Return this book on or before the Latest Date stamped below. Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books are reasons for disciplinary action and may result in dismissal from the University. University of Illinois Library JHN 1965 L161— 0-1096 Bntolfc Tompkins 2>iet> august 12, 1905 ‘ ‘ The whole sky of truth bends over each recitation ; and the teacher needs but climb Sinai to receive the divine Law." Issued by the Faculty of the Chicago Normal School, November 25 , 1905 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates https://archive.org/details/arnoldtompkinsdiOOchic £pnolt> SompFnns was born on his father’s farm eight miles south of Paris, Illinois, September io, 1849. He died at his country home near Menlo, in northern Georgia, August 12, 1905. Inheriting from both father and mother a genuine love for honest labor, he spent his whole life at hard work. Through childhood and youth he lived on the farm with his parents, where he worked many hours a day, and always under the highest tension. And, like every true artist nature, he found his greatest incentive in the enjoyment that came from doing to the best of his ability something the world needed done. No man ever felt more strongly than he the dignity in honest toil, whether at the plow or in the study. His early education was received at “Possum King- dom,” a country school near the farm, and to which reference is made in “The Philosophy of School Man- agement.” At the age of fifteen he walked three miles to attend another country school, which was taught by a man of college training. That teacher taught him algebra and geometry, and inspired him to go to college. So great was his desire for an education that through the winter season he rose at four o’clock in order that he might have the morning’s chores done before start- ing to school. When school was out for the day he hurried home to help with the farm work in the evening. The lamp-light hours he used in study. Through the vacation season he hurried from the dinner table to his books, seldom being found resting with the other la- borers. At the age of seventeen he taught a winter term of school in the country. In the spring of the same year he attended the High School at Paris for two or three months. The following winter he again taught a country school, all the time looking forward to the day he might enter college. That day came when, after the wheat was sowed in the fall of ‘69, he entered Indiana Univer- 13 ] f sity. Yet, with all his eagerness for his new work, he was not forgetful of his home. His letters to his par- ents and brother and sisters were full of tenderness and love. In a letter written soon after reaching the university he wrote, “Father, I left you in the field with the work to come here, but not willingly." After six months he was forced to drop out from overwork. The remainder of the year he spent on the farm. The following September he entered Butler University, but was again forced to leave on account of illness. In December, ’75, while principal of a two-room school at Grand View, Illinois, he married Jennie Sny- der, his associate teacher. From this time on for sev- eral years he and Mrs. Tompkins taught and attended school alternately, usually teaching through the winter and attending school in the spring. Both entered the Indiana State Normal School, at Terre Haute, in the spring of ’75. Here he met William A. Jones, first president of the school, to whom he gave the credit of starting him in organic thinking. He had full faith in President Jones’s fundamental idea of a Normal School, expressed in the sentence he so often quoted: “The law in the mind and the thought in the thing deter- mine the method." Both Mr. and Mrs. Tompkins graduated from the Indiana State Normal School in 1880. The next two years they taught at Worthington, Indiana, Mr. Tompkins as superintendent. His real work in school organization on a philo- sophic basis began when, in the fall of ’82, he entered upon his work as superintendent of schools at Frank- lin, Indiana. At the end of his first year at Franklin he published “A Graded Course of Study for the Franklin Public School," a book of 240 pages, based on the logical and psychological factors in education. He had not yet, as the course shows, unified these factors as he did a little later on, but he was far in advance of the school thought common at that time. [ 4 ] From this time on his progress was rapid. In ’85 he was chosen head of English in the Normal School of De Pauw University. He was made dean of the school in ’89, The same year he was graduated from Indiana University, degree of A. B,, just twenty years after matriculating. Two years later he received the degree of A. M. from the same institution. When, in 1890, the Normal School at De Pauw was abandoned, he accepted the chair of English in the Indiana State Normal School. In the fall of ’93 he entered the University of Chicago, where he remained as a student for two years, at the end of which time he accepted the chair of Pedagogy in the University of Illinois. About the same time he was granted a doc- tor’s degree by the University of Ohio. In the fall of ’99 he resigned his position in the University to accept the presidency of the Illinois State Normal School at Normal. This position he resigned in 1900 to accept the principalship of the Chicago Normal School, which position he held at the time of his death. Mr. Tompkins began lecturing before Teachers’ Institutes and Associations while at Franklin. His first institute work was at Cannelton, Indiana, in the summer of ’83. About the same time he began writing for the Indiana School Journal, to which he was a reg- ular contributor for many years. He rapidly grew into favor as a lecturer, in which line he was as powerful as he was in the class room. In 1889, while at De Pauw, he published his first book, “The Science of Discourse.” “The Philosophy of Teaching” appeared in the spring of ’93, as did also a reprint of “The Science of Discourse.” In ’95, while he was a student in the University of Chicago, “The Philosophy of School Management” was published. Early in his chosen life-work he struck a note that sounded through all he did in after life. It was a “new birth,” an awakening into consciousness of what had [ 5 ] been instinctively guiding him in previous years. Sub- jectively, it was what he himself called the “major premise of life;” objectively, it was that the major premise of life should appear as the controlling factor in every act, even to the details of daily life. A few years ago when asked what estimate he hoped his work would merit, he replied, “This: that I applied the major premise of life to the most minute problem of teaching.” Those who were closely associated with him know that in practice he applied to the letter the fundamental conception of life as he saw it, whether in teaching Shakspeare or a problem in simple addition. As the best short exposition of “the major prem- ise of life” and its application to teaching, as Dr. Tompkins understood it, his Columbus address is here printed in full. The Implications and Applications of the Principle of Self-Activity in Education. The impressive lesson from the history of thought is that the human mind can find no peace except in search for the ultimate unity and reality of the universe. This unity, as discerned from afar by the eye of faith in religion, and established by reason in art, science and philosophy, is the ultimate goal of man’s earthly en- deavor. All processes of thought, from sense-percep- tion to reason, are but processes of establishing unity in and thru diversity, are but modes of satisfying the craving of the soul for touch with ultimate reality, with the life that binds the seemingly chaotic world into orderly system. The teacher’s world is no less a world of diversity to be ordered into the unity of a single life-principle. So many details and duties, even within the limits of a daily program! And when the entire scope of educa- tion is considered — its aim, processes, and instrumen- talities — the whole to be unified is coextensive with the 16 ] world of thought and reality. Here, as elsewhere, the desire for unity is the impulse to thought — for unity of the infinite diversity in the educative process. All edu- cational discussions are based on the assumption and prompted by the faith that there is a unifying principle which organizes and systematizes the distracting variety of details in the process of education. But, while in such discussions there is tacit recog- nition of the unity