characterized by a desire to organize the activities and images on a social basis. The child now becomes dimly conscious of his relations to the race and to society about him. His desires have outrun his muscular co-ordinations and he struggles to adapt himself to this new relation. Things are now seen in their larger and more scientific systems. Here again, we have the criterion for our selection of subject-matter. The social side of geography is commercial, of history is institutional, of literature is that which deals with the relations of members of society one to another, of science are those larger general truths which form the background for the organization of all the sciences.

Some such larger and more psychological organization as is indicated above will make it possible to meet the various intellectual needs of the pupils and still keep them free from the possibility of arrest by asking them to assume an attitude toward the world which they have not yet reached.

W. H. ELSON, Superintendent of schools, Cleveland, Ohio.—We have gone a great way in the solution of this problem when we have the problem stated, as we have had so well done in the paper this morning. We have also had a good statement of the attempts that are making thruout the country in the most progressive schools for a modification of school organization in such a way as to adapt instruction to the needs of these varying groups of children, and in the moment that I am occupying your time I shall review only one or two of these points.

We have first the mention of the method approached by the selection or separation of defective children. That is a splendid step, negatively, in providing for the brightest children. Something is doing in the grouping or segregation, or separation, of the backward children, which I thoroly believe in as one of the ways of solving this problem. Doubtless with both these groups provided for we have yet the problem of adapting the instruction, modifying the work that is presented to these children, best to meet their needs and requirements. Mr. Kendall has suggested a plan for the separation of children that are going to the high school.

We have before us another possibility and another problem that will come up this afternoon for discussion, which resolves itself into two or three possible things about which none of us knows very much, perhaps, and about which we want to proceed somewhat slowly and yet to move forward; that is, Whether or not our schools shall attempt further groupings? With, we will say, the segregation of the defectives and the segregation of the backward children, we shall have perhaps 90 per cent. of the children left — reasonably capable children, able to work fairly well together. Some of these children are going to the high school and some of them are going to college; most of them are going to work. Perhaps we all agree that in the grade instruction of these children there is needed a larger element of industrial work. Probably we would all agree with that, and perhaps also to some clipping and limiting of the course and to a better adaptation of academic subjects to the real needs of the children. We know the waste is great beginning with the fifth or sixth grade; whether or not these children are all to have more industrial work, with perhaps a modified and better adapted academic work; or whether we are to segregate some of these children and give them vocational instruction; or again whether we are to segregate children that are going to the high school and, perhaps, to college-these are questions that local conditions must determine. Those of us who have the problem of the foreign child and the foreign district know that in our own schools the widest possible range of adaptation is needed. Here is the one school which is distinctly foreign; difficulties of language are there, narrow and limited experience. The home life is to be taken into account. Those children need a modification of the course of study-very much modified from the group of children that are predominantly American; children that come from homes where there are books, opportunities for travel, and the widest possible experience. We know that in this one type of school the waste is very great.

I said to the principal of a school the other day: "How many first-grade schools have

you?" He said: "I have ten." "How many fourth-grade schools have you?" He said: "I have five." "How many fifth-grade schools have you?" He said: "I have three." "How many eighth-grade schools have you?" He replied: "I have one." Merely one showing in a school of forty teachers, or forty schools, a tremendous waste. That school offers a problem in itself.

In another school that I visited a few days ago, I found two and one-half second grades in the school. I found two eighth grades-an American school in a fairly comfortable community. I went to the office and looked up the records and found that this school had in it fifty children, only, out of one thousand, that are at all behind their grade; that is, behind their normal year's standing.

Now, these two schools present distinct types and the problem is entirely different as to how we are going to meet this modification. I do not know that any one knows; but it is sufficient to say that something is needed in the way of grouping and modification. Perhaps the suggestion that Mr. Kendall made for the segregation of children that are going to high school is well adapted to some conditions, perhaps to some cities, and certainly to some schools in certain cities.

Then we have this other problem as to where industrial work is needed. In some cases, to learn how to earn a living is a matter of much greater significance to the children than some other things. Here a peculiar type of instruction is certainly needed. I would suggest with reference to the industrial phase of it, particularly to the vocational phase of it, that we need to go slowly, particularly in that part of it which relates to the direct work of the elementary school.

