the careful consideration of all interested in the satisfactory administration of our schools. He said, in part, "The hand of all authority in America is heavy or light to the extent that it is supported by public sentiment. The hand of educational leaders is heavy or light to the extent that it is upheld by educational opinion. There is no opinion so unfettered as educational opinion. It is so jealous of its freedom that it sometimes goes astray. But it never supports authority that does not seek aid from all the learning of the world. It resents any exclusion of any knowledge. It would ridicule any pretended educational authority that did not recognize the influence of the ancient tongues upon modern speech, and that did not lay hold of whatever there was in ancient civilization that may enrich the civilizations that are or are to be. But it would better be said, and with all plainness, that our civilization is no longer in Greece, or Rome, or Gaul, or even Britain; that we are not living in the first, the tenth, or the eighteenth century; that the streams of learning are now gathering in many high places, trickling down many mountain sides, making mighty rivers and boundless seas, and sending back their distilled dews to irrigate and fructify the intelligence of the world. We are in a free country where men and women have everything to study and are going to study what they please. It is the business of State educational authorities to try to provide them with whatever branches of study they will accept and with the educational helps that will illuminate the vocations which they are to follow. The State may aid but not force their choice."

SCHOOL FRATERNITIES.-The movement against school and college fraternities received marked impulse during the year through the publishing of Owen Johnson's "Stover at Yale"; because of the number of prominent educators who denounced them as undemocratic and therefore as un-American; and on account of the increasing number of restrictions placed upon them, especially in schools under State and municipal control. Authorities seem to be convinced that such organizations are so contrary to the spirit of our entire educational ideal that they must not be countenanced in institutions supported by the public, and that they are also apt to interfere seriously with the rights of

many who pay for the privileges and benefits of private educational institutions.

The whole effort of instruction in a democracy should be toward destroying, rather than encouraging, distinctions based on class and condition. Every student is supposed to be on an equal footing with every other student in any 'American school, at least in so far as his opportunities for development and standing along educational and social lines are concerned. While naturally those interested in certain studies or other lines of interest will group more or less together, it should be in organizations open to all who are in good repute and should have none of the dangerous and damaging character of the secret-fraternity idea. Although many such school and college fraternities have undoubtedly been of a high character, the tendency when they are removed from close surveillance is toward idleness, dissipation, and a thoroughly undemocratic snobbishness. They have also been the source of bitter discouragements and heart-burnings to many worthy persons who have felt humiliation at being shut out from the full companionship of those with whom they associated in the regular work of the school.

The Bureau of Education at Washington reports a number of judicial decisions upholding the action of school boards in various places in their efforts to suppress or control secret organizations among the pupils of their schools. Two typical decisions are quoted:

"Wayland vs. Board of School Directors of District No. 1 of Seattle, et al. . . . Held, that a rule of the board of school directors providing that any student who becomes a member of, or in any way pledges himself to join, any high-school fraternity or secret society, or initiates or pledges any other student, or in any way encourages or fosters the fraternity spirit in the high school, shall be denied all the privileges of the school except those of the class-room, was reasonable, and that said board had authority to make such rule. . . 86, p. 642.”

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State ex rel. Dresser vs. Board of Education of St. Croix Falls (Wisconsin). . . . The school authorities may suspend a pupil for an offence committed outside of school hours, and not in the presence of the teacher, which has a

direct and immediate tendency to influence the conduct of other pupils while in the school-room, to set at naught the proper discipline of the school, to impair the authority of the teachers and to bring them into ridicule and contempt." Same . . . "The discretion of school authorities in government and discipline of the pupils is very broad, and the courts will not interfere with the exercise of such authority except when illegally or unreasonably exercised. 116 N. W. 232."

A large number of cities and many of the States now have rules or laws prohibiting pupils of public schools from organizing or belonging to secret societies composed of pupils of such schools, or from soliciting other pupils to join such societies, and either withdrawing all but class-room privileges from those who so offend or suspending them from school or from the privileges of graduation, after due notice, until they withdraw from membership.

Doctor Kerschensteiner's Opinion of American Schools.

As revealing the impressions of an experienced foreign educator, the two articles on the People's Schools of the United States, contributed by Doctor Kerschensteiner to a South German journal, are of interest. His observations covered a period of two months spent in visiting schools in a number of cities of the East and the Middle West. These observations, of course, naturally interpreted themselves to him on the basis of his home conditions, but they are clear and show a perspective that is the result of broad pedagogical training and experience.

1. He notes the lack of organic unity in the school systems of various places due to there being no national centralization of the system of popular education. This is in marked contrast to German conditions, where the people in general accept the system provided by the central government. In the United States each State, and to a large degree each city, has the kind of school that best fits into the general conditions of its population. While this has its advantages, it also has its disadvantages; for, where for any reason the cultural conditions of the community are low, the school system is apt to be poor and sometimes even

miserably so. In Germany, aside from minor details, precisely the same organization prevails everywhere, with homogeneity and relatively uniform excellence in the work in different places.

2. The active interest taken by the people themselves in matters of education is a bright side of the American system. This is a concomitant of the direct responsibility of the community for its schools and makes impossible a permanent deterioration in the schools. Although he found conditions that he regarded as deplorable, owing to the grasp of "political corruption" upon the systems, almost everywhere he found evidences of improvement. He seems to have been particularly pleased with three aspects of school administration in St. Louis,-the election of the members of the board of education by popular vote; the strict precautions that are taken to preclude the presence of material or other interests that may influence the choosing of this board; and the immediate control by the board of its own budget.

3. His attention was attracted by the great variation in the age of the pupils in the same grade, due, particularly in the large cities, to the foreign element in the population. This produces a complex situation, which, however, he feels is being managed with success.

4. Some of the things that he particularly approved were: (a) The breaking up of the daily session by a noon intermission—this he regards as preferable to the German practice of holding a continuous session to one o'clock. (b) The sectioning of classes, which he saw in many places, generally on the basis of quality of work, one of the divisions thus formed receiving direct instruction from the teacher while the other is engaged in preparatory study or busy work. (c) The possibility which he found in certain schools of pupils being advanced by subjects. This makes it possible for a pupil to be in the sixth grade in reading and writing and only in the fourth grade in arithmetic. This he regards as an improvement upon German conditions, where such a thing is unknown. (d) The possession of adequate school libraries, of an abundant supply of history and geography books, and of excellent reading matter. This promotes an acquaintance with good literature to a far

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greater extent than is possible in Germany with its "poor reading-books and its miserable school libraries." (e) In arithmetic and geometry the scope of the instruction exceeds that in most German schools and is well carried out. drawing and the natural sciences, however, while about the same ground is covered as in the German schools, false methods in drawing and insufficient equipment in natural history prevail in the schools visited, and the results are therefore unsatisfactory.

Doctor Kerschensteiner concludes, with approval, that the fundamental aim of the public schools in America is to educate for citizenship. He says he left this country with the conviction that no nation of the earth makes greater sacrifices for its public school system, nor relies more firmly on the strength of this factor than do the people of the United States. And he adds that this comparatively young nation has "school organization and educational results at hand that are to be compared with the best of the earth, and from which we Germans can learn quite as much as once the Americans learned from us." The impressions of this noted foreign educator are interesting in that they reveal what others see in our educational work. Much that he approves is already generally accepted by educators in this country. But there are other points that might well be open to question before permitting them to modify our practice. (See the Educational Review for April.)