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I 
 
AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
AMERICAN 
 EDUCATION 
 
 BY 
 
 ANDREW S. DRAPER 
 
 COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION OF THE STATE OF NEW TOKK 
 
 WITH AN ESTTRODUCTION BY 
 NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER 
 
 PRESIDENT OF COLUMBIA. UNIVERSITY 
 
 BOSTON, NEW YORK AND CHICAGO 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 

 COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY ANDREW S. DRAPER 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Published December, iqoq 
 
 (0;Ci.A252S82 
 
PREFACE 
 
 From the papers wliicli have accumulated tkrougii trvent^-- 
 three years of educational administration enough have been 
 taken to make this book. For each paper taken thi'ee or 
 four have been left. I stipulated, when the book was pro- 
 posed, that the selections should be made by others, be- 
 cause I doubted my fitness to determine which of my 
 literary children most deserved an extension of life. Those 
 selected have been freed from references to times, people, 
 and places, fitted into a somewhat symmetrical whole, and 
 revised sufficiently to bring them to date. The result pre- 
 sents as compact and comprehensive an expression of my 
 experience and thinking upon American educational ques- 
 tions as I can hope to gather in a single book. For the 
 assistance which has made this possible my acknowledg- 
 ments are due to my secretaries of recent years, ]Mr. 
 Harlan H. Horner and Mrs. Honore H. Greene. The 
 introduction by President Butler enlarges my obligations 
 to a member of the guild who never fails to appreciate and 
 always inspires. 
 
 A. S. D. 
 Albany, X. Y., October, 1909. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 INTRODUCTION ix 
 
 I 
 
 ORGANIZATION AND ADMINISTRATION 
 
 I. The Nation's Purpose 3 
 
 II. Development of the School System 17 
 
 III. The Functions of the State 39 
 
 IV. The Legal Basis of the Schools 49 
 V. Illiteracy and Compulsory Attendance 61 
 
 VI. The Crucial Test of the Public Schools 74 
 
 VII. Unsettled Questions 87 
 
 VIII. The Need of a Federal Plan 107 
 
 II 
 
 ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS 
 
 I. Demands upon the Schools 119 
 
 II. Science in the Elementary Grades 137 
 
 in. The Rise of High Schools 147 
 
 IV. Teaching in the High Schools 157 
 
 V. Common Schools and Universities 165 
 
viii CONTENTS 
 
 III 
 
 THE COLLEGE AND THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 I. The American University 187 
 
 II. The Trend in American Education 200 
 
 III. State Universities 216 
 
 IV. The University Presidency 223 
 V. Limits of Academic Freedom 236 
 
 VI. Co-Education 256 
 
 IV 
 
 SPECIAL ASPECTS AND PROBLEMS 
 
 I. Education for Efficiency 275 
 
 II. The Farm and the School 291 
 
 III. Physical Training and Athletics 307 
 
 IV. Public Morals and Public Schools 327 
 V. The Spirit of the Teacher 343 
 
 VI. The Teacher and the Position 355 
 
 VII. The Schools and International Peace 367 
 
 INDEX 377 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 It is nearly a quarter of a century since Mr. Draper en- 
 tered upon the work of educational administration to which 
 his life has since been given. He brought to this high task 
 an unusual natural endowment and a still more unusual 
 experience with men and affairs. He did not come to the 
 task of administration from the school-room or the labora- 
 tory, but from most active participation in affairs and with 
 the practical interests of men. Experience had given him a 
 sense of proportion and perspective, as well as a knowledge 
 of men, and nature had endowed him with a simple and 
 sturdy directness of thought and speech which gave added 
 weight both to his words and to his deeds. 
 
 No other American, I think, has, like Mr. Draper, been 
 successively charged with the administration of a state 
 system of public instruction, with the oversight of the 
 schools of a city of considerable size, with the direction of 
 one of the tax-supported state universities of the country, 
 and finally with the supervision and control of the educa- 
 tional activities of an entire commonwealth. As a result, 
 Mr. Draper has been forced, in the daily performance of 
 the duties of his several offices, to approach the educational 
 problem from many different points of view and to see it 
 under almost all of its limitations and difficulties. He has 
 been a frequent and persuasive speaker at educational 
 gatherings and assemblies, and he has written much for 
 publication, in addition to the preparation of luminous, 
 as well as voluminous, official reports. 
 
 The fruit of this unusual experience and activity is pre- 
 sented in this volume in something like systematic form, 
 
X V INTRODUCTION 
 
 and will be read with appreciation and benefit in all parts 
 of the United States. 
 
 Mr. Draper's educational philosophy is so simple that 
 it is more than usually profound. His training in the law 
 has made him appreciate the full significance of the Ameri- 
 can doctrine that education is a function of the state, the 
 commonwealth, and not that of the nation, or primarily 
 that of a locality, whether urban or rural. The logical con- 
 sequences of this fundamental principle carry the admin- 
 istrator far out into doctrines of taxation, of educational 
 supervision, and of educational control. Mr. Draper's 
 creed is frankly and aggressively democratic. He makes 
 no apologies for ignorance because it is well-to-do, or for 
 knowledge and capacity because they are poor. He has 
 thrown his personal and official influence in favor of the 
 policy of offering to every American who will accept it an 
 opportunity for study and training that will increase his 
 individual usefulness and his equipment for public and 
 social service as a citizen. 
 
 Those who have been fortunately associated with Mr. 
 Draper have long recognized that it is red blood that flows 
 in his veins and an indomitable will that executes the 
 policies concerning which his intelligence is convinced. 
 He has a keen eye for educational subterfuge and sham, 
 and small patience with the doctrinaire who has lost touch 
 with the facts and with the impressions and desires of 
 others than himself. 
 
 In a time of general disintegration and reorganization, 
 when strange and crude doctrines of educational theory 
 and practice are urged on every hand, it is well to have 
 the sane, well-balanced, and well-tested teaching of Mr. 
 Draper to fall back upon for light and for help. 
 
 Nicholas Murray Butler. 
 
 Columbia University, 
 November 1, 1909. 
 
ORGANIZATION AND 
 ADMINISTRATION 
 
THE NATION'S PURPOSE 
 
 Ours is a purposeful nation. It has always faced the east. 
 It has always planned for the future. With the growth in 
 material and intellectual estate, with the reaching-out of 
 the common sentiment for the best opportunities for every 
 one, with the new significance of our political theories in 
 the affairs of all men, wherever they may be, there have 
 come purposes and policies which are new to our own 
 thinking and certainly new to the thinking of the other peo- 
 ples of the world. The greatest, the very greatest, of these, 
 for obvious reasons, are those which concern universal and 
 liberal education. 
 
 Schools are not of recent origin. Learning, speaking 
 relatively, is as old as the race. But any definite national 
 purpose to erect schools for distinct national ends is com- 
 paratively new, and the self-conscious generation of a great 
 national system of education by a people, for their own 
 upbuilding and for the greatness of their nation, has come 
 within the memory of living men and is essentially peculiar 
 to this country. 
 
 In spite of threadbare claims, the original settlers in 
 America held no settled purposes concerning education 
 which can be differentiated from those of their home lands. 
 How meagre and undefined the educational purposes of the 
 mother countries were, the student very well knows. 
 
 Before independence, American schools were dissociated 
 and fragmentary. There was no educational system. The 
 schools, like those over the sea, distinguished between 
 
4 AlVIERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 what were conceived to be the simpler needs of the peas- 
 antry and the necessity of classical training of the higher 
 classes for service in the church and state. 
 
 Independence did not of itself fertilize, and did not reflect 
 educational purpose. Neither the Declaration nor the 
 Constitution a dozen years later carried any reference to it. 
 This was not because the management of the schools had 
 already come to be a function of the several states, nor be- 
 cause they were unwilling to concede that it was a function 
 of the nation. The matter attracted no attention. It was 
 scarcely referred to in the congressional discussions. Nor 
 was this, in turn, because the men of the Continental Con- 
 gress and of the Constitutional Convention were illiterate 
 or indifferent to learning. The average of scholarship 
 among the members of the Constitutional Convention was 
 high. Half of them were graduates of colleges. The 
 dominant personalities were Alexander Hamilton, of Co- 
 lumbia, and James Madison, of Princeton. Education 
 had no part in the discussions and found no place in the 
 Declaration or in the Constitution, because education was 
 held to be a matter of only local and private concern, and 
 not a function of organized government at all. 
 
 Nor was the federal Constitution alone lacking in edu- 
 cational initiative. The first constitutions of the original 
 states contained only slight references to education. In 
 Georgia and in Pennsylvania the legislature was enjoined 
 to see that one or more schools were erected in each county. 
 The Massachusetts and New Hampshire references were 
 more comprehensive but less definite. Massachusetts made 
 detailed provision for Harvard College. The North Caro- 
 lina and the Pennsylvania articles enjoined that the legis- 
 lature should so arrange that the public " might be enabled 
 to instruct youth at low prices." This was in conformity 
 with the common thought that it was not the function of 
 
THE NATION'S PURPOSE 5 
 
 the state to maintain schools, although the state might 
 help the people to do it economically. The constitutions 
 of the eight other original states made no reference what- 
 ever to schools or to education. 
 
 It would be interesting to follow the statutes as well as 
 the constitutions of the original states for educational re- 
 ferences. Certain it is that they were meagre. Old usage, 
 the foreign influence, the fact that thought would run in 
 established grooves, the distances and the difficulties of 
 communication, made the evolution of educational purpose 
 a slow and laborious one. The fathers did not bring it all 
 with them when they came. England and America, in the 
 first half of the last century, were educationally not so very 
 far removed from the times of Elizabeth. Educational 
 outlook and purpose grew out of our democratic life, and 
 the stronger and freer that life became, the more rapid and 
 the more virile it grew. 
 
 As democracy really became free, and as the conven- 
 tionalities of the mother political system came to be really 
 obsolete, the educational purpose gained volume and force. 
 It is the operation, not the mere declarations or enact- 
 ments, of our governmental system that has developed 
 popular purpose. As the people moved West, they man- 
 aged their own affairs with added confidence and freedom, 
 and as rapidly as they did, the educational purpose grew 
 decisively. 
 
 Although the first constitutions and laws of the original 
 states made little or no reference to education, those of 
 all the newer states were alive with it. They were not 
 only alive with provisions for the elementary schools which 
 should be common to all, but for higher schools, colleges, 
 and universities, which should also be common to all. And 
 while the eastern states do not know it, and until very 
 recently have been stolidly determined that they will not 
 
6 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 learn it, there is no doubt whatever about the public edu- 
 cational purpose having its most luxuriant development 
 among the people who exercise their political power more 
 freely and more uniformly in the newer states of the Union. 
 Wherever caste has been most completely overthrown, 
 wherever the aptitude for self-direction has had its freest 
 growth, wherever the fundamental principle of the Decla- 
 ration of Independence that all men are created with 
 equivalent and inalienable rights has had its largest accept- 
 ance, there the educational purpose of America has had 
 its best exemplification, and there it has borne its most 
 abundant fruit. 
 
 It is hardly too much to say that the first educational 
 declaration in American law, which was really more serious 
 than ornamental, was that in the ordinance organizing the 
 old Northwest Territory ; and that the initiatory step in the 
 public policy of setting aside the common property for 
 popular education, which was really potential and con- 
 tinuing, appears in the uniform legislation of the newer 
 states which set aside a section of land in every township 
 for the aid of schools. 
 
 As more recent immigration has given unexpected 
 strength and completeness to the equipment of the nation, 
 so it has given a new setting and a new meaning to the 
 educational purpose which flickered feebly in the minds 
 of our forefathers. Some new immigrants have appreciated 
 our privileges better than some of the "older settlers." 
 Ireland and Italy and France have enriched our scheme 
 with wit and rhythm and color. Scotland has added moral 
 strength and mental vigor. Norway and Sweden and Den- 
 mark have sent agricultural insight and domestic thrift. 
 The great German Empire has contributed scientific 
 method, intensive mechanical skill, and splendid energy 
 and stability to the conception which was begotten and 
 
THE NATION'S PURPOSE 7 
 
 then for a time held in check by English and Dutch 
 pioneers. 
 
 The educational purpose of our nation is a law unto 
 itself. It is a force which all must regard. It acts upon 
 government. It does not desist, it is not discouraged when 
 government hesitates or statesmen cannot see. It is inde- 
 pendent of dogmatism, of politics, of racial prejudice or 
 religious bigotry, of language, of state or sectional lines, of 
 partisanship or exclusiveness, of selfishness or sectionalism 
 in any form. 
 
 Old Andrew Melville, to the King's very face, told James 
 the Sixth, — who hunted our Pilgrim Fathers out of 
 England, — "There are two kings and two kingdoms in 
 Scotland and in one of them James is not a king, nor a 
 lord, nor a head, but only an ordinary member." That 
 was the Kingdom of God and his Church. The other 
 was the Kingdom of Men. One was enduring and the 
 other changeable. So there are two governments in 
 America. One is strictly technical, is exactly regulated by 
 written laws, is definitely responsible to the political senti- 
 ment of the country; while the other is a pervasive, uni- 
 versal democracy of sense, of moral purpose, and of learn- 
 ing, with an unwritten, free-flowing constitution, which 
 shapes government to its purposes, and in which presi- 
 dents and governors and senators are weighed by the same 
 standards as all the rest. 
 
 The educational thought of America has no inclination 
 toward socialism if socialism means paternalism. It holds 
 that the Declaration decrees equality of right under the 
 law, and not equality of result in spite of moral and legal 
 right. With legal right it makes personal accountability 
 fundamental in our political system. It opens the door of 
 opportunity to all ; but it takes from no man the fruit of his 
 energy and endurance, of his knowledge and skill, of his 
 
8 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 patience and thrift, to repair the just consequences of 
 another man's worthlessness. It not only accepts, it is the 
 surest bulwark of, the fundamental principles of our demo- 
 cratic institutions ; it approves the fabric of laws which the 
 wisest men of the race have been a thousand years in 
 weaving, and it is not disposed to avoid the operation of 
 those higher laws which are from everlasting to everlasting. 
 
 There is no smack of charity about the public educa- 
 tional system of America. It is for all. It is the universal 
 and inalienable right of every man and woman, every son 
 and daughter of the realm. It is the corner-stone of our 
 plan, the essential factor of our governmental purpose. 
 
 If there are children in the schools who need help, if 
 there are others who are not in the schools because they 
 need help, they are to have the aid of private or public 
 charity. That is not lacking. Men and women who ad- 
 minister it are experienced in dealing with the needy. Aid 
 so extended will not breed pauperism, and it will not put 
 the school system in a false light. The public schools are to 
 train boys and girls, — not to support the thriftless or the un- 
 fortunate. People are to be encouraged to support them- 
 selves. If they cannot do it, they are to be helped as a 
 boon, not as a legal right. It is as fundamental that people 
 shall suffer the inevitable consequences of their own mis- 
 doing, even of their own misfortune — except where our 
 moral sense relieves them — as that they shall have op- 
 portunity, and have their reward for making the most of 
 opportunity. One principle is the necessary complement 
 of the other. Education is the essence of equality in oppor- 
 tunity in America. Support is not a legal right. The two 
 should not be confused in the common thinking. The 
 schools have all that they can do. It would be most unwise 
 to weight them with any unnecessary burdens, or involve 
 them in popular misapprehension through confusion over 
 
THE NATION'S PURPOSE 9 
 
 fundamental principles. The schools are to train. Private 
 philanthropy and organized charity may give such support 
 to the needy as good sense and good fellowship will justify. 
 
 The educational purpose of the nation reaches forward 
 to the very mountain tops of human learning. It is time 
 for all to realize that that purpose points not only to a free 
 elementary school within reach of every home, but also to 
 a free high school in every considerable town, and to a 
 free university in every state. It of course accepts the 
 endowed universities as component parts of the educa- 
 tional system. They afford a fair realization of its ideal 
 in some states; but it insists that they shall articulate 
 with the public secondary schools, and, in one way or 
 another, assure every boy and every girl the true chance 
 which the plan and the progressive thought of the nation 
 guarantee. If not, then it insists that the states shall do 
 this through higher institutions of their own. 
 
 It does not insist that every one must go to the higher 
 institutions. It recognizes wide differences in the circum- 
 stances, the work, and the outlook of men and women. It 
 distinguishes between the kinds of learning which are best 
 suited to differing and inevitable conditions of life. It does 
 insist that the political security and the economic power of 
 the nation shall rest upon the moral sense and the common 
 disposition to produce ; and not exclusively, nor even very 
 largely, upon philosophic theory, upon moneyed wealth, 
 or upon a mere knowledge of literatures or of the fine arts. 
 Seeking culture, it knows that the only true culture must 
 result from doing, and that polish at second-hand, trans- 
 mitted without labor, is neither deep nor true. 
 
 It does not accept the rather general implication that 
 honor and usefulness depend upon intellectual pursuits. 
 It does not encourage all children to seek them. It would 
 make the work of the schools aid the industries, and it 
 
10 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 would give quite as much prominence and quite as much 
 honor to manual skill as to intellectual occupations. 
 
 It stands for a balanced educational system, the best and 
 broadest that can be made, and therefore good enough for 
 all, in which every one may find what he will, may go as 
 far and as high as he will; and not for a system which 
 dignifies any interest or aids any class as against any other. 
 In a word, it believes in schools of every grade and for 
 every purpose, with equality of opportunity and absolute 
 freedom of selection for all, and with special privileges for 
 none. 
 
 All endowed institutions of learning are held to be a part 
 of the public educational system of the country, and 
 private and proprietary institutions, if moved by correct 
 influences and managed by proper methods, are considered 
 deserving of aid and commendation. Public school officials 
 usually give to sectarian and denominational schools their 
 fraternal regard and professional cooperation, and ordi- 
 narily regret that any may think it necessary on conscien- 
 tious grounds to decline the privileges of the public school 
 system and maintain schools at their own expense. Sin- 
 cerity is recognized wherever it is convincing, and there 
 is constant effort to articulate the public school system 
 with every educational activity calculated to quicken the 
 nation's moral sense or uplift the nation's intellectual life. 
 
 It is the overwhelming, and, it is to be hoped, the settled 
 American opinion that neither the federal power nor that 
 of any state can sustain a business relation with, or give 
 financial aid to, or divide its responsibility with, any class 
 or interest not common to every citizen and every section ; 
 but that affords no ground for irritation between any class 
 or sectional interest on the one side and any phase of the 
 state or federal power on the other. Indeed, if the state 
 cannot give its money to expensive work which enters into 
 
THE NATION'S PURPOSE 11 
 
 the building of the nation, it may well give to that work 
 the fullest measure of moral encouragement that will be 
 welcome. In a word, special aid can be giyen to none as 
 against another, but we can go to the verge of fundamental 
 and constitutional principles, with all toleration of opin- 
 ions and all true-heartedness, to bind together the moral 
 forces and the intellectual activities of all sects and parties 
 for the further upbuilding of thei nation. 
 
 Public obligations to afford information, to extend cul- 
 ture, and to aid self-improvement outside of the schools 
 are recognized. There has been no more radiant sign of 
 encouragement in our history, hone, indeed, in any history, 
 than the manifest eagerness of our adult masses for know- 
 ledge. Sound policy will give to libraries, and study-clubs, 
 and all the means for study at home, an unstinted measure 
 of generous public aid and encouragement. Whatever 
 adds to the real enlightenment of the multitude, adds to the 
 happiness, the strength, and the security of a republic which 
 rests upon the common intelligence and equality of rights 
 for all. 
 
 No other country and no other age ever had visions 
 of our great private benefactions to learning. The com- 
 mon impulse honors the benefactors and holds the gifts to 
 be sacred and inviolable public trusts. They must be 
 neither impaired nor misdirected. The laws must assure 
 the ends for which they are created ; public sentiment 
 must see that trustees execute the purpose of the givers 
 with exactness. No one can foresee the influence of these 
 benefactions. They will gain great ends which are often 
 outside the legal powers of organized government. They 
 will round out and complete the undertakings of govern- 
 ment. They will ornament and embellish the educational 
 structure which government erects. They may experi- 
 ment in fields where democracy must hesitate until the 
 
12 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 ground is proved. The public educational system will aid 
 them and be aided by them. Combining unprecedented 
 public purpose and public powers with unparalleled 
 private beneficence, the United States will develop the 
 most universal, complete, and potential scheme of educa- 
 tion that the wisdom and great-heartedness of man can 
 devise. 
 
 Of course, our democracy has its difficulties. Equality 
 of opportunity, from the first school to the last one, with 
 continuity of courses from the elementary work in the 
 primary schools to the research work in the universities, 
 presents difficulties which do not confront the educa- 
 tional system of any other land. It is far easier for a min- 
 ister of education, without interference, to arrange and 
 administer all this than it is for a whole people to do it. 
 But it is better for the people to do it. And the peo- 
 ple tax themselves with doing more than ever confronted 
 any minister of education. The zeal of the people, 
 with fullness of opportunity, often puts more upon the 
 teachers than they are able to do completely. There 
 is seeming uncertainty and indefiniteness. But it is 
 not to be forgotten that the people grow in strength 
 and stature through doing things for themselves. It is 
 the fullness of opportunity and the self-conscious power, 
 and the knowledge that consequences may be corrected 
 if need be, that is rounding out the educational system 
 to its unprecedented proportions and its unparalleled 
 effectiveness. The nation will go on doing things, meet- 
 ing difficulties, correcting mistakes, bringing the perfect 
 figure out of the barren rock, and gaining the splendid 
 ends for which the people sustain the schools. 
 
 It is at all times to be kept sharply in mind that the 
 schools are not only to educate people in order that they 
 may be educated, but also to educate them in order that 
 
THE NATION'S PURPOSE 13 
 
 they may do things. They are to be trained for labor 
 and for effectiveness. Things must be done, and great 
 men and women are to develop through doing them. 
 Through the training they are not only to unlock the 
 truths of science, but apply them to the agricultural and 
 mining and animal and mechanical industries; they are 
 to think out economic principles and understand the 
 under-running currents of foreign commerce and world- 
 relations; they are to learn the underlying principles of 
 finance and apply them to personal and public credits; 
 they are to abound in toleration and work with others in 
 the institutions of society; they are to stand for knowledge; 
 they are to respect labor; they are to exact the right and 
 do it; they are to bring out the resources, help the thrift, 
 stir the humor, enlarge the generosity, increase the self- 
 respect, and quicken the sense of justice, of the nation. 
 Moral power and earning power are to develop together. 
 The schools must uplift the pupils, and the people must 
 know that the attitude of the Republic in the world is 
 nothing different from the attitude of the individual units 
 which make the nation. No one-man power, no ministerial 
 power, no money power, no specious but fallacious phi- 
 losophy, is to rule this country. This is a democracy in 
 which native energy and discussion will point the way.. 
 
 The educational purpose of America is sharply distin- 
 guished from that of other lands. The essential difference 
 comes through our democracy. 
 
 The English purpose would have every English child 
 read and write and work. England has simple but effec- 
 tive elementary schools for the peasant class. All peasant 
 children go to them. Although they know nothing of 
 American opportunity, the percentage of illiteracy is 
 lower than in our American states. So it is in the leading 
 countries of Europe. Of course, England has schools 
 
14 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 for the higher classes. But there is no educational mix- 
 ing of classes, and no articulation or continuity of work. 
 The controlling influence in English politics is distinctly 
 opposed to universalizing education, through fear of 
 unsettling the status and letting loose the ambitions of 
 the serving classes. The placidity of the social organiza- 
 tion seems of more moment than the strength of the em- 
 pire. 
 
 So it is also in France. Notwithstanding the republi- 
 can form of government, the thinking of a thousand years 
 is controlling. With less native sense and less respect for 
 work, with more inherent buoyancy and more art-feeling 
 than in Britain, the children of the masses are trained for 
 service, — an humble service, though possibly somewhat 
 higher than across the Channel. They are trained for ex- 
 aminations and for routine rather than for power. With 
 less fibre and substance in the character commonly trained, 
 the result is not more reassuring. 
 
 There is more to admire in the German purpose and 
 plan, for ambition and determination are not lacking in 
 the nation, and the Kaiser knows that the material strength 
 and the military power of the German Empire rest upon the 
 intelligence of the German masses, and the productivity 
 of German labor. Splendid as that is, it is not enough in 
 American eyes. 
 
 Our educational purpose has a fast hold upon all that, 
 and more. The nation wants more than industrial strength 
 and military power. Americans do not know all that is to 
 be known; they may learn something from every other 
 system; but there is an essential and universal educa- 
 tional purpose in America which distinguishes the system 
 from all others. There are no "classes" in education. 
 It is the national belief that the true greatness of the na- 
 tion and the welfare of mankind depend not only upon 
 
THE NATION'S PURPOSE 15 
 
 giving every one his chance, but also upon aiding and 
 inspiring every one to seize his chance. 
 
 The corner - stone principle of our political theory 
 coincides absolutely with the fundamental doctrine of our 
 moral law. All men and women are to be intellectually 
 quickened and made industrially potential, to the very 
 limits of sane and balanced character. The moral sense 
 of the people is determined by it and the nation's great- 
 ness^is measured by it. Before this fact the prerogative of 
 a monarch or the comfort of a class is of no account. Be- 
 fore it every other consideration must give way. It is right 
 here that democracies which can hold together surpass 
 monarchies. It is for this reason that the progressive will 
 of an intelligent people is better than the hereditary and 
 arbitrary power of kings. And a sane and balanced and 
 boundless educational system, with a base which is broad 
 enough and a peak which is high enough, will fuse the 
 elements of population and enable a democracy of English 
 speech and sufficient Saxon blood to hold together. 
 
 All Americans are optimists. The expectations of the 
 nation are boundless. There are no upper limits. Those 
 expectations are not gross: they are genuine and sincere, 
 moral and high-minded. They are the issue of a mighty 
 world-movement; the splendid product of the best think- 
 ing and the hardest struggling of a thousand years. 
 
 Critics say that Americans are boastful. It is not neces- 
 sary to put them to the trouble of proving it : it is admitted. 
 It is a matter of definition or of terminology. Our self- 
 confidence is bom of knowledge and of accomplishment. 
 The nation believes in the stars which are in the heavens, 
 and it also believes in the stars which are upon the flag. 
 It knows its history; it understands its constituent ele- 
 ments ; it has definite purposes ; it expects to go forward ; 
 it believes in itself. 
 
16 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 Our nation holds the essential principles established in 
 the great charters of English and American liberty to be 
 its particular heritage. It is enlarging, extending, clarify- 
 ing, reaffirming, and transmitting them. It is putting its 
 whole self, its political power, its sagacity, and its money, 
 into the work which it has set itself to do. Of course it 
 has its perplexities; but it is without apprehension. The 
 great heart of the nation is conscious of its own rectitude. 
 It will not fear and it will not hesitate. It will act upon 
 its own thinking. It will mend its mistakes. It does not 
 merely stand for security : it stands for liberty and fordoing. 
 It is not' for the present alone: it is for the future. It will 
 take care of its own. It will not hide its light. It will not 
 meddle with other people ; but it will deny to no men and 
 women who would uplift themselves such measure of 
 sympathy and assistance as it may give. 
 
II 
 
 DEVELOPMENT OF THE SCHOOL SYSTEM 
 
 The educational purpose of our nation unfolded slowly. 
 Although it was early conceived to be a function of govern- 
 ment to encourage schools, the establishment of a definite 
 system of instruction based upon that idea proceeded 
 very gradually. 
 
 There was nothing like an educational system in the 
 United States at the beginning of the nineteenth century. 
 At that time there were four or five colleges, here and 
 there a private academy or fitting school, and elementary 
 schools of indifferent character in the cities and the thinly 
 settled towns. In the course of the century a great system 
 of schools came to cover the land. It is free and flexible, 
 adaptable to local conditions, and yet it possesses most of 
 the elements of a complete and symmetrical system. The 
 parts or grades of this system may perhaps be designated 
 as follows : — 
 
 (a) Free public elementary schools in reach of every home in 
 the land. 
 
 (b) Free public high schools, or secondary schools, in every 
 considerable town. 
 
 (c) Provision for free land-grant colleges, with special reference 
 to the agricultural and mechanical arts, in all the states. 
 
 (d) Free state universities in practically all of the southern 
 states and in all the states west of Pennsylvania. 
 
 (e) Free normal schools, or training schools for teachers, in 
 practically every state. 
 
 (/) Free schools for defectives, in substantially all the states, 
 (gr) National academies for training officers for the army and 
 navy. 
 
18 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 (h) A vast number of private kindergartens, music and art 
 schools, commercial schools, industrial schools, professional 
 schools, denominational colleges, with a half dozen leading and 
 privately endowed universities. 
 
 This miglity educational system has developed with the 
 growth of towns and cities and states. It has been shaped 
 by the advancing sagacity of the people. Above all other 
 American civic institutions, it has been the one most 
 expressive of the popular will and the common purposes. 
 Everywhere it is held in the control of the people, and so 
 far as practicable in the control of local assemblages. 
 While the tendency of later years has, from necessity, been 
 towards centralization of management, the conspicuous 
 characteristic has always been the extent to which the 
 elementary and secondary schools are controlled and 
 directed by each community. The inherent and universal 
 disposition in this direction has favored general school laws 
 and yielded to centralized administration only so far as has 
 come to be necessary to life, efficiency, and growth. But 
 circumstances have made this necessary to a very con- 
 siderable extent. 
 
 The " school district" is the oldest and the most primary 
 form of school organization. Indeed, it is the smallest civil 
 division of our political system. It resulted from the natural 
 disposition of neighboring families to associate together for 
 the maintenance of a school. Later it was recognized by 
 law and given some legal functions and responsibilities. 
 Its territorial extent is no larger than will permit of all the 
 children attending a sii)gle school, although it sometimes 
 happens that in sparsely settled country the children have 
 to go several miles to school. It ordinarily accommodates 
 but a few families. Districts have had legal existence with 
 but one family in each, and many with not more than a 
 half dozen families. The "district system" is in opera- 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF SCHOOL SYSTEM 19 
 
 tion in the rural communities in most of the states, and in 
 such the number of districts extends into the thousands. 
 For example, in New York, there are over eleven thou- 
 sand and in Illinois over twelve thousand school districts. 
 
 The government of the school district is the most simple 
 and democratic that can be imagined. It is controlled by- 
 school meetings composed of the resident legal voters. In 
 many of the states women have been constituted legal voters 
 at school meetings. These meetings are held at least 
 annually, and as much oftener as may be desired. They 
 may vote needed repairs to the primitive schoolhouse and 
 desirable appliances for the school. They may decide to 
 erect a new schoolhouse. They may elect officers, one or 
 more, commonly called trustees or directors, who must 
 carry out their directions and who are required by law to 
 employ the teacher and to have general oversight of the 
 school. Although the law ordinarily gives the trustees free 
 discretion in the appointment of teachers, provided only 
 that a person duly certificated must be appointed, yet it 
 not infrequently happens that the district controls the se- 
 lection of the teacher through the election of trustees with 
 known preferences. 
 
