I would urge

advance our usefulness in the honorable and commanding places we occupy, your careful consideration of this matter, and earnestly give it as my humble opinion that each principal can do no greater service than to demand that conditions shall be so changed or, better and truer, that he should so change conditions-that his time shall not be used in the less essential matters of a clerical assistant, but that his training and ability shall be felt in the noblest part of school work, so that, when he lays aside his work, he may be entitled to that greatest of all titles—“teacher."

DISCUSSION

A. H. WATERHOUSE, principal of High School, Omaha, Nebr.—The paper of Mr. Gunnison eliminates from consideration the high schools in cities with a population below 70,000. This was no doubt done for the purpose of disposing of those schools about which there could be but very little difference of opinion. It is admitted, I think, where the work of admistration is insufficient in amount fully to occupy the time of the principal, that he should do some regular instruction work. The question is determined not so much by the size of the city as by the size of the high schools in the city.

Could I dissociate the theory advanced by the writer of the paper from the conditions actually existing in large western high schools, I should find myself agreeing most heartily with it. This theory to me, however, like many other theories, must encounter the inertia of condition. It may so commend itself by apparent gain as to justify its acceptance. Yet in measuring gain in one direction it would be well to determine whether the law of compensation does not apply, and whether the apparent gain is not more than offset by real loss elsewhere.

Whether there is substantial accord with this recommendation of the writer depends very largely upon the definition of the word "administration." In the paper the word is measured in this sentence:

In nearly half of the cities the most capable and ablest men had been, therefore, withdrawn from the real work of the school, and had allowed themselves to become registrars of attendance, janitor inspectors, and watchers of teachers, petty judges of petty infractions of petty rules—a wicked and needless waste of valuable capacity for teaching service.

With this apparent understanding of administration I cannot bring myself into sympathy. Were this real administration, then I should agree with Mr. Gunnison; aye, I think I should contend with him for a maximum limit of teaching. However, with no part of that statement of administrative duties do I find myself in accord, except in the highest sense of the suggestion "watchers of teachers," and in a modified statement of the next phrase. Were that phrase to read “sympathetic advisers against willful or thoughtless infractions of needed rules," I would accept it. The other duties seemingly classed under administration no doubt are properly classed, but their performance belongs to moderately paid clerks, or to the superintendent of buildings, and not to the principal.

There are two essential lines of effort in high-school work leading to satisfactory results. The first is the getting and keeping of the school in a teachable condition; and the other is that degree of intelligent teaching which will, with a school in that condition, lead surely to those results.

With the working out of the first of these problems, and with the constant application of the results to the ever-varying conditions of the school, the principal finds his best and his full time-occupying work. To do this best demands so much of time, so much of observation, so much of thought, and so much of essential planning, that there is neither time nor energy left for the teaching of classes.

The first essential in getting a school in a teachable condition is to cause a feeling of confidence in the efficiency of the management. This condition is contributed to largely by the plans for just classification of pupils; for means of keeping pupils informed as to

their classification, their progress, and their deficiencies; for the organization of school at the beginning of the year without waste of valuable time; and for the expeditious assignment of pupils to their various classes. The results of these plans need not be heralded. Soon the efficiency begins to be recognized, and pupils unconsciously get into the swing of doing things and going ahead with their work. Enough of this work has to be done by the principal to give him such a knowledge of conditions as the better to enable him to direct the work of the school.

When the school is in session, in my judgment, the very ends sought by Mr. Gunnison can best be brought about by the freedom of the principal from teaching regular classes. The efficient principal can do farther-reaching teaching in another way. He could visit the various classes in his school, and could easily determine whether the teaching there being done rang true.

In order that he may become so general a leader, there must be time for him to go into classes and to remain for a sufficient period to determine wisely whether what he might see in hurried visits as errors are errors when measured by results. With regular classes in charge, the value of this direct contact with numerous classes and with teachers is apt to be limited; for then the principal hopes to gain by illustration of class work what he otherwise might the better get by consultation with teachers. There would be much personal gratification in using a class-room as a private laboratory in which to make pedagogical experiments, but the benefits of those experiments are hardly commensurate with the loss in other directions occasioned by taking time for their successful making.

There is much gain to the school if the principal can hold himself ready at all times for service, but free from the exact time demands of classes. That gain comes in the interviews with pupils, parents, and teachers. Scholastic ends may be reached successfully in organized classes, but true character results come from contact with the individual. There are many in a large high school who need the personal contact with a wise principal in the privacy of his office. Their standards of deportment may be deficient, and need elevation. This can be done in personal interviews. They may have become discouraged in work. A word of sympathy from the principal may hearten the pupil. The high-school age and the little or not at all self-understood period of physical growth quite closely coinside. There are many times when words of explanation here may help.

Busy parents call for interviews. They are impatient if required to wait. They are somewhat to be considered. The fact that a principal is in class, and will be for forty-five minutes, does not seem a sufficient reason for keeping them away from business.

