Third year, fourth year: Chemistry and physics. It is desirable to alternate the courses in chemistry and physics in alternate years.

D. The Principal Courses in Science.

Part II of the reports concerns the details of the principal courses in science, namely: general science, biology, chemistry, and physics. Several pages are devoted to each science in discussing the selection and organization of subject matter, methods of teaching, type topics, aims, excursions, etc.

E. The Science Teacher.

At the end of the report, there is a brief appendix dealing with the science teacher, his training, and professional development.

F. Defects in American Education and Remedies for Them. In discussing the defects in American education a well known educator mentions:

(1) Bad diet.

(2) Infant mortality.

(3) Feeble efforts of state and nation in combating tuberculosis.

(4) Popular ignorance of veneral diseases.

(5) Lack of manual skill.

(6) Little training of the senses.

(7) No habitual accuracy of observation or statement. Finally, for the first time in the history of high school science, we have two reports issued by independent committees of two great nations, in which practically the same science program is advocated for the secondary schools of the respective nations. If the suggestions of these committees could be put into intelligent operation at once, the defects mentioned above might be remedied in an effective manner in a reasonable length of time.

1 Eliot, Charles W. Certain defects in American education and the remedies for them. Teachers' Leaflet, No. 5, Bureau of Education, Washington, D. C.

American Notes-Editorial

The "project-method" is apparently becoming increasingly popular, as it should, since it is inherently useful and valuable as an educational plan. It is having a new demonstration in a Massachusetts school, which has been fittingly described in print in a pamphlet entitled, "The Junior Civic League," by M. G. Ford, Sixth Grade, Wells School, Boston, Mass., the said pamphlet being issued in a "First Series" of "Sample Projects," under copyright, by James Fleming Hosic, 506 West 69th Street, Chicago, Ill. This pamphlet gives a most entertaining and suggestive account of how the pupils of the above-named school organized themselves into a definite community where laws for the good of all might be enacted and where trial might be made, by the school, of the projects which had been suggested when it "had become evident to us that many of the outside influences at clubs, lectures, and so-called social service houses, and even in the homes, were fostering un-American principles and ralical ideas which were most detrimental to the pupils who would be the future citizens of our great republic."

The first thing was selecting a name, and "The Junior Civic League" was chosen as the best one suggested. As leaders were necessary nine members were appointed, the Chairman, to hold office as the highest authority in the League; a "Good Citizens" committee, a "Board of Health," "Public Works Department," "Library Department," and an "Entertainment Committee" were created. The opportunity to gain information and to form definite impressions as to the working of a "town meeting" was found in the meetings of the League and its Committees. The Good Citizens Committee promote a spirit patriotism, thrift, obedience to law, honesty and order in the school. The Board of Health looks after such matters as personal cleanliness, the nails, the shoes of the pupils, the teeth, eyes, etc. The Public Works Department is responsible for the condition of the schoolroom, the desks, plants, and the school yard, etc. The Entertainment Committee plans Friday afternoon and holiday entertainments, celebrations, and the like. We can easily imagine the interest and enthusiasm of the pupils of this school in their work. They are actually "doing things," not simply being told about them. We can see how it becomes a hardship to stay away from school,-instead of a "streak of luck" to get out of going to the sessions for a day, or a week. The detailed reports of the work of the above-mentioned committees, and the full account of this specific example of an applied "Project

Method," discreetly supervised, makes interesting reading. The plan can be adapted to any average community and would, in our opinion, work wonders in the way of increased interest and intelligence in regard to all matters of good citizenship.

President Butler's definition of education has attracted a good deal of attention, and elicited much favorable comment. Albeit, the term has been defined times without number for almost two and a half millenniums. E. R. Sill once wrote: "An educated man—what is it that we understand by the phrase? If it would not be easy to set down all that it connotes in our various minds, we shall probably agree that it includes, among other things, such qualities as these: a certain largeness of vision; an acquaintance with the intellectual life of the world; the application of principles; the power and habit of independent thought; the freedom from personal provincialisms and the recognition of the other point of view; an underlying nobleness of intention and the persistence of noble aims." Ruskin once wrote: "No one is truly educated unless he is able to do what he ought to do, when he ought to do it, whether he wants to do it or not." Huxley believed that "the man has a liberal education whose body has been so trained in youth that it is the ready servant of his will and does with ease and pleasure all that, as a mechanism, it is capable of; whose intellect is a clear, cold, logic engine, with all its parts of equal strength and in smooth running order, ready, like a steamengine, to be turned to any kind of work and to spin the gossamer as well as forge the anchors of the mind; whose mind is stored with the great fundamental truths of nature and the laws of her operations; one who, no stunted ascetic, is full of life and fire, but whose passions have been trained to come to heel by a vigorous will, the servant of a tender conscience; one who has learned to love all beauty, whether of nature or of art, to hate all vileness and to esteem others as himself." The fundamental question here, however, is whether these definitions do not refer to enlightenment rather than to education. Certain it is that the man who is enlightened belongs to a higher type than does he who is merely educated. People sometimes speak of an "educated dog," or of an "educated horse," but nobody