 Much has been said against the district system, and 
 doubtless much that has been said has been justified. At 
 the same time it cannot be denied that the system has had 
 much to commend it. It has suited the conditions of coun- 
 try life; it has resulted in schools adapted to the thought 
 and wants of farming people; it has done something to 
 educate the people themselves, parents as well as children, 
 in civic spirit and patriotism ; and it has afforded a meeting 
 place for the people within comfortable reach of every 
 home. The school has not always been the best, but ordi- 
 narily it has been as good as a free and primitive people 
 would sustain or could profit by. It is true that the teachers 
 
20 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 have generally been young and inexperienced, but they 
 have not yet been led to put the means above the doing, 
 and as a rule they have been among the most promising 
 young people in the world, the ones who, a few years later, 
 have been the makers of opinion and the leaders of action 
 upon a considerable field. Certainly the work has lacked 
 system, continuity, and progressiveness, but, on the other 
 hand, the children in the country schools have had the 
 home training and the free, natural life which has devel- 
 loped strong qualities in character and individual initia- 
 tive in large measure, and so they have not suffered seri- 
 ously in comparison with the children living in the towns. 
 The district system has sufficed well for them, and it has 
 otherwise been of much advantage to the people; and its 
 shortcomings or abuses are hardly worse than are found 
 under more pretentious systems. Surely the American 
 district school system is to be spoken of with respect, for 
 it has exerted a marked influence upon our citizenship, 
 and has given strong and wholesome impulses in all the 
 affairs of the nation. 
 
 While the earlier general educational purpose seems 
 to have been to make the district system more perfect, 
 the later tendency has unmistakably been to merge it into 
 a more pretentious organization, covering a larger area, 
 and capable of larger undertakings. The cause of this 
 has been the desire for larger schools, taught by teachers 
 better prepared, and capable of broader and better work, 
 as well as the purpose to distribute educational advan- 
 tages more evenly to all the people. Accordingly, in most 
 of the states there has been a serious discussion of the rela- 
 tive advantages of the township as against the district 
 system, and in a number of the states the former has already 
 supplanted the latter. 
 
 The township system makes the township the unit of 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF SCHOOL SYSTEM 21 
 
 school government. It is administered by officers chosen at 
 annual town meetings, or sometimes by central boards, the 
 members of which are chosen by the electors of different 
 sub-districts. In any event, the board has charge of all the 
 elementary schools of the township, and, if there is one as 
 is frequently the case, of the township high school. The 
 board, following the different statutes and the authorized 
 directions of the township school electors, provides the 
 buildings and cares for them, supplies the needed fur- 
 nishings and appliances, employs the teachers, and regu- 
 lates the general operations of the school. 
 
 It is at once seen that the township system is much less 
 formally democratic and much more centralized than the 
 district system. It has perhaps produced better schools and 
 schools of more uniform excellence. One of its most benefi- 
 cent influences has been the multiplication of township 
 high schools, in which all the children of the township have 
 had equality of rights. These high schools have given an 
 uplifting stimulus to the elementary schools of the town- 
 ship, have led the children to see that the work of the local 
 school is not all there is of education, and have given many 
 of them ambitions to master the course of the secondary 
 school. 
 
 The township system has many advantages over the 
 district system for a people who are ready for it. It is 
 adapted to the development and to the administration 
 of a higher grade of schools and very likely to better 
 schools of all grades. It is a step, and an important step, 
 towards that general centralization in management and 
 greater uniformity of improved methods of supervision 
 and instruction now so manifest throughout the school 
 system of the United States. 
 
 The county system of school administration is found 
 in nearly all the southern states. This has resulted from 
 
22 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 the general system of county rather than township govern- 
 ment prevalent in all the affairs of the southern states 
 from the beginning, and easily traceable to historic 
 causes. The county is the unit of school government in 
 the southern statas, because it has been the unit of all 
 government. 
 
 The county system is not constituted identically in all 
 of the southern states. In Georgia, for example, the grand 
 jury of each county selects from the freeholders five per- 
 sons to comprise the county board of education ; in North 
 Carolina the General Assembly appoints such a county 
 board of education, while in Florida the board is elected 
 by the people biennially, and in some states a county com- 
 missioner or superintendent of schools is the responsible 
 authority for managing the schools of the county. In 
 several of the states the county board or superintendent 
 divides the territory into sub-districts and appoints trustees 
 or directors in each. In the latter instance the local trustees 
 seem to be ministerial officers carrying out the policy of 
 the county board. In any case the unit of territory for the 
 administration of the schools is the county, and county 
 officials locate sites, provide buildings, select textbooks, 
 prescribe the course of work, examine and appoint teachers, 
 and do all the things which are within the functions of 
 district or township trustees or city boards of education 
 in the northern states. 
 
 As communities have increased in population they have 
 outgrown any primary or elementary system of organiza- 
 tion for school purposes. Laws of general application or 
 common usage in sparsely settled territory would not suffice 
 for a city of many thousands of people. In such cities the 
 people could not meet to fix the policies and manage the 
 business of the schools : they could not meet even to choose 
 officers to manage the schools. The state legislatures have 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF SCHOOL SYSTEM 23 
 
 made special laws to meet the circumstances of the larger 
 places. In some states these laws are uniform for all cities 
 of a certain class, that is, cities having populations of about 
 the same number, but more often each city has gone to the 
 legislature and procured the enactment of such statutes 
 as seemed suited to the immediate circumstances. 
 
 Because of this there is no uniform or general system of 
 public school administration in the American cities. Of 
 course there are some points of similarity. In nearly every 
 case there is a board of education charged with the man- 
 agement of the schools, but these boards are constituted 
 in almost as many different ways as there are different 
 cities, and their legal functions are widely diverse. In the 
 greater number of cities the boards of education are 
 elected by the people, in some cases on a general city ticket, 
 and again by wards or sub-districts ; in some places at a 
 general or municipal election, and in others at elections 
 held for the particular purpose. But in many cities, and 
 particularly the larger ones, the boards are appointed by 
 the mayor alone, or by the mayor and city council acting 
 jointly. In the city of Philadelphia the board is appointed 
 by the judges of the Court of Common Pleas, in Pitts- 
 burg by local directors. In a few instances the board is 
 appointed by the city councils. 
 
 In the city of Cleveland the board of education consists 
 of two branches: a school director elected by the people 
 for the term of two years, and a school council of seven 
 members, likewise elected by the people in three groups 
 with terms of three years each. This scheme was devised 
 in 1892 by prominent business men of the city, and, having 
 been enacted by the legislature, has, with some important 
 changes, been in satisfactory operation since. 
 
 It must be said that there has been much dissatisfaction 
 with the way school affairs have been managed in the 
 
24 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 larger cities. In the smaller places, even in cities of a hun- 
 dred thousand or more inhabitants, matters have gone 
 well enough as a general rule, but in the greater cities there 
 have been many and serious complaints of the misuse of 
 funds, of neglect of property, of the appointment of unfit 
 teachers, and of general incapacity, or worse, on the part 
 of the boards. Of course it is notorious that the public 
 business of American cities has very commonly been 
 badly managed. It would not be true to say that the busi- 
 ness of the schools has suffered as seriously as municipal 
 business, but it certainly has been managed badly enough. 
 
 All this has come from the amounts of money that are 
 involved and the number of appointments that are con- 
 stantly to be made. More than a hundred and fifty mil- 
 lions of dollars are paid annually for teachers' wages in 
 the United States. People who are needy have sought 
 positions as teachers without much reference to prepara- 
 tion, and the kindly disposed have aided them without 
 any apparent appreciation of the injury they were doing 
 to the highest interests of their neighbors. Men engaged 
 in managing the organizations of the different political 
 parties have undertaken to control appointments in the 
 interests of their party machines. And the downright 
 scoundrels have infested the school organization in some 
 places for the sake of plunder. 
 
 As cities have grown in size and multiplied in numbers, 
 the more scandal there has been. But if the troubles have 
 multiplied and intensified as the cities have grown, so has 
 the determination of the people strengthened to remedy the 
 difficulties. There has been no more decided and no more 
 healthy educational movement in the United States in 
 recent years, and none with greater or more strongly 
 intrenched obstacles in its way, than that for better school 
 organization and administration in the larger cities. Its 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF SCHOOL SYSTEM 25 
 
 particular features or objective points were early pointed 
 out by the committee of fifteen of the National Educa- 
 tional Association in the following declarations : — 
 
 First. The affairs of the school should not be mixed up with 
 partisan contests or municipal business. 
 
 Second. There should be a sharp distinction between legis- 
 lative functions and executive duties. 
 
 Third. Legislative functions should be clearly fixed by stat- 
 ute and be exercised by a comparatively small board, each mem- 
 ber of which is representative of the whole city. This board, 
 within statutory limitations, should determine the policy of the 
 system, levy taxes, and control the expenditures. It should make 
 no appointments. Every act should be by a recorded resolution. 
 It seems preferable that this board be created by appointment 
 rather than election, and that it be constituted of two branches 
 acting against each other. 
 
 Fourth. Administration should be separated into two great 
 independent departments, one of which manages the business 
 interests and the other of which supervises the instruction. Each 
 of these should be wholly directed by a single official who is 
 vested with ample authority and charged with full responsibil- 
 ity for sound administration. 
 
 Fifth. The chief executive officer on the business side should 
 be charged with the care of all property and with the duty of 
 keeping it in suitable condition : he should provide all necessary 
 furnishings and appliances : he should make all agreements and 
 see that they are properly performed: he should appoint all as- 
 sistants, janitors, and workmen. In a word, he should do all that 
 the law contemplates and all that the board authorizes, concern- 
 ing the business affairs of the school system, and when anything 
 goes wrong he should answer for it. He may be appointed by the 
 board, but we think it preferable that he be chosen in the same 
 way the members of the board are chosen, and be given a veto 
 upon the acts of the board. 
 
 Sixth. The chief executive officer of the department of in- 
 struction should be given a long term, and may be appointed 
 by the board. If the board is constituted of two branches, he 
 should be nominated by the business executive and confirmed 
 
26 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 by the legislative branch. Once appointed he should be inde- 
 pendent. He should appoint all authorized assistants and teach- 
 ers from an eligible list to be constituted as provided by law. He 
 should assign to duties and discontinue services for cause, at 
 his discretion. He should determine all matters relating to instruc- 
 tion. He should be charged with the responsibility of developing 
 a professional and enthusiastic teaching force, and of making 
 all the teaching scientific and forceful. He must perfect the or- 
 ganization of his department and make and carry out plans to 
 accomplish this. If he cannot do this in a reasonable time he 
 should be superseded by one who can. 
 
 It ought to be said before passing from this phase of the 
 subject that these principles have made much headway, 
 and that the promise is excellent. There is not a city of any 
 importance in the country in which they have not been un- 
 der discussion, and there are few in which some of them 
 have not been adopted and put in operation. 
 
 The powers of the city boards of education are very 
 broad, almost without limits, as to the management of the 
 schools. They commonly do everything but decide the 
 amount of money which shall be raised for the schools, and 
 in some cases even that high prerogative is left to them. 
 They purchase new sites, determine the plans and erect new 
 buildings, provide for maintenance, appoint officers and 
 teachers, fix salaries, make promotions, and, acting within 
 very few and slight constitutional or statutory limitations, 
 enact all of the regulations for the control of the vast system. 
 
 The high powers cheerfully given by the people to school 
 boards have arisen from the earnest desire that the schools 
 shall be independent and the teaching of the best. Of 
 course these independent and large prerogatives are exceed- 
 ingly advantageous to educational progress when exercised 
 by good men. When they fall into the hands of weak or bad 
 men they are equally capable of being put to the worst uses. 
 And it is not to be disguised that in some of the foremost 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF SCHOOL SYSTEM 27 
 
 cities they have fallen into some hands which are corrupt, 
 although more often into the hands of men of excellent per- 
 sonal character, but who do not see the importance of ap- 
 plying pedagogical principles to instruction, and who are, 
 in one way or another, used by designing persons for parti- 
 san, selfish, or corrupt purposes. Of course it is not to be 
 implied that there are not to be found in every school board 
 men or women with clear heads and stout hearts, who un- 
 derstand the essential principles of sound school adminis- 
 tration and are courageously contending for them. Nor 
 must the serious difficulty of holding together pupils from 
 such widely different homes in common schools be lost sight 
 of. And again, the obstacles in the way of choosing and 
 training a teaching force of thousands of persons, and of 
 continually energizing the entire body with new pedagogi- 
 cal life, must be remembered. And yet again, the dangers 
 of corruption where millions of dollars are being annually 
 disbursed by boards which are practically independent, are 
 apparent. But, notwithstanding all of the hindrances, the 
 issue has been joined and the battle will be fought out to 
 a successful result. There can be but one outcome. The 
 forces of decency and progress always prevail in the end. 
 
 The demands of the intelligent and sincere friends of 
 popular education in our great cities are for a more scien- 
 tific plan of organization, which shall separate legislative 
 and executive functions, which shall put the interests of 
 teachers upon the merit basis and leave them free to apply 
 pedagogical principles to the instruction, which shall give 
 authority to do what is needed and protect officers and 
 teachers in doing it, while it locates responsibility and pro- 
 vides the way for ousting the incompetent or the corrupt. 
 The trouble has been that the boards were independent and 
 the machinery so ponderous and the prerogatives and re- 
 sponsibilities of officials so confused that people who were 
 
28 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 aggrieved could not get a hearing or could not secure re- 
 dress, and sometimes for the reason that no one oflBcial had 
 the power to afiford redress. What is demanded and what is 
 apparently coming is a more perfect system, which will give 
 a teacher credit for good work in the schools and enable a 
 parent to point his finger at, and procure the dismissal of, 
 an oflGicial who inflicts upon his child a school-room which 
 is not wholesome and healthful, or a teacher who is physi- 
 cally, pedagogically, or morally unfit to train his child. 
 
 Since the American school system has come to be sup- 
 ported wholly by taxation, it has come to depend upon the 
 exercise of a sovereign power. In the United States the 
 sovereign powers are not all lodged in one place. Such as 
 have not been ceded to the general government are retained 
 by the states. The provision and supervision of schools are 
 in the latter class. Hence, the school system, while marked 
 by many characteristics which are common throughout the 
 country, has a legal organization peculiar to each state. 
 
 The dependence upon state authority which has thus 
 arisen has gone further than anything else towards the de- 
 velopment of a system and towards the equalization of 
 school privileges to the people of the same state. Naturally 
 indisposed to relinquish the management of their own 
 school affairs in their own way, the people have had to 
 bow to the authority of their states, in so far as the state saw 
 fit to assert its authority, because they could not act without 
 it, as counties, cities, townships and districts have no power 
 whatever to levy taxes for school purposes except as author- 
 ized by the state. They have become reconciled to the inter- 
 vention of state authority, moreover, as they have seen that 
 such authority improved the schools. 
 
 And the application of state authority to all of the schools 
 supported by public moneys of course makes them more 
 ahke and better. The whims of local settlements disappear. 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF SCHOOL SYSTEM 29 
 
 The schoolhouses are better. More is done for the prepara- 
 tion of teachers, and more uniform exactions are put upon 
 candidates for the teaching service. The courses of study 
 are more quickly and symmetrically improved. There is 
 criticism and stimulus from a common centre for all of the 
 educational work of the state. 
 
 The different states have gone to very diflFerent lengths 
 in exercising their authority. The length to which each has 
 gone has depended upon the necessity of state intervention 
 by the exercise of the taxing power, or of delegating that 
 power to subdivisions of the territory, and upon the senti- 
 ment of the people. In most cases it has been determined 
 by the location of the point of equipoise between necessity 
 and free consent. The state government has, of course, not 
 been disposed to go further than the people were willing, 
 for all government is by the people. The thought of the 
 people in the different states has been somewhat influenced 
 by considerations which arise out of their early history, but 
 doubtless in most cases it is predicated upon their later 
 experiences. 
 
 Of course, all the states have legislated much in refer- 
 ence to the schools, and there is scarcely a session of one of 
 the state legislatures in which they do not receive consider- 
 able attention. In all the states there is some sort of a 
 state school organization established by law. In practically 
 all there is an officer known as the state superintendent of 
 public instruction, or the commissioner of education. In 
 some there is a state board of education. In New York, for 
 example, there is a state board of regents and a state com- 
 missioner of education in general charge of all public 
 schools and of every educational activity of the state. This 
 oversight extends to libraries, admission to the professions, 
 and everything that the state does to promote the intellec- 
 tual uplift of the people. The board of regents exercises the 
 
30 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 powers of the state in legislating upon educational policies, 
 and appoints the commissioner of education who is the ex- 
 ecutive officer of the board. Aside from that, the commis- 
 sioner of education apportions the state school funds; he 
 determines the conditions of admission, the courses of work 
 and the employment of teachers ; he audits all the accounts 
 of the twelve normal schools of the state ; he has unlimited 
 authority over the examination and certification of teachers ; 
 he regulates the official action of the school commissioners 
 in all of the assembly districts of the state ; he appoints the 
 teachers' institutes, arranges the work, names the instruc- 
 tors, and pays the bills. He determines the boundaries 
 of school districts; he provides schools for the defective 
 classes and for the seven Indian reservations yet remaining 
 in the state. He may condemn schoolhouses and require 
 new ones to be built ; he may direct new furnishings to be 
 provided. He is a member of the board of trustees of Cor- 
 nell University. He may entertain appeals, by any person 
 conceiving himself aggrieved, from any order or proceeding 
 of local school officials, determine the practice therein, and 
 make final disposition of the matter in dispute, and his 
 decision cannot be " called in question in any court or in 
 any other place." 
 
 All this unquestionably provides New York with a more 
 complete and elaborate educational organization than that 
 of any other American state. There are some who think 
 that it is more elaborate and authoritative than necessary ; 
 that it unduly overrides local freedom and discourages in- 
 dividual initiative. It does not, but it is certainly excep- 
 tional among the states. Most of them undertake to regu- 
 late school affairs but very little. In the larger number of 
 cases the state board of education administers only the 
 schools maintained directly by the state, and the principal 
 functions of the leading; educational official of the state are 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF SCHOOL SYSTEM 31 
 
 merely to inspire action through his addresses and to gather 
 statistics and disseminate information deducible therefrom. 
 
 However, there can be no doubt about the general ten- 
 dency being strongly towards greater centralization. Not 
 only are its advantages quite apparent, but the overwhelm- 
 ing current of legislation and of the decisions of the courts is 
 making it imperative. These are practically in accord, and 
 are to the effect that in each state the school system is not 
 local, but general ; not individual schools controlled by sep- 
 arate communities, but a closely related system of schools 
 which has become a state system and is entirely under state 
 authority. Local school officials are now uniformly held to 
 be agents of the state for the administration of a state 
 system of education. 
 
 Widely dissimilar conditions lead different states to a 
 greater or lesser appreciation of their educational responsi- 
 bilities and make them more or less able or disposed to exer- 
 cise their legal functions to the full measure of their good. 
 Yet all are appreciating the fact that a constitutional, self- 
 governing state exists for the moral and intellectual advan- 
 tage of every citizen and for the common progress of the 
 whole mass. All are moving according to the Hght they 
 have, in fulfillment of wise public policy and constitutional 
 obligation. They have employed and will continue to em- 
 ploy different methods. Some will act directly through 
 state officials; some will delegate a large measure of 
 authority to local boards and officials so long as it seems 
 well ; but all have the highest authority, the supreme respon- 
 sibility in the matter, and under the influence of the later 
 .knowledge will rectify mistakes and take whatever new 
 steps may be necessary to carry the best educational op- 
 portunities to every child. 
 
 The federal government has never exercised any control 
 over the public educational work of the country. But it may 
 
32 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 be said with emphasis that that government has never been 
 indifferent thereto. It has shown its interest at different 
 times by generous gifts to education, and by the organiza- 
 tion of a bureau of education for the purpose of gathering 
 the fullest information from all the states, and from for- 
 eign nations as well, and for disseminating data to all 
 who may be interested. 
 
 The gifts of the United States to the several states to en- 
 courage schools have been in the form of land grants from 
 the public domain. In the sale of public lands the practice 
 of reserving one lot in every township "for the mainte- 
 nance of pubhc schools within the township " has uniformly 
 been followed. In 1786 officers of the revolutionary army 
 petitioned Congress for the right to settle territory north 
 and west of the Ohio River. A committee reported a bill in 
 favor of granting the request, which provided that one sec- 
 tion in each township should be reserved for common 
 schools, one section for the support of religion, and four 
 townships for the support of a university. This was modi- 
 fied so as to give one section for the support of religion, one 
 for common schools, and two townships for the support of 
 a "literary institution to be applied to the intended object by 
 the legislature of the state." This provision, coupled with 
 the splendid declaration that " religion, morality and know- 
 ledge being necessary to good government and the happi- 
 ness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall 
 forever be encouraged," foreshadowed the general dispo- 
 sition and policy of the central government and made the 
 "Ordinance of 1787 for the government of the Northwest 
 Territory " as famous as it was fundamental. The precedent 
 here established became national policy, and after the year 
 1800 each state admitted to the Union, with the excep- 
 tion of Maine, Texas, and West Virginia, received two or 
 more townships of land for the founding of a university. 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF SCHOOL SYSTEM 33 
 
 In 1836 Congress passed an act distributing to the sev- 
 eral states certain surplus funds in the treasury. In all 
 $28,101,645 was so distributed, and in a number of the 
 states this was devoted to educational uses. 
 
 But the most noble, timely, and carefully guarded gift of 
 the federal government was embodied in the land grant 
 act of 1862 for colleges of agriculture and the mechanic 
 arts. This act gave to each state thirty thousand acres of 
 land for each senator and representative in Congress to 
 which the state was entitled under the census of 1860, for 
 the purpose of founding " at least one college where the lead- 
 ing object shall be, without excluding other scientific and 
 classical studies, and including military tactics, to teach 
 such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and 
 the mechanic arts, in such manner as the legislatures of the 
 states shall respectively prescribe, in order to promote the 
 liberal education of the industrial classes in the several 
 pursuits and professions of life." This gift has been added 
 to by other congressional enactments, and the proceeds of 
 the sales of lands have been generously supplemented by 
 the state legislatures until great colleges and universities 
 have arisen in all of the states. 
 
 The work of the United States bureau of education is a 
 most exact, stimulating, and beneficent one. Without ex- 
 ercising any authority, it is untir ng and scientific in gather- 
 ing data, in the philosophic treatment of educational sub- 
 jects, and in furnishing the fullest information upon every 
 conceivable phase of educational activity to whomsoever 
 will accept it. Its operations have by no means been con- 
 fined to the United States. It has become the great educa- 
 tional clearing house of the world. The commissioners who 
 have been at the head of this bureau have been eminent 
 men and great educational leaders. Under such fortunate 
 direction the bureau of education has collected the facts 
 
34 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 and made most painstaking research into every movement 
 in America and elsewhere which gave promise of advantage 
 to the good cause of popular education. 
 
 So, while the government of the United States is not 
 chargeable under the Constitution with providing or super- 
 vising schools, and while it does not exercise authority in 
 the matter, it will be quickly seen that it has been steadily 
 and intelligently and generously true to the national in- 
 stinct to advance morality and promote culture by its in- 
 fluence and its resources. 
 
 Up to this time we have been treating of the American 
 public school system, using the term in its strictest sense. 
 We have been referring to the schools supported by public 
 moneys and supervised by public oflScers. Yet there is an 
 infinite number of other schools which comprise an impor- 
 tant part of the educational system of the country and are 
 of course subject to its laws. Any statement concerning 
 American school organization and administration, even of 
 the most general character, would be incomplete which did 
 not cover these ; but obviously it is not desirable in this con- 
 nection to do more than touch upon the relation in which 
 they stand, by common usage and under the laws, to Ameri- 
 can education. 
 
 In the first half of the nineteenth century many private 
 "academies" or "seminaries" sprang up in all directions 
 where the country had become at all settled. This was in 
 response to a demand from ambitious people who could not 
 get what they wanted in the common schools. Any teacher 
 with a little more than ordinary gifts could open one of 
 these schools upon a little higher plane than usual and very 
 soon have plenty of pupils and a profitable income. Many 
 of these institutions did most excellent work. Not a few of 
 the leading citizens of the country owe their first inspira- 
 tion and help to them. The larger part of these schools 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF SCHOOL SYSTEM 35 
 
 served their purpose and finally gave way to new public 
 high schools. Some yet remain and continue to meet the 
 desires of well-to-do families who prefer their somewhat 
 exclusive ways. A considerable number have been adopted 
 by their states and developed into state normal schools, and 
 not a few have by their own natural force grown into liter- 
 ary colleges. 
 
 The earlier American colleges were, in the beginning, in 
 a large sense the children of the state. Yale, Harvard, 
 Princeton, Columbia, were all chartered by and in some 
 measure supported by their states at the start, and are yet 
 subject to the law, though they have become independent 
 of such support. As their purposes are of the best, they 
 have become a law unto themselves. A vast number of 
 colleges has been established by the religious denomina- 
 tions for the training of their ministry, and, so far as pos- 
 sible, for giving all their youth a higher education while 
 keeping them under their denominational influence. 
 
 In recent years innumerable schools have arisen out of 
 private enterprise. Every conceivable interest has produced 
 a school to promote its own ends, which is accordingly ad- 
 justed to its own thought. So, professional, technical, in- 
 dustrial, and commercial schools of every kind have sprung 
 up on every hand. 
 
 All such schools operate by the tacit leave of the states 
 in which they exist. The states are not disposed to inter- 
 fere with them, as they ask no public support. Some of 
 them hold charters granted by the legislature, and more of 
 them secure legal standing by organizing under gen- 
 eral corporation laws enacted to cover all such enterprises. 
 In some cases the states distribute public moneys to some 
 of these institutions by way of encouragement, and perhaps 
 impose certain conditions upon which they shall be eligible 
 to share in such distributions. But ordinarily a state does 
 
36 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 no more than protect its own good name against occasional 
 impostors. 
 
 The tendency to regulate private schools by legislation, to 
 the extent at least of seeing that they are not discreditable 
 to the state, is unmistakable. New York, for example, has 
 prohibited the use of the name "college" or "university" 
 except when the equipment and endowment are sufficient 
 and the requirements of the state board of regents are met. 
 All of the reputable institutions — and they constitute 
 nearly the whole number — desire reasonable supervision, 
 for it certifies their respectability and constitutes them a 
 part of the pubUc educational system of the state. 
 
 An exceedingly important phase of the American school 
 system which distinguishes that system from any other 
 national system of education, and which has come to be 
 well established in our laws, must not be overlooked ; that 
 is, supervision by professional experts, both generally and 
 locally. 
 
 From the beginning the laws have provided methods for 
 certificating persons deemed to be quahfied to teach in the 
 schools. This has ordinarily been among the functions of 
 state, city, and county superintendents or commissioners. 
 Sometimes boards of examiners have been created whose 
 only duty should be to examine and certificate teachers. 
 The functions of certificating and of employing teachers 
 have, for obvious reasons, not commonly been lodged in 
 the same officials. Superintendents were early provided 
 for by law. The first state superintendency was established 
 by New York in 1812. Other states took similar action 
 in the next thirty years. Town, city, and county superin- 
 tendencies were afterward provided for. 
 
 The main duty of these officials in the earlier days was 
 to examine candidates for teaching, report statistics, and 
 make addresses on educational occasions. In later years, 
 
DEVELOPMENT OF SCHOOL SYSTEM 37 
 
 however, they are held in considerable measure responsible 
 for the quality of the teaching. In the country districts the 
 superintendents hold institutes, visit the schools, commend 
 and criticise the teaching, and exert every effort to promote 
 the efficiency of the schools. A discreet and active county 
 superintendent comes to exert almost a controlling influ- 
 ence over the school affairs of his county. 
 
 In the cities, and particularly the larger ones, the prob- 
 lem is much more difficult. There are many more 
 teachers, and the task of securing persons of uniform ex- 
 cellence is much enlarged. The schools are less homogene- 
 ous and instruction less easy. Frequently the superintend- 
 ent cannot know the personal qualities of each teacher, or 
 even visit all of the schools. The laws are coming to recog- 
 nize the responsibihties and difficulties of the superintend- 
 ent's position, and are continually throwing about that 
 officer additional safeguards and giving him larger powers 
 and greater freedom of action. The great issue that is now 
 on in American school affairs is between education and 
 politics. The school men are insisting upon absolute im- 
 munity from political influence in their work. Pure demo- 
 cracy has its troubles. The machinations of men who are 
 seeking political influence constitute the most serious of 
 them. However, the good cause of education against po- 
 litical manipulation is making substantial progress. The 
 statute books of all the states show provisions recogniz- 
 ing the professional school superintendent ; in many of the 
 states they contain provisions directing and protecting his 
 work; and in some of them they are beginning to confer 
 upon him entire authority over the appointment, assign- 
 ment, and removal of teachers, while they impose upon 
 him entire responsibility for the quality of the teaching. 
 
 It is this professional supervision, by states and counties 
 as well as by towns and cities, taken up almost spontane- 
 
38 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 ously at the beginning, and early established and compen- 
 sated by law, which has given the American schools their 
 pecuHar spirit. As intelligence has advanced and the peo- 
 ple have come to know the worth of good teaching and have 
 been unwilhng that their children should be associated with 
 teachers who have not the kindly spirit of a true teacher, or 
 be kept marking time by incompetents, they have favored 
 larger exactions and closer supervision over the teaching, to 
 the end that it might be in accord with the best educational 
 opinion. All this is yearly becoming more and more appar- 
 ent in the laws, and it is advancing the great body of Ameri- 
 can teachers along philosophical lines steadily and rapidly. 
 American teachers have always had freedom. Now they 
 are learning to exercise it, and they are being permitted 
 to exercise it only in accord with educational principles. 
 
 The American school system is a product of conditions in 
 a new land, and it is adapted to those conditions. It is 
 expressive of the American spirit, and it is energizing, 
 culturing, and ennobling that spirit. It is settling down to 
 an orderly and symmetrical institution, it is becoming sci- 
 entific, and it is doing its work efficiently. It exerts a telHng 
 influence upon every person in the land, and is proving 
 that it is supplying an education broad enough to become 
 the support of free institutions. 
 
Ill 
 
 THE FUNCTIONS OF THE STATE 
 
 In the complex system of government set up in the United 
 States, the sovereign authority is lodged in different places. 
 It always flows from the people. It is equably distributed 
 among the three great coordinate departments of both our 
 state and federal governments. It is divided exclusively be- 
 tween the governments of the states and the government of 
 the Union. Counties, cities, towns, districts, have no sover- 
 eign authority. So much of the sovereign authority as does 
 not rest with the general government does rest with the 
 states. As between the United States and the states, the 
 division is clean cut and is upon the basis of subjects. In 
 this division matters educational are left to the authority of 
 the states, and it logically follows that, upon such matters, 
 that authority is complete. 
 
 The United States is powerless to control and does not 
 assume to manage the educational interests of the people; 
 the states have full authority to do so. 
 