SYMPOSIUM: THE PLACE OF INDUSTRIES IN PUBLIC EDUCATION

I. DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION; EQUAL OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL JAMES E. RUSSELL, DEAN OF TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY It is a commonplace of political history that our government is the resultant of contending forces in our national life. What the common man perceives as party policy or sectional issue, the scholar understands as a manifestation of conflicting ideals of social control. Autocracy at one extreme is met by democracy at the other extreme. The practical outcome at all times has been an oligarchy more or less concerned with the welfare of all.

The conditions of life in a new country do not favor democracy. Men who can lead will lead and must lead. In times of peril the necessity of conserving each unit of force and directing it unerringly from some point of vantage is too obvious to admit of question. Such government is oligarchic. Such was the government of the American colonies and of every new state that has won its way into the Union. The ideal oligarchy is an aristocracy, the rule of the best. When an oligarchy becomes inefficient, when the few in control are not the best, then the progressive state must train up better leaders and reform its government. The record of our national efforts in these directions is the history of American education and American politics.

Our earliest schools and colleges were avowedly institutions for the training of leaders-leaders in church and state. It was vocational training maintained by the few in the interests of an aristocracy. In Harvard College, for example,

down to 1772 the students were enrolled according to the social standing of their parents and the severest penalty that could be inflicted for infractions of college discipline was loss of social rating on the college register. The aristocratic lineage of the colonial school is perpetuated today in the professional course beginning in the secondary school and ending in the university. It embraces not only theology and law, but medicine, engineering, architecture, agriculture, dentistry, teaching, commerce-every vocation in which trained leaders are required. It is the choicest part of our educational system. On it we have lavished our wealth and to it our ablest educators have dedicated their lives. If it be aristocratic, we console ourselves that it recruits an aristocracy of which we need not be ashamed—an aristocracy not of birth and breeding, but an aristocracy of those best equipped for service to their fellow-men.

But there is another tendency in our national life, a force making for democracy. It found its initial impulse in the Puritanic conscience, and it has been augmented by each successive immigration of the oppressed and heavy laden of other lands. The political philosophy of eighteenth-century Europe found ready acceptance in the American colonies. Our Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, documents written under the storm and stress of social revolution at home and abroad, declared unequivocally the rights of man as man. On this foundation our fathers established a government dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. We, their children of the third and fourth generation, are still striving to realize that grand dream of liberty, equality, fraternity. That utopia has not been attained and may never be attained. Men are not equal today; they were not equal when our Constitution was written; nor yet when Puritan and Cavalier began their conquest of this new land. But what was true when our fathers first invaded the wilderness and began to build their homes and carve out new states was equality of opportunity. It is the basic principle of our national life. However much we glory in our achievements as a people, and in the honor that has come to strong men made great by doing great deeds, the finest flower of the past century is the deepening of our faith in the brotherhood of man and the increasing of our devotion to the ideals of democracy. Meanwhile, as always, progress comes thru education. We have realized the justice of making our schools accessible to all and we acknowledge the necessity of compelling the attendance of those who might otherwise become a menace to society. But we are slow to appreciate that a course of training designed for a favored few puts the many at a serious disadvantage.

Our education system is unfair in that it does not do what the founders of this republic meant that it should do. It does not give equality of opportunity to all. This may seem surprising, particularly as we have been boasting for a century of our American liberty, fraternity, and equality. It is the boast, too, of most Americans that our great public-school system provides alike for every boy and girl taking advantage of it. This is half true-and dangerous, as all half-truths are. The fact is, the American system of education grants

equality of opportunity to those who can go on to the college and the university. It takes little account of the boy-and less still of the girl-who cannot have or does not wish for a higher education. The ten millions of those now in our elementary schools who will be compelled to "drop out" to earn a livelihood will have missed their opportunity. But why? Do we in America have need only of professional men and "men of affairs"? Are those who pay the taxes and do the rougher work of life to be denied opportunity for self-improvement ? Are only those who can afford to stay in school to reap the advantages of education? In a word, what are we doing to help the average man better to do his life-work and better to realize the wealth of his inheritance as an American citizen? These questions raise the problem of vocational training for those who must begin early to earn their living. It is, in my judgment, the greatest problem of the future, and one which we may not longer disregard and yet maintain our standing as a nation.

