holding high positions have not manifested any evidence of growth for years is that they have ceased to think that the opinions of the teachers are worth anything, and have ceased to consult them. There is much wisdom allowed to go to waste because supervising officials are too proud to use it. I do not mean that the school officers should not, in the common phrase, "run their schools;" of course they should; but they should do it very modestly, remembering that the sum of the wisdom possessed by all the teachers is doubtless greater than that contained even in their enlarged craniums.

A very fine teacher said to me recently, rather sadly, that she was not altogether happy in her school. On close inquiry I drew from her the information that the trouble was that she found no sympathy in the principal. She was ambitious and capable; she wanted to do something. rather more than the ordinary; her heart was in her work; but she felt that her principal's heart was not there, but was rather in the machinery of the school. He would visit her occasionally, was never unkind, and she had, after repeated efforts, secured a half-hour in which they might sit down together and talk over her ambitions and her schemes for work; and the result was a chill and a disheartenment which, unless the inner fire burned very strongly, would in the end impair her efficiency. He wanted good work in his school and expected his teachers to teach well, but he was so concerned with the mechanical side of administration that he could not get into the heart of any of his schoolrooms. The teacher had the freedom of isolation, not that of society.

The supervising officer is a distributing agent, receiving what teachers can give and giving what is received to those who need it; and he must not, if he would be worthy of his office, let any amount of detail work, any consideration for the mechanical part of the administration, stand in the way of this personal co-operative work with the individual teachers. For let us remember that the school is a society in which all share the good or ill; and this is as true of the teachers as it is of the children.

Recall that individual freedom is often impaired by the excessive demands of the social whole and the obliterating of the individual, but that true freedom is to be secured, not by a return to isolation, which is in reality extreme bondage, but rather by a proper use of society. The individual teacher should be strengthened, not weakened, by belonging to a system. The strength and the wisdom of the whole are greater than that of the individual, but only when each individual is encouraged to exercise his own strength and also to share with others. So that, for teachers as for children, a school system should be a co-operative society, having for its motto "Each for all and all for each ;" and the administrative forces fulfill their function when they so distribute the common good that each individual has all of his own and all that he can receive from the others. And this is social freedom.

DISCUSSION

SUPERINTENDENT JAMES H. VAN SICKLE, Baltimore, Md.-In spite of some contradictory statements and some others that seem extreme, I am in sympathy with the general trend of Mr. Gilbert's paper. It emphasizes the supreme importance of the teacher, and reduces to a secondary position machinery and organization. It recognizes freedom as an inward growth, something not conferred upon the teacher, but arrived at thru the efforts of the teacher himself. Any domination that deprives the teacher of responsibility and initiative results in injury to the school system, because it deprives the schools of the thought of many and limits them to the thought of one. A superintendent or principal who minutely prescribes what shall be done and how it shall be done defeats the very purpose he has in view. Such prescription tends to make automatons of teachers, instead of alert contributors to the enterprise in hand. The worst possible thing that can be done for a school system is to release the teacher from the responsibility for originating something.

But, after all, the freedom of the child is at stake. He, too, must assume responsibility as a condition of liberty. Despotism at the top produces servility all the way down, and it is the child who is chiefly oppressed. The educational principles which are to guide must be definitely set forth, and there must be enough of organization and direction to secure unity and harmony of effort; but, in matters of device and detail, diversity is to be encouraged. A traveling companion said yesterday: Any device is good which shuts the mouth of the teacher and opens the mouth of the pupil." Carry this idea back to apply to the relations between superintendent and teacher, and it means that the superintendent should provide favorable conditions for work, see that underlying educational principles are understood, and then insist that the teacher do his own thinking. The teacher who develops under such a system will, in turn, have the pupils do their own thinking. It is only in this way that the growth can take place which results in freedom.

The paper is constructive as well as destructive. Definite ways of improving the work of teachers are pointed out. The grade-meeting plan is especially worthy of consideration. By the plan suggested the superintendent can come into personal relations with the teachers and explain his views in a more effective way than by means of printer's ink. In the large cities the problem of meeting the teachers so that they may know the superintendent's views at first hand is not an easy one. His opinions upon vital questions are too often filtered thru several officials before they reach the schoolroom, and, when they finally reach the teacher, they exhibit a progressive departure from his exact meaning. The larger the school system, the greater the tendency to subordinate the individual to the organization. There should be but one set of middlemen. The principal is the key to the situation. He it is who is in daily communication with the teachers. The superintendent must have the co-operation of the principal, or he will plan in vain. The machine principal will make a machine school. Mr. Gilbert says: "Smash the machine." In this he does not seem to me consistent, as in another part of his paper he develops very carefully the value of the machinery of school organization. A better remedy is to reform the machine principal. Wherever you find a liberal-minded principal, one who has himself arrived at freedom, you will find free teachers and self-reliant children. Therefore it is absolutely necessary for the superintendent to secure the harmonious co-operation of the principals. By principals' meetings and by private conference this must be brought about, not by written orders. The course of study may be broad and liberal, the rules may allow the teacher large discretion, yet the purpose of both be nullified by a principal who insists upon tradition. If I did not know a few cases like the following, I should think Mr. Gilbert had been guilty of exaggeration:

