finish the course as graduates at the High School, there would be little if any reasonable ground of complaint with regard to the curriculum. But so far from this being the case, we know that not one in a hundred completes the course. A great school system is a gigantic staircase. Step A leads to B, and B to C, and so on to Z; and at Z there is a broad landing, and a magnificent prospect, but "few there be that find it." One hundred young climbers start at A; fifty have dropped out of line before they are half way up; and of the remainder, but one reaches the summit. What is to become of the stragglers? Why, we are told, it is not our business to look after stragglers. The column must advance, the line of march must be unbroken, the path has been marked out and the army must pursue it, whether the objective point is reached by one or many. True, if we have only the right goal in view. And if our grand objective be the safety of the entire army and not the pushing forward of the heads of columns. In this aspect, the care of the stragglers becomes an object of supreme concern.

It may be asked, and will doubtless be asked by those who shall follow me in the discussion of this question, "Is any serious modification of the ordinary common-school curriculum possible?" Within the brief limits of this paper it is of course impossible to discuss details; still it may reasonably be expected that I should indicate the direction in which, in my opinion, the change should proceed.

Taking the most favorable view of the average programme now in use, it may be conceded that each step forms the very best preparation for the next higher step; and that the course, as a whole, is well fitted to prepare the pupil who completes it for the ordinary duties of life. But the true theory of a common-school programme is that every step shall be the best possible preparation for stepping out, rather than for stepping up. It is conceivable that the two may coincide, and I have been told that in St Louis they are believed to coincide;-the fitness for promotion in class being conceived to be the best attainable preparation for the work of life at the given age. But looking at the ordinary and average common-school programme in the United States, it will be found that the interests of the few who complete it are studied more than the interests of the many who do not complete it. Such a change as I contemplate would involve a thorough re-arrangement of text-books, the postponement of many topics to a later period in the course, and the introduction at a comparatively early period of subjects either omitted, or taught in the later stages of the curriculum. It would bring in writing and drawing at the very beginning and continue them to the end, pari passu with reading and spelling. It would give the simple practical, and useful parts of Arithmetic only in the early stages, and put off the theoretical and disciplinary chapters till much later. No general discussion of Fractions, for example, should be attempted before the sixth year of the course. All the science of Grammar should be postponed till the pupil was able to speak and write his native language with tolerable ease and correctness. And all through the course there should run alongside of the elementary lessons in the various departments of Natural History systematic instruction in morals and political economy. While the discipline and development of the mind should never be over

looked, yet this discipline and development should be looked for as the proper outcome of a rational and practical course of study. It may be proper to regard mental development as a proper end per se, when we deal with those who are to have a liberal and complete education, but with the masses who are destined to have merely a fragment of the course, the best discipline will necessarily be found in connexion with the acquisition of the knowledges which shall be found most useful in their after school life.

I must anticipate one or two objections. "The present course is already too long. It is impossible to add anything to it without over-weighting both teachers and pupils." I reply that what we propose is not simply extension, but re-adjustment. If new studies are introduced it must be by curtailing the time devoted to the old. I have very little doubt that by judicious management one half of the time given to spelling, arithmetic, and geography, could be saved to the great advantage of the pupils. Pardon me if I illustrate what I mean by reference to spelling.

A very large part of a child's school-life is spent in learning to spell. It has been calculated that on an average an hour a day, for the ten years between six and sixteen, is spent upon this accomplishment. Now granting that good spelling is a necessary part of a finished education, does it follow that so much time should be given to it in the earlier part of the course. Are there not other things which the pupil is capable of learning and a knowledge of which would be of more service to him than the ability to spell all the test-words in the list? Of what use can spelling be to one who can not use the words which he has learned to spell? And if the vocabulary of a pupil who leaves school at fourteen is limited, as it is, to between five hundred and a thousand words of what use is it to him that he can spell five or ten thousand words. Indeed I might go further and say, of what use is it to any one to be able to spell correctly, except so far as the possession of one of the external signs of scholarship may be considered useful? What practical advantage has the orthography of Noah Webster over that of Josh Billings? Why must there be an absolute uniformity in spelling, which we do not acquire and cannot attain in pronunciation or in handwriting? Will a man be likely to build a house, or a carriage, or a ship, or steam-engine, any the worse, because he spells precede, and proceed, relieve and receive, deleble and indelible according to the same analogies? If the first elements of spelling have been properly taught, a student's spelling will keep pace with his reading; and why should it advance faster? If a person can spell correctly all the words that he has met with in his reading, he can probably spell all the words that he can use intelligently, and what need has he of more? Time, then, can be saved from spelling; and by rigidly excluding from the primary curriculum every part of Arithmetic, Grammar, and Geography, which is merely preparatory, or disciplinary, and not immediately useful, a large saving of time can be effected, which can be utilized in the revised programme.

How shall the time thus saved be employed? A part of it should be given to reading; not to the mere calling of words, nor to premature lessons in elocution; but to plain reading of good books for the sake of the

information they contain. It is not creditable to our efforts as educators that so large a proportion of pupils pass from us without having acquired a taste for good reading. I mean the reading of good books. Consult the statistics of any of our popular libraries, and observe how few books of real merit are called for and then say if the course of instruction of which this is the outcome does not need a re-adjustment. If our system confers an ability to read without creating not only a desire to read, but a desire for the right kind of reading, it surely stands in need of reformation. Especially for those who cannot have the benefit of a completed curriculum is it necessary that they be brought into sympathy, at an early age, with good literature, and saved from being shipwrecked on the rocks of dime novels, or the shoals of trashy Sunday-School novelettes.

I have great faith in good books. If the first aim of a public-school system is to make men better workers, the second is to make them better thinkers, and for this purpose the young mind must be brought into correspondence with the thoughts of the great men who have lived in former days, and of those who are still living. It is but little to teach children to read, if, when they have learned it, they have no desire to apply their power to a worthy object. Very little of the Arithmetic which children learn at school can be made available in after life-the puzzles of the "Mental" which they solve with so much patience and execute with so much dexterity, are fortunately strangers even to the desk of the commercial clerk. Their feats of Analysis and Parsing are never to be repeated among the contests of actual life. Nine-tenths of what they have learned as Geography will pass away as the morning cloud and the early dew. But a taste for good reading once acquired will last for life; will be available every day and almost every hour, and will grow by what it feeds on; will so occupy the time of the young as to rob temptation of half its power by stealing more than half its opportunities, will give a keener zest to every pure enjoyment, will be a refuge and a solace in adversity, will spread from man to man and from family to family, and finally will not perish with the individual but descend from the fathers unto the children to the third and fourth generation. Oh! books, books, you are the only friends who are never weary of entertaining us, and yet look for no return; who are ever ready to turn night into day for our service; you are the teachers who instruct without punishing, advise without reproaching, and approve without flattering; you alone can remind us of our faults without wounding our pride, and signalize our virtues without inflaming our vanity.

Part of the time which we propose to gain by abridging, or omitting, the more technical and merely-preparatory part of the course, should be given to the two arts of expression, Drawing and Composition, of which I shall say nothing more here, as they will be fully discussed by other speakers.

Part of the time should also be given to positive and systematic instruction in morals. The possibility of teaching morality in a systematic way, and as part of the regular course, is denied by a majority of those who uphold as well as those who oppose a purely-secular system of education. Many deny even the need of it, holding that the family and the church

are competent to take charge of this department. But it must not be forgotten that the public school contains pupils who have no church connection and no family instruction. The safety of the State requires that all her citizens should know the difference between right and wrong. Surely it is of quite as much importance to do right as it is to spell right; yet how insignificant is the time given to the one in comparison with what we spend on the other. Besides, every school does in effect teach morality; and the only question is, shall it be taught indirectly, spasmodically, and according to the whim of the individual, or shall it be taught systematically, continuously, and with the weight of superior authority? Would not mental development be as effectually secured by the discussion of problems of right and wrong in conduct as by correcting bad English, [writing a synopsis of a verb in the passive voice,] making out lists of long rivers, or extracting square and cube roots?

Besides morals, the elements of political economy would claim a part of the time which we are attempting to re-distribute. The usefulness of this branch of knowledge no one questions, and in the curriculum of our best high schools, political economy is assigned a place alongside of moral philosophy. But this does not meet the case because millions of the pupils never reach the high school. My opinion is that the elements of personal and social morality, the principles of good behavior in the family, and in the world, the elements of political economy, the nature and the relations of money, capital, labor, and wages, can be made as accessible to the young as the elements of grammar and arithmetic and much more interesting. There are heights in all subjects (grammar as well as political economy) which the young cannot climb. There are depths which they cannot penetrate, but there are also wide plains where they can freely roam, and gather the flowers of useful knowledge. I would have these fields opened up to the younger as well as the older pupils: it is not necessary for them to attempt to scale the mountains till their limbs are stronger.

I am sure we make too much of the supposed difficulty of such subjects. Here is a part of the charge delivered by Judge Ewing, at Pittsburgh, at the late trial of the rioters. Let any unprejudiced person judge whether the substance of it could not have been taught to children of ten years of age, and whether if it had been taught systematically and positively it might not have been the means of saving many lives and millions of money.

"Men have a right to quit work with or without giving a reason for their quitting; but they have no right to go on the property after they have ceased to work either singly or in crowds. Going upon the Company's property in this case, whether they lifted a hand or not, made them trespassers. If three or more of them consulted together and agreed to interfere with the movement of trains, they were conspirators. If they committed any acts of violence, whereby they intimidated or prevented others from going to work, they were guilty of riot. And there can be only two sides to the riot-those engaged in it with their aiders and abettors, and those opposing it. There can be no innocent spectators to a riot."

You will remember that the question I had proposed to discuss was, Are our public schools doing all that they ought to do, to prepare young people who have to live by labor to become intelligent, moral, and industrious citizens." In answering the question I have endeavored to show first that the school does not go down low enough into the strata of

humanity to affect the very classes that have most need of it; and secondly that school instruction deals too much with technical scholarship and too little with practical utilities;-too much in mere preparation for advancement in the hierarchy of studies, and too little in preparation for the verities of life. I remark now, in the third place, that a knowledge of some form of industrial labor is at least as necessary as a knowledge of books, and that the State which acknowledges its obligation to teach children to read cannot logically deny its obligation to teach them to work. I approach this part of my subject with great diffidence for it is beset with practical difficulties; but the times force it upon our notice, and a full and calm discussion may serve to prepare the public mind for changes which either with our aid or in spite of our opposition are sure to take place.

All public institutions which are destined to permanence, must be able to adapt themselves to the changes that are going on around them. They must be plastic enough to adjust themselves to their environment, else they will be crushed by the pressure.

Circumstances have greatly changed since the planting of the seed which has grown into the mighty tree known as the public-school system; I have time to specify two only of these changes-the abolition of apprenticeship, and the extensive introduction of machinery, accompanied by its necessary result, a minute sub-division of labor. Half a century ago, school learning was confined to the simplest rudiments; a boy quitted school at fourteen, and went on the farm, or was apprenticed to a trade. In the former case his education went on during the winter months, as a matter of course; in the other, his indentures obliged his master to give him a fair school education as well as to teach him a trade. Thus at twenty-one years of age, having learned pretty thoroughly the little that was then taught in the way of book-learning, and having learned, not merely how to support himself by honest labor, but also that the intelligent practice of any industrial pursuit is itself an education, he went out into the world to exercise his rights as an American citizen, not rich in scholarship, but rich in what is better far, good common sense, gathered by patient continuance in well doing. In those days men built houses that were meant to last, and not to be blown over by the first gale; chairs and tables made then will be as good as new at the close of the century; the very tailor made the sewing-on of a button a matter of conscience. I need not say that we have changed all that. The apprenticeship system, by which young men were kept under tutors and governors until they came of age, has been given up.

The trades-unions abolished it. Fathers banded themselves together to take the bread from their children's mouths. Like the Russian prince in the story, they tried to save their own lives by throwing their children to the wolves. Alongside of this change of which the result has been the loss of trained artisans, there has been going on another which only aggravates the evil, the cutting up of the departments of industry into minute subdivisions, which afford training for the hand only, and no development to the intellect. Fifty years ago, men laboring at their trades were still men; now they are hands, with only one head to a hundred of them. It is not Hercules now that accomplishes our labor, cleaning Augean stables and such like, but Briareus, with his hundred hands and but a single head.