The modification contained in the outline just given presupposes a choice by the high-school pupil at the beginning of the first year. This paper is going to have the temerity to suggest also a more radical modification that leaves the first two years unchanged, except for an option added to the first year, and introduces some of the committee's material into the last two years. The idea is that some schools might accomplish this much but no more, and that the choice of courses would be more intelligently made after two years of general high-school work.

In this scheme penmanship as a required subject is omitted, but doubtless all having any thought of the commercial course would elect it, and even others might do the same to their profit. The work suggested for the twoyear commercial course added to two years of the ordinary high-school course may seem severe. The remark in the committee's report regarding the relative number of hours a young man would work if he left school and began earning his livlihood is pertinent here. So long as the health were not injured nor the mind overwearied the course would not be objectionable on the score of severity. Practical testing could alone determine this, but it may be suggested that the practical value of the work would add zest. A boy could and would stand a good deal if he felt that a fair chance to begin at once a self-supporting career in business lay at the end of two years of effort.

It would not be right to pass over in silence the excellent monographs which define and defend the aim and content of the suggested course, altho time permits only a brief reference to two of them.

Mr. Crissey, in addition to an admirable summary of modern views of what the study of our native tongue should aim at, gives us the special needs of the business course. Not only business men, but all who write letters, are interested to know the correct punctuation of the address of a letter. Mr. Crissey's stand for pure English as distinct from a jargon that may possibly serve a particular purpose is indicated in his caution to teachers that the "business letters" of the dictation books should be used only when carefully edited. In Mr. Crissey's view the spoken language must be cultivated along with the written. He recommends that the school be organized as a club for debate. The article on history and social science is particularly interesting from the standpoint of the ordinary high school. The contention that the basis. for the study of the history of commerce should be an acquaintance with the facts of history in general, but that the history of commerce should not be taught merely in connection with the study of general history, is well supported: "It should occupy in its special schools the place occupied by the history of education in the schools of education, church history in the theological seminaries, the history of law in law schools, and military and naval history in the academies devoted to the education of soldiers and sailors." The quoted observation that history as written from the modern view-point passes from

"a melancholy record of human crimes and calamities" to the "animating register" of the industry and ingenuity of men, gives us another argument for history as a required subject in all courses of all kinds of secondary schools. The arguments for and against political economy as a high-school subject have been pretty well thrashed over in the last twelve years. Dr. Herrick is convinced, and convinces us, that courses which he places under the head of social science are indispensable in the scheme of a commercial course. In the ordinary high school the objection still remains, but it may well be that the inclusion of political economy among the requirements of the commercial course may lead ultimately to a removal of the difficulties which now exclude the subject in the general high school. If well-equipped teachers are available, and the time arrives when we shall agree as to topics and treatment, the high schools, at least in the cities, will welcome political economy among the electives. Dr. Herrick recognizes civil government, in close alliance with United States history, as a necessary constituent of the course of every pupil.

The report is as full of good pedagogics, catholic educational sympathies, and sound common-sense as an egg is of meat. This little paper has merely scratched its surface. It opens the right gate into an untilled field so fertile in possibilities of practical good that speculation as to the extent of its beneficent effect upon the American high-school system would seem like idle dreams. The committee has dared to be definite; may the educational authorities dare to carry into practical effect this broad scientific scheme for the nurture, not of dumb business tools, but of articulate, cultured, and withal shrewdly trained business men.

DISCUSSION

D. W. SPRINGER, of Ann Arbor, Mich., chairman of the Committee of Nine.Referring to the contention that arithmetic should appear in the first year, the speaker said that it was the opinion of the committee that pupils come from the grade school with a positive distaste for arithmetic, and it was thought best to give them a rest for a short time, substituting meanwhile a new subject (algebra) which would give mathematical training with the advantage of freshness. The second year the subject of arithmetic can be taken with new zest and greater power.

The speaker made frequent and extended reference to the monograph prepared by the Committee of Nine, issued by the University of the State of New York. This publication contains discussions on some of the points raised by the preceding speakers, particularly on the point of the time allowed by the proposed course. In this connection the speaker compared the time allowed in foreign schools with that of the proposed course, and showed that they were nearly the same.

He called attention to the fact, already referred to by preceding speakers, that the course had in it some compromises. Personally he regretted that there was not more drawing, but it was necessary to sacrifice personal opinion at times.

He said that it appeared surprising that all three of the speakers had objected to the provision for history, which had received more attention than any other single subject, and which follows very closely the suggestions made by the Committee of Seven on History in the Report of the Committee on College Entrance Requirements.

DEPARTMENT OF CHILD STUDY

SECRETARY'S MINUTES

FIRST SESSION.-THURSDAY, JUNE 30, 1904

The meeting of the Department of Child Study was called to order at Convention Hall in the Administration Building by the president, E. A. Kirkpatrick, at 2:30 P. M. In the absence of Secretary Yoder, Miss Jessie Davis was appointed secretary. The following communication from the British Child Study Association was read: To the President of the Child Study Conference of the National Educational Association in Convention at St. Louis, DEAR SIR: The Council of the British Child Study Association sends heartiest greetings to friends and fellow-students in America now assembled in conference at St. Louis.

