's naturally imperfect in- dividuality imposes a very close limit for the influence of his personal example, the recog- nition of the grave moral responsibility of his position, of the value of example in school management, constitutes a potent call on every conscientious teacher to strive for a healthy tone in his school, through his own self-con- trol and good aspirations. Whatever quiet and unobtrusive but steady moral self-im- provement the teacher is capable of, will tell on the moral condition of his room. Of all the agencies of ethical education there is none Morality and Education 55 as potent as the moral atmosphere of the schoolroom, which the strong manhood or womanhood of the teacher can create. For five hours every day year after year, the child lives in the environment which the teacher has created. As far as the school is life, it should be true, sympathetic, cheerful and active. There should be a strong moral undercurrent which does not find expression in words, but in every practice. In the administration of discipline the principles mentioned before, that each child must respect the rights of the community, should be discernible in the teacher's ruling, blame or punishment, and the element of personal caprice should be kept in the back- ground. Not only respect to others, but love and good will are duties which should be actively practiced whenever there is an opportunity. This is the sum of all commandments, and the sum of all moral teaching through school life. The negative side of moral training in the schoolroom may be considered for a moment. Wrong makes its appearance in the school- room as well as elsewhere. The firm repres- sion of evil tendency without anger, but also without undue temporizing is as necessary in 56 The Century and the School school government as love and sympathy. Certain systems of schools have at times been denounced for tendencies morally weakening because these cities have abandoned corporal punishment. The influence therein implied seems by no means clear. Corporal punish- ment, instead of appealing to intelligence, appeals to fear of pain, and constitutes the very lowest educational influence. It may be necessary to subdue brutal nature by blows. It may, at times, be a short cut to reach the obstinate perversity of spoiled children. It may be, in some cases, the influence to which children have been accustomed by home train- ing. But, on the other hand, we are told by experts that even in the animal world, the highest results of training are not brought about by beating, but by impassionate insist- ence and wise management. In the repression of the evil tendencies that show themselves in the schoolroom, there should be a certain valuation of the degree and the kind of wrong calling for treatment. Common schoolroom offenses which mischief, love of activity, and other causes, bring about, should be treated as breaches of order and propriety, and not as moral obliquities. Ly- ing, deceit, fraud, and similar offenses, how- Morality and Education 57 ever, require an entirely different method, and the impression should be left on the mind of the child that these offenses are a cause of sorrow for child and teacher alike. Not un- frequently these sins are the consequences of conditions which the teacher might have fore- stalled, of temptations and environments which he might have removed. Through the regular routine of school life, and the observance of the incidental virtues which form part of every kind of life, incip- ient moral habits are formed, which partake of the character of all customs that are first engendered by external influences. As life grows, character gradually absorbs these single habits, and makes them part of the young personality. WHAT IS A FAD? THERE has been a widespread discussion in regard to what has been called "fads in edu- cation." The charge is made that public schools undertake to teach too much of what is not necessary, and thereby neglect the essen- tials. While all agree that fads should have no place in public education, there is the widest possible difference in regard to the question, "What is a fad?" A school fad might be defined as a persistent departure from educational common sense. Single er- rors constitute no fad. A fad is a defect which is systematized. It is error masking as achievement or progress. The Fad of "Superfluity" Some well-meaning and intelligent critics of the public schools charge that education has run mad by including many superfluities into its course. The so-called "newer studies" — namely, drawing, music, nature-study, and art — have to bear the brunt of these attacks. The writer of this paper sent a letter of in- 58 What is a Fad? 59 quiry to many people. The answers have been used to some extent in this paper. The president of an association of parents and patrons of public schools writes: "In my opinion, the first school superintendent who rises to the occasion and has these 'fads' dis- continued in the public schools will win for himself fame beyond any other measure he can advocate." He explains that he refers to drawing and singing. These studies are not fads in any sense of the word. It is tacitly assumed in such criti- cisms that it is the sole function of education to prepare for some special business of life. Since only a few children will become artists or musicians, for the great majority who are not to become artists or musicians it is sup- posed that training in drawing and music is thrown away. This would be an insuperable objection if these studies did not impart train- ing of human importance and general edu- cational application. Education does not prepare for any special business or vocation, but for life. The cultivation of eye and hand and taste is of importance in all callings. The educational universality of these studies is their defense. In this age even an elementary education should include some of the elements 60 The Century and the School of science, or the child remains in brutal ignorance of the world in which he lives. Music, in the sense of class-singing, is an ele- ment of public instruction that is underesti- mated by the thoughtless only. Drawing has some features of universal educational value in every school, and in industrial centers it ranks among the important studies. Manual training and lessons in cooking have both social and general educational value; their aim never has been to train carpenters or cooks. While these studies find strong advo- cates among the thoughtful in the community, and among the teachers, it is proper to remem- ber that they may suffer by being unduly magnified in a course of instruction. They occupy a position essentially different from that of reading, writing, arithmetic, history, and geography. They have neither found such universal adoption, nor have they been given as great a share of time, nor have they rooted so deeply in the approval of public conscience, as the older studies. Moreover, they have not become fully ingrafted or correlated with the rest of the schoolroom work. As a rule, their conduct lies in the hands of supervisors who make this specialty their whole work. In such case their adjustment to the claim of the What is a Fad? 61 other educational work is apt, at times, to be neglected, and an undue amount of time and attention may be exacted from teachers and pupils. These studies are of the highest edu- cational value; they may become fads if they step beyond the limit of their general educa- tional usefulness. Fads of Eccentricity This class of fads may be made clearer by an illustration : A few years ago some person suggested that the daily rotation of the various studies in the program was objectionable, and that, instead of an hour in arithmetic, fol- lowed by an hour in geography, and perhaps an hour in history, a different division of time was preferable. Consequently, he undertook to teach all the arithmetic of the school term by taking five weeks' solid work in arithmetic at the rate of five hours a day. Even this idea had some followers. The words "fad," "frill," "fringe," which are used frequently as synonyms, apply to this class with particular force. The idea under- lying them seems to be that of fashionable ornament in contrast with plain dress. The idea of fad often carries with it the suggestion of personal vanity, a manifest desire to attract 62 The Century and the School attention by appearance rather than by merit. There is a "sport" with new things which takes possession of its votaries and makes them lie in wait for things novel and strange. It is characteristic of this kind of fads, as well as of others, that they are launched into the world with liberal promises of the im- portant results which they will accomplish. The fad's reason for existence lies in the prom- ised achievement of the future rather than in the experience of the past or the needs of the present. Fads of Theory The existence of fads in modern education is by no means discouraging. Zeal and enthusiasm are in evidence in all of them. Not a few of them arise from the very wealth of educational thought and from an abun- dance of ingenious theory. Fads are at times evidences of great interest in new educational theories which, while not always expressed in terms clear and conclusive, are, for that very reason, for some fascinating and attractive. One would imagine that the hopeless entan- glement which stares us in the face in the dis- cussion of new and old education, of the new studies and the three R's, of prescribed courses What is a Fad? 63 of study or individual plans, should be in it- self enough to make the teacher withdraw from the path leading into quagmire, and keep to the broader road of conservative teaching. But mysticism never lacks disciples. Much error has arisen from a mistaken idea of the function of the school, which I take to be the development of power through instruc- tion in the conventional studies. Public opinion would probably classify as a fad the attempt to "develop power" to the exclusion of reading, writing, and arithmetic. School education is an unfolding process. But it is more than the unfolding of what is in the child. Knowledge from without, and expe- rience and life from without, must be carried into the child-soul. The child is not the self-contained aim and orbit of education. Education comprises a larger world. It is not correct to say that the child is educated for himself; he is educated for manhood. He is trained, not for what he is, but for what he shall be. There are in him childish ways which must be cast off and re- jected in the process of education. Childish life and thoughts are scaffoldings which are discarded as he advances. Education has to bear constantly in mind the idea that the re- 64 The Century and the School quirements and duties of adult life, the ideals of true manhood and womanhood, form the aims of child education. On the other hand, the ways and means, and the processes, of education are fixed by the natural conditions of child-life. The aim lies in the future; the means are determined by present conditions. Childhood is naturally the happiest time of life, but the incidental aim that education should make the child happy would be but a poor substitute for the greater aim, namely, the happiness and strength of the adult The educator should not, cannot without educa- tional hazard, step down and lose his own identity in his otherwise proper endeavor to adjust himself to the child's life and ways. He must stand erect and kindly lead the child to walk with him towards his future. He ad- justs himself to the child so far only as it is necessary to introduce him to the serious pur- poses of education. School education should be childlike in its simplicity and clearness; to make it childish in tone or subject-matter would be a fad. Whenever school education separates itself from instruction, and "development of facul- ties" is divorced from the pursuit of serious study, then the fad makes its appearance. What is a Fad? 65 Among many of the great sayings of Herbart, none is more important than his remark: "I confess that I can not realize education apart from instruction." While the older methods of education had to be reminded constantly that "all work and no play makes a dull boy," there are some well-meaning, progressive, and vigorous teachers who must be told constantly that "all play and no work will not make a man." A reliable eyewitness gives the following account of a visit she paid to a room in a large school: The morning began with what is called an "observation lesson." The children were encouraged to relate what they thought noteworthy of their experience of the previous evening. One of the children related that they had an evening party at home, that they lived upstairs, and that they had carried up two kegs of beer ; that when they were through' with this they had carried up a keg of whisky. They had a very good time. The teacher, very wisely, said at this stage: "Now let us hear from some of the other children." (I beg to remind my readers that this is a report of an actually observed morning.) The sec- ond series of exercises consisted in games fash- ioned somewhat after the kindergarten games, s 66 The Century and the School The next was the naming of classic pictures. Pictures pasted on cards (Perry pictures, if I am not mistaken) were held up in rapid suc- cession, and the class supplied the name: "The Pharisee," "Correggio's Madonna/' "Thor- waldsen's Evening," etc. The next exercise was one in posing, the children imitating, by the way they stood, certain pictures which they had seen. Thus one boy stepped for- ward, looked about for some object, took hold of a feather duster, and leaning on it, one end of it on the floor, he looked up with a set expression in his face. The class shouted, "The man with the hoe!" The next exercise was called "rhythmic movement." Ten chil- dren danced the Virginia reel and eight chil- dren the lancers. The next exercise, finally, was one in practical reading. A sentence was exhibited quickly, and the children then gave the words of the sentence. I have no doubt that the rest of the day, after the visitor had left, was given to the various traditional work of the schools. Fads of Exaggeration Aristotle defined virtue as a means between two extremes. Thus he thought that wise economy was a virtue, while those who prac- What is a Fad? 67 ticed too much or too little economy, the miser and the spendthrift, represented the extremes of vice. In a similar way the correct educa- tional practice or idea is capable of abuse and exaggeration, and the result is a fad. A fad, in this sense of the word, is a practice which carries some valuable idea beyond reasonable limits and proper proportion. Thus, Pesta- lozzi's idea of objective teaching was a great step in the progress of educational science and practice. No lesson is more easily learned than when it can be taught through the eye. But the correct and beneficial principle of objective teaching may be carried to such an extent that it becomes a harmful practice. In arithmetic, for instance, the real value of the study lies in the power of mathematical infer- ence and deduction. While all arithmetic work begins with the use of objects, and while many of the new steps, even in advanced work, will gain by objective illustration, these must be discarded as soon as they have answered their purpose, and mathematical reasoning must take their place. Objective teaching, whether it be called by Pestalozzi's old name or by the more modern names of visualizing and aurizing, if carried to the extreme, may become a harmful practice. Children are 68 The Century and the School thinking beings, and it is proper for the teacher to take it for granted that not every- thing must be objectified and "visualized" and "aurized." It was the mistake of the in- structor in a room visited by one of our teachers to try to visualize the perfectly plain story of the two goats who tried to cross from opposite directions a plank bridging a creek, and began to butt against each other. The teacher "visualized" the story by selecting two children to act the part of the goats. The great aim in all instruction in reading, from the primary grade to the highest, is that the child should see through the words and the forms of the printed page, and have his mind steadily fixed on the ideas to be con- veyed. The application of the idea, however, at present in use in some school in one of the large cities is by no means free from objection : in order to be quite sure that the children read words instead of ideas, all reading aloud has been abandoned. The children read silently, and show that they understand what they have read through oral and written recitation. No more legitimate demand can be made on the school than that of concentration, in the sense that there should be, as much as pos- sible, a connection established between the What is a Fad? 69 various branches of instruction — that they should mutually supplement each other. But even this valuable idea may become an error if carried beyond the limit of common-sense. A lady reported to me the following incident: A teacher who prided herself on correlating all subjects in the school curriculum began her day's work with an observation lesson on apples. This was followed by a reading les- son on apples, after which the children took their seats and wrote about apples. Next, songs about apples were sung. Apples were then divided and used to teach fractional parts. As it was now time for drawing, the children were sent to the board to draw apples. Soon the board was filled with all kinds of apples, known and unknown to the horticul- turist. One boy, however, instead of drawing an apple drew a horse. This breach of dis- cipline, or violation of correlation, could not be passed over, so he was asked why he had drawn a horse instead of an apple. The boy replied: "Oh, I'm tired of apples, and so I drew a horse to eat all the apples up." There is some merit in the coordination of studies, as well as in concentration. Each study is, in a measure, a complement and cor- rective of the other. Each must stand related 70 The Century and the School and subordinate to the rest. Each answers an educational and an objective purpose. Each cultivates a special kind of activity. If any one study is raised to inordinate impor- tance, or if it is deprived of the corrective influence of the other, harmonious education is endangered. Language ranks easily first in the common-school course, yet, if literary studies were exaggerated without being cor- rected through the touch with life, with na- ture or through the exactness and precision of mathematics, mental development would tend towards the verbal, the fanciful, the imagina- tive, and the dreamy. Literary studies, with their wide horizon, their possible tendency toward the imaginative, the diffused, and the indefinite, need the counterbalancing influ- ence of the precise terseness and close deduc- tion of mathematical studies. Equipoise and balance in the studies of the curriculum are needed as much as concentration. Origin of Fads Fads have presumably existed under some name or other since the beginning of educa- tion, but their growth has perhaps been more marked in our own days than in former times. A person fond of paradoxes might say that What is a Fad? 71 fifty years ago the art of teaching consisted of matter alone, without much method. The learning of the data of information proceeded without the use of much pedagogical art. On the other hand, it might be said of the present time that in some places the art of instruction is all method and little matter. The data of information are overshadowed by the skill of the teacher and by illustrative and explanatory devices. The machinery receives more atten- tion than the output. The rigid course of study of the old school, as it existed thirty years ago, the regular examination of classes by principals and superintendents on the sub- ject matter of the lesson, allowed very little latitude for growth of educational weeds or fads. Where a certain kind of school work, de- fined in quantity, is prescribed and must be accomplished within a reasonable limit of time, instruction is not likely to lose its concentration and force. While there are grave objections to a hard and fast course of study extending to every detail, it may, never- theless, be said in favor of the old course of study that it was a safeguard against fads and whims. 72 The Century and the School Fads of Routine and Tradition The teacher of the present day is not wholly responsible for the superfluities in modern instruction. Some of them have been be- queathed to him by the past. Some of the studies of the curriculum are burdened with topics and subdivided subjects which answer neither any specific educational purpose nor any demand of life. In one of the best mono- graphs published during the current year on the essentials of mathematical teaching the author shows how the peculiar mercantile con- ditions of the Middle Ages, when the study of arithmetic first came into use, and when the earliest text-books were written, led to the in- sertion of certain topics in arithmetic which were then useful, but for which, with the changes in modern life, every necessity has passed away. These topics have survived in text-books for the sole reason that they were part and parcel of former books in arithmetic. Public-Opinion Fads Public opinion has not infrequently abused the term "fad" and branded with it almost every progressive movement in education. When I asked a prominent teacher, "What is What is a Fad? 73 a fad?" he answered promptly: " Anything is called a fad which is done in a way different from that in which somebody was taught when he was a child." Perhaps the most dangerous fads are not of the teacher's creation, but originate in the community itself. The many fads which must be put to the account of teacher and superintendent are sad enough, but they do not begin to be as pernicious and long-lasting as the harm that may be done when a strong and masterful man with a hobby gets into a leading position on a school board, and drives his fellow-members before him in the narrow path of his special fad. The people are collectively honest, and their verdict is wise. Opinions of classes and in- dividuals, however, no matter how loudly or emphatically expressed, are at times unwise. The history of past decades has seen the rise of many, and the decline of some, of the fads of this origin. There is, for instance, the fad- dish idea that a laborer needs no education, that workmen are spoiled by too much school- ing; there is the "three R" fad; there is the "education makes criminals" fad. The claim that spelling should receive a proper amount of attention, and is an impor- 74 The Century and the School tant part of public school training, is valid. If the demand is made, however, that to this study an undue amount of time and attention be given, even spelling may become a fad. Drill in spelling is a mechanical device, and in the poorest imaginable school mechanical drill is always most prominent. The "quick promotion" fad has done im- measurable harm. Children, against the wish and view of their teacher, have, in places, been forced into higher grades than the one for which they were fit, and their educational progress has been impaired and ruined there- by. The teacher and principal who in such cases quietly and pleasantly, but at the same time firmly, stands his ground is a blessing to the child and to the parent. One cannot help thinking in this connection more leniently of Rousseau's paradox: "The aim of education is not to gain time, but to lose it." One of the worst fads of our day is the "extreme indulgence" fad. The practice is bad which lets the child have his way when he is unreasonable, and lets him regulate his relations to school and home in accordance with his pleasure instead of in accordance with clear duties. "I wish you would make him come to time," said a kind mother to a teacher What is a Fad? 75 who had sent for her on account of the fre- quent tardiness of the child; "but the fact is, I cannot make him get up in the morning, and he will not go to bed when it is time." If the parent abdicates the educational control of his child, he makes a pernicious error and indulges in a common, but objectionable, fad. The child must be taught to be faithful to his little duties as soon as his power in any direc- tion is adequate to this educational demand. Conclusion Many of the idiosyncrasies and petty errors may be avoided by dwelling on the universal principles of education and by subjecting all innovations to the test of universality. The schools are common schools. No practice or study which is serviceable for specific walks of life alone can find, legitimately, a place in public education. The good sense of the American people, and of American teachers, has thrown enough safeguards around the public schools to pre- vent fads and petty errors from becoming universal. The task of the school is to con- centrate its efforts on the recognized subjects of instruction. Growth must proceed through the acquisition of information. Progress does 76 The Century and the School not lie in the increase of studies, not in the excess of data, but in the definiteness of ideas, the logical grouping of facts, the clearness of insight, and the gradual strengthening of judg- ment. When new studies or practices are in- troduced for educational reasons, the teacher must be ready to account for the same to pub- lic opinion. The aim of education is not merely to prepare for life, nor is it merely to develop power. Each of these aims, taken separately, leads to error and fad. Their joint and universal consideration constitutes harmonious education. TEACHERS' DUTIES THE old saying of the Roman, "The wel- fare of the people is the first law," expresses a principle which is the foundation stone of our national institutions. With a slight change it might well serve as the motto for all that appertains to schools and their management. "The welfare of the child shall be the highest law" is the principle on which every school should be conducted. To it all other consid- erations must yield precedence. The merit or demerit of every educational institution or measure must be judged by reference to it. The whole educational apparatus which the modern state has created, — school laws, school- houses, teachers and school officials, exists to serve this purpose and no other. It is a prin- ciple of universal validity, and applies not only to the general policy of education, but also to the daily routine of school business. For the teacher in particular the principle, "The child's welfare shall be the highest law," is of supreme importance and valid rules 77 78 The Century and the School for his or her professional conduct might be based on it. The right of the teacher to control and dis- cipline the pupils in her room is a delegated one. Her authority is derived from the fact that she stands in the parents' place. The assumption of parental rights by the teacher cannot be separated from obligations which resemble those of the parent. Kindness to and sympathy with her pupils are qualifica- tions just as necessary in a teacher as the ability to impart instruction. The teacher's sympathy with children need not find its prin- cipal expression in words, but in actions, not in smiles and terms of endearment, but in untiring patience, in steady temper, and in a kindliness of disposition, which makes the very presence of the teacher an ennobling edu- cational influence. Not merely the teacher's face and manner, but the spirit and atmos- phere of the school, not the moment but the years, must be the tests of her sympathy with struggling childhood. Little children are at times mischievous and naughty, and it may be proper and even obligatory at times to enforce respect to law by strict disciplinary measures; yet there should be sympathy even in punishment, lest Teachers' Duties 79 it fail of its purpose and arouse passions in the child-soul which had better forever be dormant. There are unlovable children, seemingly irresponsive to word and act of kindness, with whom it may be difficult to remain in sympathetic touch. But for all that, the teacher who does not love childhood, in spite of its mischief and naughtiness, its apparent slowness or dulness in lessons, who does not enjoy in a measure even the vagaries of child- hood, has erred in choosing her vocation. The presence of a nagging, scolding, mo- rose, fault-finding or habitually discontented teacher or principal is a calamity to a school and a misfortune to a school system. The Duty of Self -Improvement Never-resting energy and industry in school- room work and personal professional pro- gressiveness are duties which the teacher owes to her pupils. The school-time of many children is limited to two or three years, and every moment of their time should be utilized to the best advantage. Constant self- improvement and growth on the part of the teacher are, therefore, conditions of profes- sional excellence. The regular reading of 80 The Century and the School some progressive educational magazine, and good educational and general literature, the use of the public library, a fair participation in educational meetings, utilization of what- ever opportunities for literary, scientific, es- thetic or ethical culture the city or place offers, are obligations which the profession tacitly requires from every conscientious teacher. The least educational fitness which child- hood can demand is that its teacher should be a live man or woman. The personal equation is of special importance in teaching where much of the influence exerted over the child is by example rather than precept. Strong manhood or womanhood is required to make a good teacher. In regard to instruction, the duty is to secure for the lessons the most potent educa- tional influence on the development of char- acter and mental power. It goes without saying that the facts of the lessons must be remembered by the child, and he must be helped in this by sufficient, if not abundant drill and practice, made attractive by the teacher's ingenuity and resourcefulness. An efficient teacher will see that the lesson 1st not a "re-citation," a term derived from a past age, when the work of instruction con- Teachers' Duties 81 sisted in assigning pages in a text-book, and requiring that the words should be com- mitted and "re-cited." A lesson should not be a mere re-citation on the part of the child; it should rather be a thoughtful statement of the contents, than the recital or repetition of an authors words. Here the true teacher can train every power of observation, thought and experience by seeing that the lesson is not mechanically learned, but intellectually mastered, not formally recited, but substan- tially re-stated. The teacher's skill makes the operation of learning a process of the most universal training of sense and soul. The child is to become a law-abiding and order-loving citizen, and the schoolroom gives him the first training in communal life with his equals. He learns to obey law, to respect the rights of others, and to regulate his conduct by altruistic considerations. It is therefore one of the teacher's duties to manage the room of which she has charge in such a way that good will, law and order prevail. The pupil must learn to so adjust his conduct as to afford the other children the best opportunity for their work, through his silence, his application to duty and obedience to direction. Rational and complete control 6 82 The Century and the School of her room is one of the requirements in the teacher's calling without which successful instruction is impossible, and which is an elementary and indispensable condition of efficiency. The teacher's authority has its source in that of the parent. As she respects her own position she will respect that of the child's father and mother, and whatever she can do to increase the child's appreciation of par- ental care and guidance will help her to maintain her own authority. There is no relation in the whole range of social life where the pre-supposition and need of cooperation is more natural and more imperative than in the case of the parent and teacher. Both make the welfare of the child their highest law. Their own reputation and well-being in life is largely dependent on the success of the education of the child, which is their common care. It is gratifying to know that in every schoolroom in the land willing cooperation between parent and teacher is the rule, and the opposite the ex- ception. The work of education is carried on jointly and simultaneously in family and in school, and this makes the cooperation of parent and teacher not a matter of choice, Teachers' Duties 83 but a necessity. School is not a substitute for, but the complement of family education ; the fact that a child has attained school age does not relieve the parent of his educational duties; it simply means that henceforth the teacher will assume charge of a delegated' and well-defined part of the child's training. That a teacher should assist the parent in his educational efforts, and, in turn, the parent the teacher, are well established educational maxims; without such mutual support either side of the educational work may become unnecessarily difficult, or even unfruitful. It is clearly one of the professional duties of the teacher to strive to win the good will of the parent, and to remain in harmony and friendly touch with the pupil's home. Teacher and parent impair their educational efforts by failing to remain in sympathetic touch with each other. While cooperation between school and home is desirable, no unnecessary demand for assistance should be made upon the latter, and the legitimate share of the work must be borne by the teacher without worrying and nagging the parent with constant com- plaints about petty matters which belong to the legitimate duties of the school, and which 84 The Century and the School a competent teacher should be able to set right without troubling others unnecessarily for assistance. As a rule, there are few mat- ters in the school with which a self-reliant teacher cannot deal without having recourse to other powers. There is no parent who will not appreciate the fruitful efforts of a teacher in behalf of a child. A teacher who understands how to make her room popular, not by granting un- warranted requests in favor of one child which would be unjust to others, but by good schoolroom work, by devotion to the chil- dren, and good nature in dealing with par- ents, renders a service to the whole great system of schools and the cause of public education. An even temper, patience and courtesy in the intercourse with the parent, especially when disagreeable messages happen to be received from a child's home, are just as much professional duties of the teacher as patience with the children themselves. It is rare that a business-like, kindly worded reply, consisting of a polite explanation of the cir- cumstances which the teacher wishes to place before the parent, and which wisely and en- tirely omits the element of, perhaps, justifiable Teachers' Duties 85 personal resentment, will be received in any but a courteous and appreciative way: "A soft answer turneth away wrath." No teacher should forget that a parent's life is as full of trials as her own, and that the experience with a troublesome child is as likely to be irritating at home as it is in school. Every teacher owes to the system of public schools, of which she is one of the representa- tives, full loyalty and unswerving support. Unless she believes fully in public education and its high mission she cannot conscientiously hold her position. There can be no better incentive for her than to feel that the welfare of the whole community, aye, of our whole system of government, depends upon the free and liberal education of the masses in schools which makes them intelligent citizens and good men and women. A firm belief in the power of the public school system for good, and unswerving loyalty to it in every way, is an inseparable condition of a teacher's effi- ciency. Belief in the public schools as a system involves the willing acceptance of the condi- tions on which it rests, namely, willing and helpful cooperation with other persons em- ployed in the same work. Each teacher must 86 The Century and the School subordinate herself to the grander purpose and adjust her individuality to efficient service with fellow-teachers and a multitude of co- workers. Where masses devote their lives to joint labor for a common purpose, subordina- tion, self-discipline and active loyalty become essential duties. Without this there can be no concentration of efforts, no wise husbanding of means, no control, no unity of purpose, no efficient maintenance of education on a large scale. These considerations open a new line of duties besides those which the teacher owes to the child and his parent, namely, full, active, and willing cooperation with fellow- teachers, principals and school boards, and loyal obedience to school laws and constituted authority. One of the qualifications required of the public school teacher is her fitness for coopera- tive work. This means the ability to get along pleasantly with fellow-teachers, with prin- cipal, parent and school officials, and to labor in close and helpful harmony with them. Good will should be the rule and practice, not only toward the children and the principal, but towards the teachers of other rooms, — a certain loyal and friendly readiness to recog- nize the work which the children have done Teachers' Duties 87 with other teachers. For instance, to intimate in any form to a child coming from another school that he has been poorly taught, is bad professional taste. It may be a fact, but nothing is gained by complaint and belittling in the child's eye his past educational effort or the efforts of his former teacher. There is no worse piece of folly than that of which instances, fortunately rare, are found in many places from the primary room to the university, than the fatuous complaints about the alleged poor instruction which the chil- dren have found in the grades below their present one. Sometimes a university com- plains about the derelictions and inadequacies of high school instruction; the high school about the grammar schools, and in the latter room No. 1 complains about No. 2, and so down to the primary room, which, perhaps, is so fortunately placed that it has a kinder- garten preceding it, about whose derelictions it can complain. The very fact that this kind of complaint is so general renders it doubt- ful whether it usually arises from preceding inefficient work, as may sometimes be the case, or from discovering, as we are all apt to do at every stage of instruction, that our pupils are not perfect, and that no course of instruction 88 The Century and the School ends in the pupil's complete mastery of all that has been taught. It is a professional obliga- tion of every teacher to speak with due con- sideration, if not respect, of the work of predecessors, and much bitterness of feeling and lack of cooperation may be avoided thereby. The loyalty which the teacher owes to the school should find expression in her relation to the principal, who represents the authority of the board. She owes him friendly sup- port. The title of the office which she holds is that of assistant teacher. It is her duty to be of assistance to the principal, not only in name, but in fact. Her office is not that of the critic, but of the helper. She must try to understand and further the principal's plans and methods for improving the school, and enter upon their spirit willingly and intelli- gently. The support which she gives to him is a measure of her professional strength and value. She must be ready to share in the general duties, and the clerical and record work of the school. She can help the prin- cipal by being self-reliant in her own sphere of work; she should not overburden his time by referring matters to him which she may as well attend to herself. Any legitimate order Teachers' Duties 89 given by the principal should not only be car- ried out, as a matter of course, but carried out willingly and intelligently, and in a spirit of helpfulness. Any teacher has the right to a frank discus- sion with the principal of the affairs of the school, as far as they concern her, but she has also the duty of evincing her interest in a friendly spirit. A strong teacher can help the general work even in her conversation with other teachers. The professional reputation of the principal should be dear to all, because the standing of the school in the community and the strength of his authority with pupils and parents depend on it. There is no more important office in the whole school organization than that of the principal, for it is based on the idea that in the principal is vested the highest local author- ity in school matters. The great authority given to the principal in most of our towns and cities is connected with duties corre- spondingly great. The popularity of the school should be one of the great aims of every principal. If the school is looked upon with favor by the peo- ple of his district, he helps the cause; his own work and that of the teachers will be more 90 The Century and the School successful ; the control of the children will be made easy, for the popularity of a school means the hearty cooperation of the parents with the measures adopted for its conduct. The patrons believe in the principal and they are ready to believe in what he does. It means the very desirable active support of the sys- tem of public schools by the citizens in the district. Every principal can help the board of edu- cation by trying to make his school a favorite with the people, which is the natural position for any public school to occupy. Our people believe in public education and cherish it. Where a school is not popular, the probable reason is usually some mistake of omission or commission in its management. The best and most direct way to make a school popular is to make it efficient in instruction and discipline. Efforts in this direction are sure to find their reward in pub- lic appreciation. If, in addition to this, the principal makes good use of those oppor- tunities of forming the acquaintance of the citizens of his district, which his daily voca- tion offers, and thus keeps in friendly touch with the people; if he makes it the rule of his own and the teachers' management to culti- Teachers' Duties 91 vate, studiously and systematically, pleasant relations with parents, it will certainly lead to that kind of popularity which is desirable. By his treatment of parents the principal can make friends not only for himself, but for the public school system of the city. It is neither necessary nor possible for him to comply with every demand that is made upon him, but even a refusal can be put in such a form that it appeals to the good will of the petitioner. Every parent must be made to feel absolutely sure of a courteous and respect- ful hearing when he calls at a public school, and even an angry parent should be received with good-natured patience and forbearance. Every visitor should leave with the impression that the school is officered by serious-minded men and women, who have the interest of the children at heart. Principals and teachers should make it their aim to please the parents. This does not at all mean that the principal should allow his school to become lax in discipline, or that he should be irresolute in dealing with refractory pupils, or should be accommodating and time- serving when unreasonable demands are made on him; politic weakness is sure to result in loss of public confidence and respect. A w T eak 92 The Century and the School man or woman cannot be an efficient prin- cipal. No American community wishes that bad boys should grow up uncorrected. What is required of the principal is strict attention to his business, a certain kindliness of dispo- sition towards children and parents, and the manifest wish to satisfy just demands. The amount of routine business, which the principal of a large school is called upon to attend to in the course of a day, is exceedingly laborious. Correspondence, calls from par- ents and children, messages and queries from teachers, constitute a great drain on time and attention. Yet it would be a great error for a principal to lose himself in this mass of detail, which, after all, is of secondary importance compared with the great duty of being the leader and guide of the teachers and children. To distinguish well between what is impor- tant and what is unimportant in his duties is a test of a principal's good judgment. He makes a mistake if he allows himself to spend too much time on business routine, to the detriment and neglect of the educational work, and fails to give to the latter the greater share of his attention. Even as far as instruction is concerned there is much routine work which is of secondary importance, and must not be Teachers' Duties 93 allowed to engross the principal's attention too much. Thus the marking and re-marking of examination papers, collected from various rooms, the devising of new and improved kinds of records, and like matters, relatively important as they may be, are of much less consequence than his presence in the school- rooms, the direct supervision of instruction and discipline, wise and timely suggestions of improvement, and the assumption of ever- active intellectual leadership of his teachers. Participation in the same work may be made a source of mutual improvement for principals and teachers, if they are willing to profit by the opportunity. Every principal must educate his corps of teachers, and it may be said, without fear of contradiction, that he in turn is educated by them through the work and methods he observes in their rooms. The ideal principal will get fully as much instruc- tion from his teachers as they obtain from him. The principal holds his office by appoint- ment of the school authorities; but this appointment is ultimately based on the sup- position of superior scholarly attainments, pedagogical skill and executive ability. These qualities should be just as much in permanent evidence as conditions on which the princi- 94 The Century and the School pal's authority rests, as his annual re-appoint- ment. The principal's authority, in a higher sense, can be maintained best by constant self-improvement, reading, and study; with- out these, scholarly qualifications soon become obsolete. In these days of marked and rapid advance in the philosophy of education, in child-study, and in practical methods, it is not enough for a principal to possess the routine efficiency and the successful experience derived from many years of practice in managing schools. In qualifications confined to routine ability there is not a sufficient element of progress. There is good teaching done elsewhere and the child has a right to demand that his leader, on whom his education depends, should be informed of the most efficient prac- tices and best thoughts current in educational literature and life. He should be able, when occasion arises, to give good pedagogical rea- sons for his practical methods and directions, more valid than "I think so" or "this is the way in which I think it ought to be done." Constant professional growth is even more necessary for the principal than for the teacher, because it is proper that the officer should keep in advance of his soldiers. The Teachers' Duties 95 principal must keep in touch with the living, spiritual progress of the age, and above all other things he should be well-informed as a student of educational matters in theory and practice. Official authority supported by personal qualifications constitutes the most efficient kind of leadership, and will always find responsive following. The example of the principal counts for much in the practice of the teachers. His ways of dealing with children and parent will be more or less imitated in the rooms of his school. The daily acts of a wise, kind, and firm manager of children are a more powerful influence in training and guiding teachers than mere directions or command. There are more qualifications required to fill the principal's office than scholarly and practical ability. No other position requires strong manhood and womanhood to a greater degree. Every teacher should find the sup- port of her principal a tower of strength in dealing with refractory pupils or unreason- able parents. There must be moral courage, and the readiness to incur the responsibilities which the position imposes. Without the principal's moral courage, and his unhesita- ting determination to stand by his teachers in 96 The Century and the School enforcing just laws and rules of order, ojir schools would deteriorate in a direction that is even more important than instruction, namely, in the training of