 Cities and towns and districts have no power in them- 
 selves to erect schools. The original theory that education 
 is a matter of private or parental concern was abandoned 
 with the advent of manhood suffrage, or as soon as the 
 power of the voter began to be felt. The later theory that 
 government might appropriately encourage education by 
 gifts, and ought to see that the children of the poor are given 
 the privileges of the schools, has been supplemented by the 
 broader and nobler theory that the state is bound to exercise 
 its sovereign prerogative to take so much of the property of 
 the people as may be necessary to provide the best educa- 
 
40 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 tional facilities which the world's experience has devised 
 for every child, not as a benefaction, but in satisfaction of 
 the natural and inherent rights of American citizenship. 
 And this is equally for the good of the citizen and for the 
 security of the state. The only instrument with which this 
 theory is or can be carried out is the sovereign power of 
 direct taxation, and that power vests in the state govern- 
 ment exclusively. 
 
 The power which can levy taxes is bound to see that the 
 taxes are wisely used to advance the common good. There 
 is a wide difference between the people of a local commu- 
 nity being a law unto themselves and being the supporters 
 and executors of a general pohcy of the state. There is 
 abundant play for "home rule" in wisely carrying out the 
 fundamental principles of the whole people. No home 
 rule can be accepted which is not in line with general rule 
 or is not wise rule; certainly this is true in matters edu- 
 cational. 
 
 The functions of an American state touching education 
 run into every instrumentality which makes for physical, 
 intellectual, and moral advancement in harmonious com- 
 pany. They have rapidly multiplied in recent years, and 
 they will continue to multiply. 
 
 It is fundamental, as we have already seen, that the state 
 is bound to see that a suitable elementary school is main- 
 tained within reach of every home, and, to have a suitable 
 school, a house must be provided which is sufficient and 
 which is hygienically above reproach. The school must be 
 in the hands of one who can teach, and its work must be in 
 harmony with such general plans as lead toward ideal re- 
 sults. This means much in the way of general authority, 
 and it points to an infinite variety of details. It involves the 
 making of plans, the nourishing of a system to its fullest 
 completeness and eflfectiveness ; and it involves the exercise 
 
THE FUNCTIONS OF THE STATE 41 
 
 of the power of general taxation and the right of local di- 
 rection. It makes necessary a knowledge of the world's 
 ripest experience touching schoolhouses, the training and 
 treatment of school-teachers, and the trend and quality of 
 school work. All this implies knowledge and powers which 
 are not to be supposed to be common in local communities, 
 for the knowledge is expert and the powers are general. 
 Unless the state is moving, the purposes of the state are not 
 being fulfilled. The state which is not inspecting and im- 
 proving its schoolhouses ; which is not preparing, regulating, 
 and advancing its teaching service; which ife not shaping 
 and stimulating and systematizing the work of its schools, 
 through a department of the state government, and through 
 universal expert supervision, to which it has given a dignity 
 of standing and authority sufficient to justify the theories 
 upon which its every act is taken, is a state whose govern- 
 ment is in hands that are nerveless, or whose people are 
 strangely and basely indifferent to the evolution of educa- 
 tional thought and to the stern logic of educational events. 
 It is the function of the state to define the platform upon 
 which the public schools stand and promulgate the theories 
 upon which they operate. It is to keep their territory free 
 from religious intolerance while it advances the common be- 
 lief in the reahty of a living and omniscient God. It is to 
 banish partisanship from the council chamber. It is to 
 train teachers. It is to let experienced teachers determine 
 the fitness of beginners. It is to lay stress upon spirit and 
 adaptation as well as upon readiness to answer troublesome 
 conundrums. It is to put teachers upon the merit basis ; let 
 the incompetent resign; absolve the successful from fre- 
 quent examinations and from competition with the worth- 
 less in the matter of pay ; assure them immunity from har- 
 assing annoyances, and guarantee them entire security of 
 position, while directing their intellectual activity and stim- 
 
42 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 ulatlng their moral sense so that the whole bod j may con- 
 tinually advance to a higher and yet higher plane of profes- 
 sional standing and usefulness. 
 
 It is to keep the work upon scientific lines, — anchored 
 to earth, yet abreast of the world's matured thought. It 
 should do things as well as discuss them. It should 
 make brain culture and spirit culture easier and more 
 far-reaching through the exercise of the eye and the use 
 of the hand, and it should dignify the manual industries 
 by putting a knowledge of good English and an appetite 
 for learning behind them. It should make the work of the 
 schools ethical as well as intellectual. They must know the 
 history and the traditions of the race, that they may inspire 
 respect for the institutions of human society. They must 
 know the value of free thought, but they must remember 
 that the quantity of real liberty which people enjoy is likely 
 to be proportioned to the quantity of restraint they will suf- 
 fer, if the schools would fulfill their mission and develop 
 respect for the law, while they impress upon youth the in- 
 valuable prerogatives of American citizenship and the aw- 
 ful responsibility of the exercise of governmental power. 
 
 Advanced learning has always been the forerunner of the 
 best elementary schools. It is not the lower schools which 
 sustain the higher schools, but it is the high schools which 
 lift up the primary and grammar schools. There are few 
 communities in America so benighted as to make no pre- 
 tense of sustaining some sort of an elementary school. It 
 may be a very poor affair, — afflicted with ignorance and 
 poverty in the country and encompassed with indifference 
 and politics and greed in the city ; but everywhere there will 
 be found some show of an elementary school. The problem 
 is to get that school upon a rational basis, put bad and un- 
 scientific teaching out of it, and make it a centre of life and 
 power. It is a great problem, because the people who are 
 
THE FUNCTIONS OF THE STATE 43 
 
 willing to accept anything in the name of teaching, and 
 who cannot discriminate between the good and the bad, are 
 innumerable. Many agencies must combine to solve this 
 problem, and of these the most effectual has been, and will 
 continue to be, a well-organized system of high schools, 
 surmounted by the colleges and crowned by the universi- 
 ties. The college and the university will fix the plane of the 
 high school, and the high school will, in turn, determine 
 the character of the elementary schools. 
 
 There is no more gratifying sign upon the field of Ameri- 
 can education than the extent to which the children of the 
 people are thinking of getting through the high school and 
 then going to college and the university. Despite the aid 
 which the national government has given to it, the higher 
 learning is the child of the sovereign power of the state, 
 rather than of the United States. The high schools are 
 more than likely to owe their existence or their vitality to 
 the inspiring oversight and the nourishing support of the 
 state, and, regardless of the national gifts, the state univer- 
 sities have resulted from the initiative, and are dependent 
 upon the support, of the states. And fortunate indeed is 
 the commonwealth which has statesmanship capable of 
 seeing that the way to build its future greatness is upon 
 foundations of liberal learning. 
 
 Upon principle, and as the result of experience, the state 
 is bound to give the school system independent autonomy. 
 There is nothing in the written law to prevent the lawmak- 
 ers of the state from using the board of aldermen to admin- 
 ister so much of the state educational system as relates to a 
 given city, but there is no lack of reasons against it. The 
 reasons against a mixed system of administration are no 
 less cogent than against school administration by the board 
 of aldermen exclusively. Indeed, it is unquestionably better 
 that some one shall have undivided authority and responsi- 
 
44 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 bility. There is no constitutional prohibition against the 
 state legislature assuming to require professors in state 
 universities and normal schools, and the conductors of 
 teachers' institutes, to pass examinations by the state civil 
 service board, whose function it is to pass upon the intel- 
 lectual acumen of candidates for clerkships in the depart- 
 ments ; nor is there any such prohibition against the super- 
 intendents, supervisors, and teachers in the great cities 
 being required to satisfy the minds of the municipal civil 
 service board, whose mission it is to see how patriots in 
 quest of municipal support can read and write and cipher. 
 But there is a prohibitory law of common sense in the way 
 of it. The proposition is absurd. Indeed, it is worse. It is 
 so vicious, so opposed to the spirit which must pervade the 
 schools — if they are to be worth the having at the present 
 cost — that the mere suggestion should call every intelli- 
 gent citizen to his feet. It is idle to mince matters. There 
 are some educational storm centres in the country, and 
 there are considerable areas where the indications are 
 threatening. The schools will be mere forms, deadening 
 instead of life-giving, unless the system is complete, unless 
 it stands upon its own footing and is independent of oppos- 
 ing forces, unless the different parts support one another, 
 unless there is a symmetrical whole resting upon the ne- 
 cessities and supported by the authority of the state, and 
 unless the whole is administered by genuine friends, who 
 are chosen because of their adaptation to the service, is 
 universally supervised by pedagogical experts, and is gener- 
 ally taught by professional teachers. 
 
 It is an important function of the state to equalize school 
 privileges throughout its jurisdiction. The state is also 
 bound to seek to equalize taxation for the ordinary running 
 expenses of the schools. Those who are educationally or 
 financially strong must be required to help the weak. The 
 
THE FUNCTIONS OF THE STATE 45 
 
 good results outside the state must be made known in it. 
 Good teachers in other states are to be encouraged to come 
 into it. The latest information is to be diffused, and the 
 best facilities extended in all directions, and all the property 
 of the state's population is to bear the expense as equitably 
 as may be, if there be common educational fellowship and 
 general intellectual advancement. It is particularly the 
 business of the state to insure this. 
 
 But the state has functions touching education which go 
 beyond the organization and administration of the public 
 schools, unless we include in the public school system, as 
 perhaps we should, the institutions of learning erected 
 upon private foundations and operated with the common 
 approbation. It goes without saying that the man or wo- 
 man whose wealth and sense have combined to establish a 
 college or university, without placing un-American condi- 
 tions upon the gift, is a benefactor of the state. Of course 
 such gifts are to be encouraged, and resulting institutions 
 are to be brought into sympathetic and cooperative rela- 
 tions with the general educational system of the common- 
 wealth. In better phrase, perhaps, they are to become part 
 and parcel of that system. The same may be said of legiti- 
 mate private educational enterprises, even though they may 
 be operated for gain. They may round out the state educa- 
 tional system to more perfect symmetry and completeness. 
 Benevolence or private enterprise can do things which are 
 very desirable in the educational work of a great state, but 
 which the taxing power cannot do. They are to be thanked 
 and their undertakings made effective. 
 
 But educational quackery is to be prohibited and pun- 
 ished; and educational quackery is running riot. The 
 frauds which are imposing upon the credulity and taking 
 the money of the people under high-sounding educa- 
 tional names should be closed up, and punished with a 
 
46 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 strong hand. All states may well follow the lead of New 
 York in fining and imprisoning people who use the title 
 "college" or "university," or who presume to confer the 
 time honored educational degrees, except with the appro- 
 bation of constituted educational authorities. The duty of 
 guarding the gateway to the learned professions, and of 
 putting a stop to the miserable attempts to build profes- 
 sional expertness upon little or nothing, is a duty which 
 rests upon the state. In short, it falls upon the sovereign 
 power to encourage the worthy and visit its wrath upon the 
 wicked, in educational as in all other directions. 
 
 The state has educational functions beyond the mainte- 
 nance of the schools. It is bound to help on whatever con- 
 tributes to the sound information and promotes the culture 
 of the people. Voluntary assemblages are to be encouraged. 
 Discussion and publicity are the safety valves of democratic 
 society. Home study is to be aided and guided. Local 
 libraries may well be subsidized, if need be, at least up to 
 the point where they can stand alone. The state which can 
 put a mark upon its map wherever there is a town or village 
 library, and find its map well covered, will take care of 
 itself. Art collections are upon the same footing as Ubra- 
 ries. That state is a great state whose leading public men 
 give genuine support, not a support born of ignorance and 
 the lack of courage to refuse, but a sympathetic support, to 
 scientific research, in the hope of still further breaking the 
 bonds of scientific truth and hastening the time when the 
 truth shall make the whole world free. That state will out- 
 run its neighbors which will give a strong and willing hand 
 to the good cause of industrial and decorative art. It is 
 peculiarly within the functions of the state to aid and pro- 
 mote architecture. Public buildings are worth more than 
 they cost, jobbery and all, if they are architecturally effec- 
 tive. What could not a state do for the common culture by 
 
THE FUNCTIONS OF THE STATE 47 
 
 making sure that every schoolhouse is erected upon ar- 
 tistic lines ? All this, and more, is clearly within the prov- 
 ince of the self-governing state. 
 
 One may ask if this does not savor too strongly of pater- 
 nalism, and leave little or nothing to the initiative of the 
 people. It has no flavor of paternal government about it. 
 There is no element of it which contributes to the support 
 of the people in any instance. It does not trench so much as 
 the breadth of a hair upon the sound doctrine that the peo- 
 ple must support the government and not count upon the 
 government to support the people. It leaves everything to 
 the initiative of the people. It interdicts nothing. Every 
 man is free to do what he will, if it is not inconsistent with 
 the common rights and opposed to the common weal. In- 
 deed, all acts of democratic government are upon the initi- 
 ative of the people. It inspires individual initiative and en- 
 courages every individual impulse toward the promotion of 
 the common good. It stands in the way of nothing but 
 ignorance and selfishness, and it stops nothing but in- 
 terference with the common interests by overgrown local 
 officialism. There is little danger that it will do that as 
 completely as may be desired. 
 
 The purpose of the American states certainly looks to the 
 common security ; but it looks infinitely further. In frame- 
 work and in object they are striving to afford the fullest 
 opportunity for individual improvement, and assure the 
 uniform intellectual and moral advancement of the whole 
 mass. Their constitutions are more representative of the 
 growth of constitutional freedom, and its resulting incen- 
 tives to the intellectual and moral evolution of the multi- 
 tudes, than any other written documents in the history of 
 the human race. Throughout the Union these constitutions 
 have marked similarity. Those of the newer states are, in 
 the essentials, modeled upon those of the older ones, and 
 
48 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 those of the older states, antedating the federal Consti- 
 tution, and of infinitely wider scope, were built upon 
 the great charters of English liberty. They were but- 
 tressed by the decisions of the English common-law courts, 
 and enlightened and enriched by the ideals of a God- 
 fearing people, with able and undaunted leaders, who did 
 their work in the midst of, or soon after, a successful war 
 for independence, and were, therefore, resentful of interfer- 
 ence and jealous of their prerogatives, and were moving 
 in a new land with no associations or traditions to place the 
 slightest limitation upon their action. Adopted directly by 
 the people, they are incapable of amendment except by 
 the vote of the people. In breadth and scope, in the spirit 
 which they manifest, and the opportunities for good which 
 they offer, there is nothing else in the written law of the 
 world, and never has been, to compare with them. They 
 open the way for the highest possibilities. The people of 
 these states may do whatsoever they think best for the com- 
 mon good, so long as they respect the rights of conscience 
 and give no special privileges to indi\aduals or to classes. 
 They are expected to do it because they have been given 
 the commission to do it. They are to do it in the only way 
 they have for assuring results, that is, by general plans of 
 their own, through executive officers and agents chosen as 
 they think best, and responsible directly to the state, which 
 is the exclusive possessor of the only power which can do it 
 at all. They will hardly consent to turn aside from doing 
 it because of personal or local objections, for they will be 
 likely to remember that, if the scope of our plan is unpre- 
 cedented, the measure of our ultimate success or our dismal 
 humiliation will be unprecedented also. 
 
IV 
 
 THE LEGAL BASIS OF THE SCHOOLS 
 
 The term "public schools" has a special and technical 
 meaning. It designates schools supported by general tax- 
 ation, managed by public officers, taught by teachers hav- 
 ing legal authority ; institutions in which all the people have 
 entire equality of responsibility and of right. It is the pur- 
 pose here to consider the constitutional, the statutory, and 
 the common law relations which these institutions sustain 
 to our system of government, to our civil organization in 
 its various departments, and to citizenship in the country. 
 
 The American public school is a unique institution. It is 
 true that some of its characteristics are from time to time 
 being copied in other countries. The common schools of 
 France and Germany are essentially free. But the distin- 
 guishing features of our public schools do not, and in the 
 nature of things cannot, obtain in other lands without revo- 
 lutionary changes in their systems of government and in 
 the thought of the people. The common schools of America 
 have been of gradual growth, and have come to their pres- 
 ent state only in recent years. That state has been evolved 
 out of the intelligence and the experience of our people as 
 well as out of the necessities of our plan of government. 
 We tax all people and all property for the support of our 
 schools, and we take the management of the schools into 
 the public hands for the protection of property and the 
 safety of the government. It is the outworking of our 
 democracy. 
 
 Civil liberty and self-government are dependent upon 
 the strength and successful operation of certain guaranties 
 
50 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 of rights and checks upon power which the text-writers call 
 "institutions." Each of these institutions has an autonomy 
 of its own, an individuahty and a completeness by itself. 
 Taken separately, these institutions will not avail much to 
 promote the public weal, but taken collectively, acting as a 
 system, they will support the temple of liberty. The more 
 of them there are, the more firmly will they support it. 
 Institutions spring from conscience and intelligence, and 
 are the result of years, frequently of centuries, of growth 
 and development. The more substantial they become, that 
 is, the more strongly rooted in the intelligence and con- 
 science of the people, the greater and the more enduring 
 will the liberty be. 
 
 Institutions do not ordinarily owe their existence to any 
 express law, but arise spontaneously out of existing condi- 
 tions and circumstances. In time, self-grown usage and 
 positive legislation mingle with each other in determining 
 their character and the scope and nature of their work and 
 influence. So it has been with our public schools. In the 
 beginning, the schools were purely private enterprises for" 
 gain, or were supported by charity, either private or pubUc. 
 As the population has advanced and become more and 
 more heterogeneous in character, the necessity of govern- 
 mental support and supervision has become more and more 
 manifest, until, by a gradual process, the schools have 
 reached their present status. That status is fixed and de- 
 fined by a body of laws, arising out of common custom and 
 long usage, written in the constitutions and statutes of the 
 country, construed and declared by the determinations of 
 authorized courts and ofiicers. 
 
 The schools or their concerns have not been in issue in 
 the federal courts to any extent and then only collaterally. 
 The only determinations of interest by the United States 
 courts, as fixing the status of the public schools, are those 
 
THE LEGAL BASIS OF THE SCHOOLS 51 
 
 construing the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, 
 known as the Civil Rights Clause. These decisions ex- 
 pressly recognize and declare the right and duty of the 
 states to provide for and manage schools, but hold that the 
 federal authority will intervene to insure equal advan- 
 tages to both races. It is held that the two races may be 
 provided for in separate schools, the classification being 
 left to state authority, so long as schools for colored chil- 
 dren are as good as those provided for whites. (Berton- 
 neau v. Directors, etc., 3 Woods, 177.) 
 
 In another case a United States court enjoined and for- 
 bade the payment to a school used exclusively for white 
 children of such portion of the state school moneys as was 
 apportioned upon the basis of colored children of school 
 age residing in the district. (Claybrook v. Owenboro, 23 
 Fed. Rep., 634.) 
 
 Again, where a city levied a tax for school purposes but 
 provided that money collected from whites should be used 
 only for white children's schools, and money collected from 
 colored persons, only for schools for colored children, the 
 result of which was to afford enlarged facilities for one class 
 as against the other, it was held that the arrangement was 
 in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment and unconstitu- 
 tional. Taxation must be equitable and facilities equal. 
 (Claybrook v. Owenboro, 16 Fed. Rep., 297.) 
 
 But only in the enforcement of the Civil Rights Clause 
 of the Constitution, and then only incidentally and for the 
 same reason that they would look into the acts of common 
 carriers, places of amusement or of entertainment, or any 
 other interest in which all inhabitants have common rights, 
 and by express provision of the federal Constitution are 
 entitled " to the equal protection of the laws," do the United 
 States courts take any cognizance of the management of 
 the pubhc schools. 
 
52 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 Upon the several states does our governmental policy 
 devolve the duty of supporting and supervising common 
 schools, and as the duty of the states to promote education 
 is declared in their constitutions, so the manner in which 
 they severally perform that duty is found in their statute 
 laws and in the decisions of their courts and officers. Even 
 a casual study of these brings out in the most interesting 
 way the different stages in the development of our free 
 public schools. By a gradual process of change, the tuition 
 fees have been abolished ; the idea of charity to such as 
 were unable to pay tuition has been discarded ; the high- 
 est power of the state has been exercised to raise taxes 
 for free schools ; the tax levy has been increased from time 
 to time in order to provide still larger accommodations 
 and still ^better equipment; and permanent funds have 
 been established and added to in order to protect against 
 any possible emergency. On the other hand, the super- 
 vision of the state has gradually become closer and closer. 
 It is destined to become much more so. The schools have 
 been related to one another under county or district super- 
 visory officers, and the whole body in the state has been 
 brought under the general supervision of state superin- 
 tendents or boards. The state determines the character 
 and the powers of the boards of education in the cities, 
 as it does the number and size of the districts in the 
 county. It controls the character of the buildings ; it says 
 who may teach and what shall be taught. It says who 
 may attend, and it frequently, also, says who shall at- 
 tend. It collects statistics for the guidance of its law- 
 makers, to the end that the whole system may be so di- 
 rected as to produce the best results for all the people. 
 
 It does not leave the matter to the uncertain care of local 
 communities. By a wise policy of local administration, in 
 full accord with our American self-governing way of doing 
 
THE LEGAL BASIS OF THE SCHOOLS 53 
 
 public business, it leaves certain matters to the qualified 
 electors, or officers chosen by them, in each city or dis- 
 trict, and thus it educates the people to self-government, 
 and ordinarily produces schools best suited to the needs 
 of each locality. But it leaves no more of this power to 
 each locality than experience shows it may with safety, 
 and not hazard its general policy to maintain schools in 
 character with its general system, free and accessible to 
 all the people. It encourages each locality to raise local 
 moneys for school purposes, but, through state school 
 funds, it makes sure that schools of its own creation and 
 subject to its own management shall dot the face of its 
 entire territory, whether they are enlarged and improved 
 by additional local taxation or not. 
 
 It is expressly declared that, while the schools are not 
 national, neither are they local institutions. Rather they 
 are state institutions, maintained and controlled by the 
 state that they may contribute to its greatness and the 
 happiness of all the people by assuring an education to 
 every one. 
 
 It is not only enunciated in a general policy which has 
 obtained in every commonwealth and found illustration 
 in common usage, but it is expressly declared in the statutes, 
 in the debates and acts of the lawmakers, and in the de- 
 cisions of the courts. The constitution of the state of 
 New York provides that no person shall be eligible to the 
 legislature who is "an officer under a city government." 
 A case in point is that of a member of the board of edu- 
 cation of the city of Albany who was elected to the legisla- 
 ture and whose seat was contested on the ground that he 
 was not eligible because of the constitutional provision 
 referred to. Although the charter of the city of Albany 
 enumerated members of the board of education among 
 the city officers, the legislative committee on privileges 
 
54 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 and elections, after the fullest argument by counsel, re- 
 ported unanimously that a member of a board of educa- 
 tion of a city was in no sense a city officer, but was an agent 
 of the state, engaged in carrying on the educational system 
 and policy of the state, and, therefore, not within the con- 
 stitutional limitation, and the report was approved in the 
 Assembly by all parties and without a division. 
 
 It has been held in the courts that the trustees of school 
 districts are neither city, county, town, nor village officers. 
 (People V. Bennett, 54 Barb., 480.) 
 
 In an action brought against the city of New York for 
 the acts of an officer of the board of education of that city, 
 it was decided in the court of last resort, after a stubborn 
 contest, that the city was not liable, as it had no control 
 over the board of education, and could not be held liable 
 for the acts of any of its officers or agents. (Ham v. The 
 Mayor, etc., 70 N. Y., 459.) 
 
 These are not isolated cases; there are many of them. 
 They are not peculiar to New York; the principle is the 
 same everywhere, and will be found enunciated in the judi- 
 cial decisions of all the states. 
 
 Then, too, the public schools of each state have become 
 related to one another in a common system or organization 
 maintained, supervised, and controlled by the authority 
 of the state government, pursuant to constitutional and 
 statutory provisions, with such additional local help as 
 the people of localities will voluntarily extend. They are 
 supported by general taxation, and are free to all children 
 within specified ages, and together form one of the institu- 
 tions which guarantee the liberties of a self-governing people. 
 
 The precise legal status of this institution in each state 
 is necessarily dependent upon the provisions of the sev- 
 eral state constitutions and statutes. It is, of course, not 
 possible in this connection to attempt any examination, 
 
THE LEGAL BASIS OF THE SCHOOLS 55 
 
 in detail, of these different systems of laws. The differ- 
 ent states inherited a common jurisprudence. Naturally 
 enough they have extended it along the same general lines. 
 Legislation has been copied. Like conditions beget similar 
 legislation and similar construction and interpretation of 
 the same. The school laws of the newer states have been 
 largely copied on the models furnished by the older ones, 
 and the decisions of the older have been commonly ac- 
 cepted in the newer. Therefore, there are certain prin- 
 ciples common to the entire country, which may be set 
 forth as fixing and defining the legal status of the public 
 schools. Indeed, it may be said that the laws concerning 
 the school system of the country have a completeness in 
 themselves; that the system stands upon its own basis 
 and has an autonomy peculiar to itself. 
 
 Persons charged by law with the management and su- 
 pervision of the schools have authority to do all things 
 necessary to promote the general purpose of the system. 
 Subject to special statutory provisions, which vary but 
 little in the main, they may provide buildings, purchase 
 supplies, certify and employ teachers, fix the time of ses- 
 sions, regulate the attendance of and classify pupils, de- 
 termine the course of instruction each pupil must pursue, 
 and do whatever else is incidental to the attainment of the 
 general object of the institution. The schools do not stand 
 helpless before the demands of individual parents. Patrons 
 must conform to the system and not expect the system to 
 conform to their individual whims. It must be assumed 
 that the school system is more likely to determine rightly 
 the mental development of the child, and is better quali- 
 fied than the parent to say what classes it should enter and 
 what studies it should pursue. If the particular teacher 
 to whom the subject is presented falls into error, the ave- 
 nue of appeal to the highest school authority is wide open. 
 
56 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 The parent who brings his child to the pubHc school must 
 submit him to the arrangement and discipline of the school. 
 Attendance of reasonable regularity and proper punctual- 
 ity may be expected, and the child must be free from con- 
 tagious diseases and in such a state of cleanliness as not 
 to be injurious or obnoxious to other pupils, or he may 
 be debarred from the privileges of the school. So, too, 
 may a child be refused admission to the school, who is 
 so vicious or morally impure as to be beyond control or 
 likely to corrupt the lives of his associates. The thing al- 
 ways to be kept in view is the interest and advantage of 
 the great body of pupils who come in condition, physically 
 and morally, fit for association with others, or who can be 
 brought to such condition without the help of either the 
 board of health or the police. The operations of these de- 
 partments must be kept upon their own ground. If the 
 school regulations, written or unwritten, are unreasonable, 
 they may be called in question in the appropriate place 
 and overridden ; if the school system itself requires modi- 
 fication, it may be brought about either by legislation or 
 election, as changes are ordinarily made in our public 
 affairs in this country. But until modifications are made, 
 the system as it is must be respected, and its regulations 
 must be observed by all persons seeking its advantages 
 or in any way coming in contact with it. 
 
 On the other hand, the school system has responsibility 
 and liability as well as authority. It is bound to provide 
 suitable school buildings ; that is, buildings suited to their 
 uses, and constructed and maintained with reference to 
 the health and comfort of pupils. The public cannot as- 
 sume the care of children in its schools without exercising 
 caution in protecting them from physical harm. Discipline 
 may be maintained by force if need be in places where 
 a better way has not yet been learned. The common law 
 
THE LEGAL BASIS OF THE SCHOOLS 57 
 
 of the land has always recognized the right of school au- 
 thorities to inflict corporal punishment, and this rule has 
 not yet been much interfered with by statute, although it 
 has been to some extent by authorized local regulations. 
 But where such punishment is inflicted, it must not be ex- 
 cessive or brutal, or it becomes an assault which may be 
 avenged both by the civil and criminal law. School officers 
 ate subject to the same general rules of law as apply to 
 all official conduct, though it must be admitted that they 
 very commonly manifest a deplorable amount of igno- 
 rance of the fact. They cannot be personally interested in 
 any agreement or understanding to which they are offi- 
 cially a party, without violating the criminal law. They 
 are personally liable for any exercise of authority beyond 
 that conferred upon them, as they are also for any loss 
 to their city or district by reason of neglect of official duty. 
 If this fact causes any surprise, it is only because of the 
 extreme leniency with which school officers have been 
 treated. Indeed, the legal liability of the public school 
 system, its officers and teachers, is much greater than is 
 generally understood, and must inevitably be still greater 
 in the future, as the institution settles into more orderly 
 and systematic methods of procedure, when its powers 
 and obligations must become more thoroughly fixed and 
 more completely enunciated and understood. 
 
 The public schools stand in precisely the same relation 
 not only to every citizen, but to every inhabitant of the 
 land. What the high seas are to the sailor, what the king's 
 highway is to the landsman, the public schools are to every 
 child on the road to knowledge. Equality of obligation in 
 maintenance, and equality of right in enjoyment, is 
 the legend which the law would write across the front 
 of every public schoolhouse. This road to learning is the 
 common property of a people differing widely in intelli- 
 
58 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 gence, in traditions, in opinions, in morals, in means, in 
 creeds ; differing even in the power to improve their condi- 
 tions, and the power to influence circumstances about 
 them. But no matter what one's rank or station, no mat- 
 ter whether the president of a railway or the man who 
 watches the track, no matter with what church he wor- 
 ships or whether he worships at all, no matter whether a 
 republican or a democrat, his legal obligations and his 
 legal rights are as fixed and as inviolable in the schools as 
 upon the public highway. In each case he must help make 
 the road for all; in each case he must put nothing in it 
 which will prevent or interfere with another's use ; in each 
 case he must use it in a way consistent with like use by all 
 the rest. 
 
 Even more than this. The law forbids anything in con- 
 nection with the public schools, which invalidates or 
 abridges any of the rights of citizenship or of domicile 
 guaranteed by our other American institutions. Moral 
 development must inevitably accompany intellectual 
 growth in training humanity for good citizenship. Every 
 influence of the school-room promotes moral growth. A 
 system which commands regularity and punctuality and 
 cleanliness and studiousness and obedience; which exacts 
 politeness and generosity towards associates and respect 
 for authority; which arouses ambition and inspires cour- 
 age; which exalts the truth and is administered with jus- 
 tice ; which rests upon the hearts of a Christian people and 
 reaches up into the realms of heaven, can, in its beneficent 
 operations, produce nothing less than moral growth and 
 development. The theologians will tell us that there is no 
 sound morality which does not rest upon religious truth. 
 It is safer for a layman to admit than to dispute it. If they 
 are right, then the school system rests upon a foundation 
 of religious truth. 
 
THE LEGAL BASIS OF THE SCHOOLS 59 
 
 In any event, further than this the public cannot go. 
 The high governmental power which levies and collects 
 taxes cannot be invoked to promote or repress the inter- 
 est of any section of the population, for any purpose less 
 than the highest good of all. If the people will divide into 
 sects, and they always will, then the special interests of 
 each sect must be promoted by its own eflFort and at its 
 own cost. 
 