ever refers to an enlightened brute. Enlightenment may be the result of a small amount of knowledge; but education certainly is not.-Contributed.

A dozen years ago the pure elective system prevailed in Harvard College. The student had virtually complete freedom in his choice of courses. The central feature of instruction was the lecture, and the degree was obtained by piling up sixteen credits, each credit obtained by passing a course (and perhaps forgetting it at once). The first step taken by President Lowell toward what has been described as a tutorial system modified to suit American conditions, was to limit the freedom of the student in his choice of studies by requiring that he should choose six courses in one subject or group of subjects and distribute six others over the whole field of instruction, so as to include a fairly representative selection. The machinery was set up for the operation of this system of "concentration and distribution," and time was given for it to be tested and improved, and for the faculty and students to get used to it. There was nothing final about it; it was a step towards something else, as will appear. A few years later, one Division, that of History, Government and Economics, adopted the requirement that every man who concentrated in History, Government or Economics, must take a general examination in the whole field of his concentration at the end of his Senior year. This involved a board of tutors to advise the men on their preparation for these general examinations and to act as counsellors or preceptors. The change was fundamental. For men specializing in this Division, the lecturer might still be the more important figure, but the tutor became also important; and the system of credits leading to the bachelor's degree was markedly changed by the addition of the requirement of a general examination, which is the basis of the whole system. At about the same time the plan of a general examination for graduation was introduced in the Schools of Divinity and Medicine. In the former it proved immediately, and in the latter ultimately, very valuable. Under the faculty of Arts and Sciences the single Division of History, Government and Economics operated the new system experimentally for five years. This gave the College authorities time to watch its working, to see how much it cost, to see what sort of men were suited to the tutorial work, and how they had best be secured. Then, in 1919, the system was authorized by the faculty for all departments. which desired to adopt it, and, in fact, it has been adopted by all the departments except those of Mathematics and Natural Science. Be

ginning with the class of 1922, therefore, every man in the College, save in those subjects, will have to take a general examination before he can graduate. This examination does not simply touch on the courses which the individual student happens to have taken; it may touch also on the gaps between those courses. For example, if a man's field of concentration is English Literature and he is given a question on Dr. Johnson, it is no excuse to say that he never had a course which included Dr. Johnson, that he only took courses on Shakespeare and Dickens and the Romantic Poets and 19th Century literature. He is supposed to fill in the gaps for himself and to use his choice of courses as a means of obtaining mastery of his field. "The aim," as President Lowell has said, "is to fasten his attention on the subject as a whole, rather than on isolated fragments of it; to lead him to co-ordinate the information he obtains, whether from his courses or elsewhere; to master the subject and make it his own; to impress on him the responsibility for his own education, for real value belongs only to self-education, acquired by personal effort. Teachers can help a man to obtain it, but cannot stuff it into him ready-made." There has been a general feeling at Harvard that the system of instruction should be altered so as to test what the student has become, rather than merely what he has been through, and also to bring the faculty and students closer together, to shift the emphasis from the lecture to the conference, from the test of memory to the test of thought. Hence this deliberate, cautious progress toward a more satisfactory method of examination, and toward a tutorial system adapted to American conditions.-Contributed.

The Macmillan Company have recently published a book that is of more than ordinary interest to schoolmen. It is a five-volume work on the history of the University of Virginia. These volumes contain a very full account of the life and work of Thomas Jefferson, especially in its educational achievements, one of which was the founding of the above named University. This University claims among its distinguished alumni, Edgar Allan Poe and President Woodrow Wilson. Among its famous professors were Gildersleeve, the Hellenist, Sylvester, the mathematician, and Rogers, the founder of the Boston Institute of Technology. Its unique elective system of studies is described, its honor system of discipline, the stirring life of its students, its economic and financial affairs. This book is a vivid mirror of the intellectual and academic life of the South during the most pregnant periods of American history; it is full of worth-while history and suggestion for educators in this less idealistic and more material twentieth century.