character, and they would fail in their task of educating law- abiding and order-loving citizens. The principal is not only the teacher's guide, but as a rule he is required to be the judge of their qualifications. He does not court this power, it is assigned to him as a duty; it is always a responsible, and often a disagreeable one. He is answerable for the condition of his school, and, for this reason, he is required to report on the efficiency of the corps. It is his duty to speak to a teacher frankly when he discovers errors in her instruction or manage- ment, and to make suggestions whenever he sees that they are in the interest of the chil- dren. There must be unhesitating readiness on the part of the principal in attending to this sometimes unpleasant task. This task need not be, and will not be, unpleasant, unless principal or teacher makes it so; the former by inconsiderate manner in making a criticism, and the latter by unbusi- nesslike sensitiveness when receiving it. It is in the interest of the children that the teacher should encourage the frankness of Teachers' Duties 97 these criticisms by receiving them in a kind and appreciative spirit. In many of the best schools the principal, when he passes through the rooms, has usually a brief and pleasant conversation with the teacher, in the hearing of the children, about some point of the work that is going on. He asks questions and makes suggestions, if there is occasion, and the teacher replies just as pleasantly. The frankest mutual confidence prevails. The impression left on the children is not that of fault-finding, but of cordial official coopera- tion and good will existing between principal and teacher. It is a great mistake ever to make criticism the outcome of a fit of anger or passion. Criticisms are part of a principal's official business, and must not be made an indignity by the way in which they are given or received. There is one thing which is better than criticism, namely, appreciation of the good points of a teacher's work and a frank conversation and discussion of the rea- sons why a practice that seems doubtful should or should not be followed. By such friendly discussions both will be the gainers. Candor is just as much a principal's duty in making criticisms as courtesy in language and manner. No principal will believe that he 7 98 The Century and the School has a right to criticise a teacher in the hearing of her class in any manner that would lower her in the eyes of the children or lessen her authority. The professional reputation and standing of the teacher must be as dear to him as his own. He may have to reverse her judg- ment in case of discipline, but even in such fortunately very rare cases, he must have the greatest consideration for her standing with pupil and parent. The principal's obligation to be frank in making a criticism has been dwelt upon at length because of its importance to the school, when there is occasion for it. Generally speak- ing, criticism of a teacher's work is an excep- tion, not the rule. When a corps of teachers has been with a principal for years, it need not be of frequent occurrence. Constant criticism is always a mistake. When the work is car- ried on successfully and efficiently, as it is in most of the classrooms, there is no occasion for interfering with it. Captious criticism is mischievous, because it makes the teacher feel ill at ease when the principal is present, and utterly destroys her self-confidence. While the principal is the absolute judge of all arrangements in his school, there is no need of having the whole work conducted on Teachers' Duties 99 the dead level of uniformity. To deprive teachers of the freedom of movement means to deprive them of self-confidence, and to sap individuality, which is the main source of vigorous and progressive teaching. Where the principal is in touch with his corps of teachers and there is constant inter- change of opinion about plans and methods, a harmonious understanding will prevail with- out much criticism. Meddlesomeness on the part of the principal is as bad as the oversen- sitiveness or vanity on the part of the teacher who is hurt by legitimate criticism. If the preceding discussion has served any purpose, it must have shown that the teachers' duties are exceedingly numerous, and that there is no one who can possibly attain perfec- tion in all directions of professional work. There is no teacher living who does not fall short of perfection in some way, and who is not, in certain directions, less efficient than in others. But with all the consciousness of the imperfection inherent in human nature, there is no higher duty for the teacher than to strive unremittingly to approach perfection in the sacred task of guiding and educating the future generations on whose integrity and intelligence depends the future welfare of our country. EDUCATIONAL IDEAS IN DICK- ENS' NOVELS HANS MAKART attempted in one of his paintings to express the general idea that per- vades the works of Raphael. His painting shows a group of but three persons. There is the portrait of Raphael himself, pencil in hand, his eye intently fixed on the face and form of a young mother, who draws with gentle hand the veil from the face of her beautiful child who is slumbering in the cradle. It is not difficult to understand the sym- bolism of Makart's group. The central idea of Raphael's art is to unveil to the world the divine in motherhood and childhood. Through the hand of the artist the genius within proclaims to the world without the divine mystery revealed in that human rela- tionship. Raphael's work is the apotheosis of motherhood and childhood; it is this theme which shines from his greatest paintings. The unveiling of the divine in things hu- Educational Ideas in Dickens' Novels 101 man was the object of Dickens' novelistic art. He differs in this essentially from the other great novel writers of his age. His aim was not to introduce the reader to the circles of high life, and to open to him in story drawing-room doors closed to him in reality; his aim was not to revive the romantic age of knight and crusader; it was not to pro- pose psychological puzzles and to unravel them in finely woven plots of fiction. No; his eye dwelt with never-fading interest on the events of commonplace life and every- day characters. Not the heights but the depths of human existence formed the theme of his art. The warehouse, the counting- room, the street and the gutter supply him with heroes, with godlike men and women whose noble qualities ray out all the more strongly for the dark background of folly, sin and vice against which their images are thrown. The great novelist shows a tendency toward grotesqueness and exaggeration in drawing characters and relating events; but even this strong bias cannot diminish in the reader the feelings of reverence and sympathy when he sees divine traits appear in the thoughts and actions of the humblest and low- liest of men. The sensation of the ludicrous, 102 The Century and the School for instance, which the broadly grotesque farce of the adventures of Mr. Pickwick arouses in the reader, is more and more over- shadowed by the powerful pathos of the hero's actions. The divine element appears when the hero forgets insult and injury and lifts up his downtrodden foe, poor Jingle, from misery and hopeless despair, concealing his benevolence from others with anxious care. Strong human foibles and absurdities become amiable weaknesses in a life consisting of the unpretending exercise of good will toward all. The hero's life ennobles his surround- ings. The grotesque is forgotten when in it a grandly noble soul unfolds itself. Neither Job Trotter nor Sam Weller can be justly accused of sentimentalism or hyperbole, but even they see distinctly the divine element appear in the grotesque character whom they admire. When Mr. Pickwick had helped Job's master in his darkest hour, he had touched the soul of the scamp in the one unselfish sentiment which it contained: in his devotion to his master and friend. Speaking of Mr. Pickwick, Job says: " 'I could serve that gentleman till I fell down dead at his feet.' " ( No one serves him but I,' answered Sam'. Educational Ideas in Dickens' Novels 103 'I never heard, mind you, nor read of in story books, nor see in picters, any angel in tights and gaiters — not even in spectacles as I re- member, though that may ha' been done for anythin' I know to the contrairey — but mark my words, Job Trotter, he's a regular thor- oughbred angel for all that; and let me see the man as wentures to tell me he knows a better vun.' " The grand theme of Dickens, the unveiling of the divine in the lowliest forms of human life, can be traced in many if not all of his writings. In Oliver Twist, in the Old Curi- osity Shop, in Bleak House, in Barnaby Rudge, it is shown that even an atmosphere of corruption, sin and crime, cannot always stifle the divine essence of the human soul. He turned to the delineation of childhood in novel after novel with ever new delight. It was suffering, abused, downtrodden child- hood, however, which had a fascination for him. It was there that he could show best that man might grow into a true image of the divine in spite of circumstances of misery and poverty, of corrupt surroundings, of stinted, misguided, or tyrannical education. There are pictures of child-life, of educational folly or wisdom in nearly every one of his 104 The Century and the School great novels, and it is ever the tender and lov- ing task of our author to reveal the divine in the child-soul, and to show that innate nobil- ity dwells in the humblest and lowliest of the little world. Oliver Twist, brought up in corruption and crime, trained to be a thief, keeps his soul unsullied. Paul Dombey, brought up in selfishness, never knowing the loving care of a mother, remains a sweet and iloving child. Strong manhood grows into being in cases where there is a total absence of formfal education. Sam Weller, in his humble station, is a sharp-witted, intelligent, and honest lad; but — what was his education? Here is his father's account of it, with Sam's commentary : " 'Wery glad to hear it, sir,' replied the old man; 'I took a good deal of pains with his education, sir; let him run in the streets when he was very young and shift for his self. It's the only way to make a boy sharp, sir.' " 'Rather a dangerous process, I should imagine,' said Mr. Pickwick, with a smile. " 'And not a very sure one neither,' added Mr. Weller jr." While Dickens has delineated child-life more fully and more frequently than any other novelist, yet we should in vain look for a Educational Ideas in Dickens' Novels 105 theory of education or for positive educational principles. He is negative in the literary means which he employs, and uses exaggera- tion, caricature, irony and satire everywhere. Educational shams and follies are his subjects, not ideals of education. Happy child-life, good schools and good teachers have no place in his works. They lie outside of the self- appointed task of our novelist. He intended to correct sins of education and to remedy social evils by the force of strongly overdrawn description, which was sure to move, if not shock, public sentiment. He never tells how education should proceed, but gives numerous examples of ways in which children should not be brought up. Yet, from his negative statements, from the follies and crimes which he scourges, we may infer the educational plan which he considers good and wise. Notwith- standing this tendency to exaggeration in his descriptions, there is a sufficiently close re- semblance to reality to let the caricature at once suggest the image from which it is drawn. When Dickens described, in Nich- olas Nickleby, the revolting scenes of Dothe- boys Hall, a number of Yorkshire school- masters took offense and threatened the author with personal vengeance, each of them claim- io6 The Century and the School ing that Squeers was intended for his own portrait. Dickens looked upon childhood with tender sympathy, and it had a peculiar attraction for him!. It left him the widest scope for the employment of his favorite literary means, humor and pathos. There is hardly any of his works without some child-character or some thoughts on education. In some novels, as in Oliver Twist, he makes the child the principal person in the book. In Dombey & Son Paul is the real hero; and when he passes away the interest dies out. The fascination of helpless, trustful, simple, artless childhood is so strong that Dickens tried to perpetuate these qualities, in some of the lives which he describes, beyond the limits of childhood. This led him to create some unique characters, in which he tries how the attributes of child- hood will fit the adult hero or heroine of the novel. Little Dorrit shows the delicate sweet- ness and simplicity of the child blended with the strong character of womanhood. While other artists see the sublime in what is strong and grand, Dickens finds it in the small, insignificant and lowly. He turns constantly to the early days of his heroes, and tells us of their suffering and training in the Educational Ideas in Dickens' Novels 107 school of sorrows and the sorrows of the school. It is astonishing to see how many sharply drawn child-characters Dickens has given to literature. There is the early novel of Nich- olas Nickleby, in which the Yorkshire schools, Squeers, the schoolmaster, his family, and his teacher appear; there are the Snawley chil- dren, poor Smike, and the little Kenwigises. There are little Paul and Florence in Dombey & Son. The story of little Pip and Estella is told in Great Expectations, where the per- verted training of the sentiments is the theme. In Little Dorrit quite a number of educa- tional incidents are related; there is not only the early life of Amy, but the stern school in which Clennam grew up, the hard task of Mrs. General when she tried to train irrev- erent, rebellious Fannie in social refinement. In the Old Curiosity Shop little Nell, Kit, and other child-characters are prominent. In Hard Times a whole system of education is placed before the reader, when he follows the author to Gradgrind's school, and learns his educational ideas in regard to the bringing up of his children, Louisa and Tom, and his ward, Sissy Jupes. In the Pickwick Papers we get occasional glimpses at the early train- io8 The Century and the School ing of inimitable Sam Weller. In Bleak House one of the most pathetic of Dickens' child-characters stands before us: poor Joe. Oliver Twist discloses scenes of youth- ful depravity in the Artful Dodger and his companions. David Copperfield is in a measure the embodiment of Dickens' own life. With such a variety of child-figures and educational episodes, it is not an easy task to seek some general idea which appears in them all and binds all these heterogeneous images together. The general educational theme in Dickens' novels might perhaps thus be stated : Through the night of neglect and brutal treat- ment of childhood, through the clouds of parental cruelty and folly, shine the eternal stars placed by God in the young heart: the child's thirst for kindness and love, his grati- tude for benefits, his forgiveness of injury. No suffering, no degree of neglect can destroy these; neither sham education nor perverted training can warp them and prevent their spontaneous growth. This theme rings out in an endless variety of harmonies from the novels of Dickens. He makes the noblest native qualities of the child-soul shine all the more brightly by the contrast in which he Educational Ideas in Dickens' Novels 109 places them with foolish and cruel modes of education. It is a strange coincidence that of all Eng- lish literary men, he should write most on edu- cation who, in a scholastic sense, had least of it. Dickens had received less schooling than any other great English author of our time. His learning came from the genius within rather than from the schools without. His own childhood had been full of neglect and sorrow. There were periods in his own life as a boy to which he would never allow any reference in later years. He would never refer, for instance, to his days in the ware- house, described as Murdstone's and Grinby's in David Copperfield. He lived in London most of his life, but he would never, as long as the old landmarks stood, pass through the street which reminded him of that period. Dickens may emphatically be called the novelist of London life. Most of the scenes of his work are located there. His delineation of childhood, too, is largely taken from Lon- don life. The waif of the street, the victim of parental neglect, the orphan remitted to the tender care of the stranger, the selfish util- ization of child-labor, the perversion of edu- cation by making its aim the realization of no The Century and the School some pet scheme of the parent; these and other educational themes are the favorite subjects of Dickens. No more pathetic description of the child of the gutter and of the ideal side of this pitiful life can be found than in poor Joe, of Bleak House. Desertion, squalor, poverty, hunger and misery cannot altogether destroy the waif's better self; there is in him an in- stinctive knowledge of right and wrong, the noble feelings of gratefulness and attachment, and recognition and love of the good in others. Here is the scene at the inquest over that ob- scure copyist, Nemo, with whom the fate of proud Lady Deadlock seems to be bound up in such a mysterious way: "Says the coroner: 'Is that boy here?' Says the coroner: 'Go and fetch him. . . . Oh, here is the boy, gentlemen.' "Here he is, very muddy, very hoarse, very ragged. Now, boy — but stop a minute. Cau- tion. This boy must be put through a few preliminary paces. "Name? Joe. Nothing else that he knows on. Don't know that everybody has two names. Never heard such a thing. Don't know that Joe is short for a longer name. Thinks it is long enough for him. He don't find no fault with it. Spell it? No. He Educational Ideas in Dickens' Novels in can't spell it. No father, no mother, no friends. Never has been to school. What's home? Knows a broom's a broom; and knows it is wicked to tell a lie. Don't recollect who told him about the broom or about the lie. But knows both. Can't exactly say what will be done to him after he's dead, if he tells a lie to the gentlemen here. But believes it will be something very bad, to punish him and serve him right, and so he'll tell the truth. " 'This won't do, gentlemen,' says the cor- oner, with a melancholy shake of the head. . . . "While the coroner buttons his greatcoat, Mr. Tulkinghorn and he give private audi- ence to the rejected witness in a corner. That graceless creature knows that the dead man . . . was sometimes hooted and pursued about the streets. That one cold winter night when he, the boy, was shivering in a doorway near his crossing the man turned to look at him and came back, and having questioned him, and found that he had not a friend in the world, said : 'Neither have I — not one,' and gave him the price of a supper and a night's lodging. That the man had often spoken to him since, and asked him whether he slept sound at night, and how he bore cold and hunger, and whether he ever wished to die, and similar ii2 The Century and the School strange questions. That when the man had no money, he would say in passing: 'I am as poor as you today, Joe;' but that when he had any he had always (as the boy most heartily believed) been glad to give him some. " 'He was very good to me/ said the boy, wiping his eye with his wretched sleeve. When I see him a-laying so stretched out just now, I wish he could have heard me tell him so. He was very good to me, he was.' " The deep sympathy which our author ever manifests for the sufferings and sorrows of mankind, explains the extreme bitterness with which he speaks of the tormentors of child- hood — selfish parents, tyrannical teachers and bad schools. It is the one subject of which he never tires. Hence the long line of the Creakles, the Squeerses, the Blimbers, the Pipchins, the Wopsles, and others. His com- mand of details in depicting the wretchedness of these educational monstrosities seems to be endless, but he is sparing in the praise of the few good schools which he describes. We tire of his constant abuse of educational plans, of schools and schoolmasters, and try to find what kind of education he approves. But where our author praises he seems soon ex- hausted. We hear much about Dotheboys Educational Ideas in Dickens' Novels 113 Hall, about Dr. Blimber and Mr. Creakle; we find a very vivid description of every detail of Mr. McChoakumchild's teaching; but when we turn to Dr. Strong's noble school, a very brief and very general description is all that is given. Copperfield-Dickens describes it thus : "I got a little better of my uneasiness when I went to school the next day, and a good deal better the next day, and so shook it off by de- grees that in less than a fortnight I was quite at home, and happy among my young com- panions. I was awkward enough in their games, and backward enough in their studies; but custom would improve me in the first respect, I hoped, and hard work in the second. Accordingly I went to work very hard, both in play and in earnest, and gained great com- mendation. And, in a very little while, the Murdstone and Grinby life became so strange to me that I hardly believed in it, while my present life grew so familiar that I seemed to have been leading it a long time. "Dr. Strong's was an excellent school; as different from Mr. Creakle's as good is from evil. It was very gravely and decorously ordered, and on a sound system, with an ap- peal, in everything, to the honor and good 8 H4 The Century and the School faith of the boys, and an avowed intention to rely on their possession of those qualities, un- less they proved themselves unworthy of it, which worked wonders. We all felt that we had a part in the management of the place, and in sustaining its character and dignity. Hence we soon became warmly attached to it. I am sure I did for one, and I never knew, in all my time, of any other boy being otherwise, and learned with a good will, desiring to do it credit." There is, perhaps, some reason for the fact that Dickens paints parents and teachers so often in the darkest colors. The memory of the miseries of his own childhood was stronger than the recollection of its joys. He himself had been a poor, neglected child. The liter- ary master-mind of the age had never received a literary education. When little Charles was nine years old, his father, who had held a small government office, became involved in financial difficulties, which landed him in the debtors' prison, the Marshalsea. The boy had to shift for himself. Copperfield's life in the warehouse of Murdstone and Grinby is a fairly correct account of Dickens' boyhood during those years. Mr. Micawber and Mr. Dorrit, the father of the Marshalsea, are re- Educational Ideas in Dickens' Novels 115 flections caught from the lights and shadows of the personality of Dickens' father. His another is perhaps depicted in Mrs. Nickleby. Our novelist had but to recall his own neg- lected child-life and then to contemplate the suddenness with which his life, after the ap- pearance of his first great novels, passed into the sunshine of fame and wealth, to derive from this reflection the lesson which he reiter- ates so constantly: The innate power of the soul will triumph over neglected and per- verted education, and break through the bar of circumstance into the sunlight of a noble life. Let us now look at the educational content of some of his best novels. In his earliest great work, the Pickwick Papers, the educa- tional theme is touched on incidentally only. If Sam Weller is in a sense the hero of the story, he illustrates the rough training which the life in a large city may give to a naturally well-disposed boy, and shows the qualities which are likely to be developed — shrewdness, sharpness of wit and resource, readiness of speech, extreme self-reliance verging on ir- reverence; and yet, with all these, good will towards others. In Oliver Twist, the second great novel, the iiS The Century and the School educational theme is not only an incident, but it predominates. The novel is an account of the checkered career of a poor orphan boy, whose mother had died at his birth, among strangers. The infant had been turned over to the workhouse. "He was enveloped in the old calico robes, which had grown yellow