Competent judges are not likely to question the general accuracy of this interesting statement. The explanation of the facts stated is found mainly in the aims of English and American education, and in the methods of instruction that are employed, particularly in the secondary schools. First, English teachers lean more on lectures, or other oral instruction, and so on writing and note-books; American teachers, more on oral recitations and on general summaries. One result is that the English boy is trained to spell and write better, and to use more correct English, than the American boy. The one is methodical and correct in form, where the other is discursive and slipshod. But, secondly, the American pupil's peculiar discipline gives him comprehensive views of a subject, a better grasp of large facts, and a considerable mastery of generalizations, which have their unhappy compensation in a deficient knowledge of details, as well as a defective use of English. The American pupil is certainly not strong in names and places. The natural tendency of the recitation method is here reinforced by the very common disposition on the part of teachers to disparage details. "A mere fact; only a date!" is the contemptuous phrase with which the careless or ignorant teacher often dismisses one of those little things that constitute the very staple of history. In some quarters it has actually come to be a fashion to disparage the man of large information,-of full knowledge,-regarding him merely as a patient drudge. It is now common to berate the schools for teaching too many facts. Facts may possibly be badly taught in the schools, or they may be ill chosen; but it is not true that the pupils of American schools are strong in facts, but the contrary. In the third place, there can be no doubt that the typical English boy who comes up to the university has received a more regular, a more systematic, and a more thorough training than the typical American boy. Of its kind, he has been taught in a better school. Once more, it is an old saying that the English mind runs to details rather than to general views and philosophical principles. Such is the constant charge of the French and German critics. While there can be no doubt that the English mind handles an enormous amount of fact-material, it may still be doubted whether Englishmen are remarkable for a nice accuracy in their facts. There is much reason to think the contrary. The question whether the American student with his good essay and poor examination paper is better or worse than the English student with his good examination paper and poor essay, is a question that will not here be considered; the truth is, that measurable excellence should be obtained in both exercises.

It is not necessary to go with Dr. Freeman in declaring that the fields of politics and history are co-extensive, in order to find firm ground on which to rest the teaching of civil government in the schools. I quote with entire approval resolutions 28 and 29 adopted by the conference:

view of history, has a better grasp of its essential facts, and surpasses his English cousin of corresponding grade in power of generalization; but the American student is lamentably deficient in his knowledge of details and also writes very poor English. Professor Stephens thought the essays written by his undergraduate students at Cornell were, on the whole, better than similar essays written by English students at Cambridge, although he sharply criticised the spelling, grammar, and generally careless style of the Americans. When, however, he set his American students an examination of twenty questions concerning dates and places, he was overwhelmed by the lack of knowledge of facts displayed in the answers. More than half of the class failed to pass the examination, the average percentage being about forty, and as a rule the students who wrote the best essays handed in the poorest examination papers.

That civil government in the grammar schools should be taught by oral lessons, with the use of collateral text-books, and in connection with United States history and local geography.

That civil government in the high schools should be taught by using a textbook as a basis, with collateral reading and topical work, and observation and instruction in the government of the city or town and state in which the pupils live, and with comparisons between American and foreign systems of government.

This direct observation of and instruction in the government of the city or town and state is equally important, and even more important, in the elementary schools. Foreign systems of government, for the most part, and certainly comparisons between them and our own system, should be deferred to the high school.

Perhaps no part of the report of the conference has provoked more criticism than the recommendation in respect to the intensive study of some period of history or other historical subject. It will have been observed that such study as this is found in the German schools. The recommendation seems to me a good one, provided time can be found to do the work, and provided the phrase "intensive study" be understood in a sense sufficiently limited or relative.

Worthy of all praise are the remarks that both the conference and the committee of ten have offered on the importance of saving time through the better co-ordination of subjects. Without entering upon the general merits of the doctrine of concentration, about which we are now hearing so much, I wish to say that instruction in history, in language and composition, in geography and civil government, can be so organized as at once to save time and to secure better results than at present. These subjects are as congruous and are as capable of close articulation as any subject found in the curriculum.

The report closes with the recommendation that only teachers who have had adequate special training shall be employed to teach history and the related subjects. To the obvious objection, that such teachers are not to be found in numbers sufficient to carry out the program in the schools of the country, the conference would probably reply that the teachers can be provided as soon as the schools can be put in shape to receive them.

The present subject, as well as several others on the program, has been immediately suggested by the discussion that has been going on the last three or four years relative to secondary education. In this discussion the central questions have been: What studies shall form the staple of such education? and, In what order and proportion shall they be combined? Upon only one phase of the subject do I wish to comment. Causes that are here wholly irrelevant imposed upon the nations of modern Europe a foreign culture conveyed in foreign tongues. The ancient classics became, not merely a department of study but practically the field of study. The fact was most anoma

lous. The Jews, who have certainly proved themselves a tough and enduring nation, knew no literature and no history outside of their incomparable Scriptures, which to them were a national literature in the best sense of the term, and not merely a book of religion. The Greeks, who were the ablest race intellectually that the world has ever seen, were nourished exclusively upon a national vernacular culture. Even the establishment of the Greek arts in Rome, following the conquest of Greece, fell far short of the establishment of the classical tradition in breadth and permanency of influence. In recent times the power of this tradition has been broken; it is no longer considered necessary that an educated man shall study Greek, or even Latin. Into the general merits of the classical question, I do not propose to go. It is unmistakable that there has been a strong drift towards modern studies. Has this drift reached its limit? I cannot think so. While the old humanities will never be banished from the schools, they can hardly continue to hold even the diminished place that they now occupy. Modern studies, and particularly vernacular studies, will encroach upon them still more. This fact has been very apparent in the discussions of the last three years. Moreover, it cannot be reasonably doubted, that, in the future, increased emphasis will be laid upon the national history and literature as a means of forming the national mind and character.

