With a view to increase the interest in this subject, your committee recommends the publication of selected passages from the papers sent in by invited auxiliary committees and by volunteers, many of these containing valuable suggestions not mentioned in this report.

WILLIAM T. HARRIS, Chairman,

United States Commissioner of Education, Washington, D. C.

I dissent from the majority report of the committee in regard to the following points:

ARITHMETIC.

1. As to Fractions. — In teaching arithmetic there does not exist any greater difficulty in getting small children to grasp the nature of the fraction as such than in getting them to grasp the idea of the simpler whole numbers. It is true that the fractions, 1, 1, etc., as symbols, are a little more complex than are the single digits; but as to the real meaning, when once the fractional idea has been properly developed by the teacher and the significance of the idea apprehended by the pupil, it is as easily understood as any other simple truth. Children get the idea of half, third, or quarter of many things long before they enter school, and they will as readily learn to add, subtract, multiply, and divide fractions as they will whole numbers. In using fractions they will draw diagrams and pictures representing the processes of work as quickly and easily as they illustrate similar work with integers. It is, of course, assumed that the teacher knows how to teach arthmetic to children; or, rather, how to teach the children how to teach themselves. There is really no valid argument why children in the second, third, and fourth years in school should not master the fundamental operations in fractions. Not only this,— they will put the more common fractions into the technique of percentage, and do this as well in the second and third grades as at any other time in their future progress. There is only one new idea involved in this operation, and that consists in giving an additional term-per cent-to the fractional symbol. When one number is a part of another, it may be regarded as a fractional part or as such a per cent of it. A great deal of percentage is thus learned by the pu pils early in the course. Children are not hurt by learning. Standing still and lost motion kill.

Every recitation should reach the full swing of the learner's mind, including all his acquisitions on any given topic. But if the teaching of fractions be deferred, as it usually is in most schools, the time may

be materially shortened by teaching addition and subtraction of fractions together. This is simple enough if different fractions having common denominators are used at first, such as +=? and §—§=? Then the next step, after sufficient drill on this case, is to take two fractions (simple) of different units of value, as 1+1=? and } — }=? Multiplication and division may be treated similarly.

In decimals, the pupil is really confronted by a simpler form of fractions than the varied forms of common fractions.

Devices and illustrations of a material kind are necessary to build up in the pupil's mind at the beginning a clear concept of a tenth, etc., and then to show that one-tenth written as a decimal is only a shorthand way of writing as a common fraction, and so on. Не sees very soon that the decimal is only a shorthand common fraction, and this notion he must hold to. This is the vital point in decimals. The idea that they can be changed into common fractions and the reverse at will, establishes the fact in the pupil's mind that they are common fractions and not uncommon ones. Fixing the decimal point will, in a short time, take care of itself.

In teaching arithmetic the steps are: (1) Developing the subject till each pupil gets a clear conception of it; (2) necessary drill to fix the process; (3) connecting the subject with all that has preceded it; (4) its applications; (5) the pupil's ability to sum up clearly and concisely what he has learned.

2. As to Abridgment.-Under this head, I hold that a course in arithmetic, including simple numbers, fractions, tables of weights and measures, percentage and interest, and numerical operations in powers, does not fit a pupil to begin the study of algebra. That while he may carry the book under his arm to the schoolroom, he is too poorly equipped to make headway on this subject; and, instead of finishing up algebra in a reasonable length of time, he is kept too long at it, with a strong probability of his becoming disgusted with it.

There are subjects, however, in the common school arithmetic that may be dropped out with great advantage, to wit, all but the simplest exercises in compound interest, foreign exchange, all foreign. moneys (except reference tables of values), annuities, alligation, progression; and the entire subjects of percentage and interest should be condensed into about twenty pages.

Cancellation, factoring, proportion, evolution, and involution should be retained. Cancellation and factoring should be strongly emphasized, owing to their immense value in shortening work in arithmetic, algebra, and in more advanced subjects. Some drill in the metric system should not be omitted.

3. As to Mental Arithmetic. -Till the end of the fourth year the pupil does not need a text-book of mental arithmetic. So far his

work in arithmetic should be about equally divided between written and mental. At the beginning of the fifth year, in addition to his written arithmetic, he should begin a mental arithmetic and continue it three years, reciting at least four mental arithmetic lessons each week. The length of the recitation should be twenty minutes. A pupil well drilled in mental arithmetic, at the end of the seventh year-if the school age begins at six-is far better prepared to study algebra than the one who has not had such a drill. There are a few problems in arithmetic that can be solved more easily by algebra than by the ordinary processes of arithmetic, but there are many numerical problems in equations of the first degree that can be more easily handled by mental arithmetic than by algebra. To attack arithmetical problems by algebra is very much like using a tremendous lever to lift a feather. Those who have found a great stumbling-block in arithmetical "conundrums," have, if the inside facts were known, been looking in the wrong direction. A deficiency of "number-brain-cells" will afford an adequate explanation.