in the same service; he was badged and ticketed, and fell into his place at once, a parish child — the orphan of a workhouse — the humble, half- starved drudge — to be cuffed and buffeted through the world — despised by all, and pitied by none." At the age of nine he is summoned before the workhouse board, and a kind of practical business education is mapped out for him): " Well, you have come here to be educated, and taught a useful trade/ said the red-faced gentleman in the high chair. " ( So you'll begin to pick oakum tomorrow morning at six o'clock,' added the surly one in the white waistcoat. "For the combination of both these bless- ings in the one simple process of picking oakum, Oliver bowed low by the direction of the beadle." After a short time Oliver is "let out" to some master, is badly treated, and runs away. Educational Ideas in Dickens' Novels 117 In London he falls in with a young thief, and is taken by him to Fagin, the head of the gang, who takes much pains to educate Oliver for the same occupation. There is really a kind of technical training in robbery in the house of the master-thief. After breakfast the young rogues are required to practice on Fagin, who walks about the room with his pockets stuffed with handkerchiefs, snuff- boxes, pocketbooks, and the like; and the game is to take these things from him with such light-fingered skill that the watchful eye of the old thief does not perceive the loss. Oliver's education through the surroundings of this wretched place seconds this direct evil training. He lives among depraved men and women, from the thief down to the murderer. Yet, in spite of this education for crime, by design and surroundings, the purer instincts of the child's soul triumph. He turns away from the first dark deed in which he is to take part, and finds good people who make his wel- fare their care. The lesson of Oliver Twist seems to be that even perverted education cannot crush the divine instinct. The next great work from the pen of Dick- ens was Nicholas Nickleby. In it the educa- ii8 The Century and the School tional theme again predominates. It was written with the avowed intention of dealing a crushing blow at the outrages of the York- shire boarding-schools. While Nicholas and Ralph Nickleby are the heroes of the book, the center of interest is the school of Dothe- boys Hall. The lesson of the novel seems clear: The ethical and sacred relation of love between parent and child is an essential, indis- pensable element in all education; it must be reflected in the sympathy between teacher and pupil. Without love and sympathy there can be no education; hom>e becomes a place of torture, and school, a jail. In Squeers' school sympathy has no place; and yet the disgusting brutality of the master reflects but the depravity of the parent who removed from the circle of the home the child that nature had deformed or neglected. Squeers' school is the inferno of childhood, the place without hope or joy. There can be no stronger presentation of the principle that education without love or sympathy is deprav- ing and brutalizes both educator and child; it is worse than even the total absence of schooling. There are schools which do not educate, but ruin. In the Old Curiosity Shop the educational Educational Ideas in Dickens' Novels 119 theme is continued. Here it is shown how love may in itself become an education. The folly of the old gambler wrecks his own fate as well as that of little Nell, for whom he attempts to gamble together a fortune. Yet the tender love with which he clings to her and the deep attachment of the child to him makes her soul grow into an ethical beauty round which the author weaves his most pa- thetic story. Child-heroism is crowned with unfading glory. "This child," he thought, "has this child heroically persevered under all doubts and dangers, struggled with poverty and suffering, upheld and sustained by strong affection and the consciousness of rectitude alone! And yet the world is full of such heroism. Have I yet to learn that the hardest and best-borne trials are those which are never chronicled in any earthly record and are suffered every day! And should I be surprised to hear the story of this child?" Great Expectations, one of the later novels, might here be mentioned because of the special kind of perverted education that forms its subject : the perverted education of the sen- timents. The power which education may exercise in rousing and deadening the feelings of the heart is illustrated in the lives of Estella I20 The Century and the School and Pip. Estella is an adopted child; her benefactress, Miss Havisham, had been de- serted, on the day that was to see her married, by the man she loved. Since that terrible hour she had spent a lifetime in the seclusion of her rooms, still dressed in the white robe which she wore on the fatal day. Her heart was broken, her mind affected. She adopts and brings up Estella to be devoid of all sen- timent. Estella grows into a most beautiful woman ; true to her training, she marries with- out love. But instead of leading a life free from sorrow — because in consequence of her education she was not supposed to possess a heart capable of suffering — she lives in wretchedness at the side of a contemptible being until his death frees her. Pip, a village boy who had been called to the lonesome Havisham mansion several times to play with Estella, has an educational career of a different sort. He is an orphan who is being brought up by his sister, the wife of the village blacksmith, Joe. "Mrs. Joe," says little Pip, speaking of his sister, "was a very clean housekeeper, but had an exquisite art of making her cleanliness more uncomfortable than dirt itself." She did her duty by her young brother, as far as feeding and clothing Educational Ideas in Dickens' Novels 121 him were concerned, but she did not love him. She did not seem to have much affection for anyone. Pip says: "I was always treated as if I had insisted on being born in opposition to the dictates of reason, religion and moral- ity, and against the dissuading argument of my best friends." In this respect Pip's training was similar to that of Estella's. In her case, there was the training of hatred and scorn; in the other case, there was the absence of natural affection. Pip himself gives us an idea how this school- ing without love or sympathy affected him: "My sister's bringing-up had made me sen- sitive. In the little world in which children have their existence, whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt as injustice. It may be only small injustice that a child can be exposed to, but the child is small, and its world is small, and his rocking-horse stands as many hands high, according to scale, as the big-boned Irish hunter. Within myself I had sustained from my babyhood a perpetual conflict with in- justice. I had known from the time that I could speak that my sister in her capricious and violent coercion was unjust to me. I had cherished a profound conviction that her 122 The Century and the School bringing me up by hand gave her no right to bring me up by jerks." While Pip's education seemed to lack the essential elements of sympathy at home, yet he did not grow up without schooling. Mrs. Joe sent him to the village teacher, Mrs. Wopsle, whose name Dickens' caricature has made im'mortal. "Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt kept an evening school in the village; that is to say, she was a ridiculous old woman of limited means and unlimited infirmity, who used to go to sleep from six to seven every evening, in the society of youth who paid two- pence per week for the improving opportu- nity of seeing her do it." Yet, after all, Pip made some progress. a Much of my unassisted self, and more by the help of Biddy than of Mr. Wopsle's great- aunt, I struggled through the alphabet as if it had been a bramble-bush; getting consider- ably worried and scratched by every letter. After that I fell among those thieves, the nine figures, who seemed every evening to do some- thing new to disguise themselves and baffle recognition. But at last I began in a purblind, groping way to read, write and cipher on the very smallest scale." While little Pip did not obtain much of an Educational Ideas in Dickens' Novels 123 education from his sister, Mrs. Joe, nor from his teacher, Mrs. Wopsle, he received the highest training from one more ignorant than himself — from dear, clumsy, illiterate Joe, the village blacksmith, the giant with the heart of a child. By him he was taught les- sons more important than any schooling in letters: forbearance, good will, and love. "I loved Joe — perhaps for no better reason in those early days than because the dear fellow let me love him." Not unfrequently, when the storms of Mrs. Joe's temper drove big Joe and little Pip from house and home, the two fellow-sufferers would sit together and talk their sorrows, and the noble soul of the simple blacksmith would unwittingly teach golden ethical truths to the listening child, never-forgotten lessons which helped to form his life. Here is how Joe ex- plains the untiring patience with which he bears his wife's outbreaks of temper: " 'And last of all, Pip — and this I want to say very serous to you, old chap — I see so much in my poor mother, of a woman drudging and slaving and breaking her honest heart, and never getting no peace in her mortal days, that I am dead afeard of going wrong in the way of not doing what's right by a woman, and I'd 124 The Century and the School fur rather of the two go wrong t'other way, and be a little ill-convenienced myself.' "Young as I was, I believe that I dated a new admiration of Joe from that night. We were equals afterwards, as we had been be- fore ; but afterwards at quiet times when I sat looking at Joe and thinking about him, I had a new sensation of feeling conscious that I was looking up to Joe in my heart." In the novel Hard Times there is a new variation of the favorite educational theme of Dickens. Here it is not meanness, nor lack of sympathy, that causes wealthy Mr. Grad- grind, the factory owner and school com- mitteeman, to espouse a pernicious system of education and to sacrifice his little ones to the Moloch of a theory. While in the works which we have so far considered, under-edu- cation, educational neglect and perverted edu- cation are represented, the story of Hard Times illustrates how even a well-meaning effort and an honestly conducted school may defeat the objects of education when they are made subservient to a vicious theory. Here the school "system" becomes the enemy of education. Instead of making the "system" serve the child, the child is sacrificed to the "system." True, he is educated for life, as Educational Ideas in Dickens' Novels 125 the phrase is : not for his own life, but some- body else's. The aim is not so much to make him strong, good and happy, but to fit him for some place in shop or factory. Mr. Grad- grind's educational system sounds strangely familiar to us. We have heard it reiterated as the most recent educational wisdom by generations of his successors: "Schools must be practical. They must not teach anything that is not of practical value. Only what is directly useful. Nothing but what has a price in the labor market. We want no senti- ments, no romance about education." It never dawned upon Gradgrind's soul, until misery and suffering had brought it home to him, that education moist do its work for the soul within rather than for the world without, and that the most practical education is one which makes every good germ grow into fruition. Gradgrind, however, to begin with, thought that matter-of-fact knowledge and sharp intel- ligence were all that school training should aim at, and in consequence lays down the fol- lowing course of study for the teacher of his school: "Now, what I want is facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but facts. Plant noth- 126 The Century and the School ing else; root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon facts. Nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to the facts, sir." • Mr. Gradgrind, though mistaken in his theory, was an honest, well-meaning man. He did not advocate to limit public education to the three R's, while he sent his own children to the best college. He acted in accordance with his belief: the education which he thought best for the public was good enough for himself. He sent his own children, Louisa and Tom, to Mr. McChoakum- child's school to be filled with facts and nothing else. No training of the sentiments for him! No cultivation of gentle fantasy and happy imagination! Nothing but prac- tical facts! In Mr. Gradgrind's model school Sissy Jupes, the child of a traveling circus per- former, had found admission by accident. Her father, whom she had loved tenderly, deserted her, and Mr. Gradgrind was moved to receive the little orphan into his own family. It was through Sissy Jupes and her Educational Ideas in Dickens' Novels 127 loving nature that Louisa, who had been brought up on facts, was saved from the destructive consequences of Mr. Gradgrind's educational theory. The rich inner life of the strange child, its affectionate nature, its strong and sound sentiment, worked a reform in the selfish tendencies of Louisa, and led her to realize that while her mind had been filled with facts, her heart had remained void. " 'You have been so careful of me,' " Louisa tells her father, " 'that I never had a child's heart. You have trained me so well that I never dreamed a child's dream. You have dealt so wisely with me, father, that I never had a child's fear.' "Mr. Gradgrind was quite moved by his success, and by this testimony of it. 'My dear Louisa,' said he, 'you abundantly repay my care. Kiss me, my dear girl.' " How poor little Sissy Jupes, the orphan, longing for tenderness and sympathy, the bright child full of rich imaginative life, fared in Mr. McChoakumchild's school, can easily be conceived. Even the most decisive statistics which Mr. McChoakumchild, in the spirit of his philosophy placed before her, could not convince poor Sissy that she was a happy child. Here is her account of her 128 The Century and the School mental difficulties at school as she relates them to her friend, Miss Louisa: "He said, 'Now this schoolroom is a nation, and in this nation there are fifty millions of money. Isn't this a prosperous nation? And are not you in a thriving state?' " 'What did you say?' asked Louisa. " 'Miss Louisa, I said I did not know. I thought I could not know whether it was a prosperous nation or not, and whether I was in a thriving state or not, unless I knew who got the money and whether any of it was mine. But that had nothing to do with it. It was not in the figures at all,' said Sissy, wiping her eyes. " 'That was a great mistake of yours,' ob- served Louisa. " 'Yes, Miss Louisa, I know it now. Then Mr. McChoakumchild said he would try me again. And he said this schoolroom was 'an immense town; in it there are a million of inhabitants, and only five- and- twenty are starved to death in the streets in the course of a year. What is your remark on that propor- tion?' And my remark was — for I could not think of a better one — that I thought it must be just as hard upon those who were starved, whether the others were a million, or Educational Ideas in Dickens' Novels 129 a million million. And that was wrong too.' " The results of Gradgrind's system of edu- cation could have been anticipated. In his son Tom it engendered the worst features of selfishness and deceit; his wretched life repre- sents a downward course from facts to dis- grace and sin. Louisa's life, too, was made miserable through her training, but the love and womanly strength of Sissy Jupes saves her from ruin. For Mr. Gradgrind himself a time of ad- versity arrives; and in the downfall of his hopes, in the dark hour of disappointment, when his daughter's love, and that feeling of deep sympathy for which there had been no place in his "system," become the solace of his wounded soul, he realizes and confesses to himself the error of his former views: " 'Some persons hold,' he pursued, still hesitating, 'that there is a wisdom of the head, and that there is a wisdom of the heart. I have not supposed so; but, as I have said, I mistrust myself now. I have supposed the head to be all-sufficient. It may not be all-sufficient.' " While in Hard Times education falls a victim to the "system," in Dombey & Son the child is sacrificed to the pride of the parent. Little Paul, so loving, so honest, so true, is one 9 130 The Century and the School of the sweetest of the novelist's child-char- acters. He had all that his father's money could buy — yet there was no mother's love. He had all the education that he wanted — in. fact, he had more than he wanted; the poor fellow died from over-education. Little Paul Dombey was the victim of a perverted educational aim. While Tom and Louisa Gradgrind were educated for the glory of the "system," he was educated for Dombey & Son, for the glory of the firm. The selfish pride of the father never thought of poor Paul as a weak, ailing child; never troubled him- self about the needs of his being and his hap- piness ; the boy was to him simply the future representative of the great house, Dombey & Son. To this his wife had died a victim; to this Paul was to be sacrificed. "Some phil- osophers tell us that selfishness is at the root of our best loves and affections. Mr. Dom- bey's young child was, from the beginning, so distinctly important to him as part of his own greatness, or (which is the same thing), of the greatness of Dombey & Son, that there is no doubt his parental affection might have been easily traced (like many a goodly super- structure of fair fame), to a very low founda- tion." Educational Ideas in Dickens' Novels 13 11 Little Paul, old beyond his years, feeble and frail in body, strong only in his affection for dear Floy, his sister, was placed by his father in Mrs. Pipchin's famous institution, "an infantine boarding-house of a very select description." Mr. Dickens gives us a brief sketch of the methods of teaching used in this place: "At about noon Mrs. Pipchin presided over some early readings. It being a part of Mrs. Pipchin's system not to encourage a child's mind to develop and expand itself like a young flower, but to open it by force like an oyster, the moral of these lessons was usually of a violent and stunning character: the hero — a naughty boy — seldom, in the mildest catastrophe, being finished off by anything less than a lion or a bear." After Paul had been with Mrs. Pipchin for a while, it occurred to Mr. Dombey that it was time to require of his boy a still higher effort in behalf of Dombey & Son. "Mr. Dombey withdrew to the hotel and his din- ner: resolved that Paul, now that he was get- ting so old and well, should begin a vigorous course of education forthwith, to qualify him- self for the position in which he was to shine; that Dr. Blimber should take him in hand immediately. 132 The Century and the School "Whenever a young gentleman was taken in hand by Dr. Blimber, he might consider himself sure of a pretty tight squeeze. The Doctor undertook the charge of ten young gentlemen, but he had always ready a supply of learning for a hundred, on the lowest esti- mate, and it was at once the business and the delight of his life to gorge the unhappy ten with it. "In fact, Dr. Blimber's establishment was a great hot-house in which there was a forcing apparatus incessantly at work. All the boys blew before their time. Mental green pease were produced at Christmas and intellectual asparagus all the year round. Mathematical gooseberries (very sour ones, too) were com- mon at untimely seasons and from mere sprouts of bushes, under Dr. Blimber's culti- vation. Every description of Greek and Latin vegetables were got off the driest twigs of boys under the frostiest circumstances. Na- ture was of no consequence at all. No matter what a young gentlem'an was intended to bear, Dr. Blimber made him bear to pattern, some- how or other." The satire of these lines fits our days as well as those of Dickens. Children are made too much to "bear to pattern." There is not suf- Educational Ideas in Dickens' Novels 133 ficient heed given to "what they are intended to bear." It is all right as far as bright, vig- orous and strong children are concerned. There the high-pressure systems of education may stimulate and lead to the unfolding of the best strength. But woe to the weak child, which is driven to efforts beyond his strength and whose life is made unhappy by demands of parent, or teacher, which he has not the power to meet. Unhappy is the lot of the child whose education is meted out to him, not in accordance with what he is able to do, but in accordance with what the parents or teacher desires him to do, who is educated, not for himself, but for Dombey & Son. The results of Dr. Blimber's high-grade school were universally admired. When the examiners summed up the examinations passed by these pupils with ease, it seemed a pity that the per cent system of recognizing merit was limited to one hundred. While this was the general verdict, yet there were a few very rare cases in which nature seemed ungrateful to the "system." There were instances in which this vigorous training killed the mind, and instances in which it killed the body. Paul Dombey was an illustration of the latter effect, young Toots of the former. 