proper solution would greatly increase the efficiency of our school work. But the solution of most of these problems would follow as a result, if we once solve the greater problem-the supplying of a sufficient number of well-equipped teachers for the public schools. To illustrate: The course of study needs elaboration, elucidation, and especially elimination. But the educational doctrinaire can no more do this work properly without the guidance and assistance of the practical teacher than John Locke could evolve a suitable scheme of government for the American colonies. There is the problem of carrying out the course of study, after it has been formulated, so as to get the best results. But no number of rules or regulations will enable amateurs, or other persons poorly equipped for their work, to do this properly. There is also the problem of the recognition and proper development of the individuality of pupils while teaching the mass in classes; but it is folly to speculate on this problem unless we place master-teachers in the schoolroom. There is still a greater problem. It is the use of the course of study, the discipline, the playground and the child's whole range of school experiences so as to develop properly his moral and religious nature, resulting in the formation of right character. But this miracle can no more be wrought without the child coming into contact with a noble personality than Simon Magus could purchase the gift of the Holy Ghost.

In making this special plea for better teachers and more of them, I am aware of the fact that I have said nothing new. Indeed, it is about the oldest and the tritest thing that could be said. But it is what ought to be said and what must be done, if the American public schools are not to prove the greatest disappointment of the age. The gospel is old, but nothing new has been, or ever will be, found to take its place.

How is a sufficient number of well-qualified teachers to be obtained for our public schools?

Create a greater public desire for good teaching by demonstrating the difference between the counterfeit and the genuine article.

Break down the Chinese walls that seem to surround many towns and cities, and employ good teachers, wherever they may be found.

Eliminate politics, nepotism, favoritism, and the whole brood of like isms from the management of school affairs.

Magnify the office of the teacher.

Make the tenure of position for good teachers absolutely secure; absolutely insecure for poor ones.

Promote for efficiency; dismiss for inefficiency.

Protect professional teachers from ruinous competition with nonprofessionals.

Pay teachers in proportion to the services rendered. According to the New York Sun, the "dog-catcher "of the city of Washington, euphoniously styled the "pound-keeper," receives $1,500 a year; grade teachers, $500 a year. Whenever the American people are willing to expend as much for great

teachers as they do for great school buildings, then we shall have great schools, and the next important step will have been taken to improve the efficiency of our school work.

And so, in closing, I wish to make one appeal. I wish to appeal to the superintendents of the United States to use their utmost endeavor to secure a higher degree of efficiency among teachers. I wish to appeal to school officers everywhere to subordinate personal interests to the welfare of the public schools, and to employ none but the best teachers available. I wish to appeal to the teachers themselves, not only to make the best preparation possible for their daily work, but to strive continually for clearer insight, broader smpathy, and greater power, in order that they may do the most possible for the children intrusted to their care. I wish to appeal to the great American press-the greatest press in any country-to use its mighty power in building up a public sentiment that will demand a competent teacher for every child. I wish to appeal to the fathers and to the mothers of the nation not to be contented with any person but the best-the best in character as well as in scholarship-to teach their children. And, finally, I wish to appeal to the great American people to render such moral and financial support to the public schools as will enable them to employ and to maintain the best teachers, thereby making it possible for the public chools to attain the highest degree of efficiency.

II. ADEQUATE LEADERSHIP, PROGRESSIVE TEACHERS, AND FEWER SUBJECTS

CARROLL G. PEARSE, SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, MILWAUKEE, WIS. The topic we are asked to discuss this afternoon is one which everybody feels qualified, and a great many people feel called upon, to discuss, tho much of the counsel which is offered to us reminds one of that offered to the man whose horse is back-stepping or rearing or has fallen in the street. And since the public-school system has not yet attained perfection, we shall doubtless not only continue to receive counsel on the subject from all our friends, but shall do as we are asked to do this morning-discuss it as a business matter among ourselves.

Alexander the Great, or some other ancient notable who was a successful warrior, is reported to have said: "I would rather have an army of deer lead by a lion than an army of lions lead by a deer." This is his way of expressing the value of proper leadership; and proper leadership is just as important in matters educational today as in matters industrial or political, and just as important in any of these lines as it was in the days of Alexander; and one of the great needs of our public schools is more adequate leadership on the part of those who fill positions as superintendents and principals. This is not to say that the persons who are doing this work are not of as great ability or as good intentions as those who fill positions of leadership

in other lines of business. It is to call attention to the fact that in such places the schools today need, as much as any one thing, trained leadership.

There are schools without number where the scholastic qualifications needed by the teacher or the principal or the superintendent can be obtained; colleges and universities, collegiate institutes and normal schools, are all ready to supply this side of the equipment. There are, too, many institutions in which teachers are trained in the principles and practice of instructing children. But when it comes to the broader and more responsible duties of school administrations, there has as yet been developed no institution in which young men or women planning to enter this particular department of education can receive the necessary training. The only way that has so far been opened is the time-honored way of experience-"exposure. The young man has been obliged to begin his work without any adequate preparation, and has learned what he could by the actual practice of the duties of such a position. What he has learned he has learned from the the result of his own experience. He has not been able to profit by the experience of others, as he would be if he entered most other professions.