THE TEACHING OF POLITICAL ECONOMY IN SECONDARY

SCHOOLS.

BY CHARLES F. THWING, PRESIDENT OF

WESTERN RESERVE UNIVER

SITY AND ADELBERT COLLEGE.

The agreement is widespread that political economy as a system should not be taught in secondary schools. It is too recondite, too technical; at present, too uncertain. The agreement is also general that certain truths of political economy should be taught in secondary schools. These truths are simple, vital, fixed. This brief paper, therefore, relates to what are the facts which should be taught and also what method of teaching should be used.

Prof. J. B. Clark writes me: "We should treat economic truth, not as a specialty but as a vast department of truth-fact and principleabout which all men must and do think. The difficulties of the science when taught as a system are largely due to what is essentially a cramming method. Much that is really scientific does not need to

be difficult. I have actually taught things that figure in advanced economic courses to a boy ten years of age. It is easy to make a course so perfectly simple and elementary that a child can grasp it. It is too much to expect that this should be done in all the schools soon. It would require some trained teachers and some primers. In a school or two the method could be perfected, and it could later be extended."

Prof. Franklin H. Giddings writes: "I believe that certain important and elementary truths of political economy should be taught in the public schools, but I am not in favor of introducing there a system of political economy taught from a text-book."

Prof. Henry C. Adams writes me: "Instead, therefore, of political economy, it would seem to me more advantageous to introduce a carefully prepared study of industrial history. Several advantages would accrue in this. First, students would, through the study of industrial history, come to understand the modern industrial regime more perfectly than in any other way; and that, after all, is what we want. Men ought to be able to understand the conditions of economic life in which they live, rather than familiarize themselves with some other persons' theory with regard to those forces. Another advantage of industrial history would be, that students would come to appreciate the fact that the conditions under which they live are not permanent but are constantly changing. It would be worth a great deal, for example, if the great mass of men and women to-day, in considering the labor problem, were familiar with the way in which that problem came into existence. They would then regard any particular strike or labor controversy, not as an isolated factor but as a phase of a great social movement. In this way they would secure a perspective which it is impossible to obtain in any other manner.”

Prof. Simon N. Patten, in a paper, "Economics in Elementary Schools," has stated what truths, in his opinion, should be taught, and has illustrated and enforced his teaching of these truths with much picturesqueness. Professor Patten states that the basis of political economy is found in the theory of utility. From this principle he derives the following truths, which he believes should be and may be taught in elementary schools: "Initial and final utility;" "In a group of pleasures and pains, the pains should precede the pleasures;" "A life of unalloyed pleasures;" "The basis of credit;" "The sacredness of unprotected property;" "The harmony of consumption;" "The ejection of discordant elements;" "Group pleasures should be given the preference above individual pleasures and the right of exclusion." These truths, which I thus take word for word from his paragraphs, are put into phrase most happy, and an exposition of them is made with rare facility and impressiveness. As I

read the whole tract, which is composed of these expositions, I find myself moved to say, that the number of those fitted to teach these truths at all adequately in the elementary schools is small-exceed ingly small. It is only one person in a thousand who can, in a formal lecture, explain and illustrate these truths so well as Professor Patten. It is only one teacher in ten thousand who could teach these truths in ways at all proper. American education is, in fact, in respect to the need of well qualified persons to teach political economy in secondary schools, in the same condition in which Charles Wordsworth was when he went for a second mastership to Winchester. He needed a good Greek grammar. He filled this need by making one himself. We need good teachers of political science in the schools. I see no way of filling the need except by making the teachers. For, it is evident that we must teach the great economic and social truths in the secondary schools if they are to be at all taught to the great body of the American people. And that these truths ought to be taught to the great body of the American people is as plain as that anything ought to be taught to them. For what subjects are, or can be, more important than the relations which men bear to each other? Teaching these subjects in the secondary school is more important than teaching them in college. The boy who goes to college is a very important qualitative part of the community, but he is not a very important quantitative part.

Any value which may attach to a brief paper upon this subject must consist largely upon its definiteness. I therefore shall beg your indulgence. In teaching the great truths of political economy or of political science I should begin with the subject of money. Money is the most important economic element with which the child has to do. Pennies fascinate him at an early age. He likes to play with them and to swallow them. Money has a meaning for at least two of his senses. As an object of attainment it is pretty constant to him up to and through all his schooldays. Therefore, in teaching this subject and beginning with money, I should first ask the question which Paul Dombey asked, What is money? and, in answering it, I should try to answer some of the most important questions of science and of economic life. Money, we say, is a standard of value and a medium of exchange. At once, in explaining this definition, I should put on the table a one dollar bank bill, a one dollar silver piece, a one dollar gold piece, a one dollar check, and a one dollar foreign draft. I should then ask, What will that one dollar buy? Manifold will be the answers I should get. One of the answers would be, twenty pounds of sugar. This answer and others would allow me to illustrate the difference between ordinary purchase and sale and barter, and would show the convenience of money as a means of ex