of the educative process, there is generally lacking the firm conviction that the complex process of education can be reduced to the unity of a single principle. Even Rosenkranz, in the introduction to his Philosophy of Education , affirms that “the science of education cannot be deduced from a single principle with such strictness as logic, ethics, and like sciences,” but that “it is rather a mixed science, having its pre- suppositions in many others;” and that “education is capable of no such exact definitions of its principles as other sciences.” And at present I see it emphasized that education is an applied science, in the sense that it is formed by the application of other sciences; thus implying that it has no germinant idea of its own. Certainly, education avails itself of all the other sciences, as these do of it; but the science of education goes forth in its own right and organizes all the sciences from its own creative center. It has its own single, central principle, which orders all the details of the complex process into a unified and harmonious whole; and this principle is self-activity. The science of edu- cation must show how the whole process is implied in this principle, while the art of education is but the appli- cation of the principle thus implied. Since the ultimate principle of any science is the ultimate principle of every other, education is not distinguished by its ultimate principle from other sciences, but only in the applica- tion of it. Since this principle is a universal one, its application yields a philosophy of education rather than [ 7 ] a science. How ft does this will best appear under the threefold aspect of the principle as it distinctly appears in the process of education. i. This principle appears primarily as tension be- tween the real and the ideal — the actual and the po- tential. Since the universe is alive and not dead, moving and not fixed, this principle is universal. We live in a seeking, searching, surging world. There is constant striving for that which does not yet appear. Every ob- ject has a dual nature — something within it which tends to destroy its present form of existence and bring it nearer to the reality of the nature which constitutes it. Any thing imposes limitations upon itself which the thing will not rest under. The hills, rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun, the planets, and the infinite hosts of heaven, are ever seeking new conditions thru the infinite of space and time. In the organic world stress thru duality of nature is unmistakable. The plant or the animal is moved to self-realization by a resident force. In each case the object is in self-struggle. An organic thing is organic by virtue of the stress between its actual and its poten- tial nature, by virtue of the relation between the real and the ideal which constitutes its nature. The ideal is ever striving for its freedom in the real — to become it- self the real. Man emerges out of the lower order of beings on becoming conscious of the duality of his nature; of the divergence between his real and his ideal self; between what he is and what he ought to be. He can lay hold upon his better self, and by conscious plan and purpose aid in his own self-realization. He knows that what he is, in his present actualized self, is not what he really is by virtue of his manhood; and, feeling this discrepancy, he is consciously self-moved to realize his implicit man- hood. Conscious self-activity is the ultimate retreat of [ 8 ] self-consciousness; and from this single truth springs everything within the realm of human thought and action. Herein is involved the whole of the religious life. Coming to consciousness of the better self is the second birth of the soul. Truly man must be born again, in order simply to be a man; and the whole of his life is but a succession of new births, in each of which man discerns deeper realities in his own soul. Herein man discovers God. ‘‘Religion is the life of God in the soul of man.” In the conscious relation of the two selves lies the fact of sin and redemption. From this relation arises the possibility of man’s going to heaven' or hell. One not accustomed to think on this fact of self-con- sciousness will be surprised to find that all the doctrines of the Bible are explained by it; and, more, that it is the simple truth which has shaped the world’s great re- ligions. The Protestant Reformation was but a clearer recognition of the voice of the better self. This was the simple principle that dethroned kings and gave us democracy. To secure the rule of the better self is the desideratum of all governments. And so all moral duties are determined by the relation of the present, real self to the ideal self. Out of this come conscience, duty, responsibility, obligation, and the rest. Man’s duty is simple; he ought to be what he is; that is, what he is by virtue of being a man. If he is really a devil, he can do no better than to play the game well. In education this principle determines the end to be that of self-realization — the realization of the better self. Man is the product of his own educative process. Education cannot be ultimately tested in any form of external product; as, in what a man has or knows, but in what he is; thus making culture, in the true sense, the final aim. Nations have taken two views of the meaning of education; regarding it either as a means or as an end. The history of education can, therefore, [ 9 ] be read only in terms of the relation under question. Not only the aim but the method of education is thus determined. At every stroke of the teacher some present stress must be released, and some new ideal born; some new stress set up. The art of teaching con- sists at bottom in discerning the present stress of the life to be educated, and transforming it into a higher one. The whole question of interest lies here. A child is always interested, and interested in something worthy. The teacher is not so much to induce interest as to mediate it. To educate is to move the life onward and upward under the stress of ideals. The fundamental thought of method in education is this of the ideal pass- ing into the real, that a new ideal may be revealed, which in turn becomes real. The perfection of charac- ter sought in education is not an end to be attained, but an infinite progression by mediating ideals. Wherever teaching is found to be dead, it is because the teacher strives to induce action from without, instead of utiliz- ing the self-activity of the pupil. Witness, for example, the dire distress of the teacher in striving to secure oral or written expression from the pupil when there is no inner motive to expression. Thus “interest” expresses the tension between the real and the ideal in life; while that other great word “apperception” expresses the passing of the ideal into the real, on the basis of its relation to the real. In the same way must be explained those other current terms of “correlation” and “concentration.” Each subject of study is but a construction of the world under a given tension of life. Subjects have no external, fixed bound- aries, thus becoming mutually exclusive. The failure to recognize this truth is a never-failing source of trouble, causing the teacher to resort to all sorts of schemes to correlate subjects and parts of subjects. For instance, man considered in effort to realize himself thru his physical environment, in the form of [ 10 ] the industrial world, forms geography; and, when more fully specialized, the sciences. The field is limited only by what is required to this end; there is no objective limit, and no matter reserved for the use of any other subject. History is formed by viewing man in effort to realize himself by means of his fellow-man thru institu- tions. For this purpose it may use all the material gone over by geography. Number arises from man’s effort to adjust himself accurately and economically to some ideal end; and is thus a process of self-realization. Grammar, in treating the sentence, exhibits man in the explicit act of passing from his real to his ideal self, inasmuch as the subject of every sentence expresses man’s real self, and the predicate his ideal; while the verb expresses the tension between the two. Literature has for its direct purpose the revelation of the ideal self in the real. Thus every subject is born of some phase of the life-tension; some outgoing effort to self-realiza- tion. It is just this living and determining factor that gives the clue to the teaching of every subject; so reveals its inner life and