134 The Century and the School "This was all pleasant and ingenious, but the system of forcing was attended with its usual disadvantages. There was not the right taste about the premature productions, and they did not keep well. Moreover, one young gentleman with a swollen nose and an exces- sively large head, the oldest of the ten, who had 'gone through' everything, suddenly left off blowing one day, and remained in the establishment, a mere stalk. And people did say that the Doctor had rather overdone it with young Toots, and that when he began to have whiskers he left off having brains." If we leave our author here, it is not for the reason that our topic — the study of educa- tional thoughts in Dickens — is exhausted. Comparatively few points of the many which invited discussion have been touched upon. Bleak House, for instance, is rich in educa- tional lessons. There is the telescopic phil- anthropy of Mrs. Jellyby, who had a tender heart for sufferings far away, but none for her own neglected children. The trouble with her charity was that it did not begin at home. She planned how to educate the natives of "Borrioboola Gha, on the left bank of the Niger," but allowed her own little ones to grow up like savages. There is in the same Educational Ideas in Dickens' Novels 135 novel an account of the growth of Esther's grand soul, whose presence ennobled every life with which this child of neglect came into contact. In David Copperfield also there are many educational threads which might be woven together; the education of David Cop- perfield himself, of Traddles and Steerforth; the schools of Creakle and of Dr. Strong. In conclusion, let us attempt to sum up once more, in positive form, the views which Dick- ens seems to express. His own mode of pre- sentation is necessarily a negative one because it was his task to show what ought not to be done in education; what teachers and schools ought not to be, rather than to illustrate directly what should be done. But from the very wrongs which he scourges we may infer the rights and principles which he calls upon parents and teachers to vindicate. His novels are an earnest appeal to let edu- cation concentrate its efforts to build up an ethical world in the child. The training of character should ever be the highest aim, and the schooling of the intellect should be made subservient to it. The superiority of general human culture that considers all the facul- ties, heart as well as hand, over mere mind training, is a theme which modern education 136 The Century and the School should never forget. It needs to be reminded of it constantly by public opinion. Pie lays stress on the training of the senti- ments, which is omitted at times. Even mod- ern books on the science of education lose sight of this factor when they give the current and faulty definition of education as being the training of body, will and intelligence. We are so used to this definition that we do not realize its defect. It omits the factor on which Dickens lays so much stress — the culti- vation of the heart and its emotions. No one will deny the importance of this factor. To illustrate : It would be of little value to teach history if such lessons appealed to intelligence only, and included nothing but the mere data and facts of history. Instruction in history has a far greater task to perform : the cultiva- tion of patriotism and of the feeling of rever- ence for the grand human qualities of our national heroes. Dickens emphasizes also the child's claim to a happy life, not marred by demanding from him efforts beyond his power, neither in respect to lessons, nor in respect to conduct. He demands from every educator the recogni- tion of the principle that "nature is of some consequence." Life is an echo of the child's Educational Ideas in Dickens' Novels 137 education. No forced acquirement can ever form a substitute for a lacking spirit of kind- liness and good-will toward others. These ethical qualities the treatment of the child by his educator m'ay rouse or stifle. The novelist enters a protest against over- education, under-education, perverted educa- tional aims, and educational shams. Child- nature will not prosper unless the faculties dormant in it are allowed to grow in the sun- shine of genial teaching and loving compan- ionship. His body does not need the food of nature more urgently than his heart needs the food of the soul : the love of friends, the sym- pathy of his teachers. One of the dangers of which the novelist reminds us is that of over-education, of "Blim- berism," so to speak. Over-education does not consist merely in excessive number of studies, but more particularly in the attempt to force upon the yielding mind of the child that training which neither his nature, tastes, nor future needs warrant. Education should not be made a forcing, but a helping process, through which a richer unfolding of the best human qualities is brought about. The aim of education, so again Dickens teaches, does not lie outside of the child but 138 The Century and the School within. He is not to be educated "for Dom- bey & Son," nor to attest the value of some "system," nor to become a living proof of the excellence of Mr. Gradgrind's plans. He should be educated for himself, for his own sake, that he may become the best and happiest being into which his individuality can be developed. The key-note in all that Dickens has written about education is that even in the lowliest child slumbers the divine fire of truth and love, of devotion and enthusiasm, which the gentle breath of a parent's or teach- er's love may fan into flame. If this be true, we may place over the lowliest schoolroom and the humblest educational task the words of Heraclitus: "Enter. Here, too, are the gods." A VISIT TO GERMAN SCHOOLS After an agreeable ocean voyage we ar- rived in Antwerp. A day's ride across Bel- gium brought our party, late in the evening, to the historic city of Cologne on the Rhine, the metropolis of western Prussia. Early in the morning the merry sound of a bugle and the echoing tread of marching soldiers brought us to the window to look at a body of dragoons marching by, looking splen- did in the vigor of youth and in their new uni- forms of white broadcloth. It was a reminder that we were in the land of the soldier. A remark once made by Lord Brougham has often been quoted. He said: "Let the soldier be abroad if he will, he can do nothing in this age. There is another person less imposing in the eyes of some, perhaps insignificant. The schoolmaster is abroad, and I trust to him armed with his primer, against the soldier in full military array." Germany evidently desires to make assur- ance doubly sure, by trusting her national security to her soldiers as well as to her school- 139 140 The Century and the School masters. The foreign visitor cannot help noticing that, in not a few German towns, the most striking modern buildings are the bar- racks and the schools. Gymnastics In the schools for the training of boys mili- tary vigor is not lost sight of. There is no city school without obligatory gymnastic in- struction for both boys and girls or without a special gymnasium large, airy and well equipped with apparatus. Gymnastic exer- cise occupies the same place on the program as arithmetic or reading and one can see some classes drilling in the yard or gymnasium al- most every hour of the day. The effect of such training is visible in the erect and trained step of the young people in the streets. No new schoolhouse is erected in any city with- out playground surrounding it sufficient to afford ample room for free physical exercise to the whole school simultaneously. The regular teachers are qualified to impart gymnastic instruction by special training in the state normal school. Preponderance of Male Teachers It should be remembered that men do most of the teaching in all the grades of the com- Visit to German Schools 141' mon schools of Germany. The proportion of men teachers to women teachers in Prussia in 1 89 1 was 70,000 to 8,000 or nine to one. In the United States the proportion is one to two, or in other words about 112.000 men teachers to 250,000 women. Religion in the Public Schools The grand Gothic Cathedral of Cologne with its noble architectural outlines, its won- derful sculptures in ornament and statues, had impressed us deeply when we arrived. Now its powerful organ and a volume of voices that swelled in choral music was equally inviting to worshiper and sight-seer from a distant land. To the stranger it seemed re- markable that the great majority of worshipers should be men; but perhaps this was owing to the fact that Cologne is a fortress with an immense garrison, of which a large part at- tends worship. Another fact presented itself to consider- ation which seemed worthy of a place in the memorandum book of a visiting educator. Cologne is a Roman Catholic city and most of her people are Catholics. The Protestant and Catholic religions in Germany, it may be said in a general way, are largely distributed 142 The Century and the School by districts and provinces. There are many provinces and cities in Germany in which the people in a very great majority are Protestant and but a small number are Catholic, and the opposite is true of other provinces or districts. The denominations are less intimately mixed than in the populations of our large cities. This circumstance explains the feasibility of the provision made in Germany for religious instruction. Religion is taught in every pub- lic school in the German empire. The Bible is read, selections are explained, biblical his- tory is studied and hymns used in public wor- ship are committed to memory. Hence almost every large German city has public schools that are Catholic and public schools that are Protestant. Religious instruction is, as a rule, imparted by the regular teacher of the room. Religion occupies a place in the program like any other study. Plentiful Educational Opportunities The provisions made for the education of German youths are plentiful. Theodore Parker said fifty years ago: "In this country every one gets a mouthful of education, but scarcely any one a full meal." If this was a true description of educational appliances at Visit to German Schools 143 that time it certainly no longer applies to the present day, when every boy or girl gets as much educational food as he has an appetite or a stomach for, and, at times, perhaps a little more. In Germany the educational table is exceedingly well supplied and the children, especially in schools of higher order, are per- haps a little overfed with mental pabulum. There is compulsory education, by which a boy is kept in school not only to his four- teenth year, but is furthermore constrained, after leaving the public school, to continue in what is called "common school extension" for three years longer. The sessions of these common school extensions (F or tbil dungs- schulen) take place, of course, in the evenings. Even without these compulsory laws, there would be the widest dissemination of knowl- edge because the Germans thoroughly believe in the importance of education. No visitor can fail to notice the high appreciation in which public schools are held by the people. They appreciate their influence, but, on the other hand, they do not make the mistake to expect too much of the school. They realize that school work should have the support of good family training. Beecher gave a very good statement of the powers and the limita- 144 The Century and the School tions of school training. He said: "We know that the gifts which men have do not come from the schools. If a man is a plain literal factual man, you can make a great deal more of him in his own line by education than with- out education, just as you can make a great deal more of a potato if you cultivate it than if you do not: but no cultivation in this world will ever make an apple out of a potato." Classification of Schools A classification of the public schools in the United States could be made both brief and plain. Not so in Germany. There are so many kinds and grades of schools with so many different appellations, different aims and different courses of study, that it is diffi- cult to arrive at any valid classification. We might, in the first place, distinguish two great classes of schools below the univer- sity, finishing schools and fitting schools. Not that these or similar terms are ever used in Germany, but they will help us to remember that there is one class of schools whose aim it is to prepare the pupils for life, and another to fit them for the university. Preparation for College German schools which fit boys for admis- Visit to German Schools 145 sion to the university (and until recently there were no such schools for girls) differ from American high schools in an important re- spect. The American high school receives the pupil in his thirteenth or fourteenth year and after he has finished the work of the common schools. The German Gymnasium, which is the name given to the fitting school, takes pupils nine years old, or younger, after they have finished the primary grade. In American schools the future college boy received his first education in common with the other children that are not to go to college. In Germany, on the contrary, the college boy is educated in special schools from almost the very beginning of his career. For the Ger- man boy who has finished the common school there is no longer any university education possible. He must decide when he is about nine years old whether or not he is going to the university. His future calling must be deter- mined at a very much earlier age and perhaps before his talents and inclinations have fully manifested themselves. The wishes, tradi- tions and social rank of the family usually decide the matter. It should be remembered, that in order to follow any profession whatso- ever, whether that of minister, physician, 10 146 -The Century and the School lawyer, or teacher in higher schools, it is requisite, in Germany, to be a university graduate. If a boy wishes to go to the uni- versity he must enter a gymnasium or classic high school when he is nine or ten years old and remain there for about eight years. The People's School Leaving for the present the "Gymnasia" or classic high schools preparing for the uni- versity, we return to the much larger class of schools, which we designated before as "finishing schools." None of the pupils of these schools could ever enter the university, although the course of study of some of them covers the same number of years as the gym- nasium. These schools prepare for life, and in accordance with the humbler or more responsible position the child is expected to fill, that is to say, in accordance with the social position and aspirations of the parents. The course of study of the finishing schools may be simple or more complicated. There are in every city public schools in which merely the rudiments are taught and other public schools in which the course of study is much richer. According to the more or less extended course of study in these schools, we may Visit to German Schools 147 recognize two classes. One is the so-called "People's School" in which the course is re- duced to that circle of information which the government considers absolutely necessary and without which no citizen of the state should be allowed to grow up. All the coun- try schools and the lowest grade of town and city schools belong to this class. The people's school in many of the villages is a one-room school and from thirty to eighty children may be taught by one teacher. In cities the people's schools are graded and taught similarly to our own schools. The subjects of instruction for the lower schools are re- ligion, the three R's, geometry and the ele- ments of geography, history and natural history, all these with special reference to the child's environment, and of the town and province in which he lives. To this must be added lessons in singing, drawing, with gym- nastics for the boys and needlework for the girls. It will be seen at a glance that the course of even the lowest schools is varied and rich. The second class of the "finishing" schools is peculiar to city life. They are called "Middle Schools" because they are intended not so much for the needs of the rural people H48 The Century and the School or the laboring population, but for the so- called middle classes in towns and cities. We have arrived at the following preliminary classification: Gymnasia, common schools (or people's schools) and middle schools. The middle schools differ from the peo- ple's schools in their longer list of studies and their extended course of instruction. It ap- pears from this definition that there is a large number of kinds of middle schools, differing in the list of their studies and the number of grades in their course. The middle schools exist in the German cities side by side with the people's school, so that the parent has the choice between more or less extended courses of instruction for his child. There is an obligation for every parent to give his child at least the minimum of an education, such as the people's school imparts, but there is no obligation to give him the fuller education of the middle schools. Yet in the large cities the latter class is more numerous than the former, although all public schools, of higher grade, charge a tuition fee. There is no obli- gation to any municipality to maintain schools higher than the people's schools, but there is hardly any city without middle schools. The support of the people to the educational plans Visit to German Schools 149 of the government is hearty, spontaneous and liberal. They maintain schools much above the grade prescribed by the government. The middle school has been defined by the Prussian Secretary of Education as "that school which, on one side, aims at a higher education than can be given in the graded people's school, and which, on the other hand, considers more particularly the demands of industrial life and of the so-called middle classes." At least one foreign language is studied in these middle schools, usually French. In the more advanced middle schools English is added. While in the village schools boys and girls are taught together in the same room, there is, as a rule, no co-edu- cation in cities, but the schools for the sexes are of about the same rank and take the same studies. It should be remembered, however, that- this is true for the finishing schools only. Women are not admitted to the German uni- versities and until a short time ago there was not a single gymnasium for girls. The results obtained in modern languages in some of the middle schools are quite good and the teachers frequently use the French or English language in the explanation of the 150 The Century and the School authors studied in class. In one of the girls' schools in Frankfort I heard a class read, translate and analyze a difficult selection of Milton's Paradise Lost. The pupils showed a thorough familiarity with the higher English vocabulary and the finer shades of meaning. The results of such liberal school training is manifest in social life. I met a surprisingly large number of people in Berlin, for instance, who could talk English very fluently but had never been outside of Germany. The people's schools and the lower classes of the middle schools are, as a rule, taught by men who are normal school graduates, the higher classes of the middle schools by university graduates. Spirit of the German Schools I visited all kinds of schools in Germany, the village schools in Thuringia, the city schools of Cologne, Frankfort and Darmstadt. I attended lectures at the University of Berlin. I looked into the whittling and wood-carv- ing schools of the Bavarian Alps. But what impressed me most forcibly, above all other admirable things, was the earnestness, energy and the skill in handling methods, which the common school teacher displayed everywhere. Visit to German Schools 151 There was a full comprehension and prac- tical appreciation of what may be called the educational creed of Germany, namely, that the aim of the school should be education rather than knowledge. There seemed to be an understanding of the main purpose of edu- cation, such as Sydney Smith suggests in his well-known saying: "The real object of edu- cation is to give children resources that will endure as long as life endures; habits that time will ameliorate, not destroy; occupation that will render sickness tolerable, solitude pleasant, age venerable, life more dignified and useful and death less terrible." There is not as much subject-matter studied as we do in our lower schools, less arithmetic, less grammar, less geography and history. But there is more drill and practice on the topics studied. Whatever is taken up is well digested through questioning, practice and thought. The American visitor notices that there is a greater variety in the intellectual bill of fare placed before the child than with us, although the several dishes of the intellec- tual meal are less elaborate and full. Geom- etry and natural science, for instance, are taught in every village school. Nor are they reserved for higher grades. Much of the 152 The Century and the School teaching is done in what is called ''concentric circles," Natural science is taught in the lowest grade, but each succeeding year, while moving round the same center, makes the topics more complete and comprehensive. The world which surrounds the child is clearly set before his mind's eye and made more familiar and intelligible to him. Arith- metic deals with those simple problems of buying and selling, of fractions and decimals, of proportion and percentage, which occur in every-day life: within the narrow circle of these operations, quick thinking is appealed to constantly and practice leads to perfection. Geography begins with a child's home, locates the neighboring villages and streams and in- cludes a thorough drill on the geography of his own country. The visible movements of the heavens, the shape and movements of the earth, are made intelligible by actual observa- tion. A boy must use his senses and his wits to excel and it looked to me as if his success in school was made as much dependent on these as on his industry. But the principal work of the village school centers around the reader. In the conversations grouped around the reading lessons, the child gets a glimpse at the government of the country and learns, Visit to German Schools 153 feelingly, his duties towards the parent, towards his neighbor and his country. There is the closest communion of soul between teacher and pupil. With the exception of the recital of hymns or poems committed to memory, I witnessed nowhere what we call "a recitation." There are no text-books, in one sense of the word, in the people's schools. They have an arithmetic, but it is simply a collection of examples. They have a geog- raphy, but it is simply a collection of maps. There are no lessons assigned except some copying, essay-writing, map-drawing, prac- tice on examples taught in school and the like. All the teaching and drill takes place in schools by the teacher. The aim of public schools has been va- riously defined. With us it has been cus- tomary to lay stress on the importance of education for the preservation of the state. That was the idea which the father of our country connected with education. His words are well known: "Promote as an object of primary importance institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In pro- portion as the structure of the government gives force to public opinion, it should be enlightened." 154 The Century and the School Two sayings of Horace Mann tend in the same direction: "Schoolhouses are the repub- lican line of fortifications," and again "Edu- cation is our only political safety. Outside of this ark, all is deluge." The German official definition of the aim of the people's school lays rather more stress on the ethical side than on the political. It says: "The people's school aims at imparting to youth, thorough instruction, practice and education, the principles of religious, ethical and national culture and the general knowl- edge and acquirements that are necessary for social life." The personnel of the German teacher in the primary schools did not seem to be equal to that found in the corresponding grade of our own schools, at least not in regard to social culture and general information. But there is in every case superior musical culture, and a most thorough understanding of methods of teaching. Even in the village schools admirable professional skill was displayed. There was a distinct plan evident in every step of teaching. The normal schools, in which all the teachers of the lower schools are edu- cated, are doing invaluable service to the Ger- man schools. Visit to German Schools 155 The philosophy of education is evidently thoroughly studied and, what is still more remarkable, is carried into practice. I can- not pass this topic without directing attention to the movement, new in our country, towards the study of the greatest educational phil- osopher of the last century, Herbart. His ideas of concentration of instruction and the rousing of a many-sided interest in the pupil are among the most fruitful peda- gogic thoughts. A few of the most striking details of the German common schools may here be noticed in a passing way. There is, in the first place, a steady adjustment of instruction to the sur- roundings of the child and to his future posi- tion in life. School teaching is full of moral and civic ideals, but it is also eminently prac- tical. In the simple natural history the pupil studies the class characteristics of some few typical specimens of the animal world, the birds and quadrupeds which he has occasion to observe in his home. The botanical lessons extend to the study of useful and hurtful plants, the grains, the forest trees, the coffee plant, the tobacco plant, etc. The child learns to know the minerals of his district, their characteristics and their 156 The Century and the School place in a natural system, and is able to give an account of them. Often on my wanderings over the hills near the watering place of Kis- singen, I met classes of country boys with their teacher botanizing and studying nature. It is a very frequent form of amusement for the boys to make collections of minerals, but- terflies, bugs, etc., and these remain a source of interest to them until they grow to man- hood. The Teacher's Influence on the Home Teachers hold their office through life. In consequence the same teacher not infrequently has educated two generations of the same family and enjoys unbounded personal con- fidence and respect, not to say veneration. He knows the family circumstances of every pupil. School and home are kept in close educational touch by this relation. It is the universal policy of every German family to instil respect for the teacher, and this helps the discipline of the school. Examinations Written examinations used to be unknown in the common schools, yet I have seen some conducted in the schools of Berlin. Even in Visit to German Schools 157 this detail pedagogical tact is manifested. In several rooms of the school that I visited, the teacher would give out a question, but would not allow the children to touch their pens. They were required to listen, then were given a moment or two to reflect, and then the com- mand was given : "Take your pens and write." It seems a little device, but it secured very thoughtful work on the paper. Visiting Days The school attempts to remain in close touch with the home. In cases of discipline the teacher sends for the parent, so that they may consult together in regard to the special treatment that the child should receive at home, in order to second the efforts of the school. Home reports are given out at reg- ular intervals, as in our own schools. From time to time a "visiting day" is appointed, when the parents are urgently requested to come to the school to witness a day's work. No preparation whatever is made for this day except the placing of chairs in each room. The daily prayer is not departed from and the recitations go on as usual. There are per- haps a few more review questions asked than ordinarily. 