 If it be asked why this high power should be invoked to 
 compel the support of a public school system when some 
 sects or denominations object to educating their children 
 in commofi schools and assert their desire and ability to 
 assume the burden of such education, the answer is ready 
 and it is this : it is not deemed prudent to leave the support 
 and control of the schools to any power short of the govern- 
 ment itself. It is not public policy to promote class and 
 sect distinctions, but to build up and consolidate a homo- 
 geneous people. Any division of educational responsibility 
 along sectarian lines, or any failure to maintain public 
 schools by the government and for all the people, pro- 
 motes class interests, makes vicious teaching possible, 
 endangers entire lack of school facilities in some quarters, 
 leads away from our cherished traditions and our confi- 
 dent belief. The public school is the logical and necessary 
 sequence of our American plan. It is the essential accom- 
 paniment of our other institutions. This is the deliberate 
 conclusion of our people as declared in the words and in 
 the manifest spirit and purpose of our law. 
 
 It is an obligation resting upon government, as upon 
 individuals, to foster and encourage all good works, of which 
 education is by no means the least. But such is not the 
 only relationship in which the public school system stands 
 to the government in this country. Its life is dependent 
 upon no such uncertainty as the faithful discharge of a 
 
60 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 moral obligation, either by individuals or that aggrega- 
 tion of individuals called the government. It is warp and 
 woof of our governmental system as much as the franchise, 
 the judiciary, the post-oflBce, the militia, or the internal 
 revenue service. In a legal sense, as well as a moral one, 
 it is deemed more important than many of our other insti- 
 tutions, for some of them could be dispensed with, while 
 this one is believed vital to the endurance of a social organ- 
 ization where the "will of the people is the law of the land." 
 It rests upon conscience, and is the outcome of experience 
 and forethought. It has a completeness by itself. It is 
 hedged about by a system of laws, already well defined, but 
 continually becoming more complete, harmonious, and sub- 
 stantial. These laws impose equal obligations and pledge 
 equal privileges. The system has all the power requisite 
 to the attainment of its general purpose ; that is, the perma- 
 nence of the state through good and intelligent citizenship. 
 It may draw from the people the means for its support, 
 and it may make all lawful regulations conducive to the 
 desired results. It has responsibility as well as authority, 
 a moral responsibility, perhaps above any other branch 
 of the public service, and a legal accountability no less 
 exacting than any other. Supported by all, and free to the 
 use of all, there must be nothing about it to which any 
 can object for conscience' sake, and each must use it so 
 as not to interfere with Hke use by all the rest. 
 
ILLITERACY AND COMPULSORY 
 ATTENDANCE 
 
 Some one has said that America is a country where no one 
 is compelled to do anything. Certain it is that the demo- 
 cratic temperament is so universal in America that com- 
 pulsory processes, save for interests that are generally 
 thought to be imperative, are extremely difficult of execu- 
 tion. This difficulty has been met wherever the effort has 
 been made to secure or to enforce laws requiring attend- 
 ance upon the schools. The cause is not to be attributed 
 to any indifference to the importance of education, for 
 in no land has the public recognition of this been more 
 common or the provision for it been more universal and 
 munificent ; the trouble has arisen from the disinchnation 
 of legislators and administrative officers to compel the peo- 
 ple in anything which is not clearly seen to be vital to the 
 pubHc safety. So marked has this been that practically all 
 effort to require general and regular attendance at school 
 was left to the officers and teachers until the labor organi- 
 zations came to their assistance for the purpose of lessen- 
 ing the competitions with adult labor in the shops and the 
 factories as well as for assuring schooling to the children 
 of the wage earners. 
 
 It is more than fifty years since school attendance laws 
 were first enacted in this country, but not until very re- 
 cently have they begun to take form which would make 
 them effective. Commonly they have declared the duty 
 of the citizen to send his children to school and the duty 
 of the state to assure schooling to every child, but they 
 
62 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 have not fixed the ages within which all children must be 
 in school, they have not required lists of all children in 
 order to know that all are accounted for, they have not 
 given point to the fact that a parent who robs a child of 
 an education merits punishment until he wull be glad to 
 perform a parent's and a citizen's duty, and they have 
 not provided oflBcers seriously charged with the execution 
 of attendance laws and punished them for failure to per- 
 form their duties. 
 
 Public sentiment not only produces statutes, it is pro- 
 duced by them. The common thought of the masses is 
 guided and seasoned by legislative enactments. If those 
 enactments seem rational, if they spring from world ex- 
 perience and are sustained by the opinions of publi- 
 cists and statesmen, they are accepted by the people. If 
 such enactments are executed with steadiness and uni- 
 formity they consolidate sentiment and fix the common 
 thought of the country. This process has been going on 
 for many years in other lands less democratic than ours, 
 until we are confronted with the serious fact that in many 
 other countries the attendance upon the schools is 
 not only far more general than here, but the necessity 
 of schooling is much more universally recognized by the 
 masses. 
 
 The bureau of statistics at Berlin determines that of all 
 the recruits in the German army in 1903, but one in 2500 
 was illiterate. In Sweden and Norway it was but one in 
 1250 ; in Denmark, one in 500 ; in Switzerland, one in 166 ; 
 in Holland, one in 40; in France, one in 16. In 1902, in 
 England and Scotland, one man in 40 and one woman in 
 40 were unable to write their names when married. In 
 other words, it seems that there are more than four times 
 as many illiterates in the United States as there are in Eng- 
 land and Scotland, and infinitely more than there are 
 
ILLITERACY 63 
 
 in Denmark, Sweden and Norway, and the German Em- 
 pire. 
 
 It is probably the fact that in Germany the law is so 
 exact in its provisions and so uniformly enforced, and has 
 therefore become so universally believed in by the people, 
 that in the city of Berlin, with a million and a half of 
 people, there are not at any time ten children out of school 
 when they ought to be there. 
 
 The necessity of having children in school has been 
 inbred in the life and thought of the German people. 
 All their plans are made to conform to it. The enforce- 
 ment of laws or royal decrees for a long time has trained 
 the common sentiment and resulted in a universal usage. 
 It is thought as necessary to have children go to school 
 regularly as to have them eat regularly. 
 
 A fair beginning has just been made in this direction in 
 America. Not only has a substantial advance been made 
 in very recent years in the way of new legislation, but the 
 necessities of the matter are being much more clearly 
 recognized and the principles which must be incorporated 
 in an attendance law to make it effective are much more 
 generally understood. 
 
 In the United States, Florida, Maryland (except the 
 city of Baltimore), Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas 
 have no school attendance laws whatever. 
 
 Arkansas and Georgia, in their child labor laws, forbid 
 the employment of any child under eighteen in the one 
 case and under sixteen in the other, unless he shall have 
 attended school twelve weeks during the previous year. In 
 Alabama no child between twelve and sixteen shall be 
 employed unless he shall attend school for eight weeks 
 in every year of employment. 
 
 The law of North Carolina exempts eleven counties by 
 name, and is optional elsewhere upon a referendum vote 
 
64 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 by township or school district. The law of Virginia is 
 optional upon a referendum vote by county, city, or 
 town. 
 
 Georgia has a special referendum law applying to 
 Richmond County, North Carolina has a special law apply- 
 ing to Goldsboro township in Wayne County, and Tennes- 
 see has two special laws applying to Campbell and Scott 
 counties, respectively. 
 ^ Thirty-eight states and two territories have compulsory 
 attendance laws which are more or less effective. In 
 practically all the states children from the age of seven 
 or eight to that of fourteen, fifteen, or sixteen, are required 
 to attend school for a portion or the whole of the school 
 year. In Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, 
 New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Dakota, Ohio, 
 Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Washington; in 
 cities of the first class in Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky; 
 in all city school districts of Nebraska and Michigan ; in 
 St. Louis, Missouri, and in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the 
 attendance within the required ages must be during all the 
 time that the schools are in session. In New York it must 
 be for eight months in all school districts having a popu- 
 lation below five thousand. In each city or in each school 
 district having a population of five thousand or more, and 
 employing a superintendent of schools, attendance is re- 
 quired during the entire period that the schools are in 
 session. In Wisconsin, outside of Milwaukee, the period is 
 eight months in the cities and six months in the rest of the 
 state. In Vermont it is twenty-eight weeks. In California, 
 it is five months, of which eighteen weeks must be con- 
 secutive. In Utah it is twenty weeks, of which ten must 
 be consecutive. In Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Iowa, 
 Michigan, outside of the cities, Nebraska, except city school 
 districts, Nevada, Virginia, South Dakota, and North 
 
 ^MUc( y^A^^vJ^ t ^Vvu^,<XI~^'V^'»^ 
 
ILLITERACY 65 
 
 Carolina it is from twelve to eighteen weeks. In Kentucky 
 outside the cities it is eight weeks. In Delaware the period 
 is five months, which the authorities of a school district may 
 reduce to not less than three. In Oklahoma the period is 
 from three to six months in the discretion of the local 
 school board. In Wyoming the period is six months. 
 
 In the states having such laws violations are punished 
 by fines varying from two dollars to one hundred dollars 
 in amount. In California, Delaware, Indiana, cities of 
 Kentucky, in Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, 
 New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, 
 Utah, Wisconsin, and Wyoming, the offender may be 
 imprisoned. In New York, Delaware, Massachusetts, 
 Pennsylvania, and Washington, the school moneys may be 
 withheld from a city or district which neglects to enforce 
 the law. 
 
 About four fifths of our American illiterates were born, 
 or their parents were born, among the most unfavored 
 people of the Old World. But that fact must not lead us to 
 suppose that we have but few illiterates born in this coun- 
 try. The fact is, that in many of our states we have more 
 illiterates whose parents are natives than those whose 
 parents are foreign born. In New York in 1900 there 
 were 29,188 of the former, and 18,162 of the latter. And 
 New York is not at all exceptional. 
 
 The more advanced states are beginning to provide for 
 an enumeration of children of school age in order to supply 
 information as to who should be in school, and also for 
 special officers whose duty it is to see that all are accounted 
 for. 
 
 A noticeable difference between the compulsory attend- 
 ance laws in America and in the more advanced European 
 nations is that with us attendance within specified ages 
 is required, while with them the attendance must con- 
 
66 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 tinue until a specified measure of educational proficiency 
 is proved to the satisfaction of school officers. 
 
 There is no doubt of effective attendance laws reducing 
 illiteracy. The comparisons between the European nations 
 themselves, as well as between our states and the European 
 nations, are exceedingly interesting; and the comparisons 
 of one American state with another are no less so. In Italy 
 with no law in force, the percentage of illiterates above 
 twenty years of age is fifty-two, while in France with an 
 effective law, it is less than five. In Russia with no law, 
 it is sixty-one per cent, while in Holland with a good law, 
 it is two per cent, and in Sweden and Denmark it is less 
 than one per cent. In Spain it is sixty-eight per cent with 
 no law, and in England with a stringent law, the percen- 
 tage of illiteracy almost disappears. 
 
 Of course, other factors than compulsory attendance 
 upon school enter in some degree into the measure of illit- 
 eracy in a state, but there can be no doubt about systematic 
 and enforced school requirements being the overwhelming 
 factor. The following figures taken from the United States 
 census of 1900 are conclusive : — 
 
 Percentage of illiterate voters in states having compul- 
 sory attendance laws : — 
 
 California 
 
 6.2 
 
 Nevada 
 
 12.8 
 
 Colorado 
 
 4.1 
 
 New Hampshire 
 
 7.9 
 
 Connecticut 
 
 6.8 
 
 New Jersey 
 
 6.9 
 
 Idaho 
 
 5.4 
 
 New York 
 
 5.9 
 
 Illinois 
 
 4.8 
 
 North Dakota 
 
 5.4 
 
 Indiana 
 
 5.6 
 
 Ohio 
 
 4.8 
 
 Iowa 
 
 2.7 
 
 Oregon 
 
 4.8 
 
 Kansas 
 
 3.4 
 
 Pennsylvania 
 
 7.7 
 
 Kentucky 
 
 18.8 
 
 Rhode Island 
 
 9.2 
 
 Maine 
 
 6.4 
 
 South Dakota 
 
 5.0 
 
 Massachusetts 
 
 6.4 
 
 Utah 
 
 3.7 
 
 Michigan 
 
 5.5 
 
 Vermont 
 
 7.9 
 
 Minnesota 
 
 4.1 
 
 Washington 
 
 3.4 
 
 Missouri 
 
 7.0 
 
 "West Virginia 
 
 12.9 
 
 Montana 
 
 6.1 
 
 Wisconsin 
 
 5.5 
 
 Nebraska 
 
 2.5 
 
 Wyoming 
 
 4.3 
 
33.7 
 
 Mississippi 
 
 33.8 
 
 20.0 
 
 North Carolina 
 
 29.4 
 
 14.0 
 
 South Carolina 
 
 35.1 
 
 22.1 
 
 Tennessee 
 
 21.7 
 
 31.6 
 
 Texas 
 
 15.4 
 
 37.6 
 
 Virginia 
 
 25.3 
 
 12.5 
 
 
 
 ILLITERACY 67 
 
 Percentage of illiterate voters in states without compul- 
 sory attendance laws : — 
 
 Alabama 
 
 Arkansas 
 
 Delaware 
 
 Florida 
 
 Georgia 
 
 Louisiana 
 
 Maryland 
 
 The proportion of illiterates is smaller than it used to be. 
 In 1870 there were 200 illiterates to each 1000 of popula- 
 tion ; in 1880 there were 170 ; in 1890 there were 133 ; in 
 1900 there were 107. 
 
 The states of Kentucky, Nevada, and West Virginia 
 in the first table above may seem exceptional. They are 
 really not so, for their compulsory laws are new or not 
 enforced. The chief educational officer of Kentucky has 
 officially said : " In the rural districts the law is almost 
 a nullity." Similarly it has been said of Nevada: "The 
 law has never been enforced. It is sometimes used to scare 
 foreigners. As it now stands it is a dead letter. We cannot 
 force the legislature to amend it." Of West Virginia it 
 has also been said : " The law is new and not yet fully 
 developed." The evidence seems conclusive that the sen- 
 timent of a state determines the percentage of illiteracy, 
 and the best proof as well as the necessary instrument 
 of a healthful public sentiment is a compulsory attendance 
 law which compels. There will, of course, be special 
 circumstances, like the presence of large cities, or of a large 
 body of recent immigrants, or of particularly hard economic 
 conditions, but ordinarily it may be said with entire confi- 
 dence that a low rate of illiteracy and effective compul- 
 sory attendance upon the schools will be found to be 
 companions in the same state. 
 
 Much has already been done in Europe to assure the 
 
68 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 attendance of defective children; that is, the deaf, dumb, 
 and blind, while practically nothing has been done in that 
 direction in America. Much provision has been made for 
 them in the more advanced states, but their attendance 
 has not been made obligatory to any extent. 
 
 If we expect to find a larger percentage of illiteracy in 
 the cities than in the country, we must be disappointed. 
 The percentage of illiteracy in New York city, and in our 
 other large cities, is less than in many rural counties, and 
 is not greater than in the average rural county. The per- 
 centage of ilHterates who are American born is much 
 larger in the country than in the cities. Indeed, there are 
 few if any rural counties which show so small a percentage 
 of native illiterates as the largest cities show. The city and 
 county of New York has a smaller percentage of ilHter- 
 ates who are the children of foreign born parents than any 
 other county in the state of New York. 
 
 This may indicate how much more convenient the 
 schools are in the city than in the country, and how much 
 better the school attendance and child labor laws are 
 enforced in the cities than in the country ; but it also indi- 
 cates that immigrant parents in the cities voluntarily send 
 their children to school more regularly than do native born 
 parents living in the country. 
 
 The facts clearly show that illiteracy is less prevalent 
 in cities of more than 25,000 inhabitants than in smaller 
 cities. They show that illiteracy is more common above 
 twenty-five years of age than between ten and twenty-five. 
 Illiteracy among children is rapidly decreasing in all sec- 
 tions of the country. 
 
 There is more illiteracy among women than men, but 
 the difference is growing less, and it seems probable that 
 before long there will be more among men than women. 
 
 Our American states are spending much more money for 
 
ILLITERACY 69 
 
 popular education than is spent by the same number of 
 people in any other country in the world. Why do we have 
 so many unlettered people above ten years of age, and par- 
 ticularly why do we have so many more than in England, 
 Scotland, Holland, Switzerland, Norway, or Germany? 
 
 The answer to this question is not very difficult. There 
 are at least three reasons for it : — 
 
 First. We are now receiving vast numbers of immi- 
 grants from countries where illiteracy is very prevalent. 
 It has not always been so. We formerly got most of our 
 immigrants from the more intelligent countries of the Old 
 World. Now we are getting most from the less favored 
 nations. Although there is no reason for fear that their 
 children cannot be educated and assimilated, both parents 
 and children do add much to our percentage of illiteracy. 
 But we get many immigrants from countries having less 
 illiteracy than we have. One class somewhat offsets the 
 other. It is hard to know what to do with illiterates who 
 want to come to America from other lands. It is difficult, 
 perhaps wrong, to deny them the privilege of coming, but 
 clearly the matter requires much attention. 
 
 Second. We undertake more in our schools than other 
 nations do in theirs, but the leading nations of Europe 
 do what they undertake much more generally and com- 
 pletely than we do. In other words, in Europe there are 
 classes and much caste. The people who have made and 
 who execute the laws have not reasoned that every child 
 ought to have a chance to get a liberal education, but they 
 have reasoned that for the good of the nation every child 
 must be required to go to school regularly between about 
 six and fourteen years of age, that he may be sure of an 
 elementary education. 
 
 Third. School attendance laws are enforced more sys- 
 tematically and completely in many other countries than 
 
70 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 in America. Unhappily, the common sentiment of America 
 does not sustain the enforcement of laws requiring the 
 attendance of children at school, as the common sentiment 
 of many other countries does. We have much more free- 
 dom in this country than many other countries have, but 
 we have more false ideas about freedom than many of 
 them have. There is the pinch. 
 
 Much depends upon the importance which in the popu- 
 lar mind attaches to the matter of sending children to 
 school, and that in turn depends very largely upon what 
 the government does. 
 
 It cannot be assumed that all parents wish or are even 
 willing that their children shall go to school. There are 
 parents who are idle and criminal and are without any in- 
 terest in the well-being of their children and in the welfare 
 of the state. There are parents who are neither idle nor vi- 
 cious, but who are so lacking in outlook that they will keep 
 their children at work without cause, when they should be 
 in school. And there are still other parents whose necessi- 
 ties are real and overcome any interest they may have in 
 the schooling of their children. Of course there are many 
 children who are without parental care and interest. 
 
 In all such cases it is the imperative function of the state 
 to intervene and not only see that the child has the training 
 which his living in this country gives him as his natural 
 right, but also that he is saved from being a load upon 
 other people, and is prepared to carry his share of the 
 burdens of the state and contribute his share to the pros- 
 perity and greatness of the state. 
 
 Experience has shown conclusively enough the steps 
 by which alone this may be accomplished. Speaking gen- 
 erally they may be enumerated as follows: — 
 
 1. There must be a registration of all children and of 
 their ages. 
 
ILLITERACY 71 
 
 2. All within fixed ages must be in school or accounted 
 for. 
 
 3. They must be in school at all times when the schools 
 are in session. 
 
 4. Absence of children within the attendance limits of 
 age must be for none but imperative reasons satisfactory 
 to the attendance officers, such as sickness or physical, 
 disability, or they must be able to satisfy school officers 
 that they are proficient in the work which children within 
 the attendance age may be expected to acquire. Doubtless 
 it would be even better if the only excuse for absence, aside 
 from physical inability, should be proficiency in work 
 rather than the attainment of an age limit. 
 
 5. Parents or legal guardians must be held responsible 
 for attendance, and neglect must be punished by fine at 
 first and then by imprisonment sufficient to emphasize the 
 seriousness of the offense. 
 
 6. Special officers must be charged with the execution 
 of attendance laws. They must operate upon a well or- 
 dered system. They must be sufficiently compensated to 
 enable them to be respected and must be vested with 
 powers which will cause them to be regarded. They must 
 account for all children within the prescribed ages. They 
 must be authorized to enter shops and factories where 
 children are employed and apprehend employers who vio- 
 late the school and labor laws. They must cooperate with 
 teachers to reduce truancy to a minimum, and they must 
 initiate proceedings to punish parents or guardians who are 
 delinquent. 
 
 7. Attendance laws must apply evenly to all parts of 
 the state, country as well as city. 
 
 8. Attendance officers must be subject to the direction 
 and discipline of the general officers of the school system. 
 
 The uniform habit of having all children in school is 
 
7^ AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 somewhat inherent and also somewhat dependent upon eco- 
 nomic conditions. It is acquirable where it is not common. 
 It will be acquired and become fixed under the steady and 
 persistent demands of the state. It is imperative to the 
 security of government, and the strength of it will measure 
 the true greatness of a people. Illiteracy may be steadily 
 and surely reduced by systematic policy, and the state 
 which has the most heterogeneous or indifferent popula- 
 tion, and which goes furthest in reducing illiteracy, should 
 have the place of highest honor and respect in the American 
 republic. 
 
 Compulsory attendance upon American schools is as 
 yet in its earliest stages, but a good start has been made, 
 public sentiment is ripening, and the movement must ad- 
 vance until it covers the land with very considerable uni- 
 formity and is enforced with very general effectiveness. 
 
 Surely the people of the United States are not willing 
 to admit that we are permanently to have more ignorant 
 men and women in this country than they have in other 
 civilized countries. 
 
 Perhaps there is a factor in this problem that springs 
 out of English and particularly out of American history, 
 and lies deep down in the nation's caution and self -con- 
 sciousness. Americans are fundamentally opposed to any 
 unnecessary meddling with their affairs by the government. 
 They have always had great confidence in a resourceful- 
 ness which seems able to meet any actual peril when the 
 time comes. They attach the greatest importance to the 
 free chance for every one. 
 
 It now appears as if it is quite as important to look after 
 the rights of those who cannot look after their own rights 
 to an elementary education as to hold out to the few the 
 opportunities for an advanced education. If it is no more 
 important, it is as important. And it will be a crowning 
 
ILLITERACY 73 
 
 glory to our republican system if the nation will put away 
 its youthful vanity, submit with cheerfulness to the regu- 
 lations which really enlarge liberty, deepen the common 
 respect for the law by enforcing it, meet difficulties in 
 practical ways, and make certain that all of its children 
 have the elements and instruments of knowledge as well as 
 that the stronger ones have the chance to scale the moun- 
 tain peaks of learning. 
 
 Summed up, we offer more schooling to all children 
 than most other peoples do, but we are less forceful in 
 requiring all children to be able to read and write than the 
 better educated peoples are. We lay greater stress upon 
 the rights of the child to all grades of learning than most 
 other nations, but we do less to make certain that he learns 
 to read and write than many nations do. We have ordi- 
 narily based our educational policies upon the need of pro- 
 tecting the suffrage and the safety of the Republic. There 
 is little real danger. We can rise to almost any exigency. 
 But ought we to invite exigencies ? And above all, ought 
 we not to assure every child the elements of knowledge and 
 the implements of decent living, no matter what sort of 
 parents he may have ? Is not that one of the very highest 
 ends of democratic as much as of monarchial government ? 
 
VI 
 
 THE CRUCIAL TEST OF THE PUBLIC 
 SCHOOLS 
 
 Our public school system is in recent years being put to 
 its crucial test in our large cities. The question is up 
 whether the schools shall cease to represent all the people 
 of the great cities ; and the security of the public educational 
 system of the country rests upon the determination of that 
 question. The statement may seem unwarrantably strong. 
 For the sake of clearness it may be well to look at the 
 question directly from the point of view of the citizen. 
 There is a public school within reach of every home in a 
 given city. All residents, with or without children, have 
 to support it. It is wholly managed by public authority. 
 Education is compulsory. Having children, you must send 
 them to this school regardless of its defects, or you must 
 pay twice by sending them to a private one which you think 
 competent to teach them, if such can be found. This 
 school is to be tested by trial. Your children commence 
 attendance. In a little time you find that attendance cannot 
 be regular and long-continued without the impairment of 
 health. Investigation shows that there is reason enough for 
 this. There is not enough breathing space and sunlight. 
 There is too close contact with other children, who are un- 
 clean. The hygienic conditions are bad. It is a struggle 
 between the life of your child and unhealthful surround- 
 ings. You are a fool, or worse, if you do not bear a hand in 
 that struggle and take care of the most precious possession 
 the Almighty has permitted to come into your keeping. 
 Or, you may find that the teacher is unworthy of com- 
 
TEST OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 75 
 
 panionship with a well-bred child, and incapable of teach- 
 ing him. The child may know many things which it is 
 very important to know, better than the teacher knows 
 them. The child may shrink from association with the 
 teacher for reasons which one may readily see; or, the 
 teacher may be a good enough person, and ordinarily is, 
 and yet may not know how to teach. You have learned 
 something of what teaching is. You know that before 
 a child can be taught he must come into agreeable and 
 self-respecting relations with the teacher, and you see that 
 this is impossible. You know, also, that before the school 
 can be of any permanent advantage to the child, there 
 must be originality, elasticity, and freedom on the part of 
 the teacher, and you see that these are either not present, 
 or not apparent. 
 
 The situation preys upon your mind. Your child is 
 involved. Its physical and mental health is at stake. 
 You seek redress. Going to the teacher, you see that she 
 is not disposed, or is not allowed, to hold much converse 
 with you. She refers you to the principal. He means 
 rightly, but does not view things through your end of the 
 telescope. He resents your imputations, or is powerless to 
 give you relief. You go to the superintendent. At times 
 he can help you, and if he can he will ; but again, he would 
 have to walk right into the jaws of official death to redress 
 your wrongs. He has met many another on a similar er- 
 rand. He sympathizes with you. He will treat you with 
 civility, with patience, and with diplomacy. You may rely 
 upon it that he will refrain from telling you all he knows. 
 Your troubles grow and your exasperation waxes yet 
 stronger. You go to the members of the board of educa- 
 tion, only to find that they doubt your allegations, shuffle 
 out of the responsibility, and are unable or unwilling to 
 afford relief. 
 
76 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 By this time you have realized that there are some 
 serious difficulties encompassing the public school system, 
 and that the officers of the schools are further from the 
 citizen's reach than you had supposed. It is much more 
 of a matter than you had imagined to secure public in- 
 struction for your child under conditions which will pro- 
 mote his physical, mental, and moral health. You may 
 be able to pay twice for his schooling, but you are not able 
 to submit serenely to an imposition inflicted in the name 
 of all that is good by a government which you have always 
 supposed you had a part in directing and which you be- 
 lieved rested upon a basis of justice to all. This will lead 
 you to think a little more deeply. You must have some 
 rights in this matter. Not only taxation and representation 
 go together ; taxation and rights go together. And what is 
 the right of the citizen in the public schools ? It certainly 
 is not the mere privilege of paying for their support, or of 
 voting for persons who select other persons who appoint 
 still other persons to manage the business and teach the 
 schools. The sum of the citizen's right in the schools is to 
 have the business managed prudently and wisely, and the 
 children taught sensibly and scientifically. And when this 
 right is violated and there are no adequate and ready 
 means of redress, the system is in danger of breaking, and 
 it ought to break. 
 
 The officers and teachers of the schools will say and 
 think that such troubles are not common, but citizens of 
 intelligence who give these matters attention, and parents 
 who see the results of the schools in the lives of their chil- 
 dren, will say that they are common. The point of vision 
 necessarily has much to do with the outlook. It would be 
 better if the points of vision could be exchanged now and 
 then. The troubles indicated are not rare in large cities. 
 They are so common that they have already exerted a 
 
TEST OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 77 
 
 powerful influence to drive the well-to-do people out of 
 relations with the common schools. And by the well-to-do 
 is not meant the independently rich, but the great, self- 
 respecting, comfortable class, who earn their living and 
 pay their debts, who have made homes which are both 
 dependent and independent, and who give substance and 
 balance to the social and governmental organization. If 
 the time comes when the common schools are sustained 
 only or mainly to keep the slums from destroying us, then 
 the character of the schools and the chief glory of the 
 American plan of government and of education will be 
 gone; for that plan contemplates the intellectual and 
 moral advancement of the whole mass quite as much as 
 individual and physical security. If we permit the schools 
 to become the schools of the poor alone, we permit what 
 we have struggled heroically to prevent since the beginning 
 of the government, — what in each generation we have 
 succeeded in preventing through radical changes in our 
 plans and theories. It would be un-American to believe 
 that we shall not succeed again; but mere assurance of 
 success does not remove the danger. The causes for the 
 present educational conditions in many of our great cities 
 may be briefly stated : — 
 
 1. The conditions of life become more diversified and 
 more intense in the great cities, and it is therefore more 
 diflScult to hold the children in common association. 
 
 2. The demands upon a teaching force, by reason of the 
 large schools, the widely different circumstances of the 
 children, the many branches taught, and the better know- 
 ledge of many parents as to what constitutes good teach- 
 ing, are much greater than in smaller places ; while the diffi- 
 culties in the way of securing a teaching force of adequate 
 teaching power and reasonable social standing are also, 
 unfortunately, greater. 
 
78 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 3. The multiplication of numbers in the teaching force, 
 and particularly the extent to which inexperienced and un- 
 prepared persons are received into it, and the practical 
 impossibility of getting rid of inefficient teachers, make it 
 necessary to impose severe limitations upon the freedom 
 of the whole force in order to prevent the poorer ones from 
 doing harm. This stifles individuality, which is the essence 
 of good teaching. 
 
 4. The amount of money paid to support the schools of 
 a great city sharpens the cupidity of the non-productive 
 sponges and cormorants of society. There is greater oppor- 
 tunity and keener appetite for plunder. The spirit of misrule 
 common in the municipal government in our large cities 
 springs from social and political conditions. The people 
 are a little more generous and alert about the manage- 
 ment of the schools than about the business affairs of 
 their city housekeeping, but the same general conditions 
 affect the schools. 
 
 5. The plan of organization and the system of adminis- 
 tration have become altogether inadequate for interests of 
 so great magnitude. The business has outgrown the organi- 
 zation for managing it. In primitive times affairs may be 
 managed without much regard to fundamental principles, 
 because every one has knowledge of what is going on, and 
 mistakes can be quickly seen and corrected ; but it is not so 
 in great enterprises. In our great city school systems there 
 is little distinction between legislative and executive func- 
 tions, no centralization of responsibility and accountability. 
 Novices are toying with high powers of government and 
 managing vast properties, before which the most experi- 
 enced and conservative stand in awe. There is but little 
 appreciation of the difficulties of developing a competent, 
 right-spirited, self-respecting teaching force, and the temple 
 is often profaned by money changers. The organization 
 
TEST OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 79 
 
 is so constituted that it resists the contributing citizen 
 looking for live teaching for his children, more than the 
 poor unfortunate who is in quest of a place, or the politician 
 who is looking for plunder. 
 