Admitting the strength of the excellent arguments of the writer of the paper, and weighing both the loss and the gain from following his suggestion, I am unable to agree with him that principals of large schools should spend part of their time in teaching. Full time should be given to wise administration.

B. ENGLISH CONFERENCE

THE AIMS OF ENGLISH TEACHING

PHILO M. BUCK, DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, WILLIAM MCKINLEY HIGH SCHOOL, ST. LOUIS, MO.

[AN ABSTRACT]

It is well for teachers, as well as other professional men, to pause often and ask themselves: "What are we trying to do?" Especially should this be so for teachers of English-a -a study that presents a field as wide as the universe itself, and as complex as the human soul.

What is this study of English? Is it, as its name indicates, the study of our mothertongue-its paleontology, its comparative grammar, its flexibility of form for every mood and emotion? Is it a study to gain an understanding of certain classics recommended for perusal by certain learned bodies of educators? Is it an attempt to gain a mastery of the means of self-expression? No, not any or all of these alone, worthy as they may be; tho each has been made the sole aim. It combines all these and many more. It is too broad a study to be summed up in a single sentence.

English is primarily a culture study. Now, we can agree with a prominent educator who says that "in esse there is no real distinction between studies for culture and studies for technical skill." We recognize that manual training can, by a teacher who possesses it himself, be made a means of gaining culture, as well as of acquiring the power to see with the eye and do with the hand. We can well conceive of a teacher of wood-turning as inspiring in his class a love for the beautiful. Burns wrote his most exquisite lyrics at the tail of a plow.

But the aim of English is not to train the eye or the hand; it is to train the soul. Hands, eyes, and ears are but the means in the process. It is a harmonious activity of the various faculties that we desire—a finely adjusted balance of understanding, emotion, and will. Any distortion shows a corresponding lack of culture-a lack of what one of our greatest critics, Matthew Arnold, called "sweetness and light," power to see things in proper relations, and power to put ourselves into proper relation with them. Sweetness and light-how much is there abroad in the land today, this day af material welfare and unwelfare?

Nor is it difficult to see the part English plays in the pursuit of this ideal. For what are rhetoric and composition but teachers of good manners in expression, the exterior of culture? More fundamental iş literary appreciation, for it brings us into harmony with the ideal world of the poet and the romanticist, or the real world of the novelist. When was there greater need of broad sympathy and high ideals, this spirit of culture, than in this age of materialism, of social and industrial aloofness, of faith in the superficial, of weakness of faith in humanity?

The weakness of us as teachers is the weakness of the whole world-we read too little or too much. Reading is as much a fine art as painting or sculpture, but almost a lost art today. Never were our manners more polished, but never was the soul of culture more neglected.

This brings us to our subject: If culture is the aim of English teaching, how shall it be obtained?

I. First, as teachers, we must look to ourselves. A child is moved more by one person with whom he comes into frequent close contact, than by a hundred apart from him. We are entirely too prone to forget this. Here it is the man behind the book, and not the book, that works for inspiration. He who stands for most with the child is the man who is to influence him most.

The teacher, then, is the first means whereby this ideal aim of English instruction may be accomplished. His importance cannot be exaggerated. There is no teacher on the faculty who should be selected with more care.

It is not necessary that the teacher of English be an adept in comparative philology, nor eminent in minute critical analysis. But he must be one whose taste for the best in literature has been sharpened, whose sympathies are wide, and whose powers of selfexpression have been cultivated.

We hear it frequently asserted that the drudgery of correcting themes dulls the artistic instinct, and renders the teacher less a creative artist. We must deny this most emphatically. There is such a thing as wearing oneself out in mere matters of petty detail, and thus smothering all desire of expression. But this should not be. There are ways by which most of this drudgery may be eliminated

II. In the next place, we must look to our course of study. This is receiving consider

able attention these days. The number of text-books has multiplied almost miraculously. Hardly a journal of education appears without some discussion of this subject. And all this diversity is excellent for our purpose. But we still at times hear a desire for uniformity in teaching expressed in this way: "Let us have something definite, something fixed, something which we can all do in the same way." This, I grant, would save all of us considerable trouble and thinking. If we only were told exactly what to do from day to day, it would save many hours of careful planning.

But grant that fixedness would be a good thing, upon what shall we fix? Immediately there are as many answers as there are teachers of English.

Yet we may not go so far as to throw open the English course to the individual caprice of every teacher of English. Theoretically this may not be a bad solution, but it is hardly practicable. There would unavoidably follow a great deal of confusion. The maxim that "in the ideal state there is no law" may be true; but English teachers have not yet arrived at that happy millennium. Harmony of action demands that we follow some well-outlined course, but that within this course there be absolute freedom of action.

Nor is it so difficult to select a course that will appeal to most teachers. Keeping before us the general idea of culture as the aim of English teaching, we may divide the English course into the following departments:

1. Grammar, or the mere mechanics of language.

2. Rhetoric and composition, or the art of self-expression.

3. Literary appreciation, or the æsthetic study of what others have expressed. Before we take up each of these in detail, let us glance at one fact which is of considerable importance in the present-day history of education; that is, the general apathy of boys toward English; not of the exceptional, but of the ordinary boys. This must be avoidable, for all of us have found by actual experience that the ordinary boy is as fond of reading as the ordinary girl, and that he can be made just as fond of writing. But as things now are in many places, he is not drawn to the course in English. We need not go into the psychology of adolescence to inquire for reasons, but we must so arrange the course that it will appeal as strongly to him as to his sister.

Let us briefly take up each department of the English course:

I. Grammar. In the first place, can we not say, once and for all, the secondary school does not appear to be the place for any study of formal grammar? Mr. Chubb, in his book on the teaching of English, gives an excellent reason why in the first year, at least, of the high school the pupil should be invited to enjoy work very different from that which has occupied him during his years in the grammar school. Can we not go one step farther the pupil in the high school should find himself on his entrance thoroly grounded in formal grammar?

We must teach grammar, but only through composition, oral or written, and that by accustoming the pupils to make use of the principles they have already learned.

II. More difficult to answer is the question: What shall we attempt in rhetoric and composition?

Here, as in grammar, individual instruction must predominate. Differences in power of expression early make themselves manifest, and each pupil will present an individual problem that calls for solution.

By individual instruction is meant making such an atmosphere in the class-room that each individual will write or speak as his nature moves him to write or speak. Of course, we must constantly apply the proper cultivation to each individual nature, so that it may bring forth all of which it is capable. Certainly there must needs be frequent drills to which the whole class is subjected, like squad drills in the army; but these should be only on mere matters of technique, like the many exercises in music. No music teacher would dream of setting a child at five-finger exercises alone for a year or two, before he allowed him to play simple melodies. It seems that much of the same spirit should hold sway in the class-room as moves writers in the world of letters.

The real difficulty in class composition lies in the fact that too often it is made a perfunctory work, a mere drill. Now, if any good is to come of it, the pupil must be led to write with pleasure. It is at this point that we remember that famous quotation from Schiller's Esthetical Letters: "Man only plays when in the full meaning of the word he is a man, and he is completely a man only when he plays." This is equally true of the child. If we are to get the best out of him, we must approach him in the spirit of play. How different is the attitude of the child at play from the attitude we too frequently see in the class-room! It is because he feels his play so intensely, because it is the natural outgrowth of his being, that he plays so well, so easily. The same should be true of a child's school life, and especially should this be true in composition which involves the art side of human nature; for, as Schiller also says: "All art work is conceived and executed in the spirit of play." It is done with the whole soul for the pure delight in doing it.

But we hear the objection that this is "soft education," that children should be trained to do unpleasant things so as to be fitted for the struggle for existence. True they must learn to do hard things, but how much better will they do them if they are approached in the spirit of play!

Every teacher can learn how he can best appeal to this play-instinct in his class. There need be no upheaval of class discipline in play, for it is at this stage that bo's are learning to subject themselves to system n their athletics.

Then get the children to write or sp ik on subjects in which they are interested. As for rhetorical theory, let that be illustrated by what they are reading. Not much is gained by the study of abstract rhetoric in the secondary school.

III. Again, there exists in every soul the germ of art appreciation. This art feeling may remain at the low level of the bargain-counter souvenir, the ephemeral song, and the trashy novel; or it may be raised by skillful suggestion to the lofty heights of Michael Angelo's frescoes, Beethoven's symphonies, and the dramas of Shakespeare. It should be the aim of the teacher of English to take this taste when he finds it and raise it to the masters of literary expression. As Taine has said: "Art manifests whatever is most exalted, and it manifests it to all." Experience has proved that children may be included in this "all," if only they are approached properly, that is, in the spirit of play.

For this reason there should be, at first at least, little careful critical work. Let the class read for the sheer pleasure of discovering new objects of interest. The pupils as well as the teacher should be allowed considerable choice in what they shall read at home and in school. There is a suggestive article in a late number of the School Review, by Samuel Thurber, Jr., which all of us ought to read. We must bridge the chasm between books read at home voluntarily for pleasure and books prescribed by the teacher. One of the greatest compliments a teacher ever received was given when several boys asked him to make a list of books for their summer reading. This showed, at least, that they had not found uninteresting the books which had been placed in their hands during the school year.

The school classics which now form an important part of our English courses are admirably adapted for the development of literary appreciation. There is, however, great danger that a misuse of them in the class-room may kill the very spirit which should be so carefully cherished and developed. But if the pupils, instead of being forced to toil over uninteresting details, are led to laugh at Rip Van Winkle and Ichabod Crane, to behold the exquisite pictures in Evangeline and the Lady of the Lake, to feel the chivalry of Ivanhoe, to suffer and to be redeemed with the Ancient Mariner, new worlds will open before them in which they will love to move and play.

Besides, this artistic study of the works of the masters, if properly carried out, will have a great effect on the actual work of original composition. Unconsciously the perfect phrases will sink into the memory of the children; they will long to imitate them; and not only will their writing be improved, but their conversation and even their actions.