To be a successful administrator of schools, various sides of educational work must be understood. The head of a school system needs to know the financial side of school management-how school revenues are gathered and should be expended. He should know something of the development and operations of the minds of children, as well as of the subjects of study which will develop their minds and characters in the most satisfactory way. This he must know in order that he may include the proper subjects in the course of instruction, and may arrange those subjects to the best advantage and in the proper order. He must have proper standards of school work and accomplishment; he must know how to direct and supervise the work of others. These and many other things are necessary to his success; and just now there is no place where he can learn these things, even theoretically, before beginning his work. The need of training for the profession of law or medicine, civil or mechanical or electrical engineering, is universally recognized, and ample provision is made for it; but for this profession, which is more important, so far as future welfare of the community is concerned, than any one of these, proper training has so far been left entirely to chance.

Strangely enough, there is almost no literature upon the subject; the volumes which treat of it are so few that they can almost be told on the fingers of one hand; and the treatment which it receives in current periodical literature is insufficient. To supply even this lack would do something toward improving the quality of the work done in the schools of the country.

Another way in which the average quality of work in American schools may be bettered is for the corps of instructors to realize more fully the need for keeping alive intellectually, and for keeping abreast of the times, both in a general way and educationally. It is so easy for teachers, as well as for those who oversee and direct their work, after having followed the employment long

enough to become reasonably familiar with its outward forms and processes, to rest back upon the technical skill so far acquired; this enables them to do the work day by day in a mechanical way, but without proper thought or that originality which is so desirable. If in some way those engaged in teaching could be impressed with the importance of a thoughtful attitude toward all new improvements of education, and a habit of questioning the methods and processes used; or could consider more frequently what improvements might be brought about; if this duty could be seen and met by all engaged in the work of education, the results in our schools would be much improved. To this should be added the value to the teacher of keeping alive his own intellectual life and his interest in the things of the mind and in the affairs of the world; this in order that he may be a better citizen of the world, and thus a better citizen of his community, as well as a well-rounded practicer of his profession.

Another way in which we may improve the efficiency of our work is to present to the pupils in our schools fewer subjects of study, and fewer items in these subjects, than is the general practice today. If one of us goes into a large department store and walks casually thru it, he gets very little impression of the contents of the store; it requires many such visits to get even a general knowledge. If we meet a crowd of people, one thousand or two thousand, we must meet them many, many times in order to get a very good knowledge of even a part of them; but if we enter a room which contains only a few objects, a few visits will give us a pretty thoro knowledge of what the room contains; and if we meet a small party of people for a reasonable number of times, we have not only a good knowledge of the individuals making up the company, but a pretty good knowledge of their characteristics and personalities. It is so with our subjects of study in the schools.

I remember a conversation with a teacher working in a large city, who was discussing nature study as taught in her school. She said that the requirements for "nature study" were so ma y and extensive that no time was available to study nature; all it was possible to do was to place the "naturestudy outline" on the blackboard and have the children commit it to memory. If, however, instead of such a long list of items in nature stu y, this teacher had been permitted to take for the year spent in her grade, a bird and a flower and a tree and perhaps one or two other interesting objects in nature, and spend the year upon them with her class, the pupils would have grown not only into a pretty good knowledge of the particular things studied, but into some general interest in nature and into the habit of observing the things in nature.

In the same way we sometimes try to familiarize children with literature and the work of great authors; we present to them in kaleidoscopic fashion brilliant selection after brilliant selection from the works of one after another of the galaxy of the writers who have delighted us at different times during the ages. As a result, the child has only a confused impression of the bril

liancy and magnificence of the selections presented to him. He gets no adequate knowledge of, and no satisfactory acquaintance with, any author, or with the works or the characteristics or the message of any of those whom he has looked upon so briefly. If, instead of covering so many authors, he had been permitted to dwell upon the works of some good author for a year, until he had become familiar with the writer's characteristics, and his friends, and the notable events of his life, with the writings and the message which these contain, and with the characteristic note sounded in them, he would have acquired strength from the study and a liking for the author and the author's work. This would not only have been a pleasure to him thru life, but a standard to j dge of other authors, and a suggestion that he might acquire familiarity with their works. The carrying out of such a plan as this thru the grades of the common schools would put the child into intimate touch with a limited number of our best English authors, and would be of far more value than the desultory glance at a great number of authors which we now so frequently give. What is true in "nature study" and in the study of our authors is equally true in many other subjects in our curriculum.

Those children who attend schools in cities and large towns may have their school work much improved, and their strength and usefulness after leaving school materially increased, if we will cultivate in them more than we do the power of initiative and of independent judgment in the use of minds and hands; if we will develop in them greater self-reliance. Our town life furnishes so little for children to do outside of the schoolroom, so little with which they may employ themselves, and particularly so little in which they may employ their hands and cultivate the habit of doing things, of studying out ways to do things, that we are coming to recognize more and more the necessity for cultivating this side of the child's powers in the schools. Hence the growing tendency toward giving children things to do in school or suggesting things for the children to do with their hands as a part of their school work. Where a boy lives out among the things of nature, and has his horse and his dog, his boat upon the lake, his playhouse which he builds for himself, his sled which he makes for his coasting, he has his constructive. quality developed and strengthened. He learns to use the natural things about him for his pleasure and the promotion of his purposes. But where the boy has no place to be but in the house or upon the paved street, there is little which he can do to develop this side of his nature. Our methods in school, too, are sometimes shaped too much to secure drill-promptness of response, rather than thoughtfulness on the part of the pupils and ability to accomplish things independently. Now, if our courses of study were so planned as to include more of those subjects in which children cannot rely on the answer given them by the teacher or by the book, but require the answer to be worked out by their hands or by independent thinking, the quality of self-reliance will be increased, and the general efficiency of our boys and girls will also be increased.