A teacher of my acquaintance, fully capable of taking charge of the work of her

room so that no supervising officer need worry about the results, reports this experience upon being assigned to a building controlled by a principal of this petrified type:

I was given notebooks of other teachers showing exactly how each part of each subject was taught, and was obliged to copy these and follow them in every detail. Every Friday before leaving we were all obliged to make out a plan for the week, stating what we should teach each period of every day every word in spelling, every problem in arithmetic, and every sentence in language study. At the end of the month we were to make out "progress books," showing what had actually been taught.

A composition was required of each pupil each week. I worked to get thoughts and felt that I had succeeded in a measure. As I had to deal with a fourth-grade class, I found it difficult to get free expression of thought and a perfect chirography. These compositions were rejected, and short, stilted ones of ten lines or so, beautifully written, were accepted.

The discipline was as rigid and unsympathetic as the instruction, and the monitor system was in full force. A grade was to move as a unit, and individual work of all kinds was discouraged. All written work, compositions, dictations, and the like, drawings, etc., were bound in sets, duly inscribed with lots of red-ink linings and interlinings, and put on file. The "plan book,” “progress book,” “notebooks," and the filing away of all the writing and drawing took a large part of my time, so that I got in a very little real teaching. I found that the only course open to me was to follow directions implicitly. The teachers would not change their methods unless compelled. They follow their notebooks year after year, merely adding the new things that the changes in the course demand.

We have here in some detail a view of the narrowing process as actually carried on in some schools. The last sentence but one exhibits the logical result: "The teachers would not change their methods unless compelled." Monotonous routine inevitably ends in intellectual and pedagogical death. A superintendent who permits it is blind and culpable. One who prescribes it should be retired from the profession. His proper sphere is a factory. In the instance cited, the trouble, if one may judge by reading the course of study and the rules, lay with the principal of the school, not with the school system "the machine." Thus may the spirit of fairly liberal courses and printed directions be destroyed by a stickler for form for form's sake. If the superintendent happens also to be a mere executive, the system is doomed till the time arrives when the "cake of custom," as Walter Bagehot calls it, is broken by a vigorous and thorogoing reform.

I place a higher value upon the supervisors' estimates of the efficiency of teachers than Mr. Gilbert does. He speaks of their "brief and valueless" visits. I cannot conceive it possible that a supervisor can come away from a schoolroom without a pretty definite opinion of the spirit of the work and its educational value. The impression will be in some respects all the more reliable because the primary purpose of the visit is not to inspect, but to help. Mr. Gilbert evidently thinks the principal alone should mark the teacher. I should want to get all the side lights possible upon the work of a teacher, so as to avoid the one-sided estimate which such a principal as the one above referred to would be sure to give.

Mr. Gilbert rightly places a high estimate upon the use of talented teachers in exemplifying ideals; in giving concrete examples of the correct application of approved educational principles as models for imitation. Ideas introduced unobtrusively in this way spread with remarkable rapidity. We can accomplish little by compulsion, much by suggestion. The following from the late Rev. Maltbie D. Babcock applies as truly to school problems as to other problems involving human nature:

Suggestion is generally better than Definition. There is a seeming dogmatism about Definition that is often repellent, while Suggestion, on the contrary, disarms suspicion and summons to co-operation and experiment. Definition provokes discussion; Suggestion provokes to love and good works. Defining is limiting; Suggestion is enlarging. Defining calls a halt; Suggestion calls for an advance. Defining involves the peril of contentment: "I am here, I rest." "Thus far," says Definition, and draws a map; "Westward," cries Suggestion, and builds a boat.

I must take exception to one thing more that is implied thruout the paper rather than said, namely, that there is never any restriction to be placed upon a teacher. School officials are generally anxious to give just as much freedom as can be borne by the teacher; freedom involves responsibility; the ability to exercise this responsibility comes thru a more or less prolonged experience under guidance and suggestion when a

teacher has become, thru self-reliant and self-active experience, thoroly efficient, it is readily recognized by all thinking people that the interests of the children are safest when the teacher is least restricted. Such a teacher may always be his own schedule maker, may set his own time limits, may decide for himself which subjects need most emphasis at a given time. For such a teacher there are no requirements except those which his insight, his sense of duty, and his sense of the high privilege which he exercises as a friend and helper to the children impose upon him. It must always be remembered that beginners and inexperienced teachers need guidance, and that the superintendent who withholds guidance, or even restriction upon occasion, has a limited idea of true freedom and the pathway over which it is approached. The schools should receive the benefit of the best thought of every member of the teaching force. He is the best superintendent who knows best how to utilize the forces of those about him. The thought of all is better than the thought of one. The fact that it is possible for the superintendent to learn something from the humblest teacher is altogether to his credit. To be most helpful to others he must have lived long enough to know how to be helped. Superintendent and principal are chiefly useful in holding up ideals and in securing to teachers and pupils conditions favorable for effective work in the direction of those ideals. Unity of aim is essential. Variety in execution is desirable. Responsibility and initiative are essential to a child's proper development; this is no less true of the teacher himself. When supervision is of a character to safeguard these essentials, freedom of the teacher ultimately depends upon the teacher himself.

