far and too long, and in the upper grades of the lower schools we have been feeding gruel until there have often resulted mental anæmia, arrested development, and general intellectual flabbiness. The interest of the child demands that this transition be made earlier and less abruptly than we are now doing. If the boys and girls at the end of the sixth year of their course can be admitted to the school in which they are to complete their public-school education, a course of six years can be arranged for the high school by which they can with less friction and greater success be carried forward farther than they are under our present system. Then the change can be made from the elementary to the secondary method gradually and naturally, without jar or jolt, instead of making it in a day, as we do under our present system.

Under this plan it is not proposed that every, boy and girl shall be set at once to studying a foreign language, but it is proposed that, if any pupil desires to begin a foreign language, the opportunity shall be offered. It is not proposed that all pupils shall decide at the outset whether they are to prepare for a higher institution or to complete their schooling in the high school, but it is proposed that, if any pupil shall decide that he wishes to prepare for college, or to go no farther than the high school, the choice shall be open to him. It is not proposed that the pupils shall be put to work at once and exclusively upon the so-called high-school subjects, but it is proposed that they shall be gradually inducted into those subjects in a manner suited to their age and mental maturity.

The placing of these subjects down in the lower schools does not meet the necessities of the case. What is needed is to take the pupil out of the elementary school and the elementary-school atmosphere and the exclusively elementary-school method, and place him in the secondaryschool surroundings and under teachers versed in secondary-school work. So far as my experience and observation have extended, the result of placing these advanced subjects in the lower school has never been satisfactory.

The question will at once arise: Will not this plan involve too great expense? The subject of the expense of public education is one not to. be lightly treated, and yet we must remember that no community has any more important duty to perform than that of providing for the education of its youth. Besides, that which costs the least is not always the cheapest in the long run. This is emphatically true in education. The cheapest teachers, the cheapest buildings, and the cheapest equipment are not always the most desirable.

If we can make changes in our plan of organization that will result in improvement in the education of the youth, slightly increased expense should not be allowed to stand in the way. The plan proposed would involve some additional expense, it is true, but not as much as might at

first appear. The additional expense in the high school would be largely compensated for by the reduced expense of the lower school. No more teachers and no more room would be required than are required now; only a different distribution. Of course, teachers of broader culture and of more extended acquirements would command higher compensation, and the material equipment might be somewhat more expensive; but would not the advantage of these more than counterbalance the increased cost? I do not apprehend that the added expense would be large enough to make us hesitate, provided the adoption of the proposed change will bring needed improvement.

Another question that may be asked is: Will not the drawing of the dividing line between the high school and the elementary school at the close of the sixth year make a convenient stopping-place for pupils, and will not the result be that many will leave school two years earlier than they now do? I think not. In the first place, in our present plan of organization the pupil is supposed to have completed the so-called common-school studies before reaching the high school, and hence there is a natural stopping-place at that point. Under the proposed plan this reason for leaving will have less force, because these studies will not have been completed, but will be continued in the high school. Besides this, at the age of fourteen, about the average at which the lower-school course is finished, the pupil is beyond the reach of the compulsory law in many of our states, and he drops out for that reason. At twelve he would still be subject to that law, and therefore would of necessity continue his studies into the high school.

It may also be objected that the high school is so far away from the homes of many of the pupils that a large number will drop out because of the inconvenience and expense incurred in traveling to and fro. It is true that the nearer the school is to the homes, the greater the likelihood of a large attendance. But it must be borne in mind that, if pupils are admitted to the high school two years earlier than now, the number of high-school pupils will be greatly increased, so that in cities where two high schools will suffice now, three or four would be required, and where now there are three high schools, five or six would be required. These could be so located as to bring the high school within reasonable proximity to the homes of all, and the falling off in attendance, for the reason given above, would be less than under the present plan, where the high schools are few in number and situated from necessity far from the homes of many who are prevented from attending because of the distance.

All of these objections, and others that may be offered, will, I am sure, vanish when the scheme is given a practical trial. We are the only progressive people in the world, so far as I know, who begin their distinctively secondary schools so late and give to them so short a time. It is impossible to cover the ground that the secondary school should cover, or ta

accomplish the results that it should accomplish, without a curriculum. extending thru a longer period of years.