organization as to insure vital teaching as against mechanical teaching. And when we pass to the school as the organized instrument of education, we discern the same germin- ant principle. All institutions are but projections of the ideal self in an objective form as a means to making the ideal real. Man, being conscious of himself, can be teacher to himself as pupil. The teacher-and-pupil re- lation is first a subjective one. The teacher is the pupil’s own ideal adopted as a more efficient means of the pupil’s development. From this center the whole ques- tion of school organization and management arises. There can be no successful school management without recognition of this fact. 2. In the process of education this principle of self-activity assumes a second form — tension between subject and object. [U] In the process of self-realization man does not simply hold his ideal in consciousness, but forgets him- self in the objective world. The law of self-realization, as disclosed above, is by the law of self-sacrifice. Altru- ism is the method of egoism. Everything lives in and thru another. Man intu- itively feels that his life is found in the world about him; he is instinctively drawn to that world. This is explained by the fact that every self is the organic unity between this self and the other self. If at this moment one should say “I,” and then read some poem not be- fore read, the old / becomes a new one, which includes the poem. And thus with any other object of thought. The / is not the barren and abstract self, but always in- cludes something other. What before appeared as ten- sion between the real and the ideal now appears as ten- sion between subject and object. The ideal which the mind seeks is the thought and spirit of the world which is objective to it. Subject and object implies a self- active principle which differentiates itself into the po- larity of this and the other. And here we have a new aspect of the germinant principle of education. All thought is to cancel the distinction between the subject — the real self, and the object — the ideal self; and the motive in the process is to break down the limitations which the object imposes on the subject. Subjects of study are so many enlarge- ments of the self. These are taught that the pupil may have life, and that more abundantly. Knowledge is the means by which the finite self passes toward the infinite self. The pupil masters a subject, and may say, “I am that subject, and that, and that;” and if he could master all, he could exclaim with Jehovah, “I am.” Not only the motive, but the problem of method lies in the connection between subject and object. The mind and its object must be reduced to common terms. The objective process in things must be seen as the sub- [ 12 ] jective process in thought. The percept, the concept, the judgment, and the syllogism are but processes of unity between the subject and the object; and no in- telligent discussion of these can be made except by recognizing them as common' processes of subject and object. If by reasoning, for instance, one forms a judg- ment, from the nature of an orange, that all oranges are yellow, it is because the oranges themselves form their yellow in the same way. The process of reducing a compound to a simple fraction is the process of the fraction itself. Thus the problem of method in teach- ing is the problem of reducing the learner and the ob- ject to be learned to a common process — to a unity of life. 3. But in the process of teaching this principle takes a third and final form, namely, tension between the universal and the individual, or between the creative energy and its object. What the student is immediately striving for is the unity of the world of isolated objects. But he cannot establish this unity by directly relating them. Things are unified thru their common creative energy. Oak trees are not primarily united in space, but in an oak nature — energy — which produces them. The energy which produces one produces another, etc.; and in this creative act all are one. Events are unified in a common life below them, as implied in the word “event.” Hence the unity sought is the unity of the object with its nature, or productive energy. In every act or thought one object is divided into its individual and its univer- sal aspects. Thinking is relating; and the relation sought is always the two aspects of the object, as above indicated. This is the simple but universal law of thought. But note the real object of this vital process of thought. It was stated in discussing the tension be- tween subject and object that the purpose of thought [ 13 ] is to bring the thinker into unity with the object thought. This can be done only by the thinker discerning the creative energy of the object. On this ground only can they meet. On the plane of sense-perception there seems to be an impassable gulf between the thinker and the object. This separation grows less and less as the higher processes of thought are exercised. In fact, such processes are higher because they bring the thinker into closer unity with the object thought. The thinker must find himself in the object, but this is just the self-active principle in the object. The thinker craves the rein- forcement of the object’s inner life, and is thus prompted to search out its genetic principle. It thus appears that tension between an object and its creative energy is one with the tension between the real and ideal, described at the outset. Thus the circle is complete. The three tensions are but so many aspects of one life-movement. These three aspects of the prin- ciple of self-activity determine all phases and processes of school work — fix the aim, determine the methods, construct the course of study, and organize and manage the school. And, what is of the greatest significance, the following of this principle brings all school work into conscious and organic relation to every other educa- tional force — the church, the state, etc. All move under the same principle to the same end — the full realization of all the beauty and worth implicit in human nature. — Delivered before the National Superintendents' Associa- tion , at Columbus , Ohio, Feb. 23 , i8gg. No man ever had a clearer view of his fundamental conception of life than did Dr. Tompkins. None ever applied his conception more thoroughly to the details of his chosen vocation. And none ever made a less me- chanical application. With him theory and practice were one, each growing out of the other. While it is to be so greatly regretted that he was not permitted to write a philosophy of education, yet [ 14 ] in his three books he left a well-rounded system of ed- ucational thought. “The Philosophy of Teaching” is an elaboration of the three Tensions as they appear in the school as a Spiritual Organism. “The Philos- ophy of School Management” treats the school as an external, Organized Means to the Spiritual End. “The Science of Discourse” illustrates the Process of Self- realization through the school. The school as to both organization and movement consists of related unities: Unity in the lesson, in the subject, and in the class, for the purpose of securing the unity of each pupil with the teacher, who, by ob- jectification, is the pupil’s possible or ideal self. This relation of pupil and teacher is sought in order to ob- tain unity in the life of the individual taught — the aim the school has in common with the other institutions. All the unities are evolved out of the first Tension, the primary unity, for the sake of better and more rapid development in the child, and through the process of teaching all turn back into it as so much realization of what was potential in him. The second Tension — the unity of subject and ob- ject — places the subject-matter taught under a double relation. Primarily it is the embodiment of a truth, a law, a principle, that is translatable into spiritual life. Secondly, it is the meeting ground of pupil-mind and teacher-mind; is the means in and by which the teacher stimulates the pupil into unity with him in thought. Thus the pupil comes into unity with his teacher and with his potential self through his con- scious effort to discover the thought relations in the object studied. This double relation requires of the teacher, — (i) the conscious analysis of the experience gained from his own study of the given subject, as a guide in direct- ing the pupil’s mental process in rising to the same ex. perience; (2) the selection of suitable devices for the [ 15 ] stimulation of this movement in the pupil; and (3) the conception of the experience, both as process and pro- duct, in terms of the ultimate process in life. The third Tension — the tension between creative energy and its object, under which the world is evolv- ing, determines externally the thought process by which the human mind identifies itself with the thought in things. This process the psychological factor in ed- ucation modifies from the subjective side. With a firm belief in the unity of creation, and in obedience to the two factors, “The Philosophy of Teaching,” in determining the process of thinking, seeks (1) to know Nature’s method in producing its objects, and (2) to reduce this process to terms of mental life, which is possible because the laws of thinking and the mode of existence in things are the same. It is found that Nature has but one process, the process of becoming; Nature is synthetic only. But man, who is psychological as well as logical, is analytic and synthetic, always so in interpretation and in lan- guage expression. However, his analysis is but a means to synthesis; synthesis is his aim. This process in things, by psychological analysis falls into four thought processes — Description, Narration, Exposi- tion, and Argumentation — based upon the particular relation under which the object is viewed. These are four modes by which unity of subject and object is se- cured. Rather the mode, for an object is not fully known until it has been viewed in the four ways. The four processes are worked out in detail on the basis of the relation of creative energy to its object. “The Philosophy of School Management” is an expansion of a chapter which originally appeared in “The Philosophy of Teaching.” It treats the school from the side of organized means in making actual teaching effective. It does not pretend to give a cata- [161 log of “do’s and do not’s, which may serve the mere operative in a factory, where the material conditions remain fixed,” but seeks instead to place the teacher in position to be “guided by a principle which tact and ingenuity may apply to each new case as it arises.” In it the Law of Unity laid down in “The Philosophy of Teaching” is made the basis for systematic discussion of the problems that confront the school, from adjust- ment of teacher’s salary to definition of the relations and duties of parent, board of education and superin- tendent; to the selection of the teacher, and the act of teaching. The following from the section on Select- ing the Teacher is typical of the fundamental and di- rect manner in which all discussion is made: — “This [selecting the teacher], aside from the act of teaching, is the most critical function of the organ- ism. The one held responsible for this duty must know, in a scientific and professional way, the neces- sary qualifications of a teacher; and besides, must have that devotion to the pupil which makes him firm against the importunities of the unqualified, whether they be relatives, friends, or home or foreign talent. There is but one law, and this requires that the best available teacher be secured.” Dr. Tompkins’s philosophy made him equally strong in logical thinking, in his appreciation of the beautiful, and in practical life, because to him these three were one. To him the true, and it only, is both beautiful and good; the beautiful is true and good; the good is true and beautiful. In essential nature they are the same, the difference depending upon whether the intellect, the sensibility or the will interprets the relation between creative energy and its object. A true man he defined as one in which the real man cor- responds exactly to the idea man. If he felt that the idea man was not constrained by the real, such a life was beautiful. “A good man,” he said, “is one who is [ 17 ] fulfilling the purpose of his being." It is only through analysis that he found three ends in life; synthesis leaves but one So long as there is mere coordination organization is incomplete. In his philosophy productive activity, resulting ultimately in goodness or virtue as the supreme end in life sub- sumes the other ends. The function of knowing is to rationalize human activity; therefore truth is known only in terms of some end translatable into terms of goodness, the end in human effort. This is the prime significance he gave to the second Tension. In his interpretation of the third Tension he insisted that the isolated fact does not exhibit truth, for truth is found only in the process, and that it is known to be truth only through the product— when the product is true. The Beautiful, upon which he loved so well to dis- course, he defined as presenting an ideal as realized ; and as having its end in the emotions. But by this he meant the immediate or conscious end, not the ultimate one. For he said also that one grows into the likeness of the thing he makes his ideal; and that a man acts out of the fullness of his life. Thus a man’s whole life should be brought to bear in every act of thinking, feeling, and willing, which is exactly what he meant by “intensive living,” and by “keeping the child who e-souled in every act of teach- ing.” However brief an outline of Dr. Tompkins’s phil- osophy may be his fine sense of humor can not be omitted, for, while it furnished a play-spell for the soul, it came as a necessity in the unfolding of his philos- ophy, and not as a mere by-product. It will be recalled that his philosophy starts with an instinctive faith in the unity of the Universe. In his search for this unity it was necessary to bring very diverse things and elements together. In this process [18J the incongruous was forced upon him along with the congruous. He came to see that in order to know the congruous one must observe the incongruity, and vice versa , the incongruity is often most potent in the dis- covery of the truth, and especially so in presenting and emphasizing it. The function of legitimate humor he explained by the law of opposites, by which tall is known only in its relation to short, by which there is no positive pole to the magnet without a negative. His use of humor in discourse grew out of its necessity in thinking. He maintained that the teacher who has no sense of humor sees the truth but partially, and is weak in ability to organize and execute, because he fails to make proper distinction between fundamental and superficial relations; and for the same reason is slow to discover error. But after all else is considered, those who knew Dr. Tompkins personally loved him best as a friend and for his manhood. He was possessed with an in- tense feeling of sympathy and tenderness for his fel- low-man in the life struggle. Any sacrifice of self ap- peared insignificant to him. And greatest of all was his sympathy for the wrongdoer. Most men feel sorry for the one who loses the horse; he felt sorriest for the thief. The loss of the horse is small; the loss of the man is irreparable. He was always sympathetically conscious of the duality in the life of each individual; that “man knows a baseness in his blood, at such strange war with something good he cannot do the thing he would.” This sympathy made him patient and forbearing, almost to a fault at times. But if he erred in this respect it was in the right direction and we loved him the better for the error. Those who were closely associated with him feel that in his own person he demonstrated that truly “Altruism is the method of egoism.” [ 19 ] He loved. He never hated. It has been said of Emerson and Carlyle that “there was not much differ- ence between them after all, for Emerson loved the good and Carlyle hated the bad.” Dr. Tompkins was clearly on the side of Emerson. And greatest of all his loves was his love for the earnest teacher in whose behalf, through his chosen vocation, he gave his best energy and the whole of his life. He loved justice because he loved truth, of which justice is one form. He hated injustice by loving jus- tice the more intensely. His fidelity to truth, as his best insight presented it to him, could not be shaken. When he acted his act was based on a fundamental law of life as the sole guide, so that the work should be best done, and done once and for all. Such application of law and prin- ciple was not mechanical; he did not control the prin- ciple so much as the principle controlled him, for he could use a law only when it had become systemic, so that the act should come as the natural thing to do. The control of the act by fundamental principle, he be- lieved, unites the highest manhood, the truest states- manship, and, ultimately, the most practical