158 The Century and the School The advantages of these "visiting days" are obvious. The parents become acquainted (with the character and method of the work r done in every school, and with the teachers. In Germany, the graded city school, with the exception of the primary grade, divides the work among the teachers, not by rooms but by subjects. That is to say, there is a teacher ftvho teaches arithmetic most of the time and changes rooms with every recitation. An- other teacher teaches reading, another natural science and so forth. The regular teacher of the room frequently teaches more lessons than the others, but when he has finished these he goes to some other room to teach there. Teachers change rooms, classes do not. Every class of the common schools in German cities is taught, not by one, but by a number of teachers. The chief advantages claimed for this plan are that teachers are employed in the specific work which they do best and that the child continues the study of the same sub- ject, arithmetic for instance, with the same teacher for years, thus securing connected work and undivided responsibility for results. On these visiting days, therefore, the parent becomes personally acquainted with the whole corps of teachers of a school. It is the day Visit to German Schools 159 when they can confer with the principals and get advice. The teacher in turn obtains a glimpse of the home surroundings of the child. Public Games Every means is used to make the children manly and strong. Excursions by the school into the country for recreation and instruc- tion are not infrequent. In the city of Frankfort public games for school children are frequently arranged for Saturday afternoon where the boys of various schools compete in manly exercises, ball games and similar sport. The school board makes an appropriation for this purpose and the teachers are present. While attendance is voluntary, the square or park is crowded with visitors and children and they enter into the games with enthusiastic zeal. Participation in these games is voluntary but children that volunteer at the beginning of the year are obliged to continue. Swimming Wherever circumstances permit lessons in swimming are provided and the whole school, under the supervision of their teacher, goes to the river or lake regularly several mornings 160 The Century and the School every week. There are swimming schools for girls as well as swimming schools for the boys. Sanitary Measures In Darmstadt I found that in some schools, located in the poorer part of the city, provision was made in the school basement for warm baths. Divisions of children were sent down during school hours, under proper super- vision, to enjoy a comfort which the poorer homes perhaps could not afford. The city schools of Frankfort are supplied with adjustable desks. Several times during the year the medical examiner visits the school buildings, measures the height of each pupil and writes on the desk of the latter, the height to which the desk must be adjusted. Until the next visit of the examiner each pupil keeps the seat thus assigned to him. Buildings The common school buildings from an architectural standpoint seem superior to ours. The interior arrangement and appoint- ments of the rooms I did not like so well. The rooms seemed smaller than ours; there are as a rule but one or two wooden black- boards placed on easels in each room. In not Visit to German Schools 161 a few cases, even in new school buildings, the wraps of the pupils were hung on the walls of the schoolroom. Nor did the ventilation of some rooms seem perfect, but, it should be remembered, it is hazardous to generalize from the comparatively few rooms which we can visit in the course of a few months. The building and the grounds, however, seemed superior to the average building with us. They are, as a rule, large enough for the whole school to play and exercise simulta- neously. At the end of every recitation a re- cess of about ten minutes is given in the yard. The school hours are longer than they are with us. In one of the higher schools, classes were kept practically at work from seven to twelve and from two to five. The schools rank high in public favor and private munificence often supplies the wants of the poorer children. Thus I noticed in one of the school reports a record of a gift of $25,000 to buy clothes for needy children. Private schools and public schools are alike under the supervision of the state, whose officers visit them regularly for inspection and examination. In the conduct of the schools local and government authority mingle. The state prescribes a minimum of requirements 11 1 62 The Century and the School in regard to schoolhouses, courses of study, school apparatus, teacher's salary, etc., which the community must meet; but there are very few towns which are not in advance of this minimum requirement. Among the school commissioners of large cities there is a presid- ing government officer, a lawyer and some other permanently appointed government magistrates; the rest are delegated by the city council. Tuition The German public schools are not free in our sense of the word; a tuition fee is charged in most of them, especially those whose course of study rises above the rudiments. The fix- ing of the tuition fee is left with the municipal commissioners, but the government prescribes a minimum beyond which the school author- ities cannot charge. For towns of less than 6000 inhabitants it is less than $2.00 per year. In some larger cities tuition in the lowest class of the schools is made absolutely free, while an increasing tuition rate is charged for all schools of higher order. Special pro- vision is made, however, for poor people, so that their children are not excluded from the benefits of a higher education, if they choose to avail themselves of it. Visit to German Schools 163 The Teacher's Position We now turn for a moment to what will per- haps interest many of us, to the tenure of office of the German teacher, and we find two strik- ing features on which we might dwell for a moment: The absolute security of the teacher's tenure of office and his independence from the caprice of local school boards. Appointment of Teachers All appointments are made first on proba- tion and then after a fixed time become permanent. In Prussia all teachers of schools of higher order must pass through a year of probation. Teachers of the primary or people's schools, after passing their first government examina- tion, teach for a period of no less than two, nor more than five years, subject to discharge by the local school authorities. After this probationary period he passes a second gov- ernment examination, and then receives a permanent and irrevocable appointment. While he is appointed by the local school board, after being once permanently ap- pointed, he no longer holds his place at their pleasure, subject to periodic reelection, but as a government officer, who may be removed 164 The Century and the School against his will only by trial in the courts or by the disciplinary committee of the govern- ment. Not the local board, but the government has the right to decide whether an appoint- ment shall be probationary or permanent. The school superintendents or supervisors are government officers, not dependent on the good will of the local board, whose schools they supervise, and whose actions they may be called upon to censure or reverse. Teachers' Examinations The examination of all teachers is conducted by government officers. In a general way it may be said that all the teachers in the people's schools are normal graduates, whose final nor- mal school examination qualifies them for probationary appointment. This examination is both written and oral. It consists of one composition on an educational or literary sub- ject, and another on some topic of religious instruction. Three examples in arithmetic and geometry must be worked out and one question in each of the studies of history, science and geography must be answered. The candidate may be examined at his option in some foreign language, to obtain a higher grade. Visit to German Schools 165 The oral examination consists, in the first place, of some trial teaching in the presence of the examiners. The subject is assigned to the candidate two days previously and he must file a written synopsis of the proposed lesson before he gives it to the children. The rest of the oral examination extends over all the normal school studies, i.e., Science and history of education, school manage- ment, Bible lessons, language and literature, history, arithmetic and geometry, the elements of natural history, physics and chemistry, geography, drawing, penmanship, gymnastics, music, including the piano, organ and violin. The village teacher, as a rule, is required to play the organ in the church on Sundays. The second examination takes place after the young teacher has taught on probation from two to five years, and precedes the permanent appointment. Its topics are taken from the practical work of the schoolroom and the history and science of education. The Examining Government Commission issues to the successful candidate a certificate which declares him qualified for permanent appoint- ment. When once so appointed, no local board can remove him. He is a government officer. 1 66 The Century and the School For the high classes of the so-called middle class school, more advanced examinations are required and the positions there are chiefly held by university men, theologians or philol- ogists. University Influence In this connection a word might be said of the great influence which the twenty univer- sities exert on the German schools, or in fact on every phase of German life. There is no way to any of the professions of theology, of law, medicine or teaching in the higher grade schools, except through the uni- versity. Most of the chemists, pharmacists, engineers, higher civil officers, etc., have a university education. There is no way of entering the university except through the clas- sic schools, the gymnasium with its extensive Latin and Greek courses, or the Realschule, in which modern languages are substituted for Greek. It will be seen that classical edu- cation spreads through almost every rank of life and that the leading men in the German communities have a university education. In the city schools, the principals, all the teach- ers in the gymnasia, and many of the teachers in the middle and lower schools are university men. Visit to German Schools 167 While with us the old idea still lingers in a few places that a higher education is desir- able as a foundation for the acquirement of a profession, in Germany the opinion pre- vails in practice that no one is fit for leading professions who does not have a university education. The idea, especially, that a good education unfits a man for manual labor and the life of a worker, is not found in that coun- try. Public opinion tends somewhat in the direction of Bishop Whately's sentiment, which we may be allowed to quote: "Any one who says with Mandeville, 'If a horse knew as much as a man, I should not like to be his rider,' ought to add, ( If a man knew as little as a horse, I should not like to trust him to ride.' " The civil service rules of the government lay great stress on higher education as a con- dition for appointment to any higher office in the administrative, postal, telegraph and transportation departments. For graduates of the gymnasia and other higher schools, the rigidly required three years of military service are reduced to one. All these influences tend to make higher edu- cation in Germany both valuable and profit- able. 1 68 The Century and the School Universities It is beyond the scope and possibility of the present paper to give a description of the Ger- man university. Suffice it to say that it has a double function, namely, to teach the youths that have left the classical school, and second, to cultivate and advance science in every department. Appointment to the university takes place on the sole basis of eminence in scholarship, manifested by original literary or scientific work. The university duties of the professors are such as to encourage orig- inal research on the part of the professors and students by giving every facility in regard to libraries, apparatus and laboratories, by allow- ing much time for study and by giving to every individual, especially in the teaching corps, the greatest freedom of scope. Pensions The low salaries which the German gov- ernment pays to subordinate officers, especially to the teachers in the public schools, has given rise to the idea that the government must take care of them in their old age, for which their salaries are insufficient to provide. Teachers who become permanently inca- pacitated to fulfil their duties on account of Visit to German Schools 169 physical or mental infirmities may be pen- sioned on their request, or, where deemed proper, without it. If a teacher is pensioned during the first ten years of service the pension is forty per cent of his salary. For every further year of service one and a half per cent is added, until the pension reaches the full amount of the salary. Superannuated teach- ers may claim a pension without the plea of infirmity. In the matter of pensioning the government bears the main burden. In Prussia the gov- ernment pays fifty-nine, and the municipal- ities thirty-six per cent of the total amount, five per cent coming from other sources. Government Care While the appointment of teachers is left with the local board of trustees, the govern- ment prescribes the minimum salary to which every teacher is entitled, and which is graded by the number of inhabitants of a district. Sometimes private munificence helps the gov- ernment in improving salaries. Thus, a Coun- cilor May, who died in 1808, left his fortune as a joint and permanent legacy to all the teachers of his county who received less than 300 florins per year and the interest has been 170 The Century and the School distributed in this way for nearly a century. In many of the German states the salaries are made progressive with the years of service, rising in instances from 1350 marks for the first five years to 2500 marks after the twenty- fifth year of service. The salaries are gen- erally low and inadequate, the average salary for country teachers being $320, for city teach- ers $460. This is not the total income, because each teacher is entitled to some reimbursement for house-rent. Conclusion We Have finished the bird's-eye view of German educational institutions and are once more homeward bound. The teacher who has traveled in other lands returns with various impressions. He brings with him much new experience, new devices in teaching, new thoughts on educa- tion ; he values the grand work which is being done in his profession all over Europe, and he feels proud of the universal respect with which the humble calling of the teacher is looked upon by the older nations of the earth. But he also appreciates more keenly than ever the noble system of public schools in his own land so simple, so effective and so liberal in its grand design. Visit to German Schools 171 The common schools furnish one system for all, for the rich and poor, good enough for the one, cheap enough for the other, the gifts of knowledge descending into palace and hut like the generous rays of the sun. There is no di- vision into castes, social rank and classes at the very beginning of a child's school career. The teacher who returns from an educa- tional tour through Europe feels new courage in the consciousness that he belongs to a great army of workers who labor for a nobler humanity in the child-soul. All over the world the grand army of teachers in the midst of humble conditions, sometimes in poverty and want, shape with unflagging zeal the future of mankind. The honor and dignity of our work becomes more real when we see the same spirit of devotion and self-sacrifice manifested every- where in the world, and the returning teacher again records his vow to devote his best effort to the hero and savior of the future, the child of the present day. He realizes lovingly the beautiful words of the ancient Talmud of the Jews: "The world is only saved by the breath of little children." READING IN THE HIGHER GRADES Ik no study has there been a greater im- provement than in reading. The character of the readers in use at present in the leading schools everywhere in the United States places in the child's hands most excellent examples of classic English literature. The educa- tional progress made in this study consists not merely in the increased ability of the average child to read fluently and correctly; children have learned to like reading, and they read of their own accord. Culture and refinement always result from the faithful study of the masterpieces of liter- ature. In many cities boards of education have supplied the schools with sets of books of the highest literary character for supple- mentary reading, and the growth of the chil- dren under the influence of these literary helps has been marked. It has had a beneficial effect not only on the language studies, but, through the general influence on the mental growth of the child, has benefited other studies as well. 172 Reading in the Higher Grades 173 Much is being done by teachers everywhere to encourage the use of the public library, and, in turn, the public library boards supply lib- erally the best books for juvenile reading. When we speak of reading in the schools, we are apt to think rather of fluency, correct- ness and the like, than of the training the child receives through thoughtful study of the read- ing lesson. The great educational and practical impor- tance of reading is, that it introduces the child to the world at large, both in a physical and a spiritual sense. It opens to him a wider ho- rizon, and gives him nobler aspirations and purer sympathies ; takes the child or man, for the time, from the close limitations of his accustomed life, from the narrow circle of his few acquaintances, and puts him in the midst of new and varied scenes of nature and history. The walls of the room fall away, and the world opens; there is no aspect of nature, no relation of life, no trait of the human soul, of which the thoughtful reader remains ignorant. Education must prepare for the serious pur- poses of life. One of its great tasks is the introduction of the child at an early age to the larger life of the world. Externally, the process of making the child a member of 174 The Century and the School society is begun when he enters the kin- dergarten and meets other children whose rights he learns to respect. Through his in- tercourse with them, he learns gradually to curb his arbitrary will, to respect the rights of others, and to live and work with his equals. But education must introduce the child into human society in a broader sense; it must not only fit him to become, through trained char- acter and intelligence, a valuable member of society, it must also give him a glimpse at the ways of the world beyond the limits of his own narrow life experience. The child must be introduced into the cur- rent of the universal life as it pulsates in the social life of his age, and in the institutions and history of his nation. His narrow, per- sonal and direct experience must be supple- mented and cleared by the wider and indi- rectly transmitted experience of the world. There is no way in which this civilizing process can be brought about as naturally, efficiently, and forcibly as through reading. By means of well-selected and properly con- ducted reading lessons, the thoughts of others, their lives, the thoughts of past times, an infinite variety of social conditions and rela- tions, the character and motives of other peo- Reading in the Higher Grades 173 pie, the beauty and weakness of human action, are revealed to the child and widen his per- sonal experience. The larger world beyond his family and school dawns upon him, when he has been taught to read intelligently. Reading means the humanizing of the soul, because it makes it participate in the pulsation of the social and spiritual life of the race. Reading makes the mind omnipresent in time and space. All modern school readers are replete with lessons that acquaint the child with the noblest flower and fruit of the life of his own nation. Some of the grandest aspects of American life are depicted in them. When in the story of Daniel Boone there is told how those seven- teen sturdy yeomen and farmers met in the new lands of Kentucky to constitute a legal body, agreeing that the Sabbath must be observed, that the laws must be respected, that there shall be civic order in their colony, and when they morally bound themselves to stand by those laws, the story is not only choice liter- ature through its noble language, but the facts presented give to the young mind a glimpse of the noble and unique features of the character of the people to which he be- longs. Through well-selected reading lessons 176 The Century and the School the child thus becomes acquainted with the history of his own land, and is impressed with the great events and thoughts of its social and political life, as reflected in literature. Good reading humanizes the child; we might have used the equivalent expression that it civilizes him. Civilization, as a per- sonal quality, means fitness for life as an intel- ligent member of society and state. Much more than this is demanded as a result of suc- cessful education. Man must not be merely an intelligent, but also, and still more em- phatically, a moral being. With the training for civilized intelligence and refinement, moral culture must go hand in hand. An ethical world must be reared in the child's soul over which spreads a moral firmament illumined by the glowing stars of human virtues. There is no means of ethical training more efficient than well-conducted lessons in reading. They create in the child's soul ideals, and fill him with noble aspirations. His moral judgment turns against whatever in the story appears low and selfish. All good literature glorifies duty and goodness, and reading fills the young mind with ennobling ideals. The fact that reading may lead to the building up of a new soul, and to the refinement of the native con- Reading in the Higher Grades 177 science, the fact that it exercises moral judg- ment as to the relations of life, of which the child would remain ignorant, without instruc- tion in reading in the higher grades, is one more reason why the thoughtful educator assigns to reading the first place in the cur- riculum of the school. Reading is the magic mantle of which the poet speaks, which carries us on the wings of thought to wherever we desire to go, that "wafts him o'er the world at pleasure." Strange and distant lands become near and familiar. Times long past become real and present to the reader's mind. From the ends of time, from past centuries or decades, noble voices hold converse with him. He listens to Plato or Aristotle, Addison or Victor Hugo, Washington or Jefferson, and he becomes their confidant and companion. Noble spirits come and go at his wish. The wise and good of mankind advise and befriend him. They help to mold his character and to shape his life. A college president has recently been quoted as saying, "If I want to engage a teacher, I want a man, in the first place, and in the sec- ond place I want a man who can teach." In a similar way, the classic authors have been in 12 178 The Century and the School most cases both strong men and great writers. The great masterpieces of literature mirror the manhood and personality of the authors who, in their spiritual lives, stand above the rest of humanity, and whose genius has obtained glimpses of divine