I know of nothing in American life and character, nor in American habits, nor in the mental peculiarities of the American, that justifies us in ignoring the long experience of other peoples in this matter. It has been well said that "the virtue of secondary teaching lies, in large measure, in its duration, in its slow influence upon the intellect. The best teachers need the help of time, if they wish, not to furnish the memory with hastily acquired and badly digested knowledge, but to act upon intellectual habits and accomplish the education of the mind, which is truly the essential aim of secondary education."

Let us then give the high school a chance to do its work, and when this shall have been accomplished, let us hope that, by omitting nonessentials and using a little saving common-sense, we may be able to shorten our whole school curriculum by one or two years.

DISCUSSION

SUPERINTENDENT EDWIN G. COOLEY, Chicago, Ill.—I believe I am in sympathy with most of what Principal Coy has said, tho I do not regard the separation of the highschool work from the elementary at the end of the sixth year as desirable.

I believe that in many ways, considering the conditions that exist in the Chicago high schools, the best is one of these schools having pupils from the kindergarten thru the twelfth grade. In that school we have manual training in the grades-manual training that can be carried farther than the grades. It seems to me that, while there is an advantage in employing something like the departmental method with the seventh and eighth grades, it is not necessary. We are giving teachers additional salary where they are able to specialize. I believe that the gap at the end of the eighth grade comes because we change too abruptly. I am not an advocate of the departmental method below the eleventh grade in the high school. I think that the lower grade in the high school needs teachers who can teach the pupils as well as the subjects.

It seems to me that the most crying need is some improvement in the curriculum and a change in the spirit of the work. We should have one or two years of manual training and commercial courses worthy of that name, and work that commends itself to the parents as dealing with real life.

It will be necessary to prescribe, of course, that a boy who takes physics must know mathematics, but we must allow choice. I do not think it is to the point to sneer at the choices by boys and girls; if they pick out "snaps," something is wrong with the teacher. I will not say it is a crime; but I will say it is a blunder, at least, to assume that schools go to pieces under the elective system. When evils from this system are shown, I will consider the objections.

Another point made by the writer of the paper is that the high school has a better atmosphere and a better corps of instructors than the elementary schools. More poor work is done in Chicago in the first and second years of the high school than in the seventh and eighth grades. More teachers are trying to bring university methods into the high school than there are making such mistakes in the grades below. I do not believe that algebra taught in the elementary schools will be more poorly taught than in the high schools.

I think I can say in conclusion simply this: While not pretending to have discussed

the subject thoroly, I agree as to the introduction of some of these studies lower down, some departmental work lower down; but not that the separation at the end of the sixth grade is fundamentally desirable.

SUPERINTENDENT F. LOUIS SOLDAN, St. Louis, Mo.-I am in accord with much of the paper and much of what has been said by the speaker preceding me. If I think of the readjustment of the high school at all, I think of it not as changed by changing the course of the district schools. Instead of holding up to the district-school teacher the ideal of the high-school teacher, I wish to hold up to the high-school teacher, as well worth imitating, the work done by the common-school teacher in the last ten of the fifteen years. The common-school teacher has gone beyond the mere knowledge of the subject he is to teach; he has gone to the thoughtful consideration of how these subjects should be taught to have the fullest educational influence over the children under his control, adjusted according to the wise and well-established principles of educational sciences. The very first step in the readjustment of the high school is to show at least one book by high-school teachers that embodies the high-school method. It is strange that the books for the common school teachers are without equivalents in the high schools. Let them follow the example of the common-school teachers in mastering the subjects and also in mastering the pedagogics of the subjects.

The pupils enter the high school as children. Their work in the first year, and often in the second year, is done after the ways of children, but by the time they leave the high schools they are adults in many respects. That important transition from childhood to adolescence has not been considered, so far as I know, by any high-school teacher. The course of study should be adjusted according to the principles of wise pedagogics.