The members of our association regard with the keenest appreciation the constant and extraordinary efforts, the high scientific ability, and the successful enterprise employed by the leaders of the child-study movement in America, who are engaged in laying the foundations of true biological and evolutionary conceptions. The work of such men as President G. Stanley Hall, Professor Earl Barnes, Professor W. S. Monroe, and others of your great leaders in developing a new philosophy of childhood is most keenly known and honored among us here in Great Britain, and forms an additional bond of union, sympathy, and indebtedness between us and our American kinsmen.

Accept our heartiest good wishes for complete success in every department of your conference held in the exhibition buildings. Such efforts are certain to conduce to a great and permanent increase in the interest and numbers of those consciously and systematically studying child nature in order to ascertain what are the latest possibilities and capacities of the growing child, and how he can be best provided with the means and environment wherewith and wherein to shape himself.

(Signed) J. C. HUDSON,

General Secretary.

The following program was then carried out, with the exceptions noted below:

Topic: "Individual and Practical Child Study."

1. "The Diagnosis of the Capabilities of Children," by D. P. MacMillan, director of child-study department of the Chicago public schools, Chicago, Ill.

2. "Some Laboratory Investigations of Subnormal Children," by Miss Mary R. Campbell, dean of the Chicago Hospital School for Nervous and Delicate Children, and educational adviser for the School of Special Education, Chicago, Ill.

3. "To What Extent May Atypical Children be Successfully Educated in our Public Schools?" by Maximilian P. E. Groszmann, director of the Groszmann School for Atypical and Nervous Children, Plainfield, N. J.

The Child Study Department then divided into two sections for round-table discussions.

1. ROUND TABLE ON CHILD STUDY IN THE KINDERGARTEN AND PRIMARY GRADES

(Chairman, Miss Myra M. Winchester, Fort Worth Kindergarten College, Fort Worth, Tex.) Topic: "Comparison of Methods and Results in Child Study'

1. "Handwork as an Indication of the Mental Condition of Children," by Elizabeth Harrison, Chicago Kindergarten College, Chicago, Ill.

2. "Method of Child Study in the Kindergarten," by Luella Palmer, New York city.

3. "Child Study in the Grades," by P. W. Horn, superintendent of schools, Houston, Tex.

II.

ROUND TABLE ON CHILD STUDY IN GRAMMAR AND SECONDARY GRADES

Topic: "Waywardness in Children of Ten to Eighteen Years."

1. "Criminal Tendencies and the Juvenile Court," by Charles W. Waddle, fellow in Clark University, Worcester, Mass.

2. "Relation of the Home and Parents to the Wayward Child," by Oscar Chrisman, professor of paidology, Ohio University, Athens, O.

Under the order of business the following Committee on Nominations was appointed by President Kirkpatrick:

Dr. Oscar Chrisman, of Ohio.

Dr. A. Caswell Ellis, of Texas.

Miss Elizabeth Harrison, of Illinois.

SECOND SESSION.-FRIDAY, JULY I

The department was called to order at 2:30 P. M. The Committee on Nominations reported the following nominees for officers, who were elected:

For President.-E. G. Lancaster, Olivet, Mich.

For Vice-President-D. P. MacMillan. Chicago, Ill.

For Secretary-Miss Theodate Smith, Clark University, Worcester, Mass.

The following program was presented in full:

A paper by Will S. Monroe, State Normal School, Westfield, Mass., was distributed, describing the various types of child study, and indicating where exhibits of the same could be found.

General topic: "Methods in Scientific Child Study."

1. "Questionaire Methods of Child Study," by Will Grant Chambers, State Normal School, Moorhead, Minn.

2. "Laboratory Tests as a Means of Child Study," by Miss Mabel Clarke Williams, department of philosophy, Iowa State University.

3. "Contribution of Zoological Psychology to Child Study," by Linus W. Kline, State Normal School, Duluth, Minn.

4. "Unsolved Problems of Child Study and Modes of Attack," by G. Stanley Hall, president of Clark University, Worcester, Mass.

5. "Child Study in Normal Schools," by Miss Anna Buckbee, State Normal School, California, Pa. The meeting then adjourned.

JESSIE DAVIS, Acting Secretary.

PAPERS AND DISCUSSIONS

THE DIAGNOSIS OF THE CAPABILITIES OF SCHOOL

CHILDREN

D. P. MACMILLAN, DIRECTOR OF DEPARTMENT OF CHILD STUDY AND PEDAGOGIC INVESTIGATION, PUBLIC SCHOOLS, CHICAGO, ILL.

With the growth in complexity of social institutions, and the parallel divergencies in individual tastes, desires, skills, and knowledges, there comes the necessity, in the mind of everyone who deals with human affairs, to have a correct estimate of the normal mind. For the most of us this is limited by our past experiences, and is a scheme of extreme inexactness.

Altho it is highly important for the man who would uplift his fellow-men, or who would profit by their weaknesses, to have an exact estimate of human nature, yet such a one is by no means under the same stringent necessity as those whose concern it is to tell the path of direction and to estimate the acquired power of the growing minds of children.

As the need of such a criterion of capability does not become imperative before attempts are made to educate children, and, further, as the inexorable laws of society will sift the incompetent from the capable youth in the struggle