truths which they, like the prophets and seers of old, proclaim and reveal to the world that reads their books. Through reading the child enters into the companionship of the noblest minds, because the authors whose writings we are likely to select for him have the characteristics of strong manhood and womanhood. In becom- ing acquainted with literature, the child not only comes into contact with the grand works of literary art, but he is brought into touch with the greatest personalities which human history has produced. Reading is important not merely for utili- tarian reasons. It is necessary for the pur- suits of life, and that is a primary, practical and material reason for placing it first among the school studies. But there is a higher edu- cational and spiritual reason for its position in the school curriculum, based on the inestima- ble value of the contents of literature for the growing soul and for the human life that is to be shaped through education. Reading in the Higher Grades 179 These two points of view from which in- struction in reading may be considered have a direct and practical bearing on the work of the school. Instruction in reading must im- part to the child, in the first place, the full mastery of the mechanism of reading. He must, in the course of his school career, be- come able to read fluently and correctly any ordinary printed matter placed before him. No other acquisition can possibly be an excuse for deficiency in this particular. On the other hand, instruction in reading will not have that educational influence which constitutes its highest value, unless the child is brought into touch — direct, living, interested touch — in sentiment and thought, with the master-mind that stands back of the printed page. The idea that reading is the child's means of entering into sympathetic companionship with the great men of the race and sharing their thoughts and sentiments, leads to the conclusion that the teacher, in using the read- ing books with his classes, must single out for special attention those selections in which there is a noble thought presented, or in which human life is depicted in its best aspects. Methods of teaching reading must be so adjusted that the ennobling influence of liter- 180 The Century and the School ature becomes a substantial and ever-present element of the work of the school. That this can be done is apparent from the fact that it is being done in the best schools all over the country. Every teacher should know how to make this theory an actual condition in her schoolroom. In teaching, for instance, the reading of the selection from Robert C. Win- throp's "The Flag of Our Country," it is the teacher's task, in the first place, to secure the ready, correct and expressive reading of the language of the poem, the explanation of dif- ficult passages, the pronunciation and mean- ing of unusual words. But if instruction stops with this, there is an opportunity wasted and lost. The teacher fails to accomplish the highest task unless she can lead the child fully to realize and share the author's sentiment, and feel with patriotic emotion the force of the author's words on the flag of his country: "Behold it! Listen to it! Every star has a tongue; every stripe is articulate." "There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard." Bacon said: "Reading makes a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man." Reading, speaking and writing are the three main lines of all language study. On Reading in the Higher Grades 181 which of them should we lay stress in training the child? Should he be full of information; should he be able to use his knowledge readily, and with fair exactness? The answer, as a matter of course, is that the child needs all three — a fair degree of information, and read- iness and clearness in its use. Each of them is necessary, and methods of instruction in read- ing must embody the acquisition of knowl- edge and its use in speech and writing. It follows that all school reading, in order to fill the mind with information, must be not merely a speaking of the words, but, simultaneously and pre-eminently, a grasping of the thought. This is true of the very first step in primary reading, and equally true of the classic selec- tions in the higher grades. The teacher should not be satisfied with having the chil- dren merely pronounce the words; she must see that they grasp the idea underlying each selection. The possession of the mechanical art of reading is, by common consent, made the dividing line which separates the educated man from the illiterate. Not his ability to cipher, nor his knowledge of the rudiments of history or geography, is made the test, but his ability to read print and write his name. 1 82 THe Century and the School All the world over, the statistician's figures of illiteracy are based on the test of mechanical reading. Reading is considered the measure and test of general education. Life's requirement, that the schools should train children to be able to read common words at sight, is merely a minimum demand; but it is at the same time a most essential requirement. The school may do, and ought to do, more for the child in the study of read- ing than to make him a ready reader; it cannot afford to do less. No matter what other tasks and studies the school charges itself with, this remains the most elementary and the most indispensable. The school that does not train ready readers is a weak school, no matter what else may be accomplished successfully in other studies. Reading must rank first in every school curriculum, both from a practical and from an educational point of view. It is the earliest task that school education must under- take, and is therefore a test of the efficiency of primary instruction. On the acquisition of the mechanical art of reading school instruc- tion must lay stress in every grade, and be indefatigable in the watchful practice of ready reading. In this the demands of life and that of educational science coalesce; reading forms Reading in the Higher Grades 183 the key to every other study of the school. Educational considerations demand more from this study than the mere mastery of the mechanism of pronouncing words at sight. The derivation of the Latin word or the French word for reading, suggests the idea of gathering together something. It seems to mean the putting together of letters to form a word. The Anglo-Saxon word from which we derive our own does not mean to gather signs together through the eye, but means to counsel, to suggest, to explain. Thus, the English word "to read" points in itself to something more than the mere ability to ex- press, in speech, the written character, and suggests another, far deeper, reason why read- ing should be placed first in a course of instruction. It does not reject the merely formal idea connected with it, namely, the mechanical ability to pronounce readily the word for which certain signs stand, but it means much more. It means that the reader should grasp the thought held in the printed word. It rises above the minimum require- ments of business life, and above merely mechanical schoolroom practices, to a higher view of the purposes of reading. The me- chanical art of reading, absolutely essential as 184 The Century and the School it is, becomes an indispensable but subor- dinate means to an end that ranks infinitely- higher. It places the importance of reading in the content and thought rather than in the form and the words. While each of the various purposes which reading must subserve imposes certain specific demands on the practical methods of teaching it, it would be a mistake to suppose that all these aims are equivalent and that they can receive equal attention. All the indirect and higher advantages that should come from well-directed reading lessons are in turn dependent on the mastery of the mechanical art. To it every single lesson in reading in any grade must contribute. Material as well as spiritual considerations demand that the teacher should in the first place insist upon the fluent, correct and expressive reading of the printed characters; all the other purposes are secured through this skill. No higher demand can possibly take the place of this elementary requirement. Nothing can be substituted for the attainment of fluency and mechanical correctness. Towards it the attention and persistent efforts of the teacher in every grade must constantly be directed. The other aims are of vital importance in the Reading in the Higher Grades 185 process of education, but they may possibly be accomplished, at least in a measure, by the youth's own effort. If he is mechanically a skilful reader, his mind may penetrate the thoughts and sentiments of the selection with- out the teacher's help. Some educators, most thoughtful otherwise in the study of peda- gogical science, ignore the very important fact that the child is not only the passive recipient, but is, in his own way, an active gatherer of knowledge. He is not only being educated, but he is constantly educating himself. He is not merely a passive entity, and the educa- tional product of teachers and schools, but he has independent, spontaneous growth. He learns much that he has never been taught, he understands much that the teacher has never explained. The child need not be taken care of in every respect, for in many ways he takes quite good care of himself. There are many things he is likely to learn and acquire with- out anybody's help. Let no educator for a moment suppose that what he does not do for the child is not done at all. One of the petty mistakes of modern methods of instruction is the notion that the child will grasp nothing unless it is whittled down to the lowest mental dimensions. We weary him with artificially 1 86 The Century and the School attenuated information, and befog his intel- ligence with superfluous explanations. In reading, the teacher's constant and watchful help is necessary to lead the child to master the mechanical art and at the same time to become fully conscious of the ideas which they express. But the stress of school- room practice must always be laid on the former. It would be a great mistake not to consider constantly the higher purposes which reading serves ; it would be a greater mistake to slight the acquisition of the mechanical art, by over anxiety that the child should fully master the contents. The latter the child may possibly do without the aid of the teacher, but he will never see the full meaning of the words for himself, and use reading as a guide to knowledge, and culture, and life, unless instruction and drill remove the mechanical difficulties of the art of reading at an early day. It is only after the recognition of the printed word has become an automatic process that undivided attention can be given by the child to the ideal world that lives in the books. Hence the very conviction that the great edu- cational value of reading does not lie in the mechanical art, but in the culture to be derived from the contents, is in itself the prime reason Reading in the Higher Grades 187 for the most thorough and persistent drill in fluent and correct reading. The child must master the form before he can reach the content. In the programs of some modern elementary schools this study has changed its name. The term "reading" has been abandoned, and the word "literature" substituted. The reason given for the change is that reading is merely a formal art, and that the name of the study should indicate its substance rather than its form. Conceding the self-evident truth of the proposition that reading should lead to something beyond the mastery of the mere form of the words, the substitution of the new term does not seem warranted. The English word "reading" means the mastery of both the form and content. There is good reason for preferring the term "reading" to the modern substitute, "literature," as a name for the common school study. Reading is the name for a power; literature the name for a certain body of knowledge. The power question at the end of a common school education is not: "Does the child know literature?" but rather, "Can he read?" The new name seems to place the stress on an important but not the most important aim — on knowledge rather 1 88 The Century and the School than on power. The word reading, rightly understood, means both the acquisition of the art, and the possession of a knowledge of some literary works. In the acquisition of his mother tongue, or of any language, the mind of the learner has a twofold task. When the infant listens to the speech of others, when the boy listens to the words of the teacher, or reads his lessons, his mind is absorbing language and informa- tion. It is receptive, and in a measure pas- sive. When you read a book there is no apparent activity; you allow the thought of the author to flow unresisted into your soul, you permit his images to act on the stage of your own mind. Your thoughts are made the instrument on which the hand of another plays. The chords of your soul vibrate in response to his touch. The current of your thoughts is directed by the author who lived and wrote perhaps three centuries ago. He plays on the instrument of your mind, and makes you see the visions of his own. Your mind is under another's control. In listening, or reading, the mind is in a receptive attitude. It is determined by external agencies. There is another aspect of language, in which the mental attitude is no longer recep- Reading in the Higher Grades 189 tive and determined externally, but active, creative and self-determined. When you answer a question, when you speak to a friend, the words and thoughts are the product and spontaneous expression of your own soul. The mind is not in a receptive but in a creative, active and self-determining attitude. There is in all language this double element of determination and self-determination, or, in other words, of receptivity and self-active spontaneity. Hearing and reading belong to the phase of receptivity; speaking and writing to the phase of spontaneity. In all language work which the common school is doing, the two phases, that of receptivity and that of spontaneous activity on the part of the chil- dren, should be represented. There is a balancing alternation between the receptive and spontaneous activities in the physical process of life. We take in food pre- pared by nature, and then the physical process self-actively converts this food into vital power. Similarly, in the mental work which educa- tion imposes on the child, the processes of receptivity and spontaneity should be made to alternate. Whatever the child gains in knowl- edge should be in some way or other converted into power. Power in connection with Ian- 190 The Century and the School guage would be power to express things orally or in writing. This interaction of the recep- tive and self-active processes of the mind should be brought into play in all instruction in language, or reading, as well as in all other subjects. Instruction in reading that would aim exclusively at the absorption of the in- formation of the book, would not make full use of the opportunities which instruction in reading offers for the development of faculty. It would be one-sided training, receptive, but not cultivating spontaneous activity. Each lesson in reading requires for its sequel some exercise in which the words of the lesson are used by the child and in which he can express himself in regard to what he has read. FOLKLORE AND FAIRY TALES Desdemona would devour with greedy ear Othello's marvelous story of the Anthro- pophagi, or cannibals, or the men whose heads grow beneath their shoulders. The only witchcraft which the Moor used to woo and win her, was the stirring story of youth and adventure, danger and rescue. It was by the stories of genii and fairies that Queen Sche- herezade tamed the fierce passions of her lord and master, and, through his awakened inter- est, she made him amenable to gentler and more human feelings. All ages and climes have felt the enchantment of the household story and fairy tale. Story-telling attracts hearers in the Arabian desert and in the cof- fee-houses of Bagdad. It gathers cheering crowds round the stump-speaker from Georgia to Oregon. Every new generation is charmed again by the greatest of all story-tellers, Homer. Chaucer's tales are the fountain- head and inspiration of English literature. Story-telling through novel and romance is the most popular feature of modern literature. 191 192 The Century and the School Even the abstract doctrines of socialistic re- form, when clothed in the garb of a story, gain a most extensive and interested audience. Childhood is ever enchanted by the legend and household tale, and never tires of repeti- tion. The intense interest which the young take in these stories, suggests an important use to which they may be applied in cultivating young minds. Education should ever take cognizance of the points towards which the natural interest of youth tends, and use them as fulcrums for the spiritual levers by which child-nature is to be raised to higher culture. Since the strong, natural interests of child- hood should be made serviceable to rational education, the delight which children take in these household tales will justify the attempt to utilize them in the training of young minds and tender hearts. The telling of household stories and folk- lore tales, such as Jack the Giant Killer, Tom Thumb, Sleeping Beauty, The Wolf and The Kids, etc., is so universally used to amuse and instruct the young of all classes of society, that it is difficult to imagine that there ever could have been a time when these children's stories were unknown. Yet, old as they may be, their literary birth at least is of compara- Folklore and Fairy Tales 193 tively recent date. It is not much more than 200 years since they made their first appear- ance in the modern world of letters in Per- rault's Stories of Olden Times. While this was their first arrival in European literature, it is only within the last hundred years that the household tale became the subject of earnest study and general attention through Grimm's charming collection of Folklore, which was published in 18 12. Although Perrault said of his stories that "they lack sense, and therefore are designed for children that have not any sense as yet," it has become evident since Grimm's time that in all these incongruities and absurdities of fairy- and dreamland, there is a current of genuine good sense and sterling ethical value. If there were not this element in them, it would be difficult to account for the fact that these stories, "which lack sense," have sur- vived for thousands of years in the struggle for existence, to which popular traditions, too, are subject, and in which only the fittest will live. While these stories have existed in European literature but for a short time, their age has been traced through tradition into the darkening shadows of prehistoric times. Perrault and Grimm did not invent 13 194 The Century and the School they gathered. Some of the stories that are familiar to everybody, such as La Fontaine's Story of Perette, the milkmaid, — who is build- ing up a fortune in her thoughts from the pro- ceeds of the milk which she is carrying to town, and whose day-dreams end when she accidentally spills the milk, — have been traced back through the literatures of Europe and Asia, to France, Spain, Italy, Greece, thence to Persia and Hindoostan, and, perhaps, to the Aryan ancestors of all Indo-European races. To the poet's question: "Should you ask me whence these stories, Whence these legends and traditions, With the odors of the forest, With the dew and damp of meadows?" Grimm could have returned no other answer than that of the poet himself: "I repeat them as I heard them." He took these stories as he obtained them among the peasants of Germany; most of them he heard from the lips of the wife of a cowherd near Cassel. They were told him with such reverence for the form which old tradition had given them, that the scholar did not feel warranted to deviate from it in giving them to the world. These household stories, even where we cannot trace their transmission from race to Folklore and Fairy Tales 195 race, contain in themselves strong circum- stantial evidence of great age. They speak of a time and a civilization when man's kinship with the animal kingdom, and even with the inorganic world, was an established fact in his mind. The animal, in these tales, is wise and powerful. It serves, protects and even guides man; it has language, and sagaciously coun- sels him; it may assume human shape. The kinship between the two is so close that man and animal are often transformed into each other. Puss in Boots is wiser than his mas- ter and helps him with sly cunning to happi- ness and fortune. Puss is wiser and stronger than even the giant, whom it avails little, that he can assume any animal form at will. It is not difficult to conceive that in the remote past the ancestors of modern civiliza- tion may have held views similar to those reflected in these household stories and may have looked upon the animal world as man's kindred, as a mysterious, wise and powerful race. We know that such beliefs and views do exist among barbarous tribes at the present time. The peculiar superstition of savage life that is known under the name of "Totemism," contains a kind of barbarous philosophy, and crude doctrine concerning 196 The Century and the School the origin of world, of life and death, with a stringent code of tribal ethics. "And they painted on the grave posts Of the graves, yet unforgotten, Each his own ancestral totem, Each the symbol of his household; Figures of the bear and reindeer, Of the turtle, crane and beaver." Totemism shows a view of the animal king- dom that is strangely akin to the world of the household tale and the important part which animals play in it. The savage looks upon the animal of his tribe, or his totem, as the an- cestor and protecting genius of his race, and attributes unlimited power and wisdom to it. Many of the features of Totemism as they can be observed today in the primitive social organization of savage tribes, remind us of traits found in legend and household tale. It looks as if the weird ethics of Totemism had left their traces in them. When we read that with some tribes the husband's name must not be spoken by the wife, we think of a corre- sponding feature used in the modern version of Lohengrin. The cannibalism of savagery, the medicine man's power to assume animal form at will, is the content of more than one story. The belief of Totemism that objects have souls is found in the talking bread and Folklore and Fairy Tales 197 the talking apples of the story of "Mother Holle." The idea of the "Taboo" is con- tained in "Bluebeard," "Aladdin" and others. The prominent position which many household stories assign to the smallest or youngest child finds some analogy in primi- tive society. In many polygamic tribes the law obtains that the youngest son is the heir. No feature is found more frequently in fairy tales than that the youngest or smallest child is represented as wiser or better than others, and becomes their leader. Besides the evidences of prehistoric tribal existence, there are found in these legends the traces of awakening spiritual life, of a time when man dimly divined the existence of per- sonality behind the forces of nature, ruling over and guiding their play through intelli- gence; of a time when the phenomena of na- ture first appealed to him as the manifestations of some supreme, invisible power which he fancied to be like himself, a person in shape and being, but grander. Round the common phenomena of nature he wove the myths of personality. The sun which dies in the splen- dor of its power in the red dawn, when he stoops to the great water of the West becomes, in the Nibelungen-story, Siegfried, the gold- 198 The Century and the School enhaired, who is killed by Hagen while stoop- ing to drink from the spring in the woods. The story of the sun becomes, in the Welsh tradition, the myth of King Arthur dying in the fulness of his strength, in the West, by the great water, in which he is buried. The story of the "Sleeping Beauty" personifies autumnal nature that must sleep through the torpor of Winter, until the kiss of a beautiful prince, Spring, calls her back to life. There is also plentiful evidence of the later arrival of Christianity. Not unfrequently the old background of superstition