politics. He has withdrawn in person from the battle of life here on earth, leaving the struggle to be carried on by those who remain. And, stimulated afresh when in re- trospect we view the man and his art, the man and his philosophy, and when man, philosophy, and art fuse before us, our blood quickens for the fray, and we pledge anew our faith in the closing thought in the in- troduction to “The Philosophy of Teaching”: — “It has been said that philosophy can bake no bread, but that she can secure to us God and immor- tality. This ought to be sufficient. But she can bake bread, and must do so or miss God and immortality. To secure heaven she must mix with the daily affairs of earth; and while searching out God and immortality, must bring counsel and comfort to the day-laborer in the school-room.” [ 20 ] A TRIBUTE TO ARNOLD TOMPKINS By PSESIDENT G. R. GLENN, North Georgia Agricultural College The announcement of his death was a great shock to his friends in Georgia. Just a few days before he was stricken he was lecturing to the teachers in our University Summer School at Athens, apparently in the full vigor of physical manhood, and in the complete enjoyment of all of his spiritual powers. Few of us dreamed as he talked so earnestly, that this message was to be his last. As we now recall his glowing words and picture his earnest face, we look at each other and ask in whispered cadence “did not our hearts burn within us while he talked?” For days we had followed him as he led in those far reaching excur- sions in History, Literature, Philosophy, Science and Art, and saw him at the end of each journey, with a master’s hand, throw a flash light on the truth for which we had been searching. Who of us can forget his radiant face and majestic form as he stood in the closing moments of that last hour and said: “My friends, it is the truth and the truth alone that can break the fetters of our ignorance and set us free.” When I first saw him ten years ago, I was drawn to him and loved him. When I first heard him speak I said, there is a man who has a message that it is worth while to hear. He had a message with love in it ; and the truth was in it; and the beautiful was in it; and it was good to hear him. He was one of those rare souls that had wrought out his own way of making his thoughts attractive, and he stamped upon every pro- duct of his brain the mint marks of his genius. Like every other great teacher, his ambition was to find something that is true and that is worth while, and then give it and give it gladly to every human soul. It is said that none of the best headwork nor the best heartwork of this world is ever paid for. Indeed, the man w T ho brings fire from heaven must sometimes, even to this day, pay the pen- alty in chains. It is the tragedy of the race that the man who achieves best and contributes most for his kind is little understood until his work is done. Dr. Tompkins had the rare good fortune to be loved and, in part at least, understood in his lifetime. In his professional work espe- cially, he so simplified and illumined his thought that the wayfarer in the profession could understand him. I shall never forget his first visit to Georgia to conduct an institute in an out-of-the-way section in the piney woods. There were assembled in a country church one hundred and fifty teachers who had come from as many sparsely scattered schools in the pine barrens. They were, for the most part, young people without much education and little or no professional training. They were timid and shrinking and silent, and they wore on their faces a questioning suspicion that untutored folk can not conceal in the presence of a stranger. Many of them were there because the law compelled them to come; but many were also present because they hungered for better things than they knew. They were all needy and very ignorant. The situation was an interesting one and the question arose, what would he do with it? Dr. Tompkins knew science, philosophy, literature, history and art, but he knew something that is better worth knowing than all these. He knew folks. He knew all sorts of folks. He knew where and when and how to touch and stir the human heart. More than this he knew how to bestow what he knew where it would revive and feed and heal. In ten minutes from his opening sentence he was in complete command of that presence. His radiant spirit had warmed and illumined the very atmosphere of the room and every heart in that company was in touch with his own. He was in every one of those hundred and fifty school houses at the same moment standing with every teacher, breaking the bread of life for all of those groups of thirty or forty children and feeding the hungry little ones until they were all filled. It was the miracle of the loaves and fishes repeated over and over again. By the end of the week he was to all that company of teachers a fellow teacher, brother, friend. Real teaching power will be recognized by the unlearned as well as the wise. It works miracles today as it did of old. In the order of time it feeds and heals first and then enlightens. It know’s how to minister to the neediest. It always has been and always will be the most potent energy in the world. It is not man- made; it is God-given power. It works according to God Almighty’s law. It lives and grows and comes into fruitage on the very foundations of death. It works noiselessly and mysteriously, but it moves with un- swerving certainty. When the Master Teacher would explain its pro- cess he said to those he was training, “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow.” When he would enjoin a faithful and complete conse- cration to its high and holy mission he said to these same disciples, with emphasis three times repeated, “Feed my lambs.” Arnold Tompkins had real teaching power. He believed that his power must be tested always and at last not so much by what he could do with his best pupil as by what he could do with his worst. He rec- ognized the mind of a child as a thing that grows; that it is under the laws fixed for the direction and control of all growing things. The Creator has made the same laws of growth for all the kingdom. The man who can understand how a plant grows can also understand how the mind and the spirit grows. All things that grow must first be fed with nourishing food. They must live in an environment suitable for conveying food supplies. For a plant environment is made up of soil, moisture, air and light. For a child, environment is made up of home, school, church, society, etc. Environment is a controllable thing, and therefore heredity, whether of good or evil, can be modified by adminis- tering food supply through the media of environment. Good tendencies can be nourished and developed and bad tendencies atrophied. What Burbank, working under the laws of growth, has accomplished for flow- ers and fruit, Tompkins believed was possible of achievement for the child by the teacher intelligently working under the same law. There is nothing new in this creed. It is as old as “the sermon on the Mount.” Like the Great Master, Tompkins believed in the possibilities of infinite development of the soul of the child. His life and his teachings were protests against the tendency to commercialize education. Like Sidney Lanier he plead for more stress to be laid on the development of the heart. “O trade, O trade, would thou wert dead, The times need heart, we’re tired of head.” Surely he was right. The training of the intellect alone always leads to self-seeking and selfishness. The training of the heart leads just as surely to a broad catholicity of spirit and to fraternity of human interests. We cannot learn too often and too well that the things of the spirit cannot be bartered for gold. This is the philosophy of education that Arnold Tompkins tried to put into the American schools. He lived what he taught and American professional thought is infinitely richer for his life. ■ From a Letter to Mrs. Tompkins. The loss of our beloved Principal comes to each one of us with all the bitterness of a personal bereavement. During the few years of our labors together we learned to look upon him as a friend, upon the sincerity of whose judgment we could always depend. Time can only endear, it can never obliterate, the in- fluence of his sweet spirit and the inspiration of his enthusiastic and well-balanced character. He was always cheerful, vigilant and helpful, yet we knew that he “suffered much and was kind”. We saw in him a charming personality, quiet humor, generous self-forgetfulness and