seems neither to call for apology on the part of the university for duplicating instruction, nor to suggest the desirability of dropping "History 1449" from the list of graduate courses. One need not seek far for similar illustrations from schools of law and medicine. In such instances the accepted principle seems to be that an educational institution may offer the work adapted to its special needs and ends without much dread of previously established boundaries. Cases of palpable overlapping are freely disposed of, not by running new lines, but simply by "allowing credit." So far as mere duplication of instruction is concerned, normal. schools may, then, assume responsibility for general scholarship without apology to other educational institutions. May they assume such respon

sibility without apology to their own "professional" character?

Among the Delphic utterances of modern pedagogy there is, perhaps, none more familiar than that which informs us of the existence of the child in the presence of subject-matter, with a teacher between them to attend to the ceremony of introduction. In recognition of the special problems created by this situation, normal schools are established and maintained. The function to be performed is vaguely described as "professional." Its main concern is to define the aims of education and to arouse conciousness of the processes by which those aims may be realized. Such a function must obviously take account both of the child and of the subject-matter of instruction. But, in their anxiety to be clearly differentiated from institutions for general culture, normal schools have usually felt the necessity of acknowledging, in theory, a self-denying ordinance with reference to the subject-matter. The "strictly professional," as ordinarily conceived, is held to exclude the "purely academic" and to furnish the sole excuse for being which it is legitimate for normal schools to offer. It is common, in this connection, to cite the case of schools of law and medicine. The comparison is often quite misleading. In the latter, provision is made for a knowledge of the actual subject-matter of law and medicine to be used in winning and saving, or in losing, cases. The corresponding subject-matter for the teacher lies within the field of general education. The branches actually to be taught constitute for him what law and medicine constitute for the lawyer and physician. Those branches in the normal school for which the label "strictly professional" is claimed correspond, not to the complete curricula of schools of law and medicine, but rather to certain minor courses and parts of courses that treat of the principles and methods of court procedure and of medical practice. The analogy of schools of law and medicine, if it proves any thing for the normal school, proves more than is usually intended.

It is professional to know the child. It is also professional to know the subject-matter of instruction. Both are involved in the solution of educational problems. For the normal school to surrender the academic part of its domain is to invite at least a loss of balance. There is a zeal

inspired by pedagogy which regards the subject-matter of instruction as something to be determined wholly by principles derived from sources outside of the subject-matter itself.

"It was two by the village clock,

When he came to the bridge in Concord town."

"This," says pedagogy to the child, "is history." "But," protests some big, dull book, "he was stopped on the road by British soldiers and -." "Objection overruled," retorts pedagogy; "the educational value of the story does not depend upon its literal accuracy." Last February, it may be remembered, the course of study in history for the grades was under discussion at Cincinnati. After one of the meetings it was mildly suggested to a well-known normal-school man that certain material which he had been exploiting did not seem to fit any known historian's conception of history. The suggestion did not disturb him. With a gesture of contempt he declared his complete indifference to historians. What her proposed was good for the child, and that was sufficient for his purpose. And yet he insisted upon calling the material "history."

Such a point of view is not difficult to understand. In adapting history to the schoolroom—and here apology may as well be offered once for all for drawing illustrations almost exclusively from one's own line of work there are obviously three factors to be considered: the aim of the study, the historic sense of the pupil, and the nature of history. Professional interest usually begins with a definition of aims. It has much to say of entertainment, inspiration, ethical ideals, patriotism. The next step is to test the historic sense of the pupil. That seems to lead with great regularity into a realm peopled by creatures that breathe most freely and act most consistently in an atmosphere of legend and romance. The aim of the study being thus determined by professional considerations, and the nature of the materials being determined by the child, there remains small need of special inquiry into the nature of history. When, later, the subject is investigated, professional zeal habitually looks for light on the nature of history to philosophers, poets, critics, and schoolmasters, many of whom have never really studied the subject.

This is a method of procedure applied by pedagogy in various fields. Professional interest naturally finds the child of greater importance than the integrity of any particular subject in the curriculum. It naturally looks to the child as the center and inspiration of school effort. When, therefore, a subject begins to "decline to live peaceably" with predetermined pedagogical theories, those charged with the administration of the theories are likely to exercise a large liberty in transforming the subject. Numerous acts are thus inspired which, from the point of view of the subject, can be characterized only as a species of pedagogical vandalism. The extent to which such acts are supposed to command respect and

sympathy in normal schools may help, not only to explain, but to justify, the suspicion with which the world of scholarship regards the normal school. The latter cannot divide responsibility in the manner so often proposed and still hope to retain toward the academic a scholar's attitude. Strictly professional studies may, it is true, be pursued in an academic spirit, and thus be made to yield the fruits of scholarship. The history of education, for example, may be so presented as to illustrate the general principles of historical method. It is not likely to be so presented. But even if it should be, that would not be sufficient for the present contention. The flavor of scholarship must extend to the general branches — arithmetic, geography, and the rest; and it must be strong enough to be detected by scholars. That this is a condition yet to be realized is quite evident. Take a single illustration. We normal-school men and women are frequently approached by publishers of gilded historical rubbish with requests for testimonials, the result of which is that we find ourselves quoted with bankers, clergymen, members of Congress, and other equally discriminating ex officio historical critics, for the benefit of a public that may be conservatively described as indulgent. But how many of us were invited to contribute to Larned's Literature of American History?

The normal school cannot, of course, undertake the task of training historical scholars in the technical sense. There can be no difference of opinion on this point. What may reasonably be expected on the academic side is a training that shall prepare normal-school graduates to use with intelligence the works of historical scholars, or, to speak more generally, of historians. What does this involve?