4. Rearrangement of Subjects.-There should be a rearranging of the topics in arithmetic, so that one subject naturally leads up to the next. As an illustration, it is easily seen that whole numbers and fractions can be treated together, and that, with United States money, when the dime is reached is the proper time to begin decimals, and that, when a "square" in surface measure first comes up, the next step is the square of a number as well as its square root, and that solid measure logically lands the learner among cubes and cube-roots. When he learns that 1728 cubic inches make one cubic foot he is prepared to find the edge of the cube. What is meant here is pointing the way to the next above. All depends upon the teacher's ability to lead the pupil to see conditions and relations. My contention is, that truth, so far as one is capable of taking hold of it when it is properly presented, is always a simple affair.

5. As to Algebra.--If algebra be commenced at the middle of the seventh year, let the pupil go at it in earnest, and keep at it till he has mastered it. Here the best opportunities will be afforded him to connect his algebraic knowledge to his arithmetical knowledge. He builds the one on top of the other. The skillful teacher always insists that the learner shall establish and maintain this relationship between the two subjects. To switch around the other way appears to me to be the same as to omit certain exercises in the common algebra because they are more briefly and elegantly treated in the calculus. It is admitted that a higher branch of mathematics often throws much light on the lower branches; but these side-lights should be employed for the purpose of leading the learner onward to broader generalizations. Unless one sees the lower clearly, the

higher is obscure. Build solidly the foundation on arithmetic,-written and mental,-and the higher branches will be more easily mastered and time saved.

HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES.

In teaching this branch in the public schools, there does not appear, so far as I can see, any substantial reason why the pupils should not study and recite the history of the Rebellion in the same manner that they do the Revolutionary War. The pupils discuss the late war and the causes that led to it with an impartiality of feeling that speaks more for their good sense and clear judgment than any other way by which their knowledge can be tested. They may not get hold of all the causes involved in that conflict, but they get enough to understand the motives which caused the armies to fight so heroically, and why the people, both North and South, staked everything on the issue. Just as the men who faced each other for four years and met so often in a death grapple will sit down now and quietly talk over their trials, sufferings, and conflicts, so do their children talk over these same stirring scenes. They, too, so far as my experience extends, are singularly free from bitterness and prejudice. It is certainly a period of history that they should study.

THE SPELLING-BOOK.

In addition to the "spelling-lists," I would supplement with a good spelling-book. So far, no "word-list," however well selected, has supplied the place of a spelling-book. All those schools that threw out the spelling-book and undertook to teach spelling incidentally or by word-lists failed, and for the same reason that grammar, arithmetic, geography, and other branches cannot be taught incidentally as the pupil or the class reads "Robinson Crusoe," or any other similar work. It is an independent study, and as such should be pursued.

JAMES M. GREENWOOD,

Superintendent of Schools, Kansas City, Mo.

While affixing my signature to the report of this committee, as expressing substantial agreement with most of its leading propositions, I beg leave also to indicate my dissent from certain of its recommendations, and to suggest certain additions which, in my judgment, the report requires.

1. There are other forms of true correlation which should be included with the four mentioned in the first part of the report, and which should be as clearly and fully treated as are these four.

The first is that form of correlation which is popularly understood by the name, and which is also called by some writers, concentration.

co-ordination, unification, and alludes in general to a division of studies into content and form; by content, meaning that upon which it is fitting that the mind of the child should dwell, and by form, the means or modes of expression by which thoughts are communicated. Or, it may be thus expressed: The true content of education is (1) philosophy-or the knowledge of man as to his motives and hidden springs of action indicated in history and literature, and (2) sciencethe knowledge of nature and its manifestations and laws. Its form is art, which is the deliberate, purposeful, and effective expression to others of that which has been produced within man by contact with other men and with nature, and is commonly referred to as divided into various arts, such as reading, writing, drawing, making, and modeling. The relation of content and form is that of principal and subordinate, the latter receiving its chief value from the former. Ia a true education they are so presented to the mind of the child that he instinctively and unconsciously grasps this relation, and is thereby lifted into a higher plane of thinking and living than if the various arts are taught, as they too commonly are, without reference to a noble content. This relation of form to content is vaguely referred to in the report, but nowhere definitely treated. It seems to me that it is a true form of correlation, and, as such, deserves special and definite treatment. Moreover, it is at present much in the minds of the teachers of this country, often in forms that are misleading and harmful. The fact that it adds the important element of interest to the dry details of common school life makes it especially attractive to progressive and earnest teachers, and this committee should recognize its importance and make such an utterance upon it as will guide the average teacher to a clear comprehension of its meaning and to a wise use of it in the schoolroom.

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Second, there is a still higher form of correlation, which is definitely referred to later in the report as that "of the several branches of human learning in the unity of the spiritual view furnished by religion to our civilization." This, in report, is assigned absolutely to the province of higher education. While I do not wish to dissent wholly from this view, since it is doubtless true that this higher unity cannot be comprehensively stated for the use of a child, yet a wise teacher can so present subjects to even a young child that a sense of the unity of all knowledge will, to a certain degree, be unconsciously developed in his mind. In regard to certain of the great divisions of human knowledge, this relation is so evident that they cannot be properly presented at all unless the relation be made clear. Such studies are history and geography.

2. The recommendations upon the subject of language should be broadened to cover the production of good English by the child him