schools and in preparing public sentiment for an early change to the township system.

MR. HINSDALE -No more important subject will be brought before this Council or before the National Educational Association at this present annual meeting than the one that has been so ably presented in the report submitted by Mr. Sabin. There is an ample field and ample material for three reports embracing the subjects that have been presented by the committee. As divided by the committee the subject falls into three divisions: (1) School revenues and their disbursement. (2) School machinery or organization. (3) The supply of properly prepared teachers in sufficient numbers. We have reason to congratulate ourselves, however, that the committee has made a single report covering the whole ground. These three divisions or branches are divisions or branches of the same general subject. They cohere, and cannot be separated if we are to obtain an intelligent view, either of the subject as a whole or of its several divisions. The end or ideal to which all our discussions look is good schools or good education for the youth of the land who are taught in the ungraded schools; but the securing of this end depends immediately and necessarily upon school management or control, and this again is connected with the collection and disbursement of funds. We shall never have as good schools as we ought to have in the rural districts until something like unity and concentration of effort on the part of the managers is secured. Fifteen years ago, at a time when there were about 15,000 persons teaching in the public schools of Ohio, there were about 44,000 school officers who were supposed to be engaged in employing these teachers and in supervising and directing their efforts. It is needless to say to any man who understands the subject that it is impossible to secure, as a rule, good schools under such a system. I therefore indorse all that has bcen said relative to the importance and necessity of the township unit system. We must not blind ourselves, however, to the fact that the difficulties standing in the way of this are very great. One of these is the indifference, and even positive opposition, of a very large majority of the people who are most immediately concerned. There is a large number of citizens scattered through the states where the district system prevails who do not wish to see the petty school offices abolished or diminished in number. They wish to hold them, or to see their friends hold them. Moreover, many of these persons are interested in the emoluments and patronage which, under the present system, are in effect placed at their disposal. Another fact, and one that does these people more credit, may be mentioned. Many of them-probably a large majority of them-believe that the present system is democratic while the township unit system is oligarchic or aristocratic. They believe in local self-government, and actually suppose, that, in standing up for the present system, they are defending the ancient political institutions of New England, and, in fact, of the Anglo-Saxon race. These are all facts-unquestionable facts. I do not mean to say that they cannot be overcome. They can be. For example, Ohio, that had really made no educational progress for many years, three or four years ago arose out of her sleep and passed the Workman law that has been referred to. Still another thing should be mentioned. The American people as a whole believe that they now have an excellent educational system, excellent schools, excellent education; they believe that they have nothing to learn in this regard from any people in the world, which is very far from being the fact. We have very much to learn from foreign countries. There can be no question that our national self-complacency, our present satisfaction with the education that we have, is an obstacle in cur way, not merely in respect to the subject before us but in respect to many other subjects. This obstacle, like the others, can be removed in the same way. That way is to enter at once upon a campaign of education, and then to press it with vigor; education, I mean, with respect to these very subjects.

MR. BROWN.-This is a timely report and one of great practical value. It is a companion report to the now celebrated one on correlation of studies. In fact, it discusses the necessary condition that must be supplied if the educational values of studies are to be realized to any considerable degree. But what is the Council going to do about it? I have been a member of this Council for a good many years, and the questions here involved have been considered many times and settled so far as the opinions of the members of the Council are concerned.

Mr. Hinsdale speaks of difficulties in the way of procuring an adoption of the township system in the states where it does not exist, but is it not true that these obstacles would melt away if the people could be warmed by the conviction that township organization is best for their children and is also less expensive than the present independent district system? The thing for us to do, as it seems to me, is to set to work at once to organize a plan of campaign of education of the public upon this matter of a better system of rural schools. The people want the best thing, and a proper system of taxation and distribution of money is the necessary condition of realizing any plan of instruction provided for the children.

DR. J. BALDWIN, Huntsville, Tex.-Since more than one-half our pupils are in our country schools, we are bound to make these schools as efficient as our city schools. The difficulties are enormous. I venture to suggest the creation of a committee of twenty to report on the ungraded school problem. The paper constitutes an admirable basis. What the Ten have done for secondary schools, and the Fifteen for graded schools, the Twenty may do for the rural schools.

The township system is accepted by educators as a basis; but the schools of a township must be cemented into convenient organized groups. Each group must have its central schools, and the teacher of the central must be principal of all the schools of the group. This is vital, as I think the angels could not make our country schools efficient on any other plan. Each central school will become a center of culture and will develop into a limited high school. The teachers of the group work together as an organized faculty.

MR. BOYDEN.-I desire to call attention to the district superintendents of Massachusetts as a means for improving the schools of the rural districts. The law of this state provides that two or more towns may unite to form a district which shall have not less than twenty-five nor more than fifty schools. The school committees of the towns which unite to form the district choose the superintendent, and the state pays three-fifths of his support. The first step of the superintendent towards improving the schools under his supervision is to secure the best teachers he can command; the second is to secure a better co-ordination of the school work; and third, the economical expenditure of the school funds. The effect of this system has been a noticeable increase in the demand for trained teachers and a decided improvement in the quality of the work done in the schools. The superintendent improves the course of studies, holds meetings, secures better appropriations for the schools, and increases by these means the public interest in the schools.

MR. BARNES.-In my opinion, one of the most powerful influences acting upon the rural teachers is the county superintendent. In four years a superintendent gives an educational cast to his teachers; they quickly catch his ideas, his prejudices, his attitudes toward work and study. The same movement which has resulted in such improvement in some of our city systems, through demanding educational leadership in the superintendent, is certain to extend to the office of county superintendent.

ROUND TABLE REPORT TO THE NATIONAL COUNCIL OF THE INFLUENCE OF HERBART'S DOCTRINE ON THE COURSE OF STUDY IN THE COMMON SCHOOLS.

BY CHARLES A. MCMURRY, NORMAL, ILL.

1. The purpose of this educational movement is to gather into the school course as much of the world's accumulated store of culture as is suited to exert educative influence upon growing children. It is the problem of collecting and arranging the best materials of culture which history, literature, and social and scientific progress have brought to light and stored up.

2. It seeks in our own American history and literature, as expressed in our mother English, the principal center and substance of culture for our common schools. It is not foreign nor exotic, but thoroughly domestic, Anglo-Saxon, American. It is not in search of foreign curiosities. Its geography begins at home and remains long within our own borders. Its natural science deals chiefly, almost entirely, with our native plants and animals and with those natural forces and phenomena with which every child may be made familiar in his own home and neighborhood. By the increased emphasis which it places upon the story of our early national life and historical development, by the more abundant use of the shorter and longer masterpieces of our best American writers, it seeks for a fruitful entrance into the hearts of children of the strong and wholesome influence of our best American culture. It is, therefore, national and patriotic in the true sense.

3. Secondary and supplemental to these American materials are the choicest products of English and European history and literature. The history and literature of America, surprisingly rich as it is, is not complete enough to give the children the full rounded measure of culture which the experience of the world has gathered for the educative enrichment of children. We are compelled to draw upon Europe for some of the best thought materials with which to fill out the course of instruction for the young.

4. It is very evident that our course of study is deeply rooted in the past, that culture and civilization are a product not to be manufactured to order, but a growth and registration in historical and literary forms of racial experience and progress. The reason why we harp so much upon literature and history is because they contain in potent educative solution the rich culture influences which we wish to see redeveloped in every child. Moral and social culture, with all their

humanizing influence, are contained in the choicest literature of America and Europe. Here are the ideals of life, revealed in their supreme strength and beauty. Here are the examples of men and women who lift and inspire. Here are revealed the moral qualities which should form the backbone of character.

5. If the course of study as a whole is thought of as a rope or cable, one of the important strands is a series of elementary science lessons stretching through all the grades. This fully accords with the immense influence upon human life which scientific progress has already attained. Herbartian pedagogy is in this respect thoroughly modern, and stands abreast of the requirement that education shall equip a child to live up to his present opportunities, and to make use of the fund of scientific knowledge.

6. This educational movement includes such a mastery of the English language and of elementary mathematics as our schools have long aimed at, but only partially realized. It suggests no great change in the scope of these studies. They are the necessary implements of culture and supply the forms of thought. But they should not be wholly isolated from the other studies, nor their separate disciplinary value estimated so highly as of old. The ideals, inspirations, and original sources of energy are in literature, history, and natural science. They are like deep fountains which spring from unfailing sources of supply.

7. This educational doctrine includes the effort to grasp all the studies and influences of the school course in one organized unit of influence, to so relate and combine the different forms of school discipline as to centralize and strengthen their combined effect.

8. In addition to this effort to lay out the best school course and to harmonize its various studies, there has been a strong, persistent, and practical effort to systematize the method of instruction, to find a set of principles sufficiently positive and definite for a common platform upon which teachers may stand and yet sufficiently elastic to adapt it to the variety of studies and to the individuality of teachers.

A somewhat full course of study for first and second grade is given in the "First Year Book of the Herbart Society for the Scientific Study of Teaching."

Leaving out arithmetic and language, which are similar to the usual course, a brief suggestive outline for fourth, fifth, and sixth grades is appended: