where industries are specialized along one or two lines, and where children usually follow the calling of their parents.

The superstructure of vocation, however varied, seems to need much the same sot of solid foundation of character, intelligence, and knowledge of civic duty and natural lav. It seems to me possible to find mental food that is good and wholesome for all normal children at least to the age of 14.

But the discussion this afternoon will bring out whether it is wise to begin the differentiation of children at so early an age as 12, and to fix their bent at the dawn of adolescence; he topic of this morning evidently was planned to consider whether by good management we can make room for many things we are not doing, without the loss of anything of importance which we are doing.

I believe we can. I shall not discuss the possible reorganization of our materials so that all manual work shall be the expressional side of other school activities. If this is brought about at all, it must be by painful evolution after many experiments and failures. I hope that many will try it, so that we may profit by their experience.

METHODS OF SAVING TIME

We can save at least one-fifth of our time (1) by the elimination of obsolete or worthless matter, (2) by due regard for the laws of physical and psychical development in the assignment of time for subjects and the arrangement of material, and (3) by more expert presentation and consideration of the material in the classroom.

When the three R's constituted the curriculum, it was necessary to expand them mightily to occupy the child for eight years. There is no reason now why they should remain dropsical. We can tap arithmetic, geography, and grammar, and reduce their bulk one-half without irreparable loss to this world or the next.

As to assignment of time for different subjects, it has been pretty conclusively demonstrated that an excess of time given to such subjects as spelling, penmanship, and formal language exercises, so far from benefiting children in those subjects, leads to dissipation of attention, decrease of effort, and poor results. In drill exercises of all sorts, the shortening of the time increases the intensity of application, and therefore the rapidity and accuracy. A daily five-minute drill on mathematical processes, and a half-hour for study of problems adapted to the experience of the child will probably accomplish more in the end than an hour a day even of the same character of work.

The selection of topics may be made with an eye single to the requirements of our civilization, but the ordering of this material must be with an eye single to the laws of growth. We must begin with the things the need of which the child can feel and see, and must arrange the matter so that as the child's interest and experience expand, that topic which is nearest will be considered next.

But I wish to address myself particularly to the third method: Economy in the schoolroom, in the presentation of the material. We superintendents are so busy inventing tables, pigeon-holing statistics, ordaining courses of study, and handing down misfit syllabuses (mostly second hand) that we have no time to spend in the classroom, assisting to eliminate the waste there. This is a pity-not that some of us could render much assistance there, but because it would enable us to attack the problem of economy in teaching with a better understanding of the conditions.

The Schoolmasters' Club of my city has been giving this year to a study of the extent and the causes of the waste of time and energy in the schools. I shall not tell you the extent, for if I did, someone might go home and brag how much better he does things. But I shall enumerate some of the causes, for after a visit to several cities I believe these are not altogether local. I shall confine myself to

CAUSES OF WASTE IN THE SCHOOLROOM

1. Insufficient attention to the formation of habits-especially habits of study and self-help, but also habits of order and cleanliness, of promptness, of consideration for others,

of honor, and trustworthiness. The teacher should see that the mental attitude is in the direction of right ideals, and then should stimulate the child to fix these tendencies into habits, by continual exercise in the school activities. This should be the controlling motive in the discipline, and to this end the intelligent co-operation of the home should be sought. Herein, according to our critics, our American schools fall short.

2. Lack of preparation in advance of the matter to be presented and illustrative materials to be used, resulting in random firing, all along the line. Departmental teaching is a partial remedy in grammar grades.

3. Lack of perspective in the use of details to bring out the essential ideas, with the result that essentials and nonessentials are hammered on with equal fervor. This arises from a mistaken notion of thoroness and from an indiscriminating use of the memory in excessive drills and upon ill-digested facts on the one hand, and in failure to emphasize forms and concepts that are necessary to progress on the other.

4. Not a clear enough distinction between that part of schoolroom management which should become routine, and the occasional part which requires deliberation and decision. Unnecessary time is devoted to distributing and collecting materials, preparing forms, giving orders and countermanding them, getting ready for recesses, and getting down to business afterward.

5. Unstimulating teaching that does not arouse the children to joyous activity. I do not refer to weak personalities, for whom there is little hope, but to trained teachers with a full stock of devices and best ways of doing things. Artificiality and insincerity will accompany skill, unless the teacher keep her sympathies and interest very much alive.

6. Unsupervised and excessive written work. Writing is likely to be the chief means of expression and occupation in mass teaching. Tests are convenient devices to keep a class quiet when the teacher wants a rest period.

7. Infrequent reclassification and inflexible systems of promotion, classes so large as to prevent attention to the individual at the moment of his need, the presence of defective children with normal children. These overtax the teacher without commensurate results.

8. Inattention to the physical condition of the schoolroom, and to the physical condition of the pupils. Expert medical assistance in the schoolroom is indispensable, not only to determine physical conditions, but to advise concerning the needs of abnormal children.

That the loss of time and energy is very considerable in many schools is evidenced by the following estimates, which I believe are not exaggerated: In our large cities 50 per cent. of the pupils are one year or more behind the normal age of their grade, and 20 per cent. are two years or more behind their grade. More than one-half our pupils do not get farther than the sixth grade, perpetuating an illiterate proletariat in our cities, tho by law all are kept in schools until they are fourteen, and by expert estimate only about 5 per cent. are too defective mentally and physically to do the work.

I do not charge that this is due wholly to waste in the schoolroom, but I believe that conditions can be brought about that will economize the time in the schoolroom to better advantage.

Among the means of securing better conditions, I can discuss only one.

The principal or head-master as the important factor. Instead of frittering away time about the office, more than half of his energy should be given to supervising in the literal sense of looking over, not overlooking, children at their work.

1. It is for him to discriminate between children of different capacity, and advance each with appropriate rapidity (acknowledgments to Dr. Eliot), to see that the lazy are stimulated, the dull are awakened, the bright are employed, the indifferent are interested, the unruly are regulated, the failures are investigated, the absentees are brought to book.

2. It is for him to arouse the home to a full appreciation of its responsibility in the training of the children, to secure the intelligent co-operation of parents and teachers, and to ally with himself the social agencies of his community for civic betterment.

3. It is for him to see that the school plant is kept in good physical condition, with regard to temperature, ventilation, cleanliness, and repair, to see that the teaching apparatus is on hand and in good condition when wanted, and to see that it is wanted.

4. It is for him, with the assistance of such helpers as we can give him, in the classroom and thru teachers' meetings, to improve the method of instruction and of discipline,

to see that the emphasis is placed upon the essentials (and this includes the essential habits and ideals of the children, as well as the fundamentals of the various branches of study), to keep the sympathies and interest of the teachers keyed to the proper tension, and to bring the whole school up to the standard of the best teachers in it.

In short, some may propose one method, and some another, to eliminate the waste in the schoolroom due to mass teaching, but in any system an intelligent principal is the key to the solution. It is for us to see that he rises to his responsibilities and that he has the assistance which he needs to perform his duties.

FREDERICK E. BOLTON, professor of education, State University of Iowa, Iowa City, Ia.—I have not had the privilege of seeing Superintendent Heeter's paper and, consequently, shall be obliged to make an extemporaneous discussion. I am warned by the preceding speaker that the word efficiency is to be tabooed. However, the first point which I wish to make is that while we are considering the arrangement of a course of study so as to secure efficiency for pupils, we must not forget the most important factor-efficient teachers. Undoubtedly the pupil's time is wasted far more because of inefficient teachers than because of any ill arrangement of subjects and topics. The textbooks suggest fairly good logical arrangement of subject-matter. We need teachers with breadth of scholarship sufficient to discern the varying worth of the different topics and who know how to vitalize the whole range of subject-matter. To substantiate my view that our children suffer from inefficient teachers, I may say that in one great state there is one teacher in every fourth high school who has had no training, academic or professional, beyond that received in that high school. Little wonder that we complain of waste and dissipation of energy somewhere. It could not be otherwise. We need great and efficient teachers more than modification of the course of study. When we have a teaching profession with every elementary teacher a graduate of some normal school, and every high-school teacher with the equivalent of a college course and requisite professional training we shall cease to bewail the arrangement of the course of study. We must look to Germany for an object-lesson.

I fully agree with Superintendent Heeter that many details and topics must be omitted from the course. He has elaborated that so well that I need not enter upon it. Dr. Mc Murry gave a splendid discussion of this topic also in 1904.

We must also reorganize and redistribute the various subjects and topics in the course. We must rearrange the material of the course in such a way as to adjust the various subjects and topics to the needs and capacities of the pupils at varying stages in their develop

ment.

Under our present system this is impossible. In a general way the spiral plan would far better meet the needs of the pupils. Germany has long recognized this and acted accordingly. There each subject is introduced early and continued for a long period of years. Many subjects are given a small number of hours per week. By this method the pupils consider the subject at different times, from different angles, and with different interests. In this country, although the spiral plan has been adopted in name in some places, to my knowledge it has never been arranged on a scientific basis. Not a single book that I know of really observes the spiral plan as known in Germany. The Germans secure better results than we do and in a shorter time. I have investigated with considerable care the amount of time devoted to the teaching of German in Germany. It is a noticeable fact that they do not have several subjects like spelling, reading, composition, rhetoric, grammar, etc. They have one single subject-Deutsch. In this country we have a great variety of subjects relating to English. We devote to all of them about twice as much time as the Germans give to Deutsch, and, I believe, with poorer results. Why could we not correlate all of these subjects around one center? Why do we need special classes for composition, spelling, rhetoric, etc.? Why could not practically all of the composition themes be secured from the work in history, literature, science, and geography? This would result in a great saving of time and greater efficiency.

In harmony with my first position I desire to state that the course of study must be

considered in such a way as to recognize better individual needs and individual conditions of development. We have too long considered the course of study from the purely logical point of view. We have arranged our subjects and topics in harmony with cold logic and have failed to recognize the psychological and sociological aspects of the case. We must regard the question from a new point of view. The aim of education is being conceived entirely anew. We no longer regard it as a mere question of formal discipline. We wish to adjust and adapt the individual to social needs. We must come to regard the child as the center and circumference of all pedagogical considerations. We have too long substituted for this the subject of instruction.

WHAT MODIFICATIONS IN ORGANIZATION ARE NECESSARY TO SECURE SUITABLE RECOGNITION FOR PUPILS OF VARYING ABILITY, PARTICULARLY FOR THE ABLEST? CALVIN N. KENDALL, SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, INDIANAPOLIS, IND. In the twenty minutes allotted me, I shall confine myself to a discussion of the modifications required in organization to promote the interests of the ablest children. So-called defective pupils are therefore left out of account. Backward children are more easily disposed of. Schools for defectives are increasing in number, and there is something like a settled mode of procedure in dealing with such children. They make a more effective appeal for consideration than the ablest children do. Incidentally, the removal of defective children from regular classes enables a teacher to devote her energies to children of normal power. Such separation, therefore, promotes the interest of all

children.

It is probably true that pupils in a given room are as unlike in their mental capabilities as in their looks. Forty children, forty characters. Says President Eliot: "To discriminate between pupils of different capacity, to select the competent for suitable instruction, and to advance each pupil with appropriate rapidity, will ultimately become the most important function of the public-school administrator."

Of course I cannot attempt to show satisfactorily to you, and certainly not to myself, how this discrimination, this selection, and this advancement can be made, for so long as the work of teaching and administering schools is done by, mere men and women, so long will we fall short of the ideal pointed out by President Eliot. I am convinced, however, that substantial progress is being made in many cities and towns to conserve the interests of pupils of varying degrees of ability.

A mere mention of special features of differing classification plans, which of late have come to my notice, would exceed the limits of this paper. If superintendents and principals have not wholly succeeded in breaking up the so-called "lock-step," it is not because of indifference or lack of effort. In my opinion the "lock-step" theory has been somewhat overworked, but the use of the figure has served to call attention to the individual as distinct from the system of which he is a part. The lessening of the rigors of grading was inevitable, as practical, modern psychology caused children to be better understood.

In the preparation of this paper, I made an effort to learn what unusual or out-of-the-way plans of promotion and classification are in operation in important centers of the country. The usual response I received was like

this one:

We have a rather elastic system of promotion. The regular rule is semi-annual promotion, but bright children are in some cases allowed to skip a half-year's work. A grade is usually divided into divisions so that a part of it goes faster than the other. An unusually bright pupil in such a division would not really lose a half-year by skipping.

It would be no exaggeration to say that this seems to be the normal or general plan of classification. At any rate, the variations are slight.

From a few places, however, some special or unusual plan was reported. In Cambridge, the course of study in the grammar schools is six years, but the pupils are so classified and the course of study so arranged as to afford the able pupils an opportunity to complete it in four years. In fifteen years, of the nine thousand pupils who have gone thru the grammar schools of that city, 7 per cent. have made the course in four years, and 25 per cent. in five years. Those who are not familiar with the plan can, if they so desire, learn the details from the Cambridge school report.

It has been in operation fifteen years. I have been unable to find elsewhere such carefully prepared tables, showing the actual numerical results of a particular scheme of promotion for pupils of varying degrees of ability. The schools of Cambridge are known as good schools. There is in my possession testimony, independent of the superintendent's office, of the merits of this scheme.

For these reasons I have spoken of it. It may be no better than numerous other special plans; it may be no better than the common practice of semiannual promotions with frequent individual promotions.

It is interesting to note that the average age of pupils who enter the high schools in Cambridge is substantially fourteen-and-a-half years. In two other typical Massachusetts cities, Springfield and Worcester, where there are also nine grades, the average age of pupils entering the high schools is reported as practically the same as that in Cambridge; that is, the Cambridge plan, good as it is, does not bring about such rapidity of promotion as to effect in any considerable degree, in comparison with other cities, the age at which pupils enter the high schools. To repeat, it is chiefly significant because its results for a considerable period of years have been reduced to figures.

Another consideration remains to be mentioned. In each large Cambridge grammar school is a special teacher, whose business it is to aid, by personal instruction, both the able and the backward. It is almost unnecessary to add that such additional teachers, giving individual instruction, are desirable in every large grammar school. It is, however, no practical solution of the problem of either the ablest or the backward, for as we approach anything like real individual instruction, we have greatly increased expenses for schools.

I believe, therefore, that existing plans of promotion and classification, if