 Of course many of these troubles arise at once out of 
 the money question. A given city may be expending 
 millions of dollars each year upon its schools. The wise 
 and safe expenditure of this money, so that it shall se- 
 cure the ends which the people who give it have the 
 right to demand, places a tremendous responsibility 
 somewhere. The business operations incident thereto 
 are involved and innumerable. Integrity, expertness, ex- 
 perience, and alertness are all imperative, or the money 
 is filched, and the ends for which it was raised are de- 
 feated. The city owns millions upon millions of real es- 
 tate devoted to school purposes. It is putting in millions 
 more each year. It is difficult for some men to care for a 
 small interest in real estate where their own self-interest 
 is sufficient to make them attend to it. How infinitely 
 more involved is the problem of maintaining in good 
 physical and healthful condition hundreds of buildings 
 subject to the hard usage which falls upon schoolhouses ! 
 Then, there is the matter of selecting new sites and 
 erecting new buildings. The first calls for ripe judgment 
 as to the probable directions of the city's growth ; the last 
 calls for alertness, disinterested public service, and per- 
 sonal sacrifice on the part of good men to prevent fraud 
 and secure to the people what belongs to them. The 
 whole business is encompassed by self-seekers. 
 
 If it is difficult to manage the business of the schools, 
 it is infinitely more so to secure life-giving instruction. 
 It is strange that we need to remind ourselves now and 
 then that the end for which the schools exist is not to gratify 
 contractors or provide places, but to supply instruction. If 
 
80 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 anything has stood in the way of the fullest development 
 of the schools, it has been apparent readiness to accept 
 everything that passed under the name of instruction ; and 
 the most gratifying sign in the educational heavens is the 
 closer discrimination with which the people are beginning 
 to look upon what is done in the schools. And when the 
 people begin to determine the differing values of instruc- 
 tion they come to the great question of the organization 
 and supervision of the teaching force. 
 
 There are more persons who want to teach school than 
 there are schools to be taught. All the world sympathizes 
 with the young people who are trying to be respectable 
 and are looking for honorable employment. All the 
 well-disposed will help such persons to places when they 
 can, without much reference to adaptation to position. 
 They think, and not strangely, that the other people must 
 look out for that. This is markedly so if the young person 
 is a woman. 
 
 One course or the other must be taken in regard to the 
 teaching service of the public schools. Indifference on the 
 part of the people will readily encourage church politicians, 
 club politicians, school politicians, or politicians who are 
 not described by a qualifying adjective, neighbors, friends, 
 or relatives, to push people with no aptitude and little 
 preparation into teachers' positions. Culture and social 
 standing may be overlooked ; intellectual nourishment and 
 inspiration may not be afforded the teaching force; a life 
 tenure may be promised to all who get in, regardless of 
 qualification or spirit ; and the teachers may be left without 
 control to combine for selfish ends and defy the best sen- 
 timent of the people whose most precious interest they 
 are ostensibly chosen to promote. The result of such a 
 course is perfectly clear. With the passing years there 
 will be no growth in scholarship, or general culture, or 
 
TEST OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 81 
 
 force of character, or disciplinary power, or teaching abil- 
 ity. Without such growth there can be, of course, no 
 public school progress. Iron-clad rules will be imposed to 
 keep up a show of authority and prevent marked excesses, 
 but the schools will have little vitality a,nd less respect, 
 the teaching will be perfunctory and artificial, and matters 
 may be expected to grow worse and worse, with no hope of 
 better conditions. 
 
 On the other hand, admission to the service may be 
 guarded, the common thought may be directed and in- 
 spired, compensation may be determined upon expertness 
 of service, and promotion upon the basis of merit, the in- 
 efficient and undeserving may be expelled, and the whole 
 vast enterprise enveloped in a professional atmosphere, 
 and energized with pedagogical life. Then rules may be 
 relaxed and originality encouraged without danger. Then 
 it may be expected that the spirit of the force will improve ; 
 that the teachers will stand higher in the sentiment of 
 the city ; that there will be kindness in the management and 
 life in the instruction ; that the children will be fascinated, 
 and that their minds and souls will thrill with new life, 
 which will be felt in the homes and give substantial and 
 enduring support to the better life of the city. 
 
 There is no problem of larger proportions than that of 
 supervising and leading a teaching force numbering thou- 
 sands of persons. The object is not to secure some good 
 teaching, for that could hardly be avoided. It is to prevent 
 all bad teaching. This depends upon the individuality of 
 each teacher and the harmony and enthusiasm of the whole 
 body. The superintendent's office must know the qualities 
 of every teacher in the system. High school diplomas, 
 college diplomas, normal diplomas, give but inadequate 
 assurance of good teaching. Adaptation is all-important; 
 the spirit is vital. The superintendent's office must not 
 
82 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 only inspect, it must lead. It must be considerate and 
 sympathetic, helpful and inspiring. It must have authority 
 and it must act justly. Appointments, and promotions, and 
 dismissals must be made with a clear head, a kind heart, 
 and a strong hand, without fear or favor, but with a deter- 
 mination to prevent all bad teaching and lift the whole 
 force to the highest plane possible. It is truly surprising 
 how the common sentiment of a teaching force fixes the 
 status of each of its own members, and how surely that 
 sentiment knows whether the acts of officials spring from 
 merit or from influence. In one case the force will be with- 
 out energy, self-confidence, steadiness, or public respect. 
 In the other case it will be characterized by fraternal re- 
 spect and mutual regard, and it will show power and ver- 
 satility, which will uplift the life and shape the character 
 of the city. 
 
 All this cannot be brought about in a day. It cannot be 
 effected without a radical change in plan and organization. 
 The whole plan must be rearranged so that the citizen 
 who finds a child in an unwholesome school-room, or under 
 a clumsy or dyspeptic teacher, can go down town and 
 find the man who is responsible for it, and who can cure 
 the trouble in a day. It must be so readjusted that officials 
 shall be required to do things which they may be supposed 
 to be capable of doing, and kept from meddling with mat- 
 ters about which they know little and cannot learn much 
 for years. The system must be so organized that officials 
 of whom great things are expected will have opportunity 
 and encouragement to do good work, and will be able to 
 see the results of capable and conscientious work and get 
 some substantial reward therefor in the esteem of the 
 people about them. 
 
 There is no good reason why our large cities should not 
 save money in school expenses and at the same time see 
 
TEST OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 83 
 
 the physical condition of their property improve, the finan- 
 cial statement look healthier, and the teaching advance in 
 quality and tone, if they make a school organization in 
 accord with the principles which the world's experiences 
 have shown to be imperative to the conduct of all good 
 enterprises and then enforce the rights of the people who 
 are interested in those enterprises. 
 
 To realize such a result in any large city very specific 
 steps should be taken. First, the school board should be 
 a legislative body only and have no executive functions. 
 It should not be so large in numbers as to become a public 
 debating school. It should be representative of the whole 
 city, and by no committee assignments or other official 
 action should members become interested in, or represen- 
 tative of, one section more than another. It should legislate 
 upon the policy and general development of the school 
 system, and it should control, in a general way, the expen- 
 ditures, so far as to make provision for the buildings and 
 their care, and for a needed number of teachers and their 
 suitable compensation. All of its acts should be expressed 
 by resolutions in its published records. But it should have 
 nothing to do with letting contracts or making appoint- 
 ments, at least beyond seeing that expenditures are within 
 appropriations, and beyond naming its own clerk and the 
 best available men for heads of the two great executive 
 departments in which all details of administration should 
 be separated ; one to manage the business affairs and the 
 other the instruction. The terms of the heads of these 
 departments should be long and perhaps indefinite, and 
 their powers should be wholly independent and fully pre- 
 scribed by statute. 
 
 The business department should have charge of all the 
 property interests of the system. It should make the 
 contracts and see to their execution, appoint janitors 
 
84 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 and remove them, and be held responsible for the condi- 
 tion of the property. The head of this department should 
 be a business man of good experience and well-known 
 independence and probity, who is strongly sympathetic 
 with the noble ends for which the public schools stand. 
 
 The department of instruction should be headed by 
 a superintendent who is an expert in pedagogical science 
 and in administration. He should have absolute power 
 of appointment, assignment to position and removal of 
 teachers, and suflficient assistance to have full and constant 
 knowledge of what is being done in every school-room in 
 the city. Whether the law provides for it or not, the super- 
 intendent and his assistants are likely to act as a board. 
 This board will not be a body dangerous to the liberties 
 of a free people. There will not be one chance of their 
 doing injustice to a teacher, to a hundred chances that they 
 will leave undone disagreeable things which should be 
 done in the interests of better teaching. The superintend- 
 ent and his advisers should be placed in dignified posi- 
 tions. They should be men and women with a teacher's 
 kindly nature and spirit, who are capable of upholding 
 the dignity of their profession, and they should be as secure 
 in their positions as are the members of the supreme court 
 of the state. 
 
 The affairs of the school should be wholly separated from 
 municipal business, and the school organization should 
 have no connection whatever with municipal politics. 
 There is no ground for any connection between the two. 
 The public school system rests upon the taxing power of 
 the state, and that is wholly within the control of the law- 
 making power. The school system is a state system ad- 
 ministered in the American fashion through representatives 
 chosen by the people in their local assemblages, or in any 
 other way the state may direct. But these officers do not 
 
TEST OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 85 
 
 cease to be representatives of a state system, as was pointed 
 out in the discussion of the legal basis of the schools, and 
 there is every reason why their tenure and their powers 
 should be wholly independent of municipal boards and 
 officers. 
 
 How the school board shall be chosen is a vital ques- 
 tion in education. If such a plan of organization as has 
 been outlined is adopted, the question loses some of its 
 significance, however. Troubles in school administration 
 seldom come from the presence of vicious characters on 
 school boards ; they arise from a confusion of powers and 
 prerogatives, and from a disposition which men seem to 
 have, to direct matters the most about which they know 
 the least. When powers are based upon principles, the 
 troubles will largely disappear. Nevertheless, according to 
 the Greek maxim, "No law is a good law unless it has 
 good executors." It is for the people of each community 
 to ask the legislature to open the way which promises to 
 result in the selection of citizens as members of the board 
 of education who are representative of the thrift and 
 energy, the best thought and the higher life of the city. 
 
 In a word, any city is to take the general course which 
 experience leads all intelligent people to take concerning 
 the administration of great enterprises, in order to justify 
 the theories upon which they are acting, and make sure 
 of the ends for which they are striving. All business must 
 be done upon a business basis. The administrative organ- 
 ization of the city school system must be built on bed-rock 
 principles ; needed authority must be conferred upon school 
 officials by law ; they must be given positions of character 
 and dignity and security, and they must be removed if 
 they do not meet all their obligations. There are men and 
 women who will not scramble for these positions, but who 
 would fill them capably and conscientiously; and they 
 
86 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 can be found. It is for the substantial sentiment of the 
 city to tear down social, religious, political, and all other 
 kinds of fences, bring contributing citizens together, lay 
 aside everything but the common good, make plans which 
 are scientific, and find representatives to carry them out. 
 The one great aim of the public school system, as it is 
 well to recall, is to hold us together, to secure the safety of 
 a wide-open suffrage, and to assure the progress of the 
 whole population. Child study, entrance requirements, and 
 all the other things which are discussed often in educational 
 conventions are only incidental. The law-making power 
 is to enable the people to educate themselves. The public 
 school system is our protection. In the light of the world's 
 experience our experiment in government is a vast under- 
 taking. History does not record a similar experiment which 
 has been permanently successful. The public school sys- 
 tem is the one institution which is more completely repre- 
 sentative of the American plan, spirit, and purpose than 
 any other. It can continue to be the instrument of our 
 security and the star of our hope only so long as it holds 
 the interest and confidence of all the people by assuring 
 the rights of every one to the best teaching, and by moving 
 the mass to higher intellectual and moral planes. 
 
VII 
 
 UNSETTLED QUESTIONS 
 
 The purpose and organization of the American school 
 system has been pointed out ; its relation to the state and 
 its legal status have been indicated; and some general 
 problems have been discussed. There are certain funda- 
 mentals which it may well be said are settled by common 
 thinking and by universal acceptance. It is inevitable, 
 however, that there will at all times be problems con- 
 fronting the American school system. The purpose is here 
 to disclose the reality of some of them without sustain- 
 ing with arguments one view or the other. 
 
 It is an open question how much initiative and control 
 shall be exerted by the state and how much shall be left 
 to the locaHty, concerning the schools. Of course, since 
 the public school system has come to be supported by 
 taxation and the power of taxation cannot be exercised 
 except by the sovereign authority of a state, there is no 
 question about the state having ample power to do what 
 it will about the schools. But there is very serious question 
 about the measure of direction which the state ought to 
 impose. People learn to do by doing. An officer bearing 
 the appointment and exercising the authority of the state 
 may know more about educational organization and ad- 
 ministration than a local school meeting or local official 
 may be expected to know, or, knowing, may be able to do. 
 He may do things better than will be done without him. 
 Yet, if he initiates and supervises everything, the people 
 will come to depend upon him, and will invariably look 
 to the state to do what would broaden and strengthen them. 
 
88 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 if they would do for themselves. On the other hand, people 
 need educational advice from the outside. It often hap- 
 pens that a community thinks that it has the very best 
 schools, when it has almost the worst. The difficulty is 
 that it cannot see, and of course it cannot do. How are 
 state control and local self-initiative and administration to 
 be balanced with the best results t 
 
 Very akin to this question is another, as to the measure 
 of money which the state should provide for the support 
 of the schools, and the amount which should be left to 
 each city, town, or district to supply. In many states the 
 support of the schools is left altogether to the locality. 
 In others a very considerable sum is distributed annually 
 on some basis which requires the stronger sections to aid 
 in some measure the weaker ones, and so to equahze educa- 
 tional advantages over the state. The city of New York, 
 for example, pays annually about a million and a half of 
 dollars to aid other sections of the state which are finan- 
 cially weaker. Of the legal competency of the legislature 
 to exact this there can be no question. Of the substantial 
 aid to the rural districts of the state there is no doubt. 
 But people are never satisfied with the amount of money 
 which they get for nothing. The more they get the more 
 they demand, the more they come to depend upon it, and 
 the less they will be willing to raise for themselves. It is 
 clear that'in education the stronger and wealthier sections 
 of a state ought to help the weaker and poorer ones. But, 
 in justice to themselves, the weaker ones should not be 
 allowed to take all they would. How are the state and the 
 local support to be adjusted so as to assure the best schools 
 in every section and promote the highest interests of an 
 entire commonwealth ? 
 
 Again, if the state is to raise and distribute funds for 
 the support of local schools, how is the distribution to be 
 
UNSETTLED QUESTIONS 89 
 
 adjusted as between the primary, secondary, and higher 
 schools ? There are some precious souls who, if they are 
 in favor of anything educationally, think they are for the 
 "three R's" exclusively, or, at most, are for anything be- 
 yond the "three R's" only when the need of their being 
 for it has wholly passed away. Yet a mere abihty to read 
 and write and cipher does not now sustain intellectual 
 life and democratic institutions anywhere in this country ; 
 and, moreover, the excellence of the primary schools is 
 dependent upon the prevalence and efficiency of the sec- 
 ondary schools. But the secondary schools are more costly 
 than the elementary schools, and the higher are ijiore 
 expensive than the secondary. How is the state to use its 
 power so as to balance the school system, assure an equi- 
 table distribution to the different grades, and so secure 
 the best results which wisdom can devise ? 
 
 Yet again, how is the teaching force to be made the best 
 possible ? There are more who want to teach than there 
 are places. The pay is not large, but the work allows 
 considerable leisure and satisfies pride. The unprepared 
 ones are to be shut out. But who are prepared and who 
 are unprepared ? Some who know less of what is found 
 in books than others are better teachers than the others. 
 Surely, some who are not very successful in passing 
 examinations are acceptable teachers. Some definite 
 scholastic attainments are necessary, according to grade. 
 Some general culture is imperative, regardless of grade. 
 Some professional training in educational theory and in 
 teaching methods is requisite. Then there is the matter 
 of spirit, and finally of adaptability. But this refers to 
 the individual teacher. How is the morale of the whole 
 force to be uplifted ? It cannot be done through indiffer- 
 ence and inattention. It will not move forward of its own 
 motion. It cannot be done through political officers who 
 
90 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 know less themselves than they are bound to exact of the 
 teachers. It cannot be done through examinations alone, 
 and it cannot be done without examinations. It cannot 
 be done with a rush, and it cannot be done through harsh- 
 ness to worthy and deserving teachers. It is a matter of 
 sound plan, steadily followed for a long time. How is the 
 plan to be determined upon, and by what method is it 
 to be carried to a meritorious conclusion ? 
 
 Then there is always the unsettled question of competent 
 supervision. The office of school superintendent is an 
 American creation. In other constitutional countries the 
 schopls do not attempt as much as ours do; the teachers 
 are men with life tenure who follow the instructions of the 
 government minister of education in all things; the work 
 is routine; the habit of attendance by young children in 
 primary schools is universal ; there is no mixing of classes 
 and no articulation of schools, and the results, as has been 
 observed, place the percentage of illiteracy lower than in 
 this country. With us the curriculum is long and diversified ; 
 all classes of children are instructed in the same schools ; 
 our teaching force is changeable, not so professional in 
 character and often overtaxed. In a measure difficulties 
 have been overcome by general supervision. But the really 
 professional superintendent is largely without legal author- 
 ity, and the political superintendent, who often survives in 
 the rural districts, is frequently without professional effi- 
 ciency. Generally speaking, wherever there is a profes- 
 sional superintendent he is subject to an unprofessional 
 board which is not without self-confidence in all that con- 
 cerns the schools. In a word, we have to contend with the 
 disadvantages of democratic government, and that fact 
 sometimes obscures the other fact, particularly to teachers, 
 that there are more advantages than disadvantages in 
 government by the people. 
 
UNSETTLED QUESTIONS 91 
 
 The legal and authoritative prerogatives of school super- 
 intendents, both in city and country, are unsettled matters 
 in American education. Under the prevailing conditions, 
 and conditions which are inherent and not quickly to be 
 changed, supervision is highly important. It is not too 
 much to say that the value of the instruction is very de- 
 pendent upon its professional qualities and thoroughness. 
 Aptness in supervisory leadership is not wholly dependent 
 upon the same qualities which make for effectiveness in 
 teaching. Then how are we to get adequate training and 
 experience in a sufficient number of men and women to 
 supply the needs ? And how are we to treat superintendents, 
 concerning functions, responsibilities, and compensation, 
 so as to secure and retain, in supervisory positions, true 
 manliness and real womanliness, enriched by the qualities 
 which vitalize professional leadership, and without mere 
 pretense and form.? 
 
 To be a little more specific, what are to be the standard 
 attainments of superintendents ? How much are they to 
 have to do with appointing or removing teachers, with 
 framing courses of instruction, with adopting textbooks, 
 with determining disputes, with regulating the progress 
 of pupils, and with developing the morale, and spirit, and 
 power of the schools? How are they to be saved from 
 humiliation by directors and trustees who have legal 
 prerogatives but no knowledge of the delicate and per- 
 plexing matters involved in the administration upon 
 modern lines of mixed and ambitious schools? How is 
 there to be any supervision worthy of the name in the 
 country districts ? With the new means of transportation 
 and communication, is it not pretty nearly time to elimi- 
 nate the " rural school problem" altogether, to take a more 
 advanced position concerning the professional standing 
 of the rural superintendent or commissioner, and to make 
 
92 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 supervisory districts in the farming sections of a size which 
 will permit real superintendence and enable all the teachers 
 to come in once a month and sit around a table for dis- 
 cussion and for instruction ? Surely, these are unsettled 
 questions which will have to be worked out slowly in the 
 further evolution of our public school system. 
 
 The size of the school district in the farming regions 
 has been much in discussion for several years. From the 
 settlement of the country, the school district outside of 
 the towns has been small enough to place a schoolhouse 
 within walking distance of every home. To be sure, the 
 walk has often been a long one, but the whole world is 
 relative, and it has not seemed so long to those who had to 
 make it as to the less hardy people in the cities. As fast 
 as the country was settled, or the distance became imprac- 
 ticable by reason of new homes, another district was created 
 and a new schoolhouse built. Now there is something 
 of a movement to make larger districts by consolidating 
 districts, carrying the children to and from school when 
 necessary, in order to have larger schools, more elaborate 
 buildings, and graded courses of instruction. This move- 
 ment has not, by any means, gone so far as to become a 
 policy. Many arguments have been adduced in its favor. 
 The ones opposed have not been much presented. They 
 cannot be fully brought forward here. But such questions 
 as the following are surely not impertinent in this con- 
 nection : — 
 
 Are we altogether certain that a large school is better 
 than a small one, or a graded than an ungraded one ? Is 
 not the essential difference in the teaching and in the 
 supervision, and may not efficient instruction be assured 
 in the small country district by a course less open to ob- 
 jection ? 
 
 Is it, considering the exigencies of carriage and of 
 
UNSETTLED QUESTIONS 93 
 
 weather, well to require young children to go farther 
 from home than is imperative? 
 
 Is it better to centralize and complicate administrative 
 machinery, with the necessary delegation of the authority 
 for maintaining the schools from the people in primary 
 assemblages to their representatives and officials, or to keep 
 control as close to the people as possible and in the simplest 
 forms compatible with efficiency? May not the district 
 school be expected to meet the circumstances and the 
 elementary needs of its immediate constituency very well 
 indeed, and is not the matter of maintaining the school- 
 house and of providing for the modest expenses of the 
 schools likely to keep the people more interested in the 
 schools than they will naturally be if the school is more 
 remote and the measure of their control is lessened ? Can- 
 not any real difficulty be met by continuing elementary 
 schools as heretofore, and by supplementing them by 
 central high schools ? Is it not better to continue the unit 
 of district school administration as it prevails over large 
 areas of the country, as far at least as local control over 
 the location and the character of the building and pro- 
 vision for expenses are concerned, and by making a 
 different unit for supervisory purposes which may be large 
 enough to get a strong superintendent and yet not so large 
 in miles as to make real supervision impracticable ? Is not 
 the real difficulty in the country, politics and the size of 
 the supervisory district and lack of professional control 
 over the teacher and the teaching, rather than the size 
 of the school district ? Is the location of an elementary 
 school within the smallest practicable distance from every 
 home, and the possession of a popular meeting place by 
 the smallest hamlets and the crossroads, to be sur- 
 rendered without the most imperative necessity, or until 
 it is clearly proved that the change of plan does not 
 
94 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 involve greater difficulties than any which are now en- 
 countered ? 
 
 There is at all. times a sufficient supply of unsettled 
 questions concerning the development of a uniformly 
 efficient teaching service, both in city and country. It must 
 be said that teaching does not attract the larger number 
 of forceful characters. The compensation is insufficient 
 and the opportunities for distinction are held to be lacking. 
 Men have very generally ceased to prepare themselves 
 for teaching, and the same is largely true of the more am- 
 bitious women. No one can question that the best interests 
 of the teaching service claim as much of the masculine 
 as of the feminine mind, beyond the primary schools 
 at least. No one can doubt the need of the most aspiring 
 women in the schools. Any great work among large num- 
 bers of both sexes requires the cooperative help of both 
 men and women and of the strongest and most ambitious 
 men and women in the world. The ordinary conditions 
 of the teaching service do not make for this. And there has 
 been in recent years a remarkable educational develop- 
 ment which, indirectly but strongly, opposes it. That is 
 the expansion of the colleges and universities so as to 
 prepare for all of the professions, and the multiplying of 
 vocations for educated and aggressive men and women. 
 Moreover, the colleges, perhaps unintentionally, prepare 
 for every other vocation better than for teaching, and their 
 indirect influence is against teaching. University teachers 
 are not very familiar with modern work in the lower 
 schools, and the interests of their own special branches 
 displace any serious concern for a unified organization or 
 an all around service in the schools below. They are not 
 only more interested in the pupils who are going to college 
 than in those who are not, but also more in the pupils who 
 are headed for their departments than in those who are 
 
UNSETTLED QUESTIONS 95 
 
 likely to elect other branches for future study. All this is 
 turning nearly all the men and many of the best women, 
 who in other times would have looked to teaching as a 
 vocation, to other work, and it is lessening the independ- 
 ence and effectiveness of the teaching force to a degree 
 which is hardly compensated for by the larger knowledge 
 of educational principles and the improved methods of 
 the modern agencies for training teachers. The live ques- 
 tion is, how are we to assure a teaching force which shall 
 be free from specially defective factors and generally as 
 capable and spirited and aggressive as that which manages 
 the other great, though less important, intellectual activ- 
 ities of the nation ^ Always a pressing question, the 
 growing importance and the growing difficulties of the 
 subject make it more weighty now than at any previous 
 time. 
 
 However important the form of the legal school organiza- 
 tion, and however imperative the character of the men and 
 women who teach the schools, there is nothing about the 
 schools so vital and, it may also be said, so difficult, as a 
 sound determination of what work the schools shall do. 
 
 The minister of education in other countries does not 
 have a very hard time deciding what the primary schools 
 shall do and how it shall be done. He does it alone. He 
 follows either the law or long and almost fixed usage. 
 The teachers are men, and the tenure of position is for life. 
 Every teacher obeys the minister's directions without ques- 
 tion. He has to provide a simple curriculum for children 
 of the peasant class who expect to live exactly as their 
 fathers have lived. The work is not to inspire children to 
 do their best and rise to high places among their fellows ; 
 it is not to fit them for the work of advanced schools ; it 
 is to drill them simply to read and write and work, with- 
 out much thought of intellectual development. It satisfies 
 
96 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 the demands of the rather slow-going and monotonous 
 life of the people whom these foreign schools serve. 
 
 It is wholly different in America. Our schools are not 
 shaped and managed by a nainister, a cabinet, or a monarch, 
 but by the people. The common thought and general 
 usage have settled the outlines of the system. Each com- 
 munity fills in the details and carries them as far as it will. 
 Everybody has a proprietary interest in the schools. The 
 administration is through popular elections, and changes 
 in administration are frequent. Changes in the teaching 
 force are frequent, also. There is not much resistive power. 
 Every one with a project thinks the schools ought to carry 
 it out. It is not so hard for one with a scheme to load it 
 upon the schools as it is for an administrative ofiicer or a 
 teacher to keep it out. People who mean well, but who are 
 without any grasp of the general problem, often turn the 
 course of the schools aside from its ordinary and natural 
 channel. 
 
 From the standpoint of school administration, every 
 American child is bred in the purple. He is to have every- 
 thing that the richest child in the world can have in the 
 way of instruction if he will take it, and all of the fixed 
 influences, direct and indirect, censure him if he neglects 
 to take it. Every boy must infer from all he hears that he 
 will be discredited unless he follows an exclusively intellec- 
 tual pursuit, and every girl must beUeve that her happiness 
 depends upon her becoming literary and knowing about 
 art and the opera, and wearing silks and directing servants, 
 — when the silks are often elusive and always illusory and 
 the servants are more elusive and illusory still. 
 
 The American school system is pretty well articulated 
 from the kindergarten to the university. Teachers and 
 children are continually enjoined to be thinking of the 
 next school above. A teacher whose pupils do not pass 
 
UNSETTLED QUESTIONS 97 
 
 is discredited. A child who does not yass is in peril of 
 being eternally lost. This may not be really so dreadful 
 to the individual teacher and the individual child, though 
 each thinks it is. It may be as well to have some pressure 
 as to have everything fall down and everybody become 
 lackadaisical for the want of attention. But does it not 
 inevitably attach more significance to the upper than to 
 the middle schools ? Does it not assume that the road to 
 college and the road to glory are the same ? 
 
 And are they ? No thinking man can doubt the self- 
 satisfaction and enlarged intellectual enjoyment which 
 commonly result from college training. No one will be 
 disposed to deny the advantage which the liberally edu- 
 cated and disciplined mind has in severe mental work and 
 particularly in intellectual combat. No one can fail to see 
 how the higher institutions break out new roads and lead 
 the thinking of the world to higher planes. And surely 
 no schoolman can ignore the fact that the vitalizing, the 
 energizing, and the steadying of the lower schools must 
 necessarily come from the higher schools. But there are 
 those who will deny that it is desirable that all children 
 shall go to college. There are enough who do not think 
 that it is better to have a college degree and admission to 
 a profession, with little adaptation to it and little to do after 
 it, than it is to master a manual vocation and have plenty 
 to do. There are people in the world who dare to suspect 
 that many a one becomes really unbalanced and pretty 
 nearly useless through college teaching and college study, 
 when he might have been happy and useful if conditions 
 and normal inclinations had been regarded, and if he had 
 found himself in a work where he could have had the 
 reward and the joy which come from accomplishing things. 
 There are those who even venture to suspect that men and 
 women with work which they love, and the steadiness and 
 
98 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 balance and respect which they gain by doing it, are safer 
 citizens and more attractive characters than men and 
 women who have been through the schools without being 
 able to put their training to the doing of things which are 
 of moment to the world. 
 
 It is not a matter of the value of the higher learning to 
 the world at large ; it is a matter of the power and purpose 
 of each individual to make it of most use to himself. The 
 unambitious or the incapable rich, who are not in danger 
 of doing much anyway, may very well go to college, if 
 they can be kept from ruining the colleges while there. 
 The rich who have work and sand in them will ordinarily 
 seize upon college training while they enlarge the substance 
 and illustrate the point and power of it. The poor must 
 balance values. They will coolly calculate the worth of it 
 to any plans which they may have, or they will leave it 
 to chance and take whatever the consequences may be. 
 If there is something like a definite purpose in mind, if the 
 college training is put to real use, the consequence will be 
 a finished and resourceful character, and the harder the 
 work and the more the sacrifices, the stronger and the more 
 dependable the character will be. If, however, there is no 
 serious plan or purpose about it, no power to appreciate 
 and adapt the college training and discipline, the result is 
 likely to be a failure. 
 
 The percentage of men who have reached the highest 
 positions of leadership and influence without the training 
 of the most advanced schools, as compared with those who 
 have had that advantage, is surprisingly large. It is 
 because they have had the stuff in them, and it has been 
 developed and seasoned in life. They have not depended 
 upon books, or been largely controlled by theories ; they 
 have squared their lives with the actualities of living ; they 
 have been both patient and aggressive ; they have found the 
 
UNSETTLED QUESTIONS 99 
 
 way to accomplish son^ething worth while. It was some- 
 thing not set forth in books. But this has been suggestive 
 to the college ; and the courses of study, the characteristics 
 of teachers, the methods of instruction, and the atmosphere 
 of the places have been so radically modified in the inter- 
 ests of doing as against talking that, aside from the in- 
 creased number of students who go to college, the advan- 
 tages to the college man as against the other are very 
 substantially enlarged. And, of course, with an independ- 
 ent, sane, and balanced character, having the elements 
 of strength and success anyway, the advantages of a college 
 training cannot be overestimated. 
 
 It is not true that good citizenship is gauged by the depth 
 of culturing study or familiarity with philosophical theory. 
 It rests upon the balanced sense which is the joint product 
 of decent breeding, of familiarity with men and things, 
 and of the labor which shows in things accomplished, 
 either manual or intellectual, and in sweat upon the brow. 
 The man who mends your shoes, or makes your clothes, 
 is likely to average just as safe and potential a citizen as 
 the one who tries to train your refractory stomach, the one 
 who fills you up with economic theory, or the one who 
 supplies theological deductions to your mystified soul. The 
 one who produces physical results in life is certainly no 
 less to be counted upon than the one who writes the more 
 freely when he is not obliged to be troubled with any facts. 
 