I do not know whether your experience is the same as mine. The common complaint of a teacher is: "If only those children came to me well prepared!" That is the general educational feeling. When the college professor finds that condition resulting from the infinite capacity of the young mind to resist new knowledge, he speaks of the high school as a failure. The high-school teacher speaks of the poor work of the district schools, and the only teacher that does not make the same complaint is the kindergarten teacher. There is enough to readjust without adding below or cutting off at the top.

PROFESSOR CHARLES DEGARMO, of Cornell University. Since I have been engaged in the business of training teachers all my professional life, I cannot be thought by anyone to disparage such training.

Tho it may be conceded that high-school teaching is often poor, yet I deprecate the inference that often follows remarks upon this subject, to the effect that the possession of knowledge is a presupposition of inefficiency in teaching. Such an inference, I am sure, is wrong.

It was stated by the previous speaker that we have not yet produced a book on the pedagogics of high-school teaching. Tho we have no single volume covering this field, I wish to mention a few books on the teaching of secondary subjects that are worthy of our consideration: (1) The Teaching of Elementary Mathematics, embracing arithmetic, algebra, and plane and solid geometry, by David Eugene Smith, of Teachers College, Columbia University, an expert in knowledge of the subject and a past-master of its teaching. (2) German Higher Schools, by Dean James E. Russell, of the same institution. This volume gives the American teacher a wide survey of secondary work in all its departments, as it may be seen in Germany. (3) The Teaching of Latin and Greek, by Professors Bennett and Bristol, of Cornell University- a book which gives a complete survey of the teaching of Latin from the beginning to the end of the high-school course. (4) The Teaching of English, by Percival Chubb, of the Ethical Culture School, New York city. This book ranges over both elementary and secondary work in English. (5) The Teaching of Physics and Chemistry, by Smith and Hall - a complete survey of the teaching of these two subjects in the high school. (6) Educational Aims and Educational

Methods, by Paul II. Hanus, of Harvard University-a book which discusses in broad and generous spirit the whole high school problem. (7) The Meaning of Education, by President Butler, of Columbia University, a large proportion of which pertains to secondary education. (8) The Making of our Middle Schools, by Professor E. E. Brown, of the University of California. This book, tho historical in the main, gives many intimations as to how high-school teaching should be done. Besides these eight volumes, which are certainly worthy of consideration, there are many other books and a large number of reports which deal with the various aspects of secondary education. It can, therefore, not justly be charged that the high-school interest has been neglected in educational literature.

Concerning the main question before us, I wish to express my accordance with the main conclusions of Principal Coy's paper. We have been considering this subject for two years at Cornell, and have come to the firm conclusion that the roots of the highschool studies must go farther down into the grades, unless we are prepared greatly to overburden the youth from fourteen to eighteen in preparation for the work of the colleges and universities. The subject, however, is beset with administrative and other difficulties. In Europe secondary education is simplified in that it not only extends over longer periods than in this country, but because secondary education is offered in the main only to children of educated parents. These schools are segregated from those for the common people, but in this country we must preserve our educational ladder. We must make it possible for the children of all classes to pass easily and readily from elementary to secondary, and from secondary to higher, education. This means that we cannot have a caste system for our secondary schools.

In most cases I think the best and most natural solution of the problem is to offer elective courses in beginning languages and in the elements of algebra and geometry in the grammar schools. Plenty of teachers can be found who are able, not only to teach the subject, but to teach the pupil.

I did not rise, however, to settle this question, but rather to express my conviction of its importance.

INDUSTRIAL TRAINING IN RURAL SCHOOLS

ALFRED BAYLISS, STATE SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION, SPRINGFIELD, ILL.

I visited a country school the other day, which I should like to describe as a basis for this discussion.

The house is comparatively new, and enjoys the unusual distinction in Illinois- of being heated by a furnace. There is a narrow closet, extending the whole width of the building, from which leads the stairway to the basement. There is also an outer stairway to a door opening into the basement. I took the liberty to work my way into the schoolroom thru this back door and up the inside stairs, thus making an opportunity to explore that basement and take an inventory of the contents of the long closet before intruding upon the school.

The excavation for the basement is under about one-third of the floor space, and was intended to be just large enough for the furnace and coal supply. But by some happy inadvertence it had been made larger than absolutely necessary for those conveniences, and so there is room in the