enthusiastic devotion to the cause of educa- tion. We can hardly now persuade ourselves that he is not to be among us any more, but we find comfort in the thought that his spirit will rejoice to know that his followers, under the inspiration of his teaching, shall continue to aid mankind “to find within itself the power to rise above itself”. The Faculty. Resolutions of the Chicago Principals' Association. In the death of Arnold Tompkins, those who knew him in personal relation have lost a rare friend, those who knew him pro- fessionally, a shower of the way to the deepest springs of life and to the highest goal in a work which to him was holy in its smallest details. Even those who saw and heard him but incidentally in his elo- quent appeals — eloquent in their lucid sincerity — obtained from him inspiration that lifted their life and work to broader plains and clearer skies. His immediate colleagues had in him a leader who enlisted fullest self-active cooperation in the service of ideals which he had the art to connect with the nearest work and to place within the reach of the free aspiration of all. His pupils were stirred by him in the very heart of hearts, and, under the spell of his sympa- thetic presence, they discovered within themselves truths and possibilities which rendered them worthy of the highest aims and of the deepest and sweetest responsibilities of life. To all of us he has left a rich legacy of light to guide us, and of strength to sustain us in a life of worthy service in our steward- ship. He saw the inmost soul of the living universe and of all that therein lives in self-activity, in its highest manifestations a free, [ 21 ] seeing, purposeful, unifying force. By this each throbbing life- pulse, howsoever minute, was to him akin to universal life; by this every true responsibility was intrinsically related to the whole and held religious fervor, ceased to be trivial and became universal; by this every joy of achievement even in the seemingly narrowest service, became to him a universal joy, every “well done” that came to him meant the approval of the universe, duties lost their quantitative aspect and all became equally great. Thus he left to us a great responsiblity, great in the meaning and sweet in the joy it holds. In the measure in which we shall live up to the requirements of this responsibility in professional and personal relations will he continue to live and work among us and in us and continue to bless the work of education which was so dear to his undying soul. Resolved , that these resolutions be spread upon the records of the Chicago Principals’ Association, and that an engrossed copy of the same be sent to his family. W. N. Hailmann Gertrude E. English Luella V. Little Wm. M. Lawrence 1 > Committee. Arnold Tompkins became president of the Illinois State Normal University in September 1899 and served for one year. He brought into the school an element of consecration to duty, a single- ness of purpose, a faith in human nature, a breadth of philosophy, and withal a fund of humor, breezy, fresh, invigorating, whose tonic effects could be felt in every class room, in every region of student activity. True these elements were already in the life of the institution, but they received a fresh emphasis, the stimulation of a mighty impulse from a fresh and original source. With the new regime came growth. Growth is not mere in- crease in bulk; it involves internal change to meet new conditions. In this sense the growth of an institution is not uniform and con- tinuous. It grows rather like a crustacean that periodically sheds its skin that it may expand in the freedom of a larger life. When- ever an institution comes to regard itself as the best of its kind, and puts in its time complacently viewing its own perfection growth stops. It becomes encrusted in its habits of thought and activity and fails to respond to new demands. No year in the last thirty witnessed more radical changes in the organization, the ad- ministration, and the spirit of the State Normal School. A new flexible course of study was adopted, planned for the varying needs of different grades of students. There came more freedom in the [ 22 ] school life — less pressure, more spontaneity. Attendance was de- manded only in the class room and at general exercises. Spelling ceased to vex the soul of the student whose sense of uniformity and whose abiding faith in the reign of law were constantly viola- ted by the absurdities of the English tongue. Dr. Tompkins won and held the esteem of the entire commu- nity. From his associates in the faculty, from the student body, from the citizens of the town was never heard a discordant note. There was a universal sense of personal loss when it became known that President Tompkins had left us for the more attractive field of Chicago. But the work he did in that year has endured. The subsequent life of the school has flowed along the channels into which he turned it. The influence of his rare spirit lingers with it as a benediction. David Felmley, President Illinois State Normal University . In the power of vivid presentation of educational doctrine and ideas, Arnold Tompkins had few equals in the United States. He could make the commonest of us feel the truth of his frequent declaration that “The whole sky of truth bends over each recita- tion; and the teacher needs but climb Sinai to receive the divine law.” It can never be known how many have climbed a little higher because of his inspiration, and are thereby indebted to him for a broader conception of the nature and dignity of the teaching process. Strong men who did not see the truth as he saw it will concede the intellectual integrity and greatness of the man. His personal friends will mourn the departure of a man in whom they believed because of his rugged honesty, his candor, generosity, kindness, and charity. To all these the enforced farewell will be one of sadness mingled with pride in the possessions he has left us. Alfred Bayliss, State Superintendent of Public Instruction , Illinois. Arnold Tompkins was a great Soul— the greatest I have ever known. He was great in his power to see the soul in things — the principle or law which creates and guides. Other minds be- come entangled with details or toy with some superficial aspect, but Arnold Tompkins cut straight to the center. He saw details and the subordinate phases of a subject, but under the operation of his mind they fell into the places in his thought to which their value and significance entitled them. Scientists sometimes lose themselves in the accumulation of multiplied facts and philoso- phers often dream and soar among wholes. Arnold Tompkins, with the skill of both, put his finger on the relation between the two. Both the particular and the general, the part and the whole, [23J were always within the range of his vision. His mind unerringly traced facts back to law and law out into facts. Therefore, the finished product was a body of perfectly organized knowledge. His School Management is probably the best example of this power among his writings, and has few equals in educational literature. The tragedy of Arnold Tompkins’s death lay in the fact that no opportunity ever came which permitted him to formulate a Philosophy of Education. That he could have produced a master- piece is the belief of everyone who knew his power of organization. The clearness and intensity of Dr. Tompkins’s vision gave him an enthusiasm for his educational ideals such as few men have ever possessed. He was a genuine educational missionary. He inspired students in his own classes and stirred educational speak- ers. Dr. Tompkins was the prince of educational speakers. Other men might please and stir an audience of teachers to a greater degree, but none could stand before an audience — whether a Teachers’ Institute or a State or a National Assembly — and so enchain attention by the discussion of a great educational doc- trine. Wm. h. Mace, Syracuse University. The news of the death of Dr. Arnold Tompkins came upon me as an overwhelming sorrow; so sudden, so unexpected! Only a few days before I had received from him one of those cheery, hopeful letters that I prized so much through twenty years of in- timate, friendly correspondence. It still lay on my desk unan- swered when I read the dispatch announcing his death. He was in many ways the greatest soul I have ever known. He had that simplicity of character which is found only in the greatest souls. It was not the simplicity of ignorance, nor yet that studied simplicity which many scholars