 These considerations are at the bottom of the wide- 
 spread criticism against our public educational system. 
 Everybody worth considering knows that the mere ability 
 to read and write is no adequate equipment for efficiency 
 in our complex life, but everybody also knows that no sys- 
 tem of training, no matter how elaborate, which leads inevi- 
 tably to pursuits which are exclusively intellectual or only 
 culturing, will sustain our complex civiUzation. It is right 
 
100 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 here that the plan and scope of our western universities, 
 very largely state universities, are pushing them strongly 
 to the front rank in American higher education. The 
 feeling is very common that there is no sufficient reason 
 why the courses of study and the influences of the lower 
 schools should lead decisively to those higher institutions 
 which are only culturing or professional, or to those depart- 
 ments of universities which are essentially so. There is a 
 strong and justifiable sentiment that the work of the ele- 
 mentary and secondary schools does not support the in- 
 dustrial as well as the classical or professional depart- 
 ments in the universities which have provided for all phases 
 of human learning. There is a strong and sustained senti- 
 ment that the elementary schools ought to do more for the 
 pupils who are not going to college, if the advantages of 
 our popular system of education are to be equal for all. 
 And there is a decided and a justifiable belief that the 
 elementary schools, taken as a whole, train for versatility 
 more than for exactness, and that, either because of this, 
 or because they have been loaded with too much, or both, 
 they do not turn out pupils who can do any definite thing 
 very satisfactorily when they must go to work. 
 
 The common sentiment of the country fully sympa- 
 thizes with the old line literary colleges. It feels that there 
 is a place for them, and wishes them well. It has abun- 
 dantly demonstrated its decisive support of university 
 training in aid of the industries. But it demands that 
 the elementary training shall lead more decisively to the 
 industries and to business, whether pupils are going to the 
 advanced schools or are going to work; and that the work 
 of the lower schools shall be suflSciently concentrated and 
 made sufficiently exact to support the expectation that 
 pupils shall be able to read intelligently, write legibly, 
 perform mathematical processes readily and correctly. 
 
UNSETTLED QUESTIONS 101 
 
 and entertain serious notions of real work when they leave 
 the schools. The objection is not that the schools do other 
 things, but that they do not do these things before other 
 things, and that the result amounts to a discrimination 
 » against the industrial masses, the very ones who stand 
 most in need of free education. 
 
 Then the whole question as to what the schools shall do 
 is an open one. Apparently, they must have less, rather 
 than more, to do. If not, then a large part of the children 
 must have less. It would seem that there will have to be 
 more differentiation of courses, with reference to future 
 living. There will have to be more drill and more firmness 
 of treatment in the purely elementary work, at least. 
 The work will have to be adapted to years so that when- 
 ever a child leaves school he may be able to do very well 
 what the world may justly expect of one of his age. There 
 will have to be more exact attention to present actualities 
 than to remote possibihties. It would not be strange if 
 the lower schools were yet required to give every child not 
 only the means of informing himself and of expressing him- 
 self, but also a definite trade or vocation through which 
 he may earn a living. This would be doing less for the chil- 
 dren who will never go to college than most of the larger 
 towns are already doing for those who go to the high school, 
 or than naost of the states are already doing for the thou- 
 sands who go to the state universities. 
 
 Here is the great, overwhelming, and difficult question in 
 American education. It is to be settled out of the abundant 
 experience, the democratic purpose, and the natural and 
 logical unfolding of the free life of the nation. 
 
 There is still another matter pertinent to this subject. 
 There is a frequently expressed disposition to hold the 
 schools responsible for about everything that goes wrong 
 in the country. If there is an epidemic of crime, or an out- 
 
102 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 break of objectionable business methods, or any other 
 distinct evidence of widespread moral turpitude, or if all 
 boys and girls are not more completely ready for a swifter 
 and more complex life than was ever expected in all history 
 before, the schools are taken to task for it. 
 
 Every step and every influence of the common schools 
 make for character. It is true that religious instruction is 
 not very common, — not as common as it used to be, — 
 but it is also true that it is as common as denominational 
 opposition will permit. There is nothing done that does not 
 contribute to cleanness and decency in living, to exactness 
 and correctness in thinking, and to refinement and trueness 
 in feeling. Everything is done in these directions up to the 
 very limits of opportunity. 
 
 It is a fundamental policy of this country that political 
 officers shall not meddle with denominational instruction, 
 and that ecclesiastical officers shall not bend the policies 
 of the state to denominational ends. It is not because of 
 any indifference to religion, but because of the necessities 
 of the case in a cosmopolitan population of freemen, and 
 in a state which is opposed to all favoritism and stands for 
 equal and exact justice for all. This policy leaves religious 
 teaching to the family and to the church, unless the uni- 
 versal consent invites the common schools to give it. Be- 
 tween the schools, and the churches with their auxiliary 
 agencies, and the family life the children are being trained 
 in free religion and sound morals about as well as can be 
 expected, and quite as well as in any days of yore. Indeed, 
 our democratic life and our free and rational teaching 
 are developing a people with more of the elements of unde- 
 filed religion and with less of the factors which have bur- 
 dened true religion than has been common in other lands 
 and in other days. And in this the common schools are 
 doing all that the sound moral purpose of the country will 
 
UNSETTLED QUESTIONS 103 
 
 sustain, and all that the settled political theory of the 
 country will permit. 
 
 But there is a difficulty, extended and discouraging, 
 outside of the schools. It operates in spite of the schools. 
 It grows out of the American disposition to place freedom 
 above security, to protect liberty at all hazards, and take 
 the chances of license and its consequences. 
 
 Many of the common usages and some of the most con- 
 spicuous object lessons in the country make for dishonesty 
 rather than integrity. An infinite number of people have 
 become what once would have been thought exceedingly 
 rich. When one becomes halfway rich he becomes money 
 mad and resorts to methods for overreaching all the rest. 
 There is lack of law and lack of prosecutors to stop him, 
 and his success in gaining money by immoral methods and 
 in keeping out of jail — through the help of astute lawyers 
 and abhorrent forces — predisposes too many others to 
 copy his example. Some phase of this thing is everywhere 
 in the land, and it corrupts the life, particularly the young 
 Ufe, of the country. Are the schools responsible for that ? 
 
 Again, the railroads are great educators. They educate 
 us in much that is good, and also in much that is bad. 
 They train us in promptness — and in evasiveness. The 
 laws concerning them are not yet very well settled. They 
 observe no moral restraints not fixed by law, and they are 
 past masters in the art of changing and evading the laws 
 which they dislike. Men who are all that can be desired in 
 their individual characters are often all that is undesirable 
 in corporation service. But this is not all, and perhaps 
 it is not the worst. They assume that every one else will 
 violate or evade the law if he dare. For example, they 
 assume that everybody will steal from them, and, with 
 something of a fellow feeling for those who do, the matter 
 is soon dropped when they find it out. They closely inspect 
 
104 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 and often ofiFend honest people who board their trains. 
 When they find one on their trains wrongfully, they put 
 him off, and that is the end of it. The decent folk resent 
 the discourteous treatment and are predisposed to retahate, 
 and the indecent folk who violate laws are so seldom pun- 
 ished that they are predisposed to try it again. Upon 
 an European railroad every one is treated with politeness. 
 It is assumed that one who boards a train has the right. 
 If one is found on board without a ticket or money he is 
 carried to the next station and put in jail. The road and 
 the public prosecutors make punishment sure and severe. 
 The honest people get decent treatment, and the dishonest 
 ones get the punishment they deserve. It educates in 
 integrity more than we are accustomed to think. It is 
 particularly impressive upon the ignorant and upon the 
 young. If, then, native honesty, or at least, correct living, 
 is more common among the masses of an European than 
 of an American city, are the American schools responsible 
 for that ? 
 
 Yet again, nothing is a legal crime until a statute makes 
 it so. Criminal procedure rests upon legislative acts and 
 not upon the common law. The regulation and punish- 
 ment of crime is far from settled. It has not kept pace with 
 the progress of the country. It is so dilatory and uncertain 
 as to shame us. Money can defer punishment indefinitely 
 except in the most flagrant and noted cases, — and often, 
 indeed, in those. Public officers charged with prosecu- 
 tions are sometimes found dividing the plunder with thieves 
 in consideration of immunity from punishment. The 
 thing pervades our affairs broadly and makes a vicious 
 impress upon many lives. 
 
 If business greed and cunning employ chemistry to 
 cheapen food stuffs, and even medicines, by eighty or 
 ninety per cent without lowering the cost to the buyer; 
 
UNSETTLED QUESTIONS 105 
 
 if directors enrich themselves at the expense of their trusts 
 by having secret wheels within wheels ; if there is no longer 
 a standard of value for materials sold or service rendered 
 except what " the traffic will bear " or what can be collected ; 
 and if the young or the inexperienced are misled or de- 
 ceived by the everyday schemes of the prosperous or the 
 rich which are violative of law or against good conscience 
 and fair dealing, are the schools to be taxed with it all ? 
 
 Here is a great matter outside of the schools which is 
 unsettled and which will have to be settled. It is wholly 
 unfair to charge any lack of moral character or of common 
 honesty which may be discerned in the country to the plan 
 and scope of the educational system. When the law is 
 perfected and is observed, when all may know that it will 
 be speedy and sure and equal in its application to all, 
 the matter of correct living and of moral character in this 
 country seems likely to rest upon as sure a foundation as 
 in any other country. The difficulty in this behalf seems 
 to lie in the rapid growth in population, in the overwhelm- 
 ing changes in manner of life, and in the backwardness 
 of legal and administrative systems, rather than in funda- 
 mental political principles or in the plan and scheme of 
 the schools. 
 
 The men and women of the schools are so accustomed 
 to settle things that they are rather predisposed to shoulder 
 all the burdens that are put upon them and determine all the 
 hard problems that come up. The unsettled questions that 
 are legitimately and necessarily upon the officers and 
 teachers of the schools are many enough and heavy enough. 
 If they throw back upon the country the hard nuts which 
 are not theirs at all, if they resent the constant attempt to 
 use the schools for special ends, if they confine them to 
 what they must do to vindicate our political and educa- 
 tional theories and justify the money they cost, they will 
 
106 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 have quite enough to do. As some matters that are outside 
 of the schools approach solution, the'unsettled questions 
 that are necessarily inside of the schools will settle more 
 easily. 
 
 The nation is just beginning to realize that the funda- 
 mental political principle which holds all men and women 
 equal before the law, with the now well-developed national 
 policy which provides free instruction to the very limits of 
 human knowledge to all who will come and take it, in- 
 volves an expense of unexpected magnitude, and presents 
 questions of grave difficulty in school organization and 
 administration. But there will be no turning back. More 
 cheerfully than the people meet any other tax, more cheer- 
 fully than any other people ever met any tax not vital to 
 the national defense and the saving of life, the American 
 people supply and will supply the funds for universal and 
 liberal education. The difficulties will not be met in a 
 year; they will never be settled in a corner. They will be 
 solved by the rational projection of the political theories 
 which are the inspiration and the guide of the nation's life. 
 They will be met with courage and confidence, even with 
 wit and enthusiasm. They will be settled through discus- 
 sion, and yet more through experience. Not all that we 
 plan will come to pass. The unexpected will often happen, 
 and in time we are likely to see that the unexpected is better 
 than the plan we made. The logically progressive purpose 
 of our millions of freemen, the gradually unfolding scheme 
 of our nation's mission in the world, advancing in accord 
 with a plan that is more than human, will overcome 
 difficulties and break out the roads for a sane and balanced 
 system of education, which will give most to the nation 
 through the opportunity it will hold out and the encour- 
 agement it will give to every one. 
 
VIII 
 
 THE NEED OF A FEDERAL PLAN 
 
 There is very little adaptation of instruments or of ad- 
 ministrative methods to ends, very little that is expressive 
 of professional experience and opinion, and practically 
 nothing in the way of logical scheme, or comprehensive 
 plan, or progressive outlook, about the educational arrange- 
 ments of the federal government. Congressional legisla- 
 tion has ordinarily resulted from isolated and political 
 initiative, and executive officers have resorted to expedi- 
 ents, both good and bad, to meet passing exigencies. It has 
 never before been understood that the general govern- 
 ment had large or continuing educational responsibilities, 
 and now, when it is clear enough that it has, the plans 
 for meeting them are illogical and inadequate. 
 
 There is excuse for the situation, but none for not mend- 
 ing it. The federal Constitution contains no mention of 
 schools. Aside from a brief and barren suggestion of a 
 national university, there was, so far as we know, no dis- 
 cussion of education in the Constitutional Convention. 
 It was not an ignorant or obtuse convention. Twenty-nine 
 of the fifty-five members were college bred, and of the 
 twenty-six who were not, Washington and Franklin were 
 two. Six members of the convention were clergymen. 
 The convention clearly assumed that, so far as education 
 was a function of government, it was a function of the 
 states. There were less than a dozen primitive colleges in 
 the country which had been chartered by the king, but in 
 each case it had been done at the instance of one of the 
 colonies, and the resulting college had become the college 
 
108 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 of the colony and then of the state. Several of the state 
 constitutions had already provided for colleges. State- 
 supported systems of elementary schools had not yet been 
 provided by law or established in fact, but things were 
 beginning to move rather strongly, for in the next half 
 dozen years definite and decisive beginnings in that direc- 
 tion were made. Wherever there was a state, the state 
 had done and expected to do it all. Where there was no 
 state, Congress felt responsibility and acted freely. Even 
 before the Constitutional Convention the Continental 
 Congress had, in 1785, reserved the lot No. 16, and one 
 third of all gold, silver, lead, and copper mines, for the 
 maintenance of schools in each township which should be 
 laid out in the Northwest Territory. And all are familiar 
 with the provision in the Ordinance of 1787 for the gov- 
 ernment of that territory, that "religion, morality, and 
 knowledge being necessary to good government and the 
 happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education 
 shall forever be encouraged." So it is evident that the very 
 definite and common understanding at the time of making 
 the "more perfect union" must have been that the federal 
 government had distinct responsibility about schools and 
 morals in federal territory beyond the limits of organized 
 states, but that this function was reserved to the states 
 wherever there were or whenever there should be organ- 
 ized states. 
 
 The practice has squared with this understanding. Con- 
 gress has often legislated upon, and federal executive 
 oflBcers have never hesitated to act upon, school matters 
 in the territories; never in the states. The United States 
 government has several times made gifts to education in 
 the states, and has sometimes made these conditional upon 
 certain acts by the states, but it has never invaded the prin- 
 ciple that wherever there is a state the educational system 
 
THE NEED OF A FEDERAL PLAN 109 
 
 is a state system, over which the state government holds 
 the exclusive and sovereign authority. 
 
 The United States government in 1867 created a federal 
 bureau of education, which gathers and distributes edu- 
 cational information from and to all parts of the world, 
 and has become a sort of clearing house for information 
 concerning the schools for all the states of the Union; 
 but it has never been invested with the slightest authority 
 over any matter within the limit of a state. The present 
 object, however, is not to emphasize that fact so much as 
 to point out that this organized and quite natural instru- 
 mentality of federal educational administration has never 
 been utilized to meet the national responsibility for schools, 
 recently much enlarged, or to propagate educational ac- 
 tivities outside of the schools in federal territory and to 
 inquire why. 
 
 The situation has grown up gradually. In the territories 
 of Arizona, Hawaii, and New Mexico there are superin- 
 tendents of public instruction, appointed by the territorial 
 governors. The superintendents report to the governors, 
 who are appointed by the President, and the governors 
 make occasional references to education in their reports 
 to the secretary of the interior. There is no professional 
 and no located responsibility. The bureau of education 
 has nothing whatever to do with the matter. 
 
 In the District of Columbia the management of the 
 schools is intrusted to a board of education appointed by 
 the judges of the supreme court of the district. This 
 board appoints a superintendent of schools. The schools 
 are supported one half by the district and one half by the 
 United States. The bureau of education has no relation , 
 to the subject. Once, at least, when the school system of 
 the district got into a muddle, the United States com- 
 missioner of education was asked to intervene and 
 
110 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 straighten things out, but that was only a temporary ex- 
 pedient in an emergency. 
 
 Congress formerly made appropriations for the schools 
 of the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Semi- 
 nole nations in the Indian Territory, but since the territory 
 has been included in the state of Oklahoma, the special 
 governmental organization of the five tribes has been dis- 
 continued by the national government. Appropriations 
 for the schools were continued until the state should 
 develop adequate educational institutions. The number 
 of rural schools in the Indian Territory district is being 
 increased rapidly, so that practically all educational ac- 
 tivities are now under the control of the state. 
 
 The other Indian schools are under a superintendent 
 appointed by the President, who reports to the com- 
 missioner of Indian affairs and is under the direction of 
 the commissioner of Indian affairs and the secretary of 
 the interior. The United States commissioner of educa- 
 tion is allowed no official word concerning them. 
 
 A dual administrative scheme for managing schools seems 
 to be deemed necessary for Alaska. Schools for white chil- 
 dren and civilized children of mixed blood are under the 
 supervision of the governor, who is ex officio superintend- 
 ent of public instruction, and Congress makes appropria- 
 tions for schools for natives, which are subject to the sec- 
 retary of the interior and are in some measure, at his 
 pleasure, committed by him to the commissioner of edu- 
 cation. 
 
 The military and naval academies are wholly subject 
 to the secretaries of war and of the navy, and no distinct 
 schoolman carries the light of his guild into the recesses 
 of their affairs. 
 
 The educational activities of the department of agri- 
 culture have been much expanded and accelerated in re- 
 
THE NEED OF A FEDERAL PLAN 111 
 
 cent years. Through appropriations to the agricultural 
 colleges and experiment stations the federal authority has 
 already made rather long, but perhaps pardonable, inroads 
 into old-time fundamental principles, but the federal 
 bureau of education has no word about them. 
 
 Perhaps, above all, the war with Spain brought to the 
 people, and particularly to the government, of the United 
 States, for the first time, the difficult problems associated 
 with the education of great numbers of unlettered people 
 in somewhat densely settled territory under conditions 
 wholly new to us. 
 
 As to Porto Rico, Congress provided that the President 
 should appoint a commissioner of education who super- 
 vises public instruction and approves all disbursements on 
 account thereof. The only function of the United States 
 commissioner of education in this connection is that the 
 law directs the Porto Rico commissioner to make such 
 reports to Congress as the United States commissioner re- 
 quires. The obfuscation assured by legally empowering 
 an officer to define the reports which another officer with 
 whom he has nothing else to do shall make to Congress, is 
 a novelty in legislation. 
 
 The general direction of educational matters in the Phil- 
 ippine Islands is committed to the secretary of public in- 
 struction of the islands, who is a member of the Philippine 
 Commission. The United States commissioner of education 
 has not the slightest official relation to education in the 
 Philippine Islands. All the functions exercised in the 
 United States in that behalf are vested in the bureau of 
 insular affairs of the war department. 
 
 The educational system of Cuba was reorganized in some 
 measure during our military occupancy, but it was exclu- 
 sively a military matter. 
 
 The reason for the lack of logical plan about all this has 
 
112 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 already been suggested, but what is the reason why no one 
 in position to accomplish things seems to have thought of 
 the desirability of correlating the growing educational work 
 of the government and giving it the advantage of guidance 
 by the federal bureau of education ? 
 
 It cannot be because the national bureau has been in 
 inefficient hands. It has never been without a highly ca- 
 pable and efficient commissioner at its head. During all 
 of the forty years of the existence of the bureau the com- 
 missioner has been a man of very high public standing, and 
 nearly all of that time he has been one of the foremost edu- 
 cationists of the country. The staff of the bureau has al- 
 ways embraced many educational experts whose services 
 have been widely recognized by the people who are best 
 informed. The one thing needful to the bureau has been 
 real school work to be done. 
 
 The government has not been studying the logic of the 
 situation. It has permitted itself to be moved by inexperi- 
 ence, if not sordidness, and it has met exigency with make- 
 shift. The fact that the makeshift was perhaps temporarily 
 necessary ought not to be allowed to develop it into a per- 
 manent policy. It was all well enough that the American 
 regular troops could temporarily provide teachers for the 
 Philippines, and it was a distinct administrative accom- 
 plishment to secure a thousand teachers of pretty fair gen- 
 eral average, and to transport them to and get them at work 
 among such a far-away people, without incurring criticism 
 of the details of the heavy task. But the atmosphere of 
 the war department is not a permanent stimulant to con- 
 structive work in education. 
 
 It is important to education in all territory over which 
 the flag of the Union floats that the principle shall be firmly 
 established that the spirit of the common school system 
 bars all partisanship from its administration, and also that 
 
THE NEED OF A FEDERAL PLAN 113 
 
 the proper organization and administration of the schools 
 claim professional and expert service of a very distinct 
 order. The educational system is not a thing upon which 
 any party or class or sect can be allowed to uplift itself, and 
 the administration of the system is not a thing to be held 
 of minor importance and tossed about in divers depart- 
 ments which manage the conspicuous and imperative af- 
 fairs of a great government. It is obviously as important 
 that these principles shall be asserted in our territories and 
 among our island peoples as in the already organized states. 
 Indeed, it is much more important in remote federal terri- 
 tory than in our states, because in such territory there is not 
 that public sentiment which quickens and guides and limits 
 official action in educational administration as in the states, 
 where American feeling prevails and institutions have 
 taken form and the philosophy of our educational system 
 is understood and accepted. 
 
 If we were to apply federal school policies to the state 
 of New York, for instance, we would reduce the state edu- 
 cation department to the function of getting information 
 about schools when school officers are anxious to supply 
 it, and to giving benevolent advice about schools when 
 people will considerately come and listen. We would ap- 
 point superintendents of schools in our large cities through 
 the mayors, and have them report to the legislature through 
 the secretary of state, when they feel like it. We would 
 annex the schools in the valley of the St. Lawrence to the 
 agricultural department, and those in the southern tier of 
 counties to the labor department. In all seriousness, we 
 would have to go back in the history of the state for more 
 than fifty years, when the secretary of state was super- 
 intendent of common schools, and all school manage- 
 ment, both local and general, was practically at one with 
 politics. And no matter how far we might go back, we 
 
114 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 should find nothing to equal the inconsistency of having 
 a completely organized, capable, and non-partisan instru- 
 mentality for school administration ready at hand and 
 refusing to use it. 
 
 The influences which are at the top of an administrative 
 organization inevitably bear upon appointments therein 
 and in time affect the conduct and shape the character of 
 all who are connected with it. It must be so as to federal 
 schools. This is not blaming federal officers. They are 
 entitled to commendation for very good administration un- 
 der untoward and perverse circumstances. The desirabil- 
 ity of popular control wherever there is the enlightenment 
 which may safely exercise it, and of the association of lay- 
 men with pedagogues in the management of schools, is of 
 course recognized. Even then it is necessary to observe the 
 fundamental principles which underlie our educational 
 policies, and to effect the kind of organization and move 
 upon the lines which experience has shown to be essential 
 to results in administration. The business side of federal 
 or territorial schools may properly enough rest with busi- 
 ness officials, but the professional side ought clearly to be 
 in the charge of professional men and women. The gov- 
 ernment of the United States has not yet reached the cor- 
 rect lines of procedure in education. The reason is not far 
 afield. It is found in politics and in officialism. Territorial 
 governors, members of Congress, department officials, never 
 wave aside any opportunity to make appointments, and 
 when the occasion arises for the United States commis- 
 sioner of education to contend with them about educa- 
 tional policies in the corridors and committee rooms of the 
 national capitol, the commissioner cannot bring himself to 
 do it, and he would seem weak indeed if he tried. 
 
 If the United States bureau is to be confined to statistics 
 and information, it would seem better that it be not per- 
 
THE NEED OF A FEDERAL PLAN 115 
 
 mitted to be regarded as an administrative or propagating 
 instrument of the federal government at all. In that case 
 it might better be completely made up of statisticians and 
 editors, and constituted a section in the census office. It 
 would there have definite and undoubted authority to do 
 something. 
 
 But that is not what is needed. With a comprehensive 
 plan, and concentrated administration, and actual respon- 
 sibilities, the federal education office would attain such sig- 
 nificance that it could get the attention of Congress and the 
 country. Again, the experience of the government in deal- 
 ing with one class of schools would be quickly available 
 in dealing with every other class. The government needs, 
 for example, to make a serious and scientific study of the 
 whole matter of adapting our philosophy and practice con- 
 cerning common schools to irresponsible, dependent, non- 
 Caucasian peoples, and can do it more completely and 
 quickly through a unified organization in which all of the 
 conditions and all of the experiences may be brought to bear 
 upon one another. Yet, again, the very enlargement of the 
 national bureau through bringing together the number of 
 people who are now engaged at Washington in looking 
 after federal schools, would bring together, in time, if not 
 at once, a much stronger body of educational experts ; and 
 it would insure for each interest, in large measure, the com- 
 bined judgment of all. All this would develop a new class 
 of educational literature which would be of service to all 
 the world. There is a distinct financial loss to the school 
 work which the government is trying to do, through the 
 lack of comprehensive plan ; and there is a distinct moral 
 loss to the nation, and to education the world over, because 
 of the freakish and fragmentary methods which are being 
 employed. 
 
 But perhaps a weightier consideration than any that has 
 
116 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 yet been suggested remains to be mentioned. There are 
 needed educational activities outside of the schools. Li- 
 braries, study clubs, home study, are within the functions 
 of democratic government. It is hard to set things right 
 after they have got started in the wrong way. The further 
 they have gone in the wrong way the harder it is. The fed- 
 eral educational activities not only need to be related to- 
 gether so that they may support one another, and they not 
 only need to be systematized and professionalized, but they 
 need to be extended and sanely energized, made universal, 
 and charged with responsibility for all manner of educa- 
 tional activities in all federal territory. 
 
 Why should our federal Union maintain at its capitol an 
 educational ofloice without using it? If it is to maintain 
 such an office, why should it neglect and belittle it ? Why 
 should it make the pay of the commissioner so small and 
 his functions so insignificant that any man fit to speak for 
 the nation upon education must suffer humiliation before 
 he is allowed to do it.? Why not have a definite federal 
 educational plan, which is above partisanship, and an edu- 
 cational organization worthy of such a nation ? Why longer 
 allow education to seem to come after everything else in 
 the federal scheme, when the conditions are here which 
 ought to put it to the fore ? Why not recognize the princi- 
 ples which are fundamental, and the policies which are 
 fruitful, and the concentration which will of itself effect 
 large and lasting accomplishments in education ? In a word, 
 why does not some strong hand that is able to do things 
 go about a reorganization at Washington which will enable 
 the government to increase its educational efficiency, log- 
 ically meet its responsibilities to its new subjects, and at 
 the same time set a good example to all of the states and all 
 of the world ? 
 
II 
 
 ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY 
 SCHOOLS 
 
DEMANDS UPON THE SCHOOLS 
 
 This is a very free country. Above all the constitutional 
 nations we have a maximum of freedom and a minimum of 
 restraint. More restraint is likely to be needed in order to 
 keep so much freedom. But the added restraint will never 
 be made to run against harmless talk. It will be against 
 acts rather than speech, against violence rather than 
 foolishness, against dangers rather than demands. In other 
 constitutional governments a subject may talk too freely 
 about the monarch or censure cabinet officers at his peril, 
 but it will never be so of an American citizen and any policy 
 of his state. If Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson did 
 not settle that question while they lived, their constancy 
 and their courage contained the fertile germs which in this 
 soil soon settled it for all time to come. 
 
 This privilege is not to be regarded lightly. It is a 
 beneficent freedom. It makes the United States a very ag- 
 gressive and a very progressive country. The common talk 
 often starts without thought, but discussion produces 
 thought. There is intellectual pleasure and quickening 
 in it all. No one hesitates about proposing or demanding 
 something because that something is new. Anticipation 
 waits upon the surprising and progress gains ground 
 through the unexpected. Out of it all we have become 
 proverbially good-natured and considerate of one another. 
 We do not take all propositions as seriously as our fathers 
 did. If we get material advantage out of the propositions 
 made and the things done which come to something, so we 
 get our proverbial good-nature out of all the discussion and 
 
120 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 out of the things done which come to grief; and that is 
 national progress too. This is not saying that we take really 
 important things less seriously than our fathers did. Upon 
 the really serious concerns of individual and of social living, 
 the popular thought is no less set and the common emotions 
 no less true, than in the days of the men and women whose 
 virtues we admire and whose history we inherit and extol. 
 On the whole, things have gone very well. It would be 
 weak to believe that on all points we are ahead of all other 
 peoples, but we are likely to have enough points to the good 
 to make us reasonably safe if any unregenerate should have 
 the hardihood to draw any very exact international com- 
 parisons. 
 
 All this is abundantly illustrated by the propositions 
 arising in the schools and the demands that are made upon 
 them. The educational system is omnipresent, and it is 
 largely owned and managed by the public. It is open to 
 popular criticism and very subject to popular demands. 
 Because its teaching force is so lacking in definite legal 
 standing, and therefore also in permanency and professional 
 independence, and because the trustees and directors set 
 by the people to manage it are so frequently changed, and 
 therefore so professionally inexperienced, the system is 
 especially open to demands and particularly sensitive to 
 criticism. And it must be said, also, that the people in the 
 schools more than keep up with the people outside in ad- 
 vancing fertile and prolific propositions, and in trying ex- 
 periments of their own . Too much resistance might be worse 
 than too much responsiveness, but there are a great many 
 people — in the schools and out — who would willingly 
 dare the peril that would make them sure whether it is or not. 
 
 A great many different people conie in quick succession 
 to the desk of an officer charged with the responsibility 
 of general administration in the schools. 
 
DEMANDS UPON THE SCHOOLS 121 
 
 Here is a matron who urges that domestic science, by 
 which she means cooking, sewing, milHneiy, be taught. 
 
 Here is the commander of the Grand Army of the Repub- 
 lic to arrange for more work which will stir patriotism. 
 
 Here is a man who has learned how to modulate the 
 voice and breathe properly, who wants to instruct all the 
 teachers in his specialty. 
 
 Here is the superintendent of farmers' institutes who 
 insists that all the schools should teach agriculture. 
 
 Here is a committee of a mothers' congress, which has 
 been appointed to arrange for more motherly management 
 of the teachers and hy the committee. 
 
 Here is the agent who claims that the schools cannot 
 afford and should not dare to go longer without the books 
 of his house. 
 
 Here is a merchant who tells us that when boys get 
 through school they are worthless in business, and that we 
 are bound to make them good for something to tradesmen. 
 
 Here is one who wants more Latin, and next to him are 
 two others who want more practical work and less Latin. 
 
 Here is one charged with the responsibility of getting a 
 teacher appointed, who suggests that he represents some 
 organization which he intimates should be placated. 
 
