Yet liberty, tho the first word in all reforms, is never the last. Already the elective principle is passing into its second stage. The group system-not the old rigid group system imposed by authority from above, but a group system in which each student shall choose a major, and perhaps one or two minors, for himself, so as to insure consecutive, cumulative study of one subject leading to an advanced course in the last yearpreviously established in Yale University, Leland Stanford Junior University, and the University of California, has been adopted this year by two New England colleges, Dartmouth and Williams. This is the logical development of the elective principle, and aims to combine the freedom of choice with a requirement that something solid, consecutive, and valuable shall be chosen. It puts into the elective system the backbone which was the strength of the old requirement of Latin, Greek, and mathematics; but it leaves the individual free to determine what the backbone of his own course shall be. For a college to do this requires a pretty large staff. It is, however, the most positive step forward taken within the year in college education; and we may expect to see colleges making haste to adopt it as fast as their resources will permit.

If to this requirement of a major we could add a suggestion, made by President Wilson of Princeton, that examination, in the major subject at least, should be, not on particular courses, but on the subject as a whole, we might to that degree avoid some of the evils growing out of large courses, wholesale methods of instruction, and so-called "seminar" devices for passing examinations.

No educational proposition ever received such sweeping and emphatic condemnation from school and college, press and platform, private conference and public assembly, as the proposition to grant the degree of A.B. at the end of two years of college work. It is a project to vivisect our most distinctive educational institution; to cut the college course in two, and throw the better half away.

Still, the time must be saved somewhere. Providence, R. I., has reduced the grades from nine to eight; the superintendent of the Boston schools recommends the same change; and in the West they have in some cases reduced the grades to seven, and even propose to reduce to six, transferring the two upper years to the high school, making that a six-year course. Semi-annual promotion, with frequent irregular promotion for bright and healthy pupils, will save for them another year. Baltimore has in the seventh and eighth grades a preparatory class in which bright pupils can anticipate some of the 150 credits required in the high school. Admission to college by points enables a bright and vigorous pupil to offer more than are required, and thus anticipate some portion of the college work required for the degree. The Boston Latin School proposes to prepare its students for three years of college residence. The statement of college requirements for graduation in units of work, rather

than lapses of time, is another opportunity to gain time by extra work. Many universities count the same work for both the last year in college and the first year in the professional school. Western Reserve University and the Case School of Applied Science give both the literary and the scientific degrees for three years in the university and two in the Case School. The University of Minnesota gives the bachelor's degree and the degree in medicine for a six-year course, of which the studies of the last four years are chiefly medical. The new college in connection with Clark University opens with a three-year course. In these various ways, thru greater elasticity at points of transition all thru the system as a whole, and a little more industry and enterprise on the part of the individual, we are working out a plan by which one who goes thru all the stages from the kindergarten to the professional school may shorten the period by from one to three years; and at the same time graduation from each stage shall mean as much as it ever did.

In the education of women there is a revival of the old-country seminaries like Wheaton and Bradford. The University of Chicago, in the face of bitter local prejudice and in defiance of the whole tradition of the West, has had the courage to ask such questions as these:

Is the intellectual stimulus which the women receive thru coeducation wholly of a salutary sort ?

Are there not too many cases of young women who have lost some of the fine attractiveness which closer reserve would have attained?

Is it not a pedagogical and social mistake to assume that men and women should be trained as nearly alike as possible?

Is there not a serious loss to both men and women if the university places too much emphasis upon what they have in common, and gives too little weight to the fact that in many respects these essential common interests may be best promoted separately?

Now, if it is brave to ask these questions, it is braver still to answer them, as the University of Chicago has done, in a way that on the face of it is partial, prudential, tentative, illogical, and inconsistent. "Consistency," as Emerson tells us, "is the hobgoblin of little minds." This action of the University of Chicago is a declaration that coeducation is not a matter of merely administrative detail, but involves the profoundest sociological and social considerations; that it is not, to use General Hancock's remark about the tariff, "a local issue," which can be answered permanently in one way by the East, and in another way by the West; that in every section of the country there will always be those who from circumstances or conviction will prefer coeducation, and others who from social or pedagogical considerations will prefer more or less segregation; and that the determination of the policy of each institution should be based, not on a doctrinaire devotion to an abstract theory, but on an inductive study of its own specific situation, resources, and the preferences of its constituency.

