ous projects already carried out in the western states with the results achieved in developing population and agriculture. These public schemes of irrigation are compared also with the more numerous private schemes that have been workt out in the West. At this point a study of statistical data will show what a vast wealth has been produced by these means in many of the western states. It far surpasses the output of the gold and silver and copper mines.

The arid belt, in which irrigation is the chief means of developing agriculture, is found by a study of maps to extend over more than a third of the territory of the United States. It may even be worth while to compare agriculture in irrigated regions with that in regions of rainfall in order to discover which is more advantageous and productive. Note also the variety of products raised in irrigated lands, as wheat and grains, potatoes and vegetables, peaches, apples, etc., alfalfa, clover, and hay, strawberries and other berries, even trees and forests; also cattle and stock-raising therewith. Later, in a comparison with similar irrigation projects in Mexico, in Egypt along the Nile, in the valleys of India, even in Italy and in the Sahara, we shall discover that the extension of irrigation on arid lands in various parts of the world is one of man's chief means of making a living and of adapting himself to physical and climatic conditions the world over.

This topic workt out properly displays a growing, expanding idea, collecting and organizing into one definite line of good thinking a rich and copious variety of knowledge. It interprets the facts and processes of one of the basal human occupations. It brings to the front and explains a large number of most important facts usually presented in geography, but it surpasses the method of the older study by giving unity, connectedness, and meaning to this collection of facts.

Such a large unit of study which gathers up and absorbs into itself an abundant and varied knowledge on the strong basis of a controlling, developing idea may require two weeks or a month or possibly six weeks to give it a full and appropriate elaboration. Such a treatment brings about a real organization of knowledge that means something, a strong sequence and relationship between the facts which associate them more firmly in the memory and develop well-defined highways of thought-what may well be called habits of thinking.

Such thinking-out of important topics produces strong and permanent impressions. In the future the mind will revert to these series and groupings of thought and will further strengthen and develop them. They become the powerful apperceptive masses that enter into much of one's later thinking as interpretative agencies.

Miscellaneous facts and data of knowledge appropriated by a mere act of memory have no such value. They lack organization and meaning, and in many cases drop out of the mind almost as quickly as they enter it. Even if they are retained in memory, they do not function; they do not

interpret other facts and thus continue the process of organization. The miscellaneous knowledge which some of our textbooks furnish children in scattered profusion is lacking in these two essentials of good learning and thinking: (1) the sense of relationship or meaning, and (2) the power to interpret new situations. What a dead weight such knowledge is! It scarcely deserves to be called knowledge. It is a make-believe sort of knowledge, not the real thing.

At this age children should penetrate into a few big, masterly problems of study, so as to feel their value and richness. The big world should disclose itself to the children thru these main channels in a way to surprise and awaken their sleeping thought energies. The mental enlargement and exhilaration which come with a clear insight into big organizing ideas produce the appropriate mental attitude for adolescents. Just as they are preparing to step out into the practical world of trade and business, or it may be into the fields of higher scholarship, they should strike some of these big, expanding topics which will give them respect for knowledge, which will teach them how to think, and lead them to the conviction that this world is strongly organized, and that there is a binding sequence between its parts.

There is no reason why the studies of grammar grades should consist mainly of a mere review, rehash, and repetition of previous studies-a dry summing-up and drilling of earlier studies in language, arithmetic, spelling, and geography. They should indeed result in greater thoroness, simplicity, and clear insight into all elementary studies, but, as Lowell says: "We don't need to go about to make the world duller than it is." There are big doings in the world outside, and it may be well to give the boys and girls a glimpse of them. Why not grant them a chance at open-eyed wonder.

The adolescent mind will respond to large stimuli, to the enthusiasm involved in the big life-problems, whether individual or social or national, such as the achievements of inventors like Whitney and Field, and Fulton and Edison; of scientists like Pasteur and Franklin; or of travelers like Livingston, Peary, Captain Cook, and Magellan. We are waking up to the fact that grammar-grade boys and girls will respond to situations demanding strong individuals and hearts fearless and energetic. Big, stimulating topics and big-hearted, well-informed enthusiastic teachers who can lead the youth strongly into these simple but vigorous and energetic problems are in demand. We all need this infusion of spiritual energy which is nourisht upon large enriching topics of study. Spiritual life and energy do not spring out of the empty and formal treatment of school topics. We must get at real source material, at genuine life-problems, at engrossing, absorbing, national, social, and world interests. These things grow and organize themselves on the basis of abundant facts and out of pressing situations under the stress of life-conditions. We should set children to thinking on big subjects and keep them thinking and moving along these

same lines till they begin to realize definitely what some of the main forces that are operating in the world are.

The big problem, after all, is how to find qualified teachers. Only a few, even good teachers, have learned the art of handling big, interesting topics; of organizing and developing these engrossing problems and series of problems. The fault is not so much with the teachers as with the whole method of their bringing-up, for which they are not responsible. Shifting over to big topics and big problems demands a reorganization of our subjectmatter and of our methods of treatment. Our normal schools and colleges should take the lead, as they are doing to some extent, in this selection and elaboration of large units of study. This is the effort to simplify and organize our course of study on a few basal ideas in each study. This simple elaboration of big topics requires a superior kind of thinking, a close sequence of developing thought, and a full background of descriptive and illustrative. detail. It requires a higher art of instruction, a capacity to control and combine more complex thought materials which involve wider relations and longer sequences. These processes of teaching have to be demonstrated on definite school topics. Much has been done already in the way of the full and elaborate treatment of these large units, and much more remains to be done. In short, this emphasis of large topics proposes a plan for the higher education of teachers, a practical scheme for selecting and working into shape by fruitful scholarly study groups and series of first-class topics which will form the basis of a better course of study and a richer, more thoughtful method of teaching.