assume, but the sim- plicity of transparent honesty and perfect insight. He saw good- ness and truth in forms of beauty and gave himself wholly up to the influence of the beatific vision. He so completely identified himself with his beliefs that he was himself the living embodiment of his philosophy of life. What a wholesome companion he was! The petty jealousies and narrow prejudices of life found no en- couragement from him. He saw things in perspective and knew the significant and worthy thing at first sight. It was a great in- spiration merely to be with him, independently of what he might say at any one time. You seemed to feel in his presence that he could say anything great and noble on occasion; and even when he spoke of the trivial it seemed to take on its largest significance. [ 24 ] I count myself to have been fortunate that I came to know him when he and I were both new to the work of teaching. We studied many of its problems together and compared our views with the absolute freedom of perfect friendship. I owe many of my best thoughts and purposes to the hours I was privileged to spend with him. He will be best remembered, probably, as one who could state the ends, purposes and means of education in alluring forms and with appealing power. He was inspirational rather than log- ical. In the class room he impressed what he taught by the sin- cerity and directness of his appeal. He touched emotions and the will and never rested satisfied with merely making the matter clear as to its facts; the significance of the facts and their bearing upon education and life must be seen and felt by all before he considered his teaching successful. As an author, though he wrote many successful books, he will be longest remembered through the Philosophy of Teaching. This book expressed the essence of his educational doctrine in compact and pleasing form. Whatever else he wrote or whatever else he might ever have written, could be but the amplification or explanation of that doctrine. It was so comprehensive in its im- plications that all else must be mere explication. But after all I enjoyed him most upon the public platform He was indeed an orator. He touched and swayed an audience with an ease and certainty that I have seen equaled but few times in my life. Webster has said that eloquence exists in the happy combination of three things— the man, the subject and the occa- sion. Dr. Tompkins was always the man, any audience became his occasion, and any theme became luminous and inspiring under his treatment. So great was his gift of conception and expression in public speech that I often urged him to give up his connection with specific institutions and devote himself to the instruction of the people from the public platform. His last written line to me was a partial promise that he would soon do this. But for his un- timely'death he would have become a great public teacher in a larger sense even than that in which he has reached such eminence. But it was his loving and lovable personality after all that most distinguished him from his fellows. His noble altruism, his sincere friendship, his high enthusiasms and his absolute devo- tion to principle and duty, were all of them continual inspirations to those who were enriched by his friendship. L. H. Jones, President Michigan Normal College. [ 25 ] It was my good fortune to meet Dr. Tompkins years ago in the institute work in this State. I was impressed from the begin- ning with the earnestness and candor of the man. He was devoted absolutely to his work as a teacher. He loved to speak to teachers and teachers loved to listen to him. His sympathies were broad and his spirit generous. I have seldom met anyone with a sweeter charity or with loftier ideals than those he entertained and con- stantly exemplified. My most precious memory of him goes back to an evening when after a day of arduous labor in an Institute, we walked to- gether on the summit of the Allegheny mountains and witnessed a most glorious sunset. The magnificent vista spread out before us opened his spirit and he spoke with perfect freedom of his great and abiding conviction that God is back of all natural phenomena, and that faith in Him is vital to man’s highest development. It seemed to me as he spoke as if somehow he had interpreted the magnificent glory of the scene around us, and in the twilight with our hearts in closer sympathy than ever before, we walked back to the city. His influence among teachers of the State has seldom been equaled by any teacher that has come to us, and e memory of his work and the inspiration of his personality will long be cher- ished in the Keystone State. I loved the man because he was earnest and broadminded and full of “charity that thinketh no evil.” His untimely death is a great loss to the profession, but his example will be a cherished memory for generations to come. M. J. Brumbaugh. University of Pennsylvania. My acquaintance with Arnold Tompkins began when he en- tered the Indiana State Normal School as a student in 1875. At the time of his entrance he was a person of more mature years than was the average student in the institution at that time. As I remember him then, he was, physically, of somewhat stalwart mold. He had that balance of temperament which en- abled him to perform either mental or physical work with patience and persistence. * * * * In the intellectual atmosphere created by the fundamental conception on which this school was organized, Arnold Tompkins began his achievements. The results of his labors have been made permanent, in part, by his books — “The Science of Dis- course,” “The Philosophy of Teaching,” and “The Philosophy of School Management.” It seems to me these works are distinguished contributions to [ 26 ] the philosophy of the subjects treated and to the science of ped- agogy as well. I remember Mr. Tompkins’s deep interest in our investigation of the origin and idea of the school. In these inquiries it was not so much the historical origin of the school that we sought as it was the origin of the school in the necessities of the individual in his physical and social environment. I should not fail to mention a marked characteristic of Mr. Tompkins as a student. When asked to stand up and tell what he knew, or did not know, about any particular point under dis- cussion, he never got restive or impatient or confused, as though he were being persecuted by questions and cross-questions. The more incisive the questioner, the better he liked it. It is now more than twenty-five years since I saw Mr. Tomp- kins. We have occasionally exchanged letters. He has sent me his books as he published them. I have read them with admira- tion for the work and the workman. The quondam teacher has become the disciple, I have a sense of personal loss. A sincere, generous, warm- hearted friend has vanished. His work remains — more enduring than monument of marble or bronze. The greater public has lost the efficient services of a truly philosophical educator. Such men are few in number. Wm. A. Jones, Hastings, Neb. Of all the educators I have ever seen before a class in high schools, normal schools, colleges, or universities, Arnold Tompkins is the best, according to my ideas of what a model teacher should be, do, and say, and in getting pupils to tell what they think they know, and how to arrange, classify and apply their knowledge. Doubt, in going from the individual to the general or universal idea, or the converse, had no place in that recitation. The pupils knew what they knew, and they knew how and why they knew — which was better still. Words fail me to paint his manner. There was no dignitarial barrier between him and those young people. They knew and felt and understood. Supt. J. M. Greenwood, [From The Journal of Education.] Kansas City. During the years that Dr. Tompkins visited Pennsylvania in- stitutes he made many friends and won unbounded admiration from those who heard his lectures. His delivery was pleasant to the listener; his philosophy was mingled with humor; and his en- [ 27 ] thusiasm kindled a fire that did not burn out with his departure. His friends in Pennsylvania learned with deep regret of his un- timely death. Nathan C. Schaeffer, State Superintendent of Pennsylvania. The character and work of Arnold Tompkins have been such as to be an illuminating force for all who have come and who may come under the influence of his life work. He had that broad, catholic view of education which marks the distinction between the mere pedagogue and the genuine school-master. To have known him is to have come