SUPERINTENDENT JOHN RICHESON, East St. Louis, Ill.- Superintendent Gilbert looks at marks from the machine side. I have felt that marks were the tools of weak teachers. Teachers need to be educated above the need of marks. I do not agree with the comparison of the city and the rural teacher. I do not see what store of knowledge is laid up from which city teachers exclusively can draw. The teacher must have time to assimilate the good things. The city teacher, with the numberless things that attract her attention, does not assimilate so as to do better work for the children. I have the idea forced upon me that the teachers are not prepared as they should be. I think the supervising corps should be something like a faculty of education, and continue the growth which the teacher began. in the high school or his one year in the normal school Superintendent Gilbert confessed that he had not sufficiently differentiated the principal, nor, I would add, considered him; and yet he says: "The principal is the supervising officer whose business it is first of all to be in personal contact with the teacher, and to do the various things for her help of which I have spoken and am about to speak." Then, I ask, is not the principal "it" in this matter of supervision? In all cities having a hundred or more teachers, to ask this question is to answer it. He is the one important factor in helping the teachers.

A recent writer in a prominent educational journal refers slurringly to a superintendent who runs a post-graduate normal school, and says: "At thirty years of age no person, competent by ability and character to teach, requires that kind of supervision which is commonly called 'helping the teacher.'" I suppose the author means a very low grade of supervision by his phrase "commonly called," but heaven pity the children under a teacher who at thirty, or sixty, years of age does not welcome real help, who does not strive to realize that she is still growing in knowledge of subjects and children, as well as in skill to teach! But teaching these adults, more or less fixed in habits of opinion and thought, is a complicated matter, and requires the very highest teaching skill. The supervisor who is to do this work must himself be a first-class teacher. He ought to be a man of broad and exact knowledge, and a clear thinker. He ought, if possible, to possess in himself all the native virtues which characterize the success of each teacher from the primary grade thru the high school. Hard to find? Yes. But the number of principals needed is not great, and their work can be so valuable, or so disastrous, that there ought to be no question about getting the right man or woman for the place,

In conclusion, if we are to have teachers with the greatest freedom and the highest appreciation of their responsibilities to the children, if we are to have teachers constantly growing in efficiency and power to inspire, we must have principals and superintendents who are educators first and machine directors second. Next after a "teacher's devotion to her work as the most precious possession of a school's system" must come the professional devotion of the supervisors.

A READJUSTMENT OF THE HIGH-SCHOOL CURRICULUM E. W. COY, PRINCIPAL OF THE HUGHES HIGH SCHOOL, CINCINNATI, O. The public high school seems to occupy the storm center in our educational system at the present time. Placed as it is between the upper millstone of the college and the nether millstone of the elementary school, it is in a position to be subjected to a great deal of trituration. Not that there is any opposition to the high school worthy of notice; not that those who are ever ready to advocate change merely for the sake of change are clamoring for something new and strange here as well as everywhere else; but many sober-minded and conservative educators are coming to the conclusion that there is need of modification and readjustment in our system. It is true that we are passing thru a period of educational unrest and upheaval when what is novel and bizarre is very likely to gain favor and win the day for the time being. And it behooves us to go slow in adopting radical changes and not be too ambitious to lead the procession, lest we be numbered among those of whom it is written: "Many that are first shall be last, and the last shall be first;" yet what reason and sound judgment approve we cannot afford to reject. A rational conservatism does not decline to accept everything that is new; it simply declines to accept anything that has nothing to recommend it except that it is new.

Numerous are the suggestions, some wise and some otherwise, coming from experts and non-experts alike, for the improvement or modification of the course of study of the high school or of the work it is doing, or for the lengthening or shortening of the curriculum. Some would cut down its course from four years to three-upon what theory I know not, unless it be the theory that the less there is of it the better. Others would prolong its course upward, taking in two years of the ordinary college course. This would be piling Ossa upon Pelion. Still others would have the high school declare its independence of the higher institutions and mark out a course of its own, without any regard to what is to come after, teaching a little of everything and not very much of anything in particular; and, this they call "fitting for life." Some would have pretty definite courses with occasional options; others would spread out the whole field of knowledge and invite the child in its innocence to come and choose such viands as it may prefer before it knows the differ