his ideals of the true and the beautiful are measured by these early impressions. He is to be a home-maker; he is to be a citizen; and it is within the power of the school to make him feel and appreciate something of the influence of beautiful surroundings, so that he will use that influence for his own benefit and that of others.

Shall we not catch from this great meeting something of the spirit of New England culture, and let it work out in our own homes a clearer conception of courtesy, cleanliness, order, and beauty?

SCHOOL SURROUNDINGS

W. W. STETSON, STATE SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS IN MAINE

[STENOGRAPHIC REPORT]

The schools

The homes of America are to be domestic universities. of this country should be the social, literary, and art centers of the communities in which they are located. When that day has come, the safety of the nation will not be in the hands of its rulers, but in the lives of its common people. We shall then have learned that the world's best servant is he who knows the past, lives in the present, foresees the future, and is ready for the next thing. To bring about this quartet of consummations I believe we need better physical surroundings, best books for all, and art in the schoolroom.

It is time for us to realize that the home and the school hold the hope of the future. He who runs may know that the people are reading and studying and thinking on what we are pleased to call our problem.

We should rejoice to find that the world has finally stumbled thru the twilight of things on to the vantage-ground it holds today. If we had reached our altitude sooner, we should not be as strong as we are. It will not be wise or best to try to reform the world the first week of next September. It will be well for us to stop for a moment, stand still for a while and settle upon a few things to do, and then do them. We have had altogether too much direction and instruction by people who have not been willing to spend a little time in studying conditions and are content to devote all their energies to formulating their fulminations.

Would it not be worth while for us to know something about the country home and the rural school and the children therein, and the parents and teachers having charge of them, before we assume to say what these conditions are or what means are needed to improve them? These people, living in isolated places, are not asleep, and they are not wanting in a comprehension of the day in which they live and the demands the world is making on them. If changes are to come, they will come because the people have intelligence enough to go forward from the point

where they stand, with a full knowledge of what is behind them, about them, and before them.

One of these days we are to be large enough so that we shall be willing to put our shoulders to the wheel without asking to have our names in the newspapers. We will join our forces to those found in the local communities, and, joining with them, bring about the results we are all seeking. These changes will be late and long in coming, unless they come largely thru the planning, effort, and sacrifices of the people who need them. I have scant faith in things which come to us without effort on our part. It would not be a blessing to Maine to have all of our unfit school buildings replaced by suitable ones thru the gift of some millionaire. If the people in these communities can be led to see what is needed, and stimulated to make these improvements slowly, patiently, then the largest gains will not be found in more extensive grounds, more beautiful furnishings, more attractive buildings, but will be manifest in a wiser public spirit, truer sense of responsibility, and finer fitness for citizenship.

It is not necessary for me to speak of the thousands of dollars that have been put into our school buildings in the past few years, the number of school grounds that have been enlarged and beautified, the buildings that have been furnished with a thousand and one appliances. We rejoice in all these evidences of better days, but our rejoicing is due to the change in the point of view-to that strength which comes to the doer, rather than to the physical changes that have been wrought.

In one community in our state all the buildings have been rebuilt, the rooms refurnished, the grounds enlarged and improved. One of the mothers told how these changes had brought into her home light and life. Her children now have a larger outlook, and the future is more hopeful because of the effort made by that community to do for themselves the things they had come to realize needed doing.

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We are living in a fast age. We are working under testing conditions. We are passing thru great changes. We need to understand that life is something more than surroundings, and that work is something more than getting things done. We must understand that the home, the school, and the church have one great mission, and that is to fit boys and girls to become men and women; to live worthily in a larger day than the one in which we work.

If the home is true to its mission, if the school is faithful to its duty, if the community realizes its responsibility, then we shall have fitness to live and ability to serve.

The last suggestion I have to offer is somewhat in contradiction to those I have presented, and it is this: There come times in the administration of the school, in the working out of those problems given us to solve, when it is necessary for us to follow the advice given us by a distinguished English clergyman when he said: "Never explain, never apologize, never retract; get the thing done and let them howl."

THE TEACHING OF CIVICS AND GOOD CITIZENSHIP IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS

R. W. G. WELLING, NEW YORK CITY

It may be presumptuous for one who is not a teacher to prescribe for teachers the proper method of instruction in a subject so important as civics and good citizenship; but we who take part in political campaigns have a long-standing quarrel with you, the instructors of youth, because in this great department your work is not better done.

Thruout the country today, in the great majority of instances, you are merely teaching the rules that govern the organization or form of government, and this, as you must realize, is scarcely more than the very beginning of civics. Children may be able to state glibly the functions of the various officers of government, while yet having formed in their minds no picture even remotely resembling the real activity of these officers, and being therefore quite unable to recognize them and reason about them in real life. When you have taught the rules of grammar and arithmetic, you do not for one moment delude yourself into thinking the child knows his grammar and arithmetic until he has had practice in applying these rules. Also what interest has a child in the mere machinery of government? Can one readily call to mind a drier topic for children? How can it be made interesting without in some way bringing them in contact with its working? And how can they be inspired with the responsibilities as well as the privileges of citizenship?