Our schools must grant equal opportunity to all. In most other countries, the school system is deliberately intended to keep some down while helping others up. So long as our mode of government endures we cannot shut the door of opportunity in the face of any citizen. It is the greatest experiment the world has ever seen, and while there are many who would gladly see it fail, it is our bounden duty to make it succeed. It would be presumptious to say, after only one century of trial, that success is already assured. This is only the beginning. We are just coming to realize some of our blessings, as we see more clearly for the first time some of our dangers.

How can a nation endure that deliberately seeks to rouse ambitions and aspirations in the oncoming generations which in the nature of events cannot possibly be fulfilled? If the chief object of government be to promote civil order and social stability, how can we justify our practice in schooling the masses in precisely the same manner as we do those who are to be our leaders? Is human nature so constituted that those who fail will readily acquiesce in the success of their rivals, especially if that success be the result of "cuteness," rather than honest effort? Is it any wonder that we are beset with labor troubles? We are, indeed, optimists if we see no cause for alarm in our present social conditions; and we are worse than fools if we content ourselves with a superficial treatment of the ills that afflict us. Legislation may do much to help us out of trouble, but it is only education of the right sort that can permanently keep us from ruin. There never has been a time when we were more in need of sound education, and in the struggle for existence that is yet to come we shall need a better education than we conceive of today.

There is one educational principle that is peculiarly American. It is that every man, because he is a man and an American citizen, should be liberally educated so far as circumstances will permit. A man, according to our Magna Charta, is entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The first business of the schools is to make life worth living, liberty worth striving for, and the pursuit of happiness something for which no man need be ashamed.

We need, in my opinion, one more article in our educational creed. It is this. In making a man, make him good for something. It is a practice easily recognizable in the history of our universities and professional schools.

The next step is to see that the common man is equally well provided for. A beginning has been made in the enrichment of the course of study in our elementary and high schools, thus giving a choice of studies and better preparation for life if the pupil knows how to choose wisely; in the introduction of the natural sciences, manual training, and the domestic arts, thus giving some acquaintance with the industrial processes underlying our civilization if the subjects be well taught; and finally, in the differentiation of the school courses and school work whenever future vocations of the pupils are definitely known, as in the negro schools of the South, the county agricultural schools of Wisconsin, and the trade schools of some of our eastern cities.

But all this is only a beginning. At best but little can be done before the age of fourteen, but that little can be of the right kind. If nothing else is gained from the elementary school than a wholesome respect for man's industry, a good basis is afforded for participation in man's occupations. The serious preparation for practical life begins for the great majority of us at the age of thirteen or fourteen, on leaving the elementary school. The most dangerous period in the life of a boy or girl lies just ahead-say up to the age of nineteen or twenty. This is the time when the average boy must learn to be selfsupporting, and when the girl must fit herself for domestic duties. It is the time, too, when technical training counts for most. I contend that every American boy and girl is entitled to practical help in this time of greatest need --and at public expense, too, if the state maintains high schools, universities, and professional schools for those who aspire to leadership in professional life. My reasons for this contention are these:

1. Anything that will contribute to the greater efficiency of the workman is a contribution not only to his own well-being but to the wealth of the nation. 2. Anything that will lead the workman to take more pride in his work tends to make him a better citizen and a more conservative member of society.

If it be possible to make each man, no matter what his social standing may be, an honest leader in his own field, a workman who is not ashamed of his handiwork, then we need fear no criticism of our colleagues across the sea, nor need we as an industrial people fear the competition in the world's markets. More than that, we need never lose faith in the righteousness of American ideals nor dread the consequences of our social democracy. If there be those who say the task is impossible, I answer in the words of General Armstrong, when some one doubted the possibility of negro education, "What are Christians for but to do the impossible?"