 Here is a man who wants military drill in the schools 
 because he thinks it makes boys manly, and elbowing him 
 is another who is opposed to it because, as he insists, it 
 breeds the spirit of conquest. 
 
 Here is one who wants a dentist employed by the public 
 to look after the children's teeth; and he has with him a 
 friend who wants the schools to supply a training in Span- 
 ish so as to fit the youngsters to manage our new posses- 
 sions. 
 
 Here is another who wants warm lunches arid swim- 
 ming pools in the schools, so that children may not be kept 
 
122 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 from learning because of hunger, and so that they may learn 
 the virtue of cleanliness. 
 
 Here is a mother who wants the principal of the high 
 school disciplined because he insisted, when her son, a 
 pupil, started a newspaper bearing the name of the school 
 and purporting to represent it, that the boy and the paper 
 should be amenable to the discipline of the school. 
 
 Here is one who with little disguise would have some 
 schools better suited to the rich than to the poor, and others 
 better adapted to the poor than to the rich; and here is 
 another who would have the schools see to it that one boy 
 is especially prepared for college and another especially 
 trained to go to work. 
 
 Here, in quick succession, are several gentlemen who 
 are warm about certain political, social, and scientific 
 theories which they think are vital to the people and should 
 be exploited in the schools. 
 
 Here is one who wants the schools to train professional 
 or mechanical specialists to the end that when the pupils 
 leave the schools they may be at once capable of earning 
 a competency. 
 
 Here is a mild looking man who demands that the schools 
 shall lose no time in aiding the faithful to reform the spell- 
 ing, and he leaves no doubt of the fact that he would die 
 for the cause. 
 
 Here is a physiological psychologist who pretty nearly de- 
 sires to measure and weigh and count the eyebrows of all 
 the children every day from their twelfth to their sixteenth 
 year, in order to sustain psychological contentions con- 
 cerning physiology which the professors of physiology 
 deny. 
 
 Here is a newspaper demanding radical changes in the 
 schools, not so much because the editor is overwhelmed 
 by his personal responsibility as because, from his expert 
 
DEMANDS UPON THE SCHOOLS 123 
 
 newspaper instinct, he knows that everybody is interested 
 in the schools. 
 
 Here is one who urges that what all the teachers need 
 is professional training or wide reading in educational 
 history and philosophy with plenty of methods of teaching, 
 and here is another who insists with no less emphasis that 
 before one can become much of a teacher he must not only 
 read but masticate a good deal besides educational theory, 
 and that methods do not count for much before teachers' 
 minds are filled with material for ready use. 
 
 Here is one who declares that it is the business of the 
 schools to make men of character rather than men of learn- 
 ing, that character is based upon religion, and that the 
 schools are godless and not acceptable because the Bible 
 is not read ; and here is another who insists that the Bible 
 shall not be read because the teacher does not understand 
 it correctly, or will not read it according to the lights of 
 a particular church. 
 
 Here is one who demands that all examinations as a basis 
 of promotion be abolished, and another who begs that all 
 flagellations, as the last resort in the interest of behavior, 
 be likewise permanently stayed. 
 
 Here is one who wants to do something in the schools in 
 order to prove that she is really of some use in the world, 
 and claims any sort of new work which will attract atten- 
 tion provided she may do it, and here is another who would 
 have schools which are maintained at common cost so 
 poorly sustained as to help none but the very poor who can 
 ajfford no better. 
 
 This enumeration might easily go much further, but the 
 list is already longer than need be for the purpose of illus- 
 tration. Who is to meet all of these demands ? 
 
 There must be no mistaking the fact that the schools 
 are the people's schools, and that their development must 
 
124 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 be upon lines which decisive public sentiment lays down. 
 We may well try to enlighten and influence public opinion, 
 but whatever course it takes we need not fear it. Our free- 
 flowing democratic opinions, resulting from our full dis- 
 cussions, assured in our constitutions, aided by the abun- 
 dance of our legislation, and expressed in the frequent 
 changes in our laws, have developed, and will continue 
 to develop, institutions as positive, as substantial, and as 
 beneficent as they are characteristic and unique. This it is 
 that distinguishes our status from that of the constitutional 
 governments of the Old World. They have had the chance 
 to get as much out of parliamentary debates, and out 
 of the English, French, Dutch, and German revolutions, 
 as we have. But they have not had the intermixing and the 
 continuous shaking-up that we have had; they have not 
 had their blood warmed and their minds quickened by 
 other factors of population as ours have been, and so they 
 have not had the chance, or been able to make the most 
 of a chance, as we have. To the free growth and the 
 aggressive self-assertiveness of our public opinion we owe 
 our marked characteristics and our distinguishing institu- 
 tions. For this we may well be grateful. We need not 
 be afraid of it. We may well bear our share in making it. 
 But w:hen we discern it, we shall do well if we fall in 
 with it. 
 
 And this principle is to be observed negatively as well as 
 positively. If we are to fall in with the things which popular 
 sentiment demands, we are likewise bound to refrain from 
 the things which popular sentiment will not support. We 
 are not to take steps of questionable wisdom until directed 
 by competent and responsible authority. Such authority 
 is justified in resenting acts completed which it does not 
 approve and has not been permitted to consider. And, 
 moreover, we are not to mistake a swallow for a summer. 
 
DEMANDS UPON THE SCHOOLS 125 
 
 — we are not to take an assurance or a demand as a posi- 
 tive indication of public opinion. 
 
 It is not well to assume that the management of the 
 people's schools by the people's boards is a vicious factor 
 in the educational plan. It is true that it takes a man who 
 becomes a member of a school board without any recent 
 knowledge of accepted educational theory and practice, a 
 good while to come into workable relations with the pre- 
 vailing order of things, and it often happens that by the 
 time he has come up to the maximum of his efficiency he 
 has to make way for another, and that in consequence the 
 board and the system are in a constant state of agitation 
 and uncertainty. It is also true that forceful men who 
 become members of school boards often go further than is 
 well in disrupting situations rather than in mending them, 
 and sometimes put personal marks upon school systems, 
 which might much better have been omitted. It is even 
 sometimes true, though happily not very often, that a 
 vicious man gets into a school board and sells out a sacred 
 trust for the grossest gain. These things must be counted 
 among the disadvantages inseparably associated with self- 
 government. Still, there are more advantages than dis- 
 advantages. 
 
 The vicious men in school boards are very few in number. 
 They make a bad mess of it while they are there, and they 
 deserve more drastic punishment than they get; but there 
 are hardly enough of them to be in the reckoning. There 
 are a good many ambitious men who come into school 
 boards with thoughts of saying something and doing some- 
 thing. Betipaes they say something or do something that 
 ploughs into educational theory and practice or stirs up 
 settled conditions. But that educational theory which 
 cannot stand the rub ought to be stirred up, and there 
 are a great many settled educational situations which need 
 
126 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 abrasion by vigorous men. Ninety-five per cent of all mem- 
 bers of school boards feel their responsibility, are proud 
 to be associated with the schools, and anxious to do what 
 they can for their betterment. Patrons should exchange 
 views with them, without conceit and without obsequious- 
 ness, with knowledge of the fact that it is as important that 
 the schools shall be impressed with the common thought 
 and the popular feeling which these men must be assumed 
 to represent, as that they shall aim to become the rigid and 
 exact exponents of pedagogical theory in that far-away 
 day when the men and women of the schools may unite 
 upon a code of educational practice which is broad enough 
 and seaworthy enough to invite the confidence of the 
 world's people. 
 
 Much of the special strength and glory of our schools comes 
 to them through that popular administration which is often 
 so troublesome and obnoxious to the teachers. Because 
 the schools cannot be subjected to any manner of exclusive- 
 ness — whether of government, of set or sect, of a system 
 of philosophical thinking, or yet of fixed devices and meth- 
 ods of teaching — but are in the nature of things bound 
 to be flexibly adaptable to the needs and reasonably ex- 
 pressive of the sense of a people, they are filled with that 
 virile power which gives them conspicuous place in the 
 educational work of the world. It is the gradual evolution 
 of plans and policies through the association of popular 
 administration with teaching experience and philosophical 
 thinking that is giving us an educational system which 
 is not being imposed upon the people but which is theirs, 
 has been made by them, and is cherished by them, and 
 which is binding a wonderfully dissimilar people into a ho- 
 mogeneous nation, and training that nation for a very great 
 mission in the world. 
 
 There is a truly considerable and wholly respectable 
 
DEMANDS UPON THE SCHOOLS 127 
 
 number who object to the fundamental plan of the public 
 schools on the radical ground that the work of the church 
 and the work of the school should go together. It is a con- 
 viction with them, and the sincerity of it is not lacking. The 
 common school system has grown out of the very genius 
 of our plan of government, and is held by the ovei-whelming 
 majority to be vital to the oneness and therefore to the life 
 of the nation. Dissent from this long and widely accepted 
 view may be regretted, but when the dissent is based upon 
 religious grounds, the people who advance it must be 
 respected. The fact of it is not sufficient to justify con- 
 tinuous ill will or rasping words over the matter. The ob- 
 jection runs against the plan and spirit of the public school 
 system, rather than against those who are in charge of that 
 system. If there is much desire in any quarter to have a 
 fresh determination of the subject, that fact may be re- 
 gretted in the interest of national comity and religious 
 brotherhood, but the right to have it could hardly be de- 
 nied. In that event it is a matter for the people to act upon 
 through the ordinary channels of public opinion, through 
 elections, through the representative assemblies, through 
 the courts that determine the law, and the officers who 
 execute it. It is not a matter of school administration. 
 We have no discretion about the fundamentals of the school 
 system. We are to observe them. Certainly we do not rest 
 our interest in the schools wholly on the ground of employ- 
 ment. We believe in the plan and we breathe the spirit 
 of the system, and it is our right to be entirely free in our 
 belief and in our expression of it; but it is too much to 
 assume that the responsibility for defending the ground- 
 work of the public schools is upon us. If we make schools 
 which meet the needs and assure the rights of all, we shall 
 accomplish the task which is set for us. If the necessity 
 arises, the mighty forces which are behind us may be 
 
128 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 trusted to make satisfactory deliverances upon national 
 educational theories and policies. 
 
 We are bound to abstain from all that may unnecessarily 
 prevent, as much as we are bound to aid whatever will 
 promote, cooperative efficiency among all the educational 
 instrumentalities of the country. Whenever a private 
 establishment claims to be a school, unless there are ear- 
 marks of deceit and fraud, it is entitled to fraternal regard 
 and sympathy. It is not to be much meddled with by new 
 laws or by public officers unless conditions make investiga- 
 tions necessary for the public protection. It seems bound 
 to make known the facts concerning the attendance and the 
 kind of instruction it is giving, because the withholding 
 of such information can serve no good purpose if the insti- 
 tution is all right, and the having of it is needful to the 
 making and the execution of the necessary plans of the state, 
 as well as to the strengthening of the bonds which ought 
 to exist between all beneficent undertakings. If it seeks 
 recognition for its work in the plans of the state or asks 
 any public commendation or certification of what it is 
 doing, it is bound to submit to such inspection as must 
 be the necessary basis of public action. While it cannot 
 share in public support without being regulated by public 
 law and reviewed by public management, the thought of 
 our people and particularly the spirit of our work should 
 save it from being annoyed by officials, and give it a 
 natural right to participate in the common sympathy and 
 encouragement of all who hold citizenship in the democracy 
 of learning. 
 
 If it is well that the public and private schools shall stand 
 in agreeable relations to one another, it has become educa- 
 tionally necessary that the upper, the middle, and the lower 
 schools shall understand and sustain one another. Their 
 work is interlacing. Many young people are going to col- 
 
DEMANDS UPON THE SCHOOLS 129 
 
 lege ; still more want to go ; and the more to go the better. 
 The road must be an open, a continuous, and a smooth one. 
 But it is not to be fenced so that none can turn aside from it. 
 The work of the elementary schools is not to be shaped with 
 special reference to preparing pupils for college, because 
 more than ninety-five per cent of all the pupils of the ele- 
 mentary schools never go beyond them. What the Ameri- 
 can school system needs is to unload some of the special- 
 ties which the enthusiasts have induced the managers to 
 take on, and then to follow a simple and balanced policy, 
 with opportunities which best meet the needs of all and 
 with special advantages to none. If a community is wealthy 
 and strong, and willing to elaborate those opportunities, 
 well and good ; if a state will carry them to the very point 
 of complete preparation for professional or industrial lead- 
 ership, well and good, with added emphasis; but, regard- 
 less of this, an American state falls short of a high duty if it 
 does not assure to every boy and girl within its borders 
 that exact training in the rudiments which is the founda- 
 tion of all the rest and the guaranty of opportunity in the 
 world. To do this, while we encourage all who will go to 
 the very heights of learning, the unity and solidarity of the 
 educational system are vital. 
 
 The educational system is growing in unity. It is grow- 
 ing slowly, but perhaps as rapidly as conditions will permit. 
 Any real progress must be made by the college and univer- 
 sity people, and while they are generally willing they are usu- 
 ally weighted with a sort of refined clumsiness which is hin- 
 dering. Many of them have never been in, and have not the 
 spirit or the viewpoint of, the common schools, and their 
 specialized work tends to carry them further from the 
 common outlook ; and when they do try to show the good 
 will which they have, the result is often that of a watch- 
 maker trying to train a farmer's boy in horsemanship. 
 
130 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 There must be more resistive power in the school system ; 
 more discrimination in what the schools shall do. When 
 a feature is in itself a good one, it is not very difficult for 
 an enthusiast to get a school board or a legislature to add 
 it to the course. Yet the assumption of it may be a positive 
 public mistake. Many a thing is excellent when carried on 
 by private enterprise or by organizations moved by benevo- 
 lent impulses, but vicious when it enters into the policy of 
 the state. There is a wide difference in the outcome be- 
 tween doing a thing voluntarily, and compelling all the peo- 
 ple to do it, as we do when the schools take it up. It is not 
 saying that the state is not to encourage all sound intel- 
 lectual and moral activities, to say that it is bad to pursue 
 a course which leads the people to depend upon the state 
 when they ought to depend upon themselves ; to count upon 
 the money of the state when they ought to count upon 
 money of their own. The schools are not asylums. Popu- 
 lar education is free and is not to smack of charity. If the 
 conditions of life are specially hard in some places, they 
 must be met by private or public charity. The schools are 
 not organized for that, and ought not to be charged with it. 
 The common schools cannot go much into the accomplish- 
 ments. Interest in the good and the true and the beautiful 
 is to be nourished through an artistic and a hygienic build- 
 ing, with attractive yards about it and masterpieces of 
 art within it; by teachers who are models for youth, and by 
 teaching which is exact, gentle, firm, and true. The place 
 for experimentation is in the laboratories of the universities 
 and not in the classrooms of the lower schools. And there 
 are some things which may better be discussed among men, 
 or among women, or in the medical colleges, or in the sci- 
 entific associations, than in miscellaneous assemblies of 
 teachers. 
 
 The work of the schools should lead toward doing things 
 
DEMANDS UPON THE SCHOOLS 131 
 
 as well as toward knowing things. But, unmistakably, there 
 is a waste of time over novelties. We are discovering un- 
 known faculties and remote possibilities, and we often 
 urge a docile board to put in a novel course when well-known 
 things or established plans need our attention completely. 
 We cannot arrange the schools for every child or every fac- 
 ulty. We are to make the schools for all ; we, are to adjust 
 the children to the schools; and we are to inspire them to 
 help themselves. 
 
 It is difficult to withhold support from any proposition 
 which may seem to add a feature to the public undertak- 
 ings, when that feature is likely to gratify a factor of our 
 population. It is more difficult still to oppose movements 
 from within the schools when they are advanced with the 
 most genuine and sincere purposes, even though they can- 
 not be accepted upon any recognized theory of sound pub- 
 lic policy or of true educational progress. Yet we may well 
 believe that this must be done more decisively if the edu- 
 cational system is to have and to hold that measure of pub- 
 lic confidence which is necessary to its best usefulness. 
 
 The common thought of this nation is that every state, 
 in the exercise of the sovereign authority which it possesses 
 over educational matters, is not only bound to assure to 
 every child his opportunity, but also to see that he has it 
 even though he be unfortunate in his parentage and in his 
 circumstances. This assurance is to be made good through 
 such aid or such directions to poor or dilatory communities 
 as conditions may make necessary. This much being as- 
 sured, all communities are empowered to go as far as their 
 means and their spirit will suggest in elaborating the 
 schools or multiplying the agencies of general culture. No 
 valid objection can be made to public secondary schools 
 wherever the proximity of population will support them, 
 and accordingly in every considerable town the high school 
 
132 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 is as much a part of the free school system as the elemen- 
 tary school. And it will be surprising if in time the older 
 states do not follow the newer ones in providing college 
 and university training without charge to such of their 
 youth as are prepared for it and will come and take it. In 
 the large cities, where it may easily be done, the work of 
 the secondary, schools has been, or will be, somewhat sep- 
 arated and distinguished with a view to better serving the 
 different circumstances or intentions of students, and the 
 states have, or will, set up industrial, scientific, and pro- 
 fessional, as well as literary colleges, unless private en- 
 dowments and long labor have already developed a suffi- 
 cient number that are good enough and free enough to make 
 such a course by the state unnecessary. This is not charity 
 and is not looked upon as paternalistic or socialistic in this 
 country. It accords with the spirit and is a part of the pur- 
 pose of the nation. It is not saying that we are to shut out 
 of the schools the progress and the information of our gen- 
 eration, when we say that there shall not be ignorance or 
 confusion about the exact and exacting drudgery and 
 methods which have been necessary to train self-conscious 
 power into minds in all generations gone, and which will 
 be necessary in all generations to come. The sense of the 
 nation turns against the complexity of work in the lower 
 schools which has come from the inborn American ten- 
 dency to experiment and multiply, from the urgency of am- 
 bitious superintendents, from the desire to please some 
 professional or industrial interest in the community, from 
 the influence of some political theory, or from the insist- 
 ence of teachers of special subjects in the schools above, 
 until the aggregate has become more conducive to intel- 
 lectual amusement than to mental discipline and the power 
 of discriminating outlook. 
 
 If we would be more cautious about all this, more con- 
 
DEMANDS UPON THE SCHOOLS 133 
 
 servative about things which have not been proved, more 
 decisive about withstanding demands which are not gen- 
 eral ; or, better still, if we would go much further and sim- 
 plify the programme of the schools by cutting out the things 
 which may be easily learned in a quarter of the time later, 
 if there is ever any occasion to learn them, or the things 
 preparatory to the schools above which are so poorly done 
 that they have to be thoroughly unlearned before a fair start 
 can be made in the advanced schools, we might hope to 
 bring the work of the schools within the possibilities of 
 popular comprehension and sympathy, and thus to win 
 enlarged public confidence and added freedom in admin- 
 istration, which would mean very much to the educational 
 system and to the nation. 
 
 The school system needs freedom. The organizing and 
 the teaching must be free or it will be futile. If it has to be 
 done under influences which control without understand- 
 ing it, or through agencies which would despoil it for pur- 
 poses of their own, there is little hope of realizing any edu- 
 cational ideals. There is to be nothing in or about the 
 schools which does not make for absolute freedom in shap- 
 ing courses, in securing teachers of the highest and most 
 uniform excellence, or in assuring to teachers their free 
 opportunity to inspire, to train, and to uplift. But such free- 
 dom can only go with confidence. Wherever the school 
 system lacks in symmetry and efficiency, and so in self- 
 confidence and resistive power, it is peculiarly open to 
 experiments which ought to be forbidden and to demands 
 which should be resisted, but which it lacks both the sense 
 to resent and the strength to resist. Wherever it has such 
 sense and strength, frivolous experiments and partisan 
 demands do not so much persist. So the school system is 
 going from good to better, or from bad to worse. 
 
 It seems paradoxical to some to say that freedom is based 
 
134 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 upon restraint. It is true of all freedom and as eminently 
 true of educational freedom as of any other. The schools 
 cannot be free in their making or in their teaching unless 
 there is outside pressure, in the way of legal enactments 
 and accepted understandings, which keep them hard at 
 designated functions, and unless within them there are ac- 
 cepted standards and ends of teaching sufficiently defined 
 and binding to assure the accomplishment of set and defi- 
 nite tasks. With the limits and requirements so defined, 
 and with sufficient knowledge that they must be observed, 
 there may be that liberty which is necessary to act upon 
 one's own thought and experience and to follow one's own 
 ways, which is so vital to real teaching. 
 
 We can listen to no demand which is not made in the 
 interest of all. We can willingly permit no advantage to 
 one as against another. It would be as well to acquiesce 
 in the government of the schools by a sectarian denomina- 
 tion as by a political party. They are to be governed by 
 teachers who are free and have experienced educational 
 opinion, working in harmony and respect with laymen 
 who stand for public sentiment and the common interests, 
 and who serve no master save the great people whom they 
 represent and the mighty democratic advance whose picket 
 guard they are. 
 
 These are some of the principles which ought to move 
 us in conceding or in resisting the innumerable demands 
 upon the schools. Perhaps naturally enough, the trouble- 
 some things in administration, for the most part the un- 
 worthy rather than the legitimate demands upon the 
 schools, have been presented. But the wrongs and the trou- 
 bles pass away and are forgotten. Things which should 
 not be do not last. Things accomplished make other 
 steps in the golden stairway of opportunity and are the 
 things which stay. They are the matters of real concern. 
 
DEMANDS UPON THE SCHOOLS 135 
 
 Let no -demand that we help men and women be lightly 
 taken. If one who knows the fields and woods moves us to 
 have others know them better, let us say that he is right 
 and try to have it so. If an old soldier of the Grand Army 
 would have us do a little more to quicken the love for the 
 flag so dear to him, let us try to do it. If one with an eye 
 for the beautiful and a heart for the clean demands that a 
 school building, in and out, be attractive and wholesome, 
 free from filth and helpful to health and to better living, let 
 us not be annoyed, but try to make it so. If youth cannot 
 foresee and cannot ask for inspiration, let those who do 
 see and understand give the word that may unlock the 
 very depths. Even if the truth halts and conscience sleeps, 
 let us recall that it is not strange, and offer the help that 
 may meet their mute claims. If a mother has a feeling, 
 which she shows but cannot name, that her daughter 
 should be taught by one no less cultured and no less a gen- 
 tlewoman than herself , let us not resent it, but do what may 
 be done to have it so, and not only so for her, but for all. 
 If a father fears that his son's time is being wasted by one 
 in a teacher's place who cannot teach, and thinks it his 
 business to know about it, let us be glad that there are such 
 fathers, and remember that that is precisely what fathers are 
 for. Let us look to see if his complaint is just, and if it is 
 help him to his highest right on earth. If any unselfishly 
 apprehend that the plans of the schools do not, in the 
 largest measure, serve the purpose of the state, let us put 
 our heads together to make them do it. But let us not 
 make the mistake of thinking that these things may be 
 done by adding courses or by multiplying devices. Before 
 boys and girls give much support to the state, they will 
 have to do a whole lot of business for themselves. It makes 
 not so much difference what it is, if they have enthusiasm 
 for it, if it is hard enough to make them tired, and if they 
 
136 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 hold to it long enough to have the satisfaction and the 
 growth which go with accomplishment. Insipidity is a 
 worse fault than brusqueness in one who lays any claim 
 to be a teacher. Confidence and steadiness and consider- 
 ateness are essential. The idea should never gain ground 
 that the schools are to give clothing and lunches to pupils 
 in order to help them. The only way they can ever accom- 
 plish anything is by knowing things on their own account 
 and doing things for themselves. The word "charity" 
 should never be set above the door. " Opportunity " should 
 be written over the portals. As we consolidate the educa- 
 tional system, we gain added triumphs for popular edu- 
 cation. The support of all the schools should be brought 
 to the support of each, so that every one may have the 
 utmost. After the elementary schools, the greater number 
 will leave when they must. Whenever they go they should 
 have the utmost that can be given them up to that time. 
 And, at whatever time they go, they should carry with 
 them not only the rudiments of learning, which will help 
 them to do almost everything in this country, but also the 
 elementary factors of true and ambitious living. 
 
II 
 
 SCIENCE IN THE ELEMENTARY GRADES 
 
 What is science ? Some of the old writers- called it " God's 
 sight," and the characterization was not at all inappro- 
 priate. Science is the truth of the Almighty overcoming 
 obstacles, working its way out through difficulties, and 
 marching on to its final triumph. Science and nature and 
 Deity are very nearly the same. They are in full and har- 
 monious accord. They constitute a power which is every- 
 where present and always active. No matter about any 
 peculiarities of their personal beliefs, no matter in what 
 kind of a church they worship, all men realize the existence 
 of such a Power in the world and know that it is every- 
 where present in the universe and that it is always active. 
 They know that it controls both mind and matter; that 
 flowers bloom, that electric current flows, that minds un- 
 fold, and that planets revolve and keep to their courses 
 under its laws. 
 
 Frequently man is unable to understand its processes. 
 Names are cumbersome. The language of science is dis- 
 couraging. But learning and research are continually help- 
 ing him. Much has been revealed to this generation which 
 has been withheld from all that have gone before it. One 
 difficulty after another is removed, one achievement after 
 another is accomplished, mysteries are explained, remote 
 facts come into relationship, the harmonies of the universe 
 are established, and man stands in the presence of the 
 mighty Power that is behind it all. 
 
 That is sometimes called science which is not science. 
 In reaching from the known into the unknown there is 
 
138 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 danger of letting go of the known and falling into the un- 
 fathomable unknown. There is intellectual dissipation for 
 some people in contentions which no one can establish 
 and no one can overturn. True science holds on to what 
 is known and keeps in touch with what is material. It is 
 intensely practical. Its mission is not to involve in mystery, 
 but to clear up the sight and unlock the truth. 
 
 Man has learned to know how vital it is to his happi- 
 ness and usefulness that he keep in accord with the Power 
 that rules the universe, and that he act in harmony with 
 scientific knowledge. He has experimented enough to see 
 how dangerous it is to attempt to cross the boundaries 
 which nature sets against human action. He is surely ex- 
 perienced enough to understand both the fascination of 
 scientific study and the vital relation of its results to the 
 uplifting of the human race. Human laws, which merely 
 regulate the social organization, must necessarily differ 
 according to the circumstances and experiences of nations 
 and change with their changing conditions, but the laws 
 of nature are universal and unchangeable. The human 
 life which measurably expands to its possibilities must 
 read the book of nature and act upon its precepts. The 
 life which does this is enriched and gains capacity for 
 enjoyment. 
 
 If this knowledge is of consequence to the individual, 
 so it is to the school. If it has lifted up the individual, so 
 it has the school. If it has brought a new light into the 
 life of the individual, so it has into the life of the school. 
 If it is a stairway to the high ends of human existence, it is, 
 of course, a vital element in the curriculum of the schools. 
 
 Science is evolving a scientific house for the use of the 
 schools. Art and science are both revealing things that 
 our fathers never thought of. The one is showing how 
 cultivated taste and skill can make a building which will 
 
SCIENCE IN ELEMENTARY GRx\DES 139 
 
 please the eye and train the aesthetic taste, for the same 
 money that was expended upon the unsightly structure 
 of the last generation, and experience has shown that even 
 the sense of the child is strong enough to respect and care 
 for it if it is pleasing to the eye and is worthy of being cared 
 for. Art has sho^n that no school authority can afford to 
 ignore its entreaties. But science is more imperious. By 
 consequences and results it has shown that no school 
 authority dare disregard its injunctions, for its mission is 
 to conserve the health of the pupils and promote the effec- 
 tiveness of the school. 
 
 Science concerns itself with the character of the ground 
 upon which the building is to stand and the conditions 
 with which it is to be surrounded. It locates the build- 
 ing with reference to the points of the compass and the 
 advantages of sunlight. It discriminates in material; it 
 puts the basement floor above the water line; it regulates 
 the height of stairs; it asks for sheltering porches and 
 demands that outer doors shall swing outward. Above 
 all, it looks to the size, and shape, and temperature, and 
 ventilation, and lighting of rooms. It says that the good 
 health of each child requires at least fifteen square feet 
 of floor space and two hundred cubic feet of air space; 
 that fresh air, direct from the outside, is even more im- 
 portant than warm air, and that every child must have at 
 least thirty cubic feet of it per minute, if re-breathing the 
 same air and the consequent likelihood of disease are to 
 be avoided. Science prescribes the methods for getting 
 warm and fresh air into the room and for taking dead air 
 and foul gases out of the room, and provides the instru- 
 ments for determining the extent to which it is accom- 
 plished. Science looks to the tinting of the walls and 
 takes light from the ceiling or the left side for the purpose 
 of protecting the eyesight of pupils. Thus sanitation. 
 
140 ^' AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 hygiene, and also seats, blackboards, and innumerable 
 other matters receive scientific attention ; these serve to 
 indicate the extent to which knowledge is evolving a health- 
 ful and pleasurable school-room. Of course, the perfect 
 building has not yet come, and the schools have many 
 old buildings on their hands which they have inherited, and 
 some people are slow to see the value of scientific know- 
 ledge, but when the new schoolhouse is compared with 
 the old one, and when it is realized that no intelligent parent 
 will longer be indifferent, and no intelligent official dare 
 be indifferent to these things, it is apparent with what rapid 
 strides the light and truth have been advancing. 
 
 If science has been potent in the improvement of the 
 schoolhouse, so it has surely been in the preparation of 
 the teacher. Fifty years is a brief period in the history 
 of education, but the last fifty years constitute a period 
 which will be memorable, for that period has witnessed 
 the rapid and mature development of the science of teach- 
 ing, and that development has worked a complete revolu- 
 tion in the conduct of the schools. Our fathers were accus- 
 tomed to think that any one who knew a thing could teach 
 it. They were far from the truth. Investigation and experi- 
 ence have shown the truth to be that the bare possession 
 of knowledge is but one element in the equipment of a 
 teacher. He must know human nature; he must under- 
 stand the particular mind to be taught and be able to come 
 into harmonious relations with it; he must engage its at- 
 tention, arouse its enthusiasm, and make it not only recep- 
 tive of but eager for knowledge, before it can gain know- 
 ledge which will give it strength. A mere imitator cannot 
 do this ; much less can one who knows nothing of scientific 
 processes and is not even an imitator. Pestalozzi declared 
 that " education is the generation of power." The elements 
 of power must exist for the generation of power. The 
 
SCIENCE IN ELEMENTARY GRADES 141 
 
 teacher must understand principles and be able to employ 
 the best methods at the right time and in the right way, 
 with a trained and discriminating judgment. The span 
 of the memory, the influence of the imagination, the force 
 of reason, all of the processes of the child-mind, the trend 
 of the feelings, the strength of the attachments, all the 
 natural likes and dislikes of children, have been studied 
 with scientific care in order to know how to make the work 
 of the schools most prolific of good. 
 