Here is a man, let us say, who has given the best years of his life to the collection of materials for a History of the City Coopville. He has accumulated a large stock of oral traditions by talking with hundreds of persons now living. He has delved in letters, diaries, and official papers. He has examined the records of the various social, industrial, and religious organizations. He has read the files of all the newspapers. has plowed his way thru the proceedings of the city council. In a thousand ways he has come into touch with the past life of the city. He organizes his material, constructs his narrative, gives to the world his learning in four forbidding quartos, and goes to his reward poorer in pocket and not much richer in fame. By and by some hack writer in search of a theme stumbles upon the quartos, and in a few months the newspapers are organizing clubs to sell a remarkable History of Coopville in two volumes, prepared by the greatest scholar of his time, a master of English, a philosopher, and an artist. Publishers, newspapers, agents, writer, reap their golden harvest, but not from the multitude. The work is still too bulky, the price is too high. So in due time another hand takes the two volumes and compiles from them an easy, gossipy little book of perhaps two hundred pages, and at last we have a History of

Coopville suitable for the general public and for schools. Substitute for Coopville the United States, increase the number of years of preparation and the number of quartos, multiply the compilations and extend them to the nth degree, and we have an actual condition without the offense of calling names.

Now, what is the demand of scholarship? At the very least that the student shall be able to recognize the difference between the work of the man who writes the quartos and the work of the man who merely compiles from the quartos, or the work of the man who merely compiles from a compilation of the quartos. A student who for the first time firmly. grasps this one distinction may find all of his thinking about history revolutionized. Certainly he cannot hope without it to use intelligently the works of historical scholars.

Again, the student should be trained in the use of indexes, tables of contents, card catalogs, bibliographical aids. This is the mechanical side of historical research. It is drudgery, but drudgery that illuminates. More general familiarity with its details would often render erudition less imposing and, perhaps for that very reason, more convincing. For erudition, to the uninitiated, at times becomes so wonderful that it assumes an air of unreality. Somebody once asked Freeman if any of the books which he had used in writing The Norman Conquest were printed. It is scarcely conceivable that such a person should read with intelligence The Norman Conquest.

Yet again, the student should be trained to solve representative types of historical problems. Historical compilations in general, including the ordinary text-books, do not present the subject-matter of history in the light of its problems. They are made up, as a rule, almost wholly of mere answers to problems. When the student has learned these answers and has acquired some skill in "organizing" them, he is often credited in the circles of the unthinking with the possession of historical scholarship. In reality nine-tenths of his answers may be wrong and he powerless to discover how or why, as if he had mastered arithmetic by learning the contents of a book of answers to arithmetical problems. The student should work out for himself some simple problem involving the interpretation of a document, say the boundaries of Pennsylvania according to the charter of 1681. He should examine the credibility of some source, say the famous Pocahontas story as told in the General History of Virginia, edition of 1624. He should touch some issue complicated by long association with political or religious controversies not yet laid to rest, say the reasons for the banishment of Roger Williams from Massachusetts. After such a canvass of original materials as shall justify conclusions of his own, he should read, say, Hinsdale's account of the boundary disputes that grew out of the Pennsylvania charter, Fiske's vigorous defense of John Smith, Eggleston's championship of the "Prophet of Religious Freedom." The

significance of historical authority now becomes apparent. The inadequacy of a single author's treatment of historical questions is illustrated. The need of discrimination in the selection of books is emphasized. If the doctrine of the infallibility of text-books shall in consequence pass away, its place will be taken by an intelligent appreciation of some of the things that history is, and of some of the things that history is not.

Finally, the student should be trained to habits of accuracy in dealing with historical facts. Such habits imply something more than acts of memory. They imply discrimination in the use of data. Scholarship cannot proceed from the premise that one thing in history is just as true as another. Neither can it accept as a sufficient justification for historical inaccuracy the plea, so often made, that, if a thing is not so, it might have been so. It must regard history strictly as a record of what was, and not of what might have been. Even historians must use sparingly the argument from the "spirit of the times." Others are likely to make it ridiculous. One mission of history in school is to bring facts into better repute. This mission is to be accomplished by establishing more definite relations between history in school and history in histories. Such a view of the subject must still take account of educational values. It must still adapt materials to the historic sense of the pupil. But its point of departure is sought in the nature and aims of history itself as revealed in historical literature. Its foundation is laid in and for an intelligent use of histories.

Such academic requirements as have been indicated are to be urged mainly for the sake of the professional spirit itself. They are not in conflict with it. They are simply a basis for professional work. They develop an abiding interest in the subject itself, and thus relieve pedagogical anxiety of a large part of its burden. They adapt themselves to the noblest professional purposes. But, all other considerations being waived, the strictly professional still needs the salt of academic savor to preserve it from its own vagaries and needs it in the normal-school curriculum itself.

TO WHAT EXTENT AND IN WHAT MANNER CAN THE NORMAL SCHOOL INCREASE ITS SCHOLARSHIP: (A) WITHOUT DIMINISHING ITS OUTPUT; (B) WITHOUT INCREASING ITS COST TOO GREATLY; (C) WITHOUT INFRINGING UPON THE LEGITIMATE LIBERAL ARTS COURSE OF THE COLLEGE?

JAMES M. GREEN, PRINCIPAL, STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, TRENTON, N. J.

The state is raising and applying annually large sums of money for the instruction of its children in what are termed the common branches of learning. The extent of the common-school curriculum is variable,