Other important steps of progress must be passed over with a mere

reference: the organization of the Religious Education Association, which promises to prosecute this important department of educational work. with candor, vigor, and progressiveness; the tendency to divide professional schools into two groups-those which do, and those which do not, require the bachelor's degree for admission; the establishment of chairs. devoted exclusively or mainly to research; the splendid gifts of Mr. Rockefeller, Mr. Morgan, and others to establish the Institute for the Study of Pathology, and place the Harvard Medical School on a basis of permanent efficiency; the raising of the money for the Emerson Hall at Harvard, where, in a building named for our greatest seer, and devoted to philosophy, Professors Palmer, James, Royce, Münsterberg, Peabody, and Santayana will have the best provision for the study of philosophy since the Athenian lyceum and academy.

One thing, however, deserves especial note-the wise policy of the Carnegie Institution. By its refusal to compete with other agencies; by its impartial constitution of advisory committees; by its encouragement to research; by its utilization of the immense historical and scientific resources accumulated at Washington-the Carnegie Institution has already won the gratitude of the scholars of the country. Incidentally it has effectually sidetracked the sentimental agitation for a Washington Memorial University. What might have proved a rival to other institutions has become a stimulus and ally to all. It was a fortunate thing that this munificent gift of our great and generous captain of industry, Andrew Carnegie, came under the administration of that prince of scholars and past-master of educational organization, Dr. Daniel Coit Gilman. Thus administered, the Carnegie Institution is a worthy crown of our national educational system.

As the golf enthusiast amuses himself at times by figuring up what his score would be if he could count the best he ever did at each hole, we may in conclusion draw a picture of what our educational system would be if it were everywhere as good as the best that anywhere has been attained.

We should have small boards of education, composed of the best citizens, devoted exclusively to legislation, employing trained experts to carry out their measures. We should have trained teachers, whose attainments are years in advance of the stage at which they are teaching; granted, after careful selection and adequate probation, permanent tenure at salaries proportioned to their efficiency and length of service.

We should have in the elementary schools, kindergarten ideas, manual training, literature, and nature study; yet in all due subordination to the old-fashioned idea that the individual must master with the greatest economy of time the symbols of human knowledge and human inter

course.

We should have attractive buildings, in spacious and beautiful grounds,

used summer and winter, daytime and evening, by both children and adults, in the service, whenever needed, of social as well as intellectual ends.

We should have the length of each stage of education determined in part by individual performance, instead of by a rigid time-table imposed on all alike; so that, without lowering the standard of any single stage, a bright scholar might pass thru them all in a substantially shorter time.

We should teach women as expensively and thoroly as men ; yet not necessarily the same subjects, at the same time and place. The degree of A.B. would stand for the knowledge of several important subjects, and the thoro knowledge of at least one subject.

We should give the exceptional man of proved ability such aid as he requires to make his largest contribution to science and human welfare. The elements of such an educational system are all present at isolated points. It is for us to return to our homes and cultivate our own garden plots up to the standard of the best that has been attained elsewhere.

DISCUSSION

JOHN W. COOK.-These are cheering notes to which we have listened. They fill us with hope. One feels rising in his soul the spirit of the hunter when the bugle notes proclaim that the quarry is in sight. I may be permitted to speak of two or three things that especially interest those of us who live in the West. First of all, we may have a growing confidence in the fact that the school is learning to maintain its independence against the political forces that, in their struggle for mastery, endeavor to use it to its extreme hurt. The schoolmaster must stand for his cause with all the courage and enthusiasm with which the old Greek defended his hearthstone. I believe that the people are with us, and, if they can be informed of the perils that lie in wait if the nursery of states is to be administered with an eye to the particular advantage of a political party, the autonomy of the school may be maintained.

The decline of the rural school in numbers and in consequent efficiency has not failed to attract the attention of the schoolmen of the West. Pray, what degree of success can a little group of half a dozen children attain in the development of their genuine social life when they gather from the isolated home on the farm in the little schoolhouse at the corners? The number of pupils in the average rural school of Illinois does not exceed eighteen, while there are many with less than half that number; but the consolidated school is on the way. It is true that we are following in the wake of some of the older and some of the newer states, but we are willing to be led in matters of such extreme importance. The first consolidated school in Illinois is now an accomplished fact, and the man of all men to whom credit is especially due for the inauguration of this important reform is Superintendent O. J. Kern, of Winnebago county. That this school will have many imitators I have no doubt, and the time is coming in Illinois when the children of the rural districts are to have all of the facilities of the village so far as education is concerned. What a transformation of the social life of such communities will inevitably result!

A single word more must suffice. The professional school is likewise getting its recognition. In many localities boards of education have had the courage to declare that only those who have received the discipline of the teachers' academies need apply. The normal schools are waiting for those to come who need their ministry. It rests with the school board, which needs only to insist upon the attainments, and they will be forthcoming.

And when the shadows of nepotism and the sordid spirit of mistaken economy shall have become things of the past, the schools will enter into their own, and become those centers of social influence for which they are designed.

J. W. CARR.—If this discussion is to be in the nature of a report from the field, I should say that the most cheering news from Indiana relates to the increase of the salaries of her teachers. There has been a steady increase in the salaries of the rank and file of the grade teachers in the towns and cities of Indiana for a number of years. In some of the most progressive cities all first-class grade teachers now receive $600 per year. This is a decided advance.

But most progress has been made in reference to the salaries of the country teachers. In 1901 the general assembly of Indiana passed a minimum wage law, which greatly increased the daily wages of a large majority of the teachers in the rural schools. Previous to that time a law had been enacted requiring the school term to be at least six months. It was found, however, that in many rural communities the revenues were not sufficient to continue the schools for that length of time. The last general assembly amended the minimum wage law, making provision for successful experienced teachers to receive a much better salary than ever before. At the same time the law in reference to local taxation was amended so that now almost every rural community in the entire state can have a six-month term of school, while all successful teachers receive at least $50 per month. It is difficult to estimate the beneficent effect of this law. The teachers are elated, and the people hopeful. The children will be greatly benefited.

JOSEPH SWAIN.-It is very difficult to determine just what is accomplished in any one year in education in the United States. Doubtless those things which count most are matters of growth from year to year. Certainly this excellent report of President Hyde is very encouraging. As a western man, who has been in the East for a single year, I have been impressed with the growing tendency to favor admission to college by the certificate system rather than by examination. It is probable that our educational system will never be sufficiently perfect to do away entirely with the examination for entrance to college; but, as we more and more perfect our system, the step from secondary school to college should be as simple and as natural as the step from one of the lower grades to the next higher. The teachers in one grade should determine the fitness of the pupil for the next higher. This system has been in use in part of the West for many years, and I am pleased to note its extension in the East. The University of Michigan, after several years' experience, finds the character of the work of those entering under the certificate plan slightly superior to those entering under the examination system.

Another encouraging result of the year is the increased endowments and appropriations for higher education, both in public and private colleges and universities. The University of Illinois received over $1,300,000 from the last legislature of the state. This is the largest appropriation, so far as I know, that has ever been made to a single educational institution by any state for expenditure in the period of two years.

C. M. WOODWARD.-Of course we expect you all to come to the great Louisiana Purchase Exposition next year, when we shall have an opportunity to show you how admirably the management of that exposition and Washington University have co-operated in organizing the greatest educational exhibit of the age. But the story of the exposition is too long for me to tell. I will, therefore, say a few words about this report, which was not only inspiring in its thoroness, but was delightful in the way it was presented.

1 wish to speak especially of the action of the state of Missouri in increasing the income of our public schools. The rate of taxation for public-school purposes is fixed by the constitution of the state. It has been four mills on the dollar for thirty years. Last November, by a popular vote of the people of the whole state, the rate of taxation was raised to six mills-an increase of 50 per cent. You can easily imagine the effect of such a splendid increase in the money at our disposal. I predict that within two years the high