remains, but the action and moral of the story have become modern and Christian. Many other stories are unalloyed types of purest Christian thought. No less remarkable than the age of these stories is their universal spread. The tales that Grimm recorded as he heard them from the mouth of a German peasant woman, have been found in similar form in almost every part of the globe, among the tribes of Africa, among the Malay races, or among the North- American Indians. Some appear in almost identical form in the stories of the plantation negroes of the South, as told by Uncle Remus. There are strange analogies between "Rey- Folklore and Fairy Tales 199 nard the Fox," which Goethe has made mod- ern and immortal in his epic, and the inex- haustible adventures of Bre'r Rabbit and Bre'r Fox. To account for the spread of these stories by assuming that they were transmitted from one land and race to others, is quite out of the question when the distances in location and time, and the differences in race and lan- guage are considered; the wide diffusion of the legends remains a mystery. Their close agreement in subject or plot and their uni- versal spread, however, are evidences of the fact that the thought of the childhood of races is similar in drift everywhere, and that these stories have ever been the product as well as the delight of the child-mind. The age and universality of these stories are of interest to the student of language or of anthropology. They possess a third char- acteristic which appeals more directly to the teacher and suggests their use in education. Not a few of them contain the noblest ethical lessons and teach wise rules of conduct in the simplest and most child-like form. When through frequent repetition an at- tractive story of strong moral bearing has once been lodged in the mind of the child, a pal- 200 The Century and the School pable ethical truth takes root with it and may be made to grow and blossom. The Her- bartian system of education, which numbers many adherents among the thoughtful teach- ers of Germany, has recognized the ethical value of the household tale, and has assigned to it a central place in primary instruction around which all other work is grouped. They make the story of the medium of what they call "Gesinnungs-Unterricht," or, of les- sons for the ethical adjustment of the child's mental attitude. They consider this the most important subject of early school-training. How there can be in these stories of olden times this peculiar admixture of an old, bar- barous element with grand ethical truth, is not difficult to see. It follows directly from their great age. Long before they were re- ceived and fixed in literature, they were handed down in a more fleeting form from generation to generation by oral transmission. Round the fireside where the ancient grand- mother with her busy spinning wheel sat, the children gathered to listen with breathless interest to the tale of the Wolf and the seven little Kids, of the Golden Goose, of Little Snow-White or Little Red Riding Hood. The spell of romance which charmed Desde- Folklore and Fairy Tales 201 mona and the enchantment of Queen Schehe- rezade have been felt by each new generation of children. Through the influence of the story their thoughts were widened and their feelings refined. There were neither books nor schools in those early times. The art of reading was unknown among the people, and the traditional folklore stories formed a spiritual interest that had no rival in the routine of their lives or in the thoughts of young and old. Their minds dwelt on them with affection. They were the only intellec- tual feast to which childhood was invited, and when through repetition and interest they had become fixed in the soul of the new genera- tion, this knowledge was never lost, and at a later time the hearers related these wonderful tales in turn to their own children. These stories were thus preserved by be- coming assimilated in the minds of men that heard and told them. Minds, however, change as time changes, and with these minds the stories themselves must have suffered mutation and change. As man adjusted him- self unconsciously to the never ceasing march of civilization which has by easy steps of slow evolution transformed savagery into culture, these stories that dwelt for ages in the minds 202 The Century and the School of men must have participated in the change. The barbarous element in them receded, and the ethical truth became stronger, as man was being transformed from a savage into an ethical being. The predominance of the ethical element in these stories may also be accounted for by the character of the audience which they al- ways commanded. In those long epochs of oral transmission they were told to listening youth by wise old age whose task and aim it naturally was to guide and rule the young. In epochs when scholastic training had no existence, all parental effort in the training of the young naturally tended in the direction of good behavior and rectitude of action, and it was natural that much educational advice and counsel should be skilfully and pleasantly imparted by the older people in the guise of cherished story or fairy tale. The household story was the earliest ethical study in the edu- cational curriculum of the race; it was used for ages before schools existed, and as a means of moral training it deserves again a promi- nent place in the Kindergarten and Primary School. The features of primitive life which folk lore embodies have suffered attrition through Folklore and Fairy Tales 203 constant contact with the vigorous life of a nobler civilization and are so much obliter- ated that their presence is discerned by the scholar rather than the reader. In a corre- sponding degree the lessons of modern life, the rules of conduct, the nobleness of moral ac- tion have become more prominent. We have considered the age and origin of the household story, in order to suggest the necessity of a careful selection for the pur- poses of the Kindergarten and to show the principle which should guide the choice, namely, the ethical value and the fitness of ap- plication to child-conduct. Fortunately, the number of thoroughly pure and noble stories, that are at the same time of deepest interest to child-nature is almost unlimited. We have so far treated these stories as if all of them were old and traditional. Yet this is by no means the case. Modern litera- ture, following the lead of ancient tradition, has invented a countless host of such tales for children, and the hand of masters, like Ander- sen, has produced many little gems of child- lore which need not shun comparison with the best traditional heirlooms. No better means to convey early ethical instruction can be found. With a child of 204 The Century and the School tender age the same moral which when put into the abstract form of a maxim or com- mand will tire or repel, will interest and be assimilated when clothed in the garb of a simple and attractive tale. Story-telling may be so arranged and conducted as to become a power in the child's education. There is no end to the special ethical doctrines which household stories teach : help- fulness to others, self-sacrifice, devotion and gratitude to parents, modesty, courage in dan- ger, respect for old age, sympathy for suffer- ing, reverence, pity, humility and fortitude and countless similar traits are illustrated and inculcated by them. In the story of Tom Thumb, or Peppercorn, the seemingly small assumes importance. To counteract the child's destructive propensities and careless- ness with things, man's dependence on the most insignificant objects is illustrated. To curb the tyranny of the older and stronger child, many household tales extol the wis- dom and love of the weakest and youngest brother or sister and recommend them to the respect and consideration of the older. Kind- ness to animals is taught, since the lower world is constantly represented as sharing the life of the human race in sentiment and fate. Goe- Folklore and Fairy Tales 205 the's Faust in his prayer thanks the Divine Spirit for his kindly gifts and for none more than that he taught him to know his kinship to all living creatures : "Thou gav'st me nature for my kingdom grand, . . . The ranks of living creatures thou dost lead Before me, teaching me to know my brother, In air and water, and the silent wood." The same thought was beautifully ex- pressed by Francis of Assisi in his sermon in the fields when he spoke of "The Birds, my brothers." Sympathy with animals is a step in the direction of the love which the child owes to man, and the household tale teaches these lessons constantly. Hospitality and kindness to the stranger recommend them- selves to the child when he hears of the fairy that visits the house of the rich and poor in humblest guise, and rewards courtesy and benevolence. He sees laziness, disobedience, rudeness, cruelty and churlishness punished. Fiction often is a good guide to reality; it leads the child to form a kind of image of the life beyond the threshold of nursery and kin- dergarten, and he learns to realize that it will demand respect for others, industry and truth, and that happiness and success will be the reward of these virtues. 206 The Century and the School Courage and hopefulness are taught; at times the story takes a semi-humorous form, as in the tale of "The Youth who went to learn Fear," but in most instances the direct moral is, that with a just cause even the young and the weak need not fear the giants of the world. In addition to these general ethical truths many other lessons of child conduct are incul- cated, especially in the animal stories. None of these lessons occurs more frequently than the doctrine that the sum and substance of the child's code of morals is found in the duty of obedience to his parent. That the parent wills nothing but what is good, that he is wiser than the child, and that disobedience is a peril, forms the substance of tales like the Wolf and Seven Kids. Since the ethical content of these stories is altogether inexhaustible, there is hardly any limit to their usefulness in moral instruction. The interest with which the child listens to their enjoyable content is transferred uncon- sciously to the higher truth which they em- body, and their introduction into nursery and kindergarten may contribute towards the highest aim of all educational efforts, the building of a rational and ethical character. 'HE following pages contain advertisements of a few of the Macmillan publications on education, etc. A LIST OF BOOKS FOR TEACHERS Published by The Macmillan Company ADAMS, John. Exposition and Illustration in Teaching. Cloth. viii+U28 pages. $1.25 net. ARMSTRONG, Henry E. The Teaching of Scientific Method and Other Papers on Education. Cloth. xxvii+50U pages. $1.75 net. 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Cloth. 12mo. xii+230 pages. $1.00 net. CHUBB, Percival. The Teaching of English. By Percival Chubb, Principal of High School Department, Ethical Culture School, New York. Cloth. 12mo. xvii+Ull pages. $1.00 net. COLLAR, George, and CROOK, Charles W. School Management and Methods of Instruction. By George Collar and Charles W. Crook, London. Cloth. 12mo. viii+836 pages. $1.00 net. CRONSON, Bernard. Methods in Elementary School Studies. By Bernard Cronson, A.B., Ph.D., Principal of Public School No. 9, Borough of Manhattan, City of New York. Cloth. 12mo. 167 pages. $1.25 net. Pupil Self -Government. Cloth. 12mo. ix+107 pages. $.90 net. CUBBERLEY. Syllabus of Lectures on the History of Edu- cation. With Selected Bibliographies and Suggested Readings. By Ellwood P. Cubberley, Second Edition, revised and enlarged. In two parts. Part I, v+129 pages, $1.50 net; Part II. xv+361 pages, $1.50 net. Complete in one volume, $2.60 net. DE GARMO, Charles. Interest and Education. By Charles De Garmo, Professor of the Science and Art of Education in Cornell University. Cloth. 12mo. xvii+2S0 pages. $1.00 net. The Principles of Secondary Education. Vol. I, Studies. Cloth. 12mo. xii+299 pages. $1.25 net. Vol. II, Processes of Instruction, xii+200 pages. $1.00 net. Vol. Ill, Ethical Training. x+220 pages. $1.00 net. DEXTER, Edwin Grant. A History of Education in the United States. By Edwin Grant Dexter, Professor of Education in the University of Illinois. Cloth. xxi-Y 665 pages, 8vo. $2.00 net. A LIST OF BOOKS FOR TEACHERS— Continued DUTTON, Samuel T Social Phases of Education in the School and the Home. By Samuel T. Dutton, Superintendent of the Hor- ace Mann Schools, New York. Cloth. 12mo. ix+259 pages. $1.25 net. DUTTON & SNEDDEN. The Administration of Public Educa- tion in the United States. By Samuel Train Dutton, A.M., and David Snedden, Ph.D. With an Introduction by Nicholas Murray Butler, Ph.D., LL.D. Cloth. 12mo. viii+595 pages. Bibliography. Index. $1.75 net. FITCH, Sir Joshua, educational Aims and Methods. Lectures and Addresses by Sir Joshua Fitch, late Her Majesty's Inspector of Training Colleges. Cloth. 12mo. xii+UUS pages. $1.25 net. Lectures on Teaching. Cloth. 16mo. xiii+393 pages. $1.00 net. FOGHT, Harold W. The American Rural School. By H. W. Foght, Professor of Education, Midland College. Cloth, xxii+366 pages. $1.25 net. GANONG, William F. The Teaching Botanist. By William F. Ganong, Ph.D., Smith College. Cloth. 12mo. Rewritten ed. xii+khh pages. $1.25 net. GILMAN, MaryL. Seat Work and Industrial Occupations. A Practical Course for Primary Grades. By Mary L. Gilman, Principal of the Clay School, Minneapolis, Minn., and Elizabeth L. Williams, Principal of the Holmes School, Minneapolis, Minn. Fully illustrated. Cloth. Square 12mo. lkl pages. $.50 net. GRAVES, Frank P. A History of Education before the Middle Ages. By Frank Pierrepont Graves, Ohio State University. Cloth. 320 pages. Bibliography. $1.10 net. HALLECK, Ruben Post. The Education of the Central Nerv- ous System. A Study of Foundations, especially of Sensory and Motor Training. Cloth. 12mo. xii+258 pages. $1.00 net. HANUS, Paul H. A Modern School. By Paul H. Hanus, Professor of the History and Art of Teaching in Harvard University. Cloth. 12mo. x+306 pages. $1.25 net. Educational Aims and Educational Values. By Paul H. Hanus. Cloth. 12mo. vii+221 pages. $1.00 net. HENDERSON, Ernest N. The Principles of Education. By Ernest Norton Henderson, Professor of Education and Philosophy in Adelphi College, Brooklyn. Cloth. 8vo. xiv+570 pages. $1.75 net. HERBART, John Frederick. Outlines of Educational Doctrine. By John Frederick Herbart. Translated by Alex. F. Lange, Associate Professor of English and Scandinavian Philology and Dean of the Faculty of the College of Letters, University of California. An- notated by Charles De Garmo, Professor of the Science and Art of Education, Cornell University. Cloth. Large 12mo. xi+3Sk pages. $1.25 net. HERRICK, Cheesman A. The Meaning and Practice of Com- mercial Education. By Cheesman A. Herrick, Ph.D., Director of School of Commerce, Philadelphia Central High School. Cloth. 12mo. xv-rS78 pages. $1.25 net. HORNE, Herman Harrell. The Philosophy of Education. By Herman Harrell Home, Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Peda- gogy in Dartmouth College. Cloth. Svo. xvii+395 pages. $1.50 net. A LIST OF BOOKS FOR TEACHERS— Continued HORNE, Herman Harrell. The Psychological Principles of Education. 12mo. xiii-V 135 pages. $1.75 net. Idealism in Education. Cloth. 12mo. xxi-\-183 paaes. $1.25 net, HUEY, Edmond B. The Psychology and Pedagogy of Reading. By Professor Edmund B. Huey, of the Western University of Pennsyl- vania. Cloth. 12mo. xvi+!t69 pages. $lM0net. JONES, Olive M., LEARY, Eleanor G., and QUISH, Agnes E. Teaching Children to Study. The Group system applied. Illustrated. Cloth. 12mo. viii+ 193 pages. $.80 net, KILPATRICK, Van Evrie. Departmental Teaching in Elemen- tary Schools. Cloth. 12mo. xiii+ 130 pages. $.60 net. KIRKPATRICK, Edwin A. Fundamentals of Child Study. By Professor Edwin A. Kirkpatrick, Principal of State Normal School, Fitchburg, Mass. Cloth. 12mo. xxi+38k pages. $1.25 net. Genetic Psychology. Cloth, xv+373 pages. $1.25 net. LAURIE, S. S. Institutes of Education. 3d ed. Cloth, xii+391 pages. $1.90 net. MAJOR, David R. First Steps in Mental Growth. A Series of Studies in the Psychology of Infancy. By David R. Major, Professor of Education in the Ohio State University. Cloth. 12mo. xiv+360 pages. $1.25 net. THE McMURRY SERIES Each, cloth, 12mo. General Method The Elements of General Method. By Charles A. McMurry. 323 pages. $.90 net. The Method of the Recitation. By Charles A. McMurry and Frank M. McMurry, Professor of the Theory and Practice of Teach- ing, Teachers College, Columbia University. xi+329 pages. $.90 net. Special Method. By Charles A. McMurry. Special Method in Primary Reading and Oral WorK with Stories. vii+103 pages. $.60 net. Special Method in the Rsading of English Classics. vi+25U pages. $.75 net. Special Method in Language in the Eight Grades. viii+192 pages. $.70 net- Special Method in History. vii+291pages. ^.75 net- Special Method in Arithmetic. vii+225 pages. $.70 net. Special Method in Geography. xi+217 pages. $.70 net. Special Method in Elementary Science. ix+275 pages. $.75 net. Nature Study Lessons for Primary Grades. By Mrs. Lida B. McMurry, with an introduction by Charles A. Murry. xi+191 pages. $.60 net. Course of Study in the Eight Grades Vol.1. Grades I to TV. vii+236 pages. $.75 net. Vol. II. Grades V to VIII. v+226 pages. $.75 net. MONROE, Paul. A Brief Course in the History of Education. By Paul Monroe, Ph.D., Professor in the History of Education, Teach- ers College, Columbia University. Cloth. 8vo. xviii+U09 pages. $1.25 net. A LIST OF BOOKS FOR TEACHERS— Continued MONROE, Paul. A Text-BooK in the History of Education. Cloth, xxiii+277 pages. 12mo. $1.90 net. A Source Book of the History of Education. For the Greek and Roman Period. Cloth, xiii+515 pages. 8vo. $2.25 net. O'SHEA. M. V. Dynamic Factors in Education. By M. V. O'Shea, Professor of the Science and Art of Education, University of Wisconsin. Cloth. 12mo. xiii+320 pages. $1.25 net. Linguistic Development and Education. Cloth. 12mo. xvii+3U7 pages. $1.25 net. PARK, Joseph C. Educational Woodworking for Home and School. By Joseph C. Park, State Normal and Training School, Oswego, N. Y. Cloth. 12mo. xiii+2 10 pages, illustrated. $1.00 net. PERRY, Arthur C. The Management of a City School. By Arthur C. Perry, Jr., Ph.D., Principal of Public School No. 85, Brooklyn, N. Y. Cloth. 12mo. viii+ 350 pages. $1.25 net. ROWE, Stuart H. The Physical Nature of the Child. By Dr. Stuart H. Rowe, Professor of Psychology and the History of Edu- cation, Training School for Teachers, Brooklyn, N. Y. Cloth. 12mo. vi+211 pages. $.90 net. ROYCE, Josiah. Outlines of Psychology. An Elementary Treatise with Some Practical Applications. By Josiah Royce, Professor of the History of Philosophy in Harvard University. Cloth. 12mo. xxvii+392 pages. $1.90 net. SHAW, Edward R. School Hygiene. By the late Edward R. Shaw. Cloth, vii+255 pages. 12mo. $1.00 net. SHORTER, Edwin DuBois. The Rhetoric of Oratory. By the Associate Professor of Public Speaking in the University of Texas. Cloth. 323 pages. 12mo. $1.10 net. SINCLAIR, S. B., and TRACY, F. Introductory Educational Psy- cho logy. A book for Teachers in Training. Cloth. 180 pages. $.90 net. SMITH, David E. The Teaching of Elementary Mathematics. By David E. Smith, Professor of Mathematics, Teachers College, Columbia University. Cloth, xv+312 pages. 12mo. $1.00 net. SNEDDEN and ALLEN. School Reports and School Efficiency. By David S. Snedden, Ph.D., and William H. Allen, Ph.D. For the New York Committee on Physical Welfare of School Children. Cloth. 12mo. xi+ 183 pages. $1.50 net. VANDEWALKER, Nina C. The Kindergarten in American Edu- cation. By Nina C. Vandewalker, Director of Kindergarten Training Department, Milwaukee State Normal School. Cloth. xiii-\-27U pages. Portr., index, 12mo. $1.25 net. WARNER, Francis. The Study of Children and their School Training. By Francis Warner. Cloth. xix+26U pages. 12mo. $1.00 net. WINTERBURN and BARR. Methods in Teaching. Being the Stockton Methods in Elementary Schools. By Mrs. Rosa V. Winter- burn, of Los Angeles, and James A. Barr, Superintendent of Schools at Stockton, Cal. Cloth. xii+ 355 pages. 12mo. $1.25 net. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York A CYCLOPEDIA OF EDUCATION Edited by PAUL MONROE, Ph.D. Professor of the History of Education, Teachers College, Colum- bia University; Author of "A Text-Book in the History of Education," "Brief Course in the History of Education," etc. The need of such work is evidenced: By the great mass of varied educational literature showing an equal range in educational practice and theory; by the growing importance of the school as a social institution, and the fuller recognition of education as a social process; and by the great increase in the number of teachers and the instability of tenure which at the same time marks the profession. The men who need it are: All teachers, professional men, editors, ministers, legislators, all public men who deal with large questions of public welfare intimately connected with education — every one who appreciates the value of a refer- ence work which will give him the outlines of any educational problem, the suggested solutions, the statistical information, and in general the essential facts necessary to its compre- hension. Among the departmental Editors associated with Dr. Monroe are Dr. Elmer E. Brown, U. S. Commissioner of Edu- cation, Prof. E. F. Buchner, of Johns Hopkins, Dr. Wm. H. Burnham, Clark University, M. Gabriel Compayr6, In- spector-General of Public Instruction, Paris, France, Prof. Wilhelm Munch, of Berlin University, Germany, Prof. John Dewey, of Columbia University, Dr. Ellwood P. Cubberly, Stanford University, Cal., Prof. Foster Watson, of the University College of Wales, Dr. David Snedden, Commis- sioner of Education for the State of Massachusetts, and others. Send for a descriptive circular and list of con- tributors to Volume I To be completed in Jive large octavo volumes, each $5. 00 net THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York A TEXT-BOOK IN THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION By PAUL MONROE Professor of the History of Education, Teachers College, Columbia Uniyersity Cloth. Crown. 8vo. xxiii-\- 772 pages. $1.90 net, The aim of this book is to emphasize the great typical educational movements in thought and practice, and to give the student very definite conceptions of comparatively few leaders rather than to treat a multiplicity of more or less unrelated facts and a multitude of men with diverse ideas. In each general topic treated, enough material is given to elucidate the main characteristics. The contributions of two or three of the most representa- tive men are discussed for the same purpose. Since the restrictions of space and the working plan of the author forbid further elaboration, the text at almost every point is suggestive rather than exhaustively conclusive. A selected bibliography and a series of questions or suggestive topics accom- pany each chapter, to assist the student in further study. Chronological tables are given in connection with the more important historical periods, so that the student may get a conspectus of the period under consideration, and the relation of the educational to other aspects of historical develop- ment. A detailed analysis of the book aids in preserving a correct perspective and the proper relationship between the various topics. The numerous illustrations add a realistic touch to the discussion of the more practical aspects of the subject. BRIEF COURSE IN THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION By PAUL MONROE, Ph.D. Cloth. 12mo. xviii + 409 + m> pages. $1J25 net. This condensation of A Text-Book in the History of Education has been prepared to meet the demands of normal and training schools and of those colleges that have not sufficient time at their disposal to master the contents of a larger text. While the text at every point aims to be suggestive rather than exhaustive, even in this abbreviated form the volume contains more material than most other texts on the subject. The methods of presentation are the same as in the larger work. A SOURCE BOOK OF THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION FOB THE GREEK AND ROMAN PERIOD By PAUL MONROE Cloth. 8vo. xiii + 515 pages. $2.25 net. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York FEB 15 1912 FEB 15 1912 One copy del. to Cat. Div. FEE IS 1312