THE PLACE OF THE CORPORATION AND THE CONTINUA

TION SCHOOLS

CLIFFORD B. CONNELLEY, DEAN, SCHOOL OF APPLIED INDUSTRIES, CARNEGIE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, PITTSBURGH, PA.

The corporation and the continuation schools are here to stay. They have come into being in this country as a result of the demand for industrial training. The continuation school may or may not be a corporation school; a corporation school is always a continuation school. In other words, there are two types of continuation schools, one controlled largely by the board of education as a part of a public-school system, and the other controlled by manufacturers or employers of labor as a part of the industrial plant. One gives rise to the expression "school shop" and the other to "shop school."

What relation do these schools have to the thirteen- and fourteen-yearold pupils in our public schools? It is generally conceded that real industrial training should never be given to a child who is not at least fourteen years of age, and preferably sixteen.

Making due allowance for the time element in connection with various innovations, it is a well-known fact that there are still between 70 and 75 per cent of the children of high-school age who do not attend school. How would the transfer of the upper two grades of the elementary school to the high school benefit the 2,000,000 children between fourteen and fifteen years of age who are out of school and, who have never gone beyond the sixth grade in their schooling? Surely these should have a voice or a champion when it comes to a question of continuity and adaptability of the child to the schooling which is at the basis of all school reforms. Nor can the large group of youth who do not and never will attend high school be ignored. If both groups could be ruled out arbitrarily, the matter of adjusting the elementary school to the high school would be simple indeed. But they are in the majority, and an educational scheme that leaves them out falls short of being really democratic.

This brings us to the consideration of the continuation school and its place in an educational system. Its function is to take the youth who has left school for whatever reason can be given, remove him from the environment of the shop and factory for an allotted period, and bring him into the atmosphere of the school again in order better to adjust him to the demands of his job. In our country, unfortunately, this phase of the continuation plan of education has not as yet been very fully developt. Up to this time only three states-Massachusetts, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania-have past laws which at least outline a program which seems adequate. They have made the continuation school compulsory, but the action has been so recent that there is little that can be cited in the terms of concrete results. The following, however, coming from W. Stanwood Field, director of the evening and continuation schools of Boston, is of interest, because of the fact that it represents the pupils' attitude to the continuation school as gleaned from answers to questions by over one thousand pupils:

Over 90 per cent replied that the continuation schools helpt them in English, and over 85 per cent that the school helpt them in arithmetic; replies showed that nearly 80 per cent were spending their leisure in a way that could be approved. Over 30 per cent replied that the school had helpt them on their present jobs and a like number had received promotions on their present jobs. Over 80 per cent had been with the same employer since entering the school; over 95 per cent liked the continuation school better than the regular day school, and nearly 55 per cent preferred the continuation school to the evening school. Of those employed on a weekly wage, over 90 per cent reported no deductions because of continuation-school attendance. More than two-thirds declared that they had a more definite idea of what they would like to be in the future than they had before entering school.

In Massachusetts the law requires every child between fourteen and sixteen years of age, not attending school, to attend continuation school four hours during working time. For three years Wisconsin had had a similar law in operation, and thirty cities of the state have continuation schools. It is declared that little difficulty was experienst in getting every working

child under sixteen years of age into such schools. The new law now requires attendance to the seventeenth year. Milwaukee furnishes an interesting example of the continuation work in that state. It is a city of over 400,000 inhabitants. According to Robert L. Cooley, the director of its continuation schools, "in one year, 5000 young people who had left school under sixteen years of age, averaging about the sixth-grade education and entered into juvenile jobs, were brought back to school." The school session is held during the day for four hours each week for thirty-two weeks in the year as the minimum. The attendance averaged about 91 per cent of the total number enroled. All pupils attend the same school, which is centrally located and is fitted up with suitable shops, laboratories, draftingrooms, and classrooms. The pupils must take the required work per week in one attendance. Mr. Cooley stated last year, "under this arrangement, within just a few months, 715 employers have sent 3349 employes to our school. Of these employers, 483 employ but one boy or girl." Instruction is offered in at least nineteen occupations, and the object, from the vocational guidance standpoint, is "to make the boys familiar with the use of tools and to aid them in selecting a trade or other skilled work that will help them to earn substantial wages when they become men."

Perhaps the state of Pennsylvania can lay claim to the most advanst legislation in this country on this subject. When it is remembered that until last January the state allowed a working permit to be issued to a fourteen-year-old child on the strength only of his being able to read and write intelligibly, the new law must be considered a vast improvement. Now children must have the equivalent of the sixth grade and must leave employment during working hours for attendance upon continuation school for not less than eight hours per week. With this in mind, the following short report of the continuation classes in connection with the public-school system of the city of Pittsburgh will throw a sidelight on the work of the continuation school in general:

Whole number of boys and girls enroled, 1507, of whom 119 did not live in Pittsburgh. About 20 per cent of this number will be sixteen years of age on or before September 1, 1916. Ninety-two per cent attended the public schools, or parochial or private schools previous to employment; and 20 per cent were found to be attending night schools since entering employment. Three reasons were assigned for leaving school, namely, necessity, dislike, and desire to earn money. Thirty-three per cent have chosen vocations since enrolment; 6 per cent of this number are apparently unfit, either physically or mentally, for the employment in which they are now engaged.

1. At the center of the continuation school must be placed the actual trade or occupation of the boy or the girl.

2. The continuation-school building ought to be a separate one from the regular school building and should have the equipment of the workshop. In starting such a school the less costly equipment could be secured first and the remainder added gradually.

3. Such a school must be a means of character-training and not a mere trade or industrial school.