into communion with one whose whole nature was ever leading all who came under the spell of his mes- sage to a higher, holier view of life in all of its aspects. Perhaps the most noticeable characteristic of this man was such unworldliness as made it well nigh impossible for him to con- ceive of dishonesty until it had preyed upon the things he loved to their threatened destruction. He obeyed certain guiding prin- ciples by means of which he measured the value of what men did and of what they were. Idealist though he was, he was at the same time the sanest sort of realist. His interpretation of art has been most suggestive to many who have gained their first notions of the aesthetic, the ethical, the spiritual from his sound views upon the significance of beauty. However much one may differ from him in his philosophy, no one who knew him can fail to pay him the tribute of honesty of purpose, and of a beautiful, inspiring life and character. Many have sat at the feet of Arnold Tompkins to learn the lessons that come alone from a great, unselfish soul. Emma Mont McRae, Purdue University . The winning power of his great personality moved men deeply. Life quickened in his presence. His spirit, ever seeking better things, touched with fire the mind self-satisfied, and warmed into new life the seeker’s noble aspiration. He was a teacher whose living words still search the minds of men, the beauty of whose noble life, a heritage divine, is with us still. J. E. McGilvrey. Principal City Normal School , Cleveland , Ohio. I met Dr. Arnold Tompkins for the first time a number of years ago in an Institute in Pennsylvania. From the first I was strongly impressed with the sweetness and simplicity of his char- acter and with the loftiness of his personal and professional ideals. [ 28 ] The longer I knew him, the deeper this impression became, until I came to think of him as one of the rarest, most beautiful spirits I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. J. P. Gordy, DepH. of Philosophy of Education, New York University . I had abundant opportunity at DePauw Normal School, Greencastle, Indiana, to see the remarkable influence he had over his students and how it was all exerted to lead them to attain to the best that was in them. They believed in him as the embodi- ment of all that they ought to strive after. To know Dr. Tompkins truly was to be drawn to him strongly. And it was worth while to get away from the beaten path to know him. I am sure my life is enriched by the privilege I had of com- ing into fellowship with him. Robert A. Ogg. Superintendent Kokomo, Ind. Schools. My acquaintance with Dr. Arnold Tompkins was not exten- sive or intimate, and it was mainly professional rather than per- sonal. My knowledge of him sufficed, however, to impress me with the richness of the man’s personality and with the depth and reach of his mental life and stores. His education was ample, his heart warm, his ideals high, his life pure, his industry exem- plary. So extraordinary did I feel his promise as a teacher of teachers to be that, on Principal Francis W. Parker’s resignation, my resolution was at once taken to nominate Tompkins as the successor of that distinguished master. I hailed him as fit prophet to receive the Parker mantle, the man best adapted, among all of whom I knew, to carry forward the important educational reform so well begun at the Chicago Normal. In his all too brief work there he did not disappoint me. His death is a distinct loss to the cause of rational pedagogy in America. Those who knew and loved the man do well to try and preserve his memory. E. Benjamin Andrews, Chancellor of the University of Nebraska. Dr. Arnold Tompkins had a clear eye for two things that are exceedingly essential in all educational progress. First, he saw things as they really are; and, second, he saw them as they truly ought to be. This is a great combination of abilities, and is as rare as it is valuable. The educational world has seen many leaders who have beheld one of these items well enough, but who have failed, to a greater or less extent, to comprehend the other. Dr. Tompkins was exceedingly fortunate in that he saw both with even eyes. ( 29 ) Besides this, he was strong in his ways of trying to make what ought to be out of what is. In this he exhibited good com- mon sense and rare skill. He was satisfied to attempt the possi- ble, and wasted neither time nor strength in straining after what could never be. He measured capacities before planning results, and so his work was wont to arrive. But, after all, his greatest source of strength lay in his ability to love. He loved his work, but far and away beyond that, he loved those he worked for. These he loved, “not with allowance, but with personal love,” and this is the greatest thing in the world. His heart went out to humanity, and the thought behind his every word and deed was, how to make these tally for the good of his fellow men. And as he loved, so he was loved in turn. He was “one of those whom it was good to be near and to touch.” His personality was great, and it is this which will live after him in the lives of those who touched him as a teacher, or through his books. Surely, with such things as these accomplished, his immortality is assured. Wm. Hawley Smith, Peoria 111. The news of Dr. Arnold Tompkins’s death came to me as a great shock. I had come to love him for his rich manhood, ad- mire him for his sane philosophical teachings, respect him for his earnest devotion to the profession he honored and rank him as one of the masters in the work to which he devoted his great tal- ents and gave his life. His death is a personal bereavement to thousands and a loss to the Cause. w. Stetson, State Superintendent of Maine. The death of Arnold Tompkins is a great loss to our educa- tional forces. It was so sudden, so unexpected, to human eyes so needless, that it came to me almost with the power of a tragedy. His charming personality endeared him to us as a friend and com- panion; his earnestness and sincerity made him a power before his classes, and the inspiration of his words and his manner of address made him an acceptable speaker whenever he had occa- sion to meet a company of teachers. An entirely different man from his predecessor, yet he took up the work in much the same spirit. Like him he earnestly and solely desired the best things for the cause which each counted so near his heart. A man of high ideals and of great tenacity of purpose, he knew the devious ways of the school politician only to discard them as beneath his manhood. The world was just beginning to know the real worth of Arnold Tompkins when he died. Had he lived he would have [30J accomplished yet greater things. As it is there are hundreds who deem themselves fortunate that they came within the sphere of his influence, and who, in loving hearts, cherish his memory as a priceless legacy. Henry Sabin, Ex-State Superintendent of Public Instruction of Iowa, Des Moines, la. A man who speaks in public usually adapts himself to a cer- tain audience; one to a congregation, another to a jury and another to a class. Arnold Tompkins’s audience was the institute. He was a versatile man. He could speak well under almost any circumstances and in almast any company. He was a very fine teacher, exerting an extraordinary influence over those in his classes. But his own audience, as I think, was the institute, a company of teachers, whether fifty or a thousand, assembled for instruction and inspiration in matters pedagogical. In that pres- ence Arnold Tompkins was supreme. Before that audience he was, in fact, a great preacher. It is safe to say that few preachers of the past generation have exerted a wider, deeper, or more benef- icent influence. Wm. L. Bryan, President of Indiana University . I shall never forget' the first time I met and heard Arnold Tompkins, at a cpunty institute in northern Illinois. His inde- pendent and original ought, in its striking statement, challenged attention and called forth vigorous thought in reply. He was in earnest sympathy with the needs of the teachers, understood their problems, and met them in their own field. His words were cour- ageous, cheery, and wise, often quaintly phrased, sticking fast in the memory. His enthusiasm was contagious, his spirit uplifting. A later acquaintance strengthened my respect and admiration for his genuine nature and his helpful work. He has been a great help to numberless young men and women, and the force of his personality will abide. Sarah Louise Arnold, Dean of Simmons College. [ 31 ]