There is a noble effort making in the "school city"— a sort of George Junior Republic for public schools, designed to bring about that very contact by converting the school itself into a municipality, with mayor, common council, judges, police and other departments, and so to bring the children into such actual relation with those offices that ignorance of their functions will be no longer possible.

The "school city," in some form or other, appears to be not unlike the practical example in arithmetic, or the law clubs for the trial of cases. in a law school, to which we were recommended in my day to give about half our working time. I accept it at once as an excellent foundation on which to build further. Unquestionably, in matters relating to discipline and order, it is a step far in advance of the authority of a single teacher. It inculcates habits of self-control, and each student is made to feel his share in the maintenance of order. Fear as an inducement to good conduct has been almost wholly eliminated. The development of the instinct of citizenship and the acquaintance with the machinery of government are acquired in the course of actually performing some of the functions of government.

The first of these cities was put in operation in 1897. The plan has

been widely advertised, and yet I doubt if there are more than a very few at present in the country. In the hands of a zealous teacher its possibilities are many. It contemplates ultimately a school state government and a school national government. In one instance,' I note that a petition was handed in from the common council of the school to the faculty "to bring before the student body such information regarding village and school improvement as will serve to help make us more intelligent and useful citizens, not only in New Paltz, but also when we go elsewhere to live."

Here we have a suggestion that the "school city" branch out and take part in the affairs of the community in which the school is located. It may be cleaner streets, or new parks, or smoother pavements, but there must always be some activity largely removed from politics and open to the children to share, under the guidance of their teachers. They become readily interested in the object to be attained. Their own department or commissioner of public buildings or public works has, perhaps, made changes in their own playgrounds, thru their own initiative. Their teacher now instructs them in the difference between the school city commissioner of public parks and the actual commissioner of the town in which they lived. It is rarely that any reform or innovation of the kind I have in mind affects but one department of the city. If at all momentous in character, several departments and several years are needed for its accomplishment. Some insight will thus be given them into the machinery of nominations and the considerations that should influence appointments. to office; and thus also a feeling of responsibility is aroused.

This is no theory, but has actually been done, tho outside of the public schools. It can and should be done in the schools. In New York city, in some of our East Side settlements, boys of fourteen and upward have been organized to agitate for cleaner streets, new small parks, and better housing in the crowded districts. They were foreigners and the sons of foreigners, and yet such a familiarity have they acquired with the working. of city, state, and national government, and such a splendid zeal has inspired their actions, that one must conclude that the way to acquire civics and good citizenship is to engage in those activities that in themselves constitute good citizenship. Recently I was struck, in attending a debate among them, to hear a youngster of sixteen, born in Russia, without affectation and with a fervor that was unmistakable, in quoting from the United States constitution, repeatedly say: "Our forefathers in their wisdom provided." And yet in some quarters not long since there was the deepest distrust lest the type represented by this youth was altogether unfit for American citizenship. The country is safe indeed if we can only have enough young men like this lad of sixteen, only ten years in the country, and yet so imbued with the true spirit.

1 Gill System at the State Normal School at New Paltz, New York, p. 118.

As soon as a child has learned to think, it should be made to understand the politics of the country, and current events, branching out gradually from the minor interests and activities of the "school city." We have a striking illustration of what can be accomplished in this direction in the school conducted by Mr. McAndrews in New York city. After a few months of instruction and practice, girls are so trained that fifteen minutes' perusal of the daily paper enables them to give a thoroly intelligent account of the subject assigned to them, whether relating to foreign, national, state, or municipal affairs. And this leads me to say that girls as well as boys must be instructed in civics and good citizenship. The state may deny them a vote - I do not propose to discuss that question but their influence is needed; and in New York on more than one occasion have I seen the opponents of woman suffrage glad enough to accept all the help that could be had from intelligent and publicspirited women.

Another plan is that of Mr. Waldo H. Sherman, of the Young Men's Christian Association, New York city. He has had in operation for almost eight years a system differing somewhat in scope from Mr. Gill's "school city." It is intended for young men beyond the school age, of sixteen and over. He organizes a class into a community that performs not only the functions of government, but those of business and banking as well. With many charts to give picturesqueness to the work, he introduces the students as emigrants who settle as farmers on the land, society being organized according to the historical development of our government. Instead of finding a city built to hand, he begins with farmers living in the township and county, the student himself choosing his quarter section of land, 160 acres. Gradually a village is formed, and this, growing into a city, has relations later on with state and nation. The varied relations of men and property are shown by actual transactions.

The New England township is taken as an example, officers being elected at the town meeting. The schoolhouse is then built, highways and public works are taken up, and the treatment of the poor and the insane, and the question of high license or prohibition. At a certain stage in the town's development the pupils inherit a considerable sum of money, and become depositors and stockholders in a bank. Corporations are formed, and finally plans are made for a railroad. This is, of course, a great event in the life of the community; and from this point dates the life of the village, known as Collegeville Center, with a population of 5,000. A post-office, bank, hotel, and other buildings are erected, and the population finally reaches the figure of a city with an area of nine square miles, divided into wards, assembly districts, senatorial and congressional districts.

A vigorous campaign is carried on before election day, and meetings