 Of course, this thing may be overdone. There is great 
 possibility of error. Facts may be apparent rather than 
 real. Deductions may be lame. Logic may be spread out 
 until it is thin. There is a rich field for ridicule. That has 
 been the common lot of science in all lands and all ages. 
 Still science is conquering the world. The truth keeps 
 working its way out and marching on. It is doing so with 
 majestic step in this case. The scientific study of the child 
 and the scientific training of the teacher have already 
 revolutionized the work of the schools to such an extent 
 that a plain statement of what the new schools are doing 
 is regarded by the last generation with disbelief or incre- 
 dulity, and a plain statement of what the old schools did 
 is felt by the new generation to be false or unfairly exagger- 
 ated. 
 
 As the physicians of the past generations gave physics 
 and emetics, and put on leeches and let blood indiscrimi- 
 nately, often breaking down the constitutions they were em- 
 ployed to build up, so the teachers of past generations 
 fumed, and scolded, and strutted, and thrashed, and thus 
 humiliated the characters they were employed to uplift. 
 Occasionally there was a physician and occasionally there 
 was a teacher with a clearer vision than the rest; occasion- 
 ally there was a patient with a constitution which was 
 bound to outwit the doctor, and occasionally there was a 
 
142 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 character bound to outlive the absurd discipline of the 
 school. 
 
 That discipline was almost uniformly harsh. The 
 government was not one of reason, but of force. The 
 teacher, if a woman, was employed in the summer time 
 to teach the girls because she was related to the trustee, or 
 to his cousins, or his aunts ; and, if a man, was employed to 
 teach the boys in the winter because he had superior 
 strength, agility, and courage. The threatening talk and the 
 menacing conduct of the teacher stirred all the risibilities 
 and combativeness of human nature. The teacher was 
 thought great by the people if he could conquer the school 
 after stirring its passions. A substantial ferule was always 
 in sight. Frequently a rawhide whip was kept in the room. 
 Many teachers carried a rattan in the hand continually. 
 Flagellations were of everyday occurrence. Frequently 
 they were cruel in the extreme. Struggles and blows and 
 outcries which no intelligent parent of our day would per- 
 mit his child to witness, and from which he would himself 
 turn or stop by force, were very ordinary. The ingenuity 
 of the teacher was taxed to find methods and instruments 
 of punishment. Children were made to hold weights at 
 arm's length, to " sit on nothing " with the back against the 
 wall, or to do anything which would be excruciating, hu- 
 miliating, and degrading. If they flinched they were whipped 
 for it. To make the thing especially obnoxious boys were 
 sometimes sent out to get whips with which to be whipped ; 
 and sometimes boys who were not involved in trouble were 
 sent for whips with which to whip their brothers or asso- 
 ciates. Fear of punishment was always present. 
 
 Of course, children had spirit then as now, and that 
 spirit resented and organized to resist this stupid brutality. 
 Teachers were frequently unable to keep order. Seri- 
 ous struggles between the pupils and the teacher were 
 
SCIENCE IN ELEMENTARY GRADES 143 
 
 common. Mr. George H. Martin, who would certainly 
 make no unguarded statement, says in his history of the 
 school system of Massachusetts that during one winter 
 fifty years ago more than three hundred schools were 
 broken up in that state by the insubordination of pupils. 
 The common proceeding was to put the teacher out of 
 the schoolhouse. The old pedagogue who has survived 
 is inclined to boast of the fact that he stayed in the school- 
 house at all; it is the tallest feather in his cap. 
 
 At home the child was asked not what he did in school 
 during the day, but whether he was whipped. This, with 
 " chores " morning and afternoon, with the dearth of games 
 and of books, and with brimstone theology in allopathic 
 doses nights and Sundays and between times, made an 
 environment which was not well calculated to ennoble the 
 nature of the child, as it certainly was not likely to promote 
 cheerfulness in his meditations. If substantial character 
 afterward developed, as it very frequently did, the fact was 
 due to other circumstances and considerations which have 
 very largely ceased to exist. If strong manhood followed 
 it was not because of this harsh and senseless disciplinary 
 treatment, but in spite of it. 
 
 Fortunately it has all passed away, for scientific study 
 of the secret springs of human motives and actions showed, 
 and experience proved, that such a plan of management 
 rested upon a basis which was wholly fallacious, that the 
 more force there was the more there would have to be, that 
 it degraded the teacher, that it set up a standard of excel- 
 lence in the minds of the people which was utterly false, 
 and was a bar to the fruitfulness and effectiveness of the 
 teacher's work. It brutalized the school and absorbed the 
 productive energies of the instructor. It put the child out 
 of teachable relations with the teacher, and scientific 
 thought would not have it so. It was against nature, it was 
 
144 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 opposed to the truth; and nature and truth will have their 
 way. And they have been having their way, for in the 
 person of a teacher more intelligent and better prepared 
 they have appealed to the reason, the affections, the ambi- 
 tions, the honor; they have made study both objective and 
 attractive ; they have given the opening mind the pleasure 
 of learning things and accomplishing things; they have 
 helped and inspired and trusted, until they have brought 
 pupils into relations which make teaching practicable 
 and into an atmosphere where teaching must be a thing 
 of energy and power. 
 
 The present age is both a material and scientific one. It 
 is unlike any which has preceded it. It did not come by 
 conquest. It broke upon us as quietly as the dawn of a 
 summer morning. It has witnessed a new love for Nature 
 and an added interest in her wonderful secrets and pro- 
 cesses. It is an age of searching inquiry and close dis- 
 cussion. The false and the sham will be revealed; that 
 which cannot stand discussion will go to the wall; the 
 truth will work its way out. It is not only an age of demo- 
 lition, but one of accomplishment. It is an age of material 
 development, for it is an age of constructive genius. It is 
 an age of intellectual energy, for it is an age of disciplined 
 thought. It is essentially an age of scientific knowledge 
 and scientific power. 
 
 Science is the interpretation of nature. But nature is 
 manifest in tfie butterfly, the squirrel, and the robin, as 
 well as in the mammoths of the deep or the mastodons 
 of the ancients ; it is in the opening blade and the blooming 
 flower as well as in the burning mountain and the blinding 
 storm ; it is in the rocks and shells as well as in the invisible 
 current which drives the machinery of our factories or that 
 other invisible force which propels the machinery of..our 
 lives. There is science for the child as well as science for 
 
SCIENCE IN ELEMENTARY GRADES 145 
 
 the savant. The activity of the child and the wisdom of 
 the scholar each have their uses in unfolding the secrets 
 of science. 
 
 There is joy and fascination in nature, for the nature 
 that is about us is in harmony with the nature that is 
 within us. 
 
 There 's a blush on the fruit and a smile on the flower 
 And a laugh on the brook as it runs to the sea. 
 
 There is moral power in science. Who can see a dozen 
 magnetized needles, floating on corks in a basin of water, 
 repel one another, and range themselves at equal distances 
 apart, and remain in exact equilibrium so long as the similar 
 poles are all pointing up or down and then see the disturb- 
 ance and the clashing which ensue when one of them 
 is reversed, without thinking of what is behind all this ? 
 Who can see the earth turn under the swinging pendulum 
 without knowing that this did not come by accident or 
 chance, and without revering the Power which controls 
 this motion and holds the spheres upon their courses ? 
 
 There is intellectual awakening in the study of science. 
 No one can engage in it without acquiring the habit of 
 inquiry and investigation ; no one can be under its spell 
 without thought which is original; and these are the 
 principal instrumentalities of the new education. 
 
 Scientific investigation, above almost any other work 
 that can be taken up in the school-room, is promotive 
 of cordial relations between teacher and pupil. They 
 work together for a common end, and that end is the 
 truth. They are in harmony with a common object, and 
 therefore in harmony with each other. The tension is 
 removed, the problem of management is reduced in its 
 proportions if not entirely eliminated, and teachable 
 relations are established between teacher and child, and 
 
146 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 enthusiasm carries them on. Then it is evident how much 
 more may be accomplished when instructor and pupil help 
 each other, than when indifference prevails, or when they 
 wear each others' lives with bitterness, or mechanically 
 observe only the requirements of an armed truce. 
 
 Then the study of the simpler sciences, experimentally 
 and in the methods of the laboratory, is both practicable 
 and essential at an early age, and will promote the work 
 of the schools both directly and by reflex and stimulating 
 influence on the school organization, on the betterment 
 of the building, on the growth of the teacher, on the tem- 
 perament of the pupils, and on all the lines of work in which 
 the schools engage. 
 
 Five hundred thousand teachers instruct eighteen mil- 
 lions of children in the public schools of the United States. 
 There are many more thousands in the schools of the other 
 constitutional governments of the world. The elementary 
 free school is indeed becoming universal and the teaching 
 fraternity world-wide. No army in the world holds greater 
 power in its hand. Upon no other does so much depend. 
 If this great fraternity will think upon the movements of 
 the past centuries toward a higher life; if it will keep in 
 sympathy with nature ; if it will seek a clearer understand- 
 ing of the leadings of the overruling power in the world ; 
 if it will have a larger interest in scientific study ; then, it will 
 have a deeper reverence for scientific truth ; it will realize 
 the assurance of Coleridge that "as we strive to ascend 
 we will ascend in the striving"; it will see an unwonted 
 meaning in the words of a greater than Coleridge, who said, 
 "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make 
 you free " ; and it will have added power because it will 
 have added joy in the schools. 
 
m 
 
 THE RISE OF HIGH SCHOOLS 
 
 There have been three fairly well-defined steps in the 
 making of American secondary schools. First, there was 
 the Latin grammar school of the colonies. Second, came 
 the academy which prevailed and flourished from the 
 Revolutionary War till past the middle of the nineteenth 
 century. And third, there is the public high school which 
 has come into its estate in the last half century. 
 
 The colonial grammar school took its name and its char- 
 acter from the early cathedral grammar schools and the 
 monasteries. There were not many of them, and they were 
 for the greater part both local and temporary. They were 
 in almost every instance fitting schools for the colleges. 
 They did not scatter their affections. Each one was the 
 instrument and feeder of a particular college. They pre- 
 pared pupils for the college entrance examinations, but 
 they had to go far to supplement the meagre instruction 
 received in the home schools, or perhaps oftener in the 
 homes where there were no schools at all. Of course they 
 observed and inculcated the religious beliefs of the colleges 
 which they supported. 
 
 The character of the New England grammar schools in 
 the middle of the seventeenth century will be seen from 
 the statement that " when scholars had so profited at the 
 grammar schools that they could read any classical author 
 into English and readily make and speak true Latin, and 
 write it in verse as well as in prose, and perfectly decline the 
 paradigms of nouns and verbs in the Greek tongues, they 
 were judged capable of admission in Harvard College." 
 
148 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 At Princeton, a century later, it was announced that 
 "candidates must be capable of composing grammatical 
 Latin, translating Virgil, Cicero's orations, and the four 
 evangelists in Greek, and must understand the principal 
 rules of vulgar arithmetic," and this controlled the work 
 of such fitting schools as there were at that time in the 
 middle colonies. 
 
 These schools are commonly called "free schools," but 
 they were not wholly free. They claimed tuition fees, 
 depended upon generous gifts which they often secured, 
 and looked to permanent endowments which some of them 
 realized. Often gifts of lands or some special revenues 
 were made by the town. Certainly they were not public 
 in the sense that they were supported by uniform taxation. 
 The term "free school" seems to have been used to desig- 
 nate schools not restricted to a particular class of pupils. 
 
 New England led in the formation of these early classical 
 schools because New England was New England. Institu- 
 tions in New England naturally enough copied institutional 
 life in Old England. The English peasantry had no schools. 
 The English nobility and aristocracy maintained colleges 
 and fitting schools of their own. The grammar schools, 
 like the colleges of which they were really a part, came 
 from the higher classes and were necessarily exclusive. 
 There was a fine aristocracy, indeed a gifted and, speaking 
 relatively, a learned aristocracy in New England, and 
 naturally enough it followed the ways of the mother coun- 
 try. Often it improved upon those ways. The growing 
 spirit of democracy made this particularly true in education. 
 
 The Dutch were the first to set up the really free elemen- 
 tary school in America. They brought more democracy 
 with them than the Puritans did. The Pilgrims had more 
 of it, man for man, than either; but there were not enough 
 of them to bring a very great quantity or propagate it very 
 
THE RISE .OF HIGH SCHOOLS 149 
 
 rapidly. Before the English overthrew the Dutch there 
 were many elementary schools in New Netherland. There 
 were only one or two grammar or classical schools. After 
 the English triumphed all of the Dutch schools disap- 
 peared. Education was a bone of contention. The Eng- 
 lish had no disposition to encourage elementary schools 
 for Dutchmen. It seemed perilous to them. In the more 
 than a century from the English invasion to the Revolution 
 there were two, and only two, schools established by the 
 Dutch with the English official approval. Both were gram- 
 mar schools. The English crown could tolerate Dutch 
 classical schools rather than Dutch elementary schools. 
 That much seemed reasonably safe when the teachers had 
 to be approved by English bishops. One of these schools 
 was as transitory as classical; the other was splendidly 
 persistent, for it merged into Columbia University. 
 
 There is nothing more interesting in our history, or in any 
 history, than the relation of the democratic to the edu- 
 cational advance. The growth of sentiment and feeling 
 which forced the Revolution was quickly reflected in inno- 
 vations upon the character of the schools. The Colonial 
 grammar schools were pushed down into territory unoc- 
 cupied by the exclusive institutions of such aristocracy 
 as there was. They were the instruments of a distinct 
 copartnership between church and state. They were com- 
 moner and stronger where that copartnership was the 
 widest and the most exact. They were few and weak where 
 that relation was non-existent or ineffective. But of course 
 until real democracy began to assert itself there were no 
 schools save the exclusive ones provided by the crown 
 and the church. With the approach of the Revolution and 
 resulting from the same causes, new social, ecclesiastical, 
 and political conditions produced a new order of schools. 
 The tendency toward the independence of governmental 
 
150 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 and ecclesiastical affairs was developing, and the close 
 relation between church and state which so long obtained 
 in the Puritan theocracy was weakening. The effect upon 
 the schools was twofold, — to make the lower grades of 
 schools the instruments of the democratic advance, and 
 to stimulate private and denominational effort in the inter- 
 est of the old order. The results were the common elemen- 
 tary school, developed more slowly than we are accustomed 
 to think, and also a new institution of much higher grade 
 under private and denominational control, with more exact 
 legal and corporate organization and powers, and not 
 entirely without state largess. The grammar schools did 
 not wholly disappear, but they rapidly decreased in num- 
 bers; and such as lived contracted their curriculums, and 
 shed their denominational bent. A very few, notably the 
 Boston Latin School, have been adopted by the public, 
 and have come down to the present day, retaining a dis- 
 tinct classical curriculum. Wherever this has occurred it 
 has been in close association with other secondary schools 
 with wider courses and freer electives. 
 
 Even before the Revolution an academy appeared here 
 and there; but it needed independence to settle matters. 
 And independence did settle matters. It is too often for- 
 gotten that there were two English parties on the other side 
 in the American Revolution. The Puritan party was not 
 a democratic institution, but it was being trained to more 
 liberal and independent thinking, and was coming to see 
 the need or at least the inevitable advance of democratic 
 institutions. The English in America who had not yet 
 become full-fledged Americans were Puritans. They had 
 no deep affection for the Cavaliers or the Royal Cabal at 
 London, and their political and religious faith and their 
 pioneer life made them the best fighters the world ever 
 saw. Real separation made complete independents and 
 
THE RISE OF HIGH SCHOOLS 151 
 
 pretty fair democrats of them all. They were a little slow 
 and needed time, but time made them about the best Amer- 
 icans in the lot. They joined the issue and got up splendid 
 little scrimmages at Lexington and Concord. They did 
 some awful fighting at Bunker Hill, but lost the hill. They 
 were not without humor, grim as it was, when they told the 
 British commander they would like to sell him some more 
 hills at the same cost. But the military power of the Cava- 
 lier political cabal, for the time being in the control of the 
 English government, was outwitted on Long Island and 
 pretty largely absorbed at Saratoga. It is interesting to 
 hear Sir George Trevelyan, a good enough English author- 
 ity, in the best and most judicial history of the Revolution- 
 ary struggle which has been written, tell us that we were 
 then fighting the English government in order to keep 
 and enlarge English liberty. Whether or not it would have 
 otherwise been lost, as a matter of fact we did keep it and 
 enlarge it. Under rather bad treatment after the war, which 
 we all regret now, the Royalists either came to be Ameri- 
 cans, or went back to England, or over to Canada, and left 
 a pure democracy to begin to break out new roads and 
 go ahead as fast as it would. 
 
 The elimination of the influence of English politics from 
 the affairs of government in America, the removal of the 
 oversight of the English Church over religious affairs in 
 this country, and particularly the distinct enunciation of 
 the entire separation of church and state in the scheme of 
 government which rose above the fires of the Revolution, 
 gave decisive impulse to new educational ideas and dis- 
 tinct form and energy to a new manner of school. 
 
 The American academy was not a democratic institution, 
 but it was more democratic than the colleges and Latin 
 schools which antedated it. It was as democratic as the 
 hold-over influences or the uncertain political theories of 
 
152 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 the time would permit it to be. It had an independent legal 
 organization with an independent though perhaps a slen- 
 der endowment and a self -perpetuating control. If it aimed 
 to prepare pupils for college it undertook even more to 
 prepare pupils for life when they were not going to college. 
 Often its work was wider than that of the college itself. It 
 laid new stress on the study of English, including its gram- 
 mar, rhetoric, and the art of public speaking. It went more 
 broadly into mathematics, including surveying and navi- 
 gation, and it made important beginnings in the natural 
 sciences. Chemistry and physics were favorite subjects. 
 History was universally taught. Even architecture and 
 stenography got a start. French was very common, and 
 German appeared occasionally. Latin and Greek contin- 
 ued to be upheld, but they were paralleled by innumerable 
 courses which were clearly enough of democratic origin 
 and destined to change the outlook of communities and 
 propagate the democratic principle in affairs. It was at- 
 tached to the fortunes of no party in politics, and, although 
 it was devoutly religious in spirit, it of necessity came to 
 serve a constituency which was much broader than the 
 membership of any single church. It exacted fees, but 
 commonly far below the measure of its necessities, and its 
 democratic tendencies disposed it to help all whom it 
 could. It surely needed the aid which the state was dis- 
 posed to give, and as the state was a democratic one the 
 fact stimulated the democracy of the academy itself. 
 ' The academies were the outcome of the best thinking of 
 almost a century of American progress. They were the 
 embodiment of as fine heroisms as ever found expression 
 in any educational institution, and there have been no finer 
 in the world. They were as democratic as the most aggres- 
 sive democratic spirit of their day could make them. They 
 did a work entitling them to enduring gratitude because 
 
THE RISE OF HIGH SCHOOLS 153 
 
 of wide and permanent value. Then as a prevailing class 
 they were forced aside by a new class of institutions which 
 sprang out of fresh and advancing thought, were more 
 democratic, met a wholesome and imperative demand 
 for a wider range of work, had a much wider and more 
 potential influence, and gained new and very different 
 ends. 
 
 The academy was an incorporated and endowed insti- 
 tution, though commonly so slenderly endowed as to be 
 transitory. The public high school is supported by taxa- 
 tion, managed by public officers, and more independent 
 and permanent. The high school is free; the academy 
 was as free as it could be, but it lived largely upon fees. 
 The difference appeared in the pupils, in the instruction, 
 in the outlook, and in the measure of stability. The inter- 
 est of the mass is the best endowment an institution can 
 have. It is even more steadfast than statutes. The taxing 
 power is not so spasmodic as beneficence. 
 
 • The work of the academy connected with the colleges' 
 and had no organic connections below; that of the high 
 school connects with the public elementary schools be- 
 low and forces the colleges after long centuries of opposing 
 theories to establish relations with the upper end of the 
 high school courses or waive the hope of preeminence. 
 - The academy was pushed down into unoccupied ter- ' 
 ritory from above ; the high school was pushed up into the 
 same field from below. The business of one was to serve 
 the interests that were above but not quite altogether 
 heavenly ; that of the other is to help on the broader and 
 more worldly concerns that are below. In time it tran- 
 spired that with all this in the same territory there was now 
 and then some abrasion. 
 
 . The function of the academy was to prepare for college * 
 and incidentally for life ; that of the high school is to pre- 
 
154 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 pare for life and incidentally for college. The one was 
 classical with some practicalities; the other is severely 
 practical, and generally in the best sense, with some class- 
 ical appurtenances. The academy was essentially an ad- 
 vanced school for boys; the high school is as essentially 
 coeducational. 
 
 • The courses of the high schools have widened out and 
 gone into about everything that can aid one to earn a living. 
 There is mental discipline in study that informs the mind 
 land applies to life. 
 
 It is interesting to study the first decisive manifestations 
 of this high school movement. They came in the West — 
 in what was then the West — where there was nothing in 
 the way, where democracy was freer than in thoroughly 
 settled social conditions, and where the masses were doing 
 things on their own account. The movement advanced on 
 lines of least resistance, but when forced it accepted the 
 gauge of battle, and when it did that it won, or drove a 
 mutually advantageous compromise. 
 
 The movement from the beginning and always has been 
 strong in the West, — in whatever came to be the West. A 
 western village is ashamed to be without a high school. 
 The building is the finest and the most conspicuous in the 
 settlement. It is so in all of the north central, the moun- 
 tain, and the Pacific states. Of course it results in many 
 struggling high schools, but in many more which are as 
 fine as any in the land. And moreover they will abundantly 
 take care of a splendid future. 
 
 The figures concerning the high school movement are 
 as interesting as any figures are likely to be. At the turning 
 point of the last century there were but eleven high schools 
 with progressive courses continuing from two to four years 
 and covering advanced studies in foreign languages, mathe- 
 ^ matics, literature, natural science, and history. In 1860 
 
THE RISE OF HIGH SCHOOLS 155 
 
 there were 44 of these schools; in 1870, 160; in 1880, 800; 
 in 1890, 2526 ; in 1900, 6005. This remarkable growth has 
 been decisive in every section of the country, the South by 
 no means excepted, but it has at all times been specially 
 noteworthy in the Mississippi Valley states. 
 
 The unprecedented growth of our secondary schools has 
 created a demand for teachers of advanced work which 
 it has been difficult to meet. The graduations from college 
 are more than ever before, but high schools want a large 
 proportion of men teachers, and the number of thoroughly 
 prepared men who want to teach is small. Boys who have 
 been taught by women all through the elementary grades 
 should at least hear a masculine voice and get things from 
 a man's point of view when they get into the high school. 
 
 But the difficulty is rather deeper than that not many 
 men incline to teaching. The work of the colleges does 
 not so dispose them. Other callings seem more inviting and 
 the colleges do but little by way of corrective. The colleges 
 do not take much stock in educational theory about the 
 professional training of teachers. College managements 
 are more worldly wise than they used to be. So they nod 
 to this theory in a polite way rather than lose any practical 
 advantage by absolutely ignoring it. But such interest 
 as most of them take in it comes from prudence rather 
 than conviction. And it must be admitted that when a uni- 
 versity does establish a separate department upon the the- 
 ory that education is a science and teaching a profession, 
 unless it makes a separate school with considerable au- 
 tonomy of its own, it finds difficulty in securing professors 
 who can justify the theory and stir the efforts of ambitious 
 men students. Yet it is commonly accepted that one can 
 hardly hope to become a successful teacher without deep 
 study of educational history, theory, and practice. 
 
 But if one cannot teach without knowing how to teach. 
 
156 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 he surely cannot teach without knowing the subject he is 
 to teach. 
 
 There is no doubt about the need of college-bred men and 
 women, with a good proportion of men, who have been 
 prepared to teach, for the work of the secondary schools. 
 The supply is not sufficient. There is a hiatus in the edu- 
 cational system. The academies have rather the better of 
 this because of their independent self-control, because of 
 their somewhat greater exclusiveness, and because of their 
 closer college connections. The high schools are suffering. 
 It is time to do something decisive for the teaching profes- 
 sion. It is an absurdity to protect the other professions and 
 neglect the most important teaching positions. 
 
 The educational system must balance. The work in the 
 upper schools is the hope of all the schools below them. 
 There must be universal recognition of the worth of schol- 
 arship, — not merely of its form or its pretensions, but of 
 its juices and its flavor, and of its power to apply itself to 
 the real concerns of life. 
 
 This is not a general imputation against the teachers 
 of our middle schools. They have met the demands of 
 their day. They have carried the schools over a transition 
 period in the evolution of a great system. No criticism upon 
 them and nothing but compliment for them is intended. 
 They brought all that they could get into their work, and it 
 was much. They have supplemented it with experience and 
 study. Nothing more could be asked of them. But new 
 conditions and a new outlook must provide for an opening 
 era. 
 
IV 
 
 TEACHING IN THE HIGH SCHOOLS 
 
 The excellence of any state system of education must 
 depend very largely upon the excellence of its academic 
 schools. 
 
 If they were to be taken by themselves alone, the aca- 
 demic schools would not be as important as the elementary 
 schools. Of one hundred pupils in the elementary schools 
 about six go to the high schools and one of the six goes to 
 college. But the academic schools are not to be separated 
 from the rest of the school system. They supply by far the 
 greater part of the teachers to, and exert a decisive influ- 
 ence upon the instruction in, the elementary schools. They 
 are the goal of any intellectual ambition which germinates 
 among the children of the elementary schools. Every sys- 
 tem of schools needs a system above it to lift it up. Hap- 
 pily, the secondary schools have come not only to supple- 
 ment the primary schools, but to be an integral part of the 
 common school system. There need be no hesitation in 
 saying that the main reliance of the elementary schools for 
 excellence and progress must be upon them. 
 
 But apart from the elementary school system, they are 
 giving a reasonably liberal education, a training in both 
 efiiciency and culture, to a steadily increasing number of 
 young men and women who do not go to college. They 
 are enlarging the opportunity of the masses and increasing 
 the power of the thousands. Without any reference to their 
 work in preparing students for college, they are quickening 
 the energy and adding to the culture of our social, indus- 
 trial, commercial, professional, and civic life. 
 
158 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 If the elementary schools are dependent upon them, the 
 colleges and universities most certainly are. Unless the 
 colleges articulate with the high schools their work is weak- 
 ened. Students who go to college with inadequate or irreg- 
 ular preparation -must have unusual intellectual resources, 
 or their hopes will be dashed to the ground and their intel- 
 lectual lives wrecked. Schools which accept the responsi- 
 bility of preparing for college are morally bound to do it 
 completely. 
 
 It may well be doubted whether even teachers realize 
 how thoroughly our secondary schools are the expression 
 of our free and forceful democracy in education. They 
 are our best assurance of real opportunity to the masses. 
 All of the leading nations of the world have systems of ele- 
 mentary schools, and some of them attend to vital things 
 in elementary education more completely and uniformly 
 than we do. All of them have colleges and universities and 
 technical and professional schools. But none of them has 
 a universal system of schools connecting the elementary 
 schools with the colleges, for none of them tries to make 
 it easy for any child of the masses to go to college if he, or 
 particularly if she, will. The American high school is dis- 
 tinctly an American creation. It did not grow out of the 
 needs of the colleges ; it came from below, not above ; it is 
 not the product of any exclusiveness. It is the logical out- 
 growth of our intellectual progress ; it is the pet instrument 
 of the masses; it is the most common and universal and, 
 next to the free state university, the noblest expression 
 that we have of our fundamental political gospel that all 
 men are created with equality of natural rights. 
 
 A recent study of high school conditions in the state of 
 New York has developed several rather important surprises. 
 The greatest of these is that, judged by results, and by the 
 only test we have, — a test which is equally just to all, — 
 
TEACHING IN THE HIGH SCHOOLS 159 
 
 the high schools which show the best results are not in the 
 cities, but in the larger villages, and that the high schools 
 in the smaller villages — often under the same roof as the 
 elementary schools — average as much good work in pro- 
 portion to students as those in the cities. 
 
 All of the answer papers received by the education de- 
 partment in the academic examinations during a given 
 school year were separated into three classes : (1) Those 
 coming from the cities, (2) those coming from villages of 
 5000 or more inhabitants, (3) those from the smaller vil- 
 lages. The following table shows in each of these classes, 
 (a) the whole number of answer papers written, (6) the 
 number given the passing mark entitling them to accep- 
 tance by the department, (c) the percentage of papers ac- 
 cepted, and (d) the percentage of honor papers, papers 
 rated at 90 or above, to accepted papers : — 
 
 
 In 
 
 In villages of In smaller 
 
 
 cities 
 
 5000 or more 
 
 villages 
 
 Answer papers written 
 
 84,772 
 
 23,751 
 
 161,073 
 
 Answer papers accepted 
 
 56,741 
 
 16,629 
 
 107,044 
 
 Percentage of accepted to written 
 
 
 
 
 papers 
 
 66.93 
 
 70.01 
 
 66.45 
 
 Percentage of honor papers to ac- 
 
 
 
 
 cepted papers 
 
 17.47 
 
 15.25 
 
 11.01 
 
 The facts show that learning may thrive either in a great 
 city or in a country village, either in a large class or a small 
 one, either in a fine house or a plain one, if there are spirit 
 and purpose, and the needed books and appliances, and, 
 above all, if there is a real teacher there. 
 
 Of the 561 academic schools in villages of less than 
 5000 inhabitants, 297, or more than half, excelled the state 
 average in accepted papers or in honor papers in a 
 given examination. The state average was 65.9. There 
 were 154 of these schools with an average of 70% or 
 
160 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 more; 96 with an average of 75% or more; 42 with an 
 average of 80% or more, and 15 with an average of 85% 
 or more. 
 
 It is not necessary to discuss all of the factors in the case. 
 The tributary elementary schools, the physical life and 
 intellectual qualities of the students, the absence of dis- 
 tracting amusements, work with individual students, and 
 the earnestness that is commonly associated with life near 
 the soil are all involved in the problem. Books, appara- 
 tus, and laboratories constitute very important factors. 
 There is sufficient reason for saying that the equipment 
 in books and apparatus of New York high schools and 
 academies is, by reason of the excellent policy of the state 
 followed for a long time, uniformly much stronger than 
 that of any other general system of secondary schools in 
 the world. The policy in this direction has been so liberal 
 as to raise doubts about all that has been bought being 
 capable of advantageous use. The decisive factor in the 
 problem is inevitably the teaching. 
 
 The carefully developed facts do not warrant any severe 
 or general criticism upon the teaching in the secondary 
 schools. Though but a minority of the teachers have had 
 the preparation which must hereafter be demanded, they 
 have in general made the most of themselves and met their 
 responsibilities creditably. The schools have multiplied 
 rapidly. The demand for completely prepared teachers 
 has exceeded the supply. Strong men principals are scarce. 
 The industrial activity is ajBfecting the supply of teachers 
 for all schools, and particularly for the higher positions 
 where the compensation is not commensurate with the 
 higher requirements and responsibilities. 
 
 College-trained men are needed at the head of all aca- 
 demic schools. How can a school which prepares for col- 
 lege do its work without a college man at its head ? How 
 
TEACHING IN THE HIGH SCHOOLS 161 
 
 can any school in such a system of schools expect to be as 
 good as others in the system without a college man at its 
 head ? To be sure, there are an endless number of men 
 who have never been to college who know more of things 
 very desirable to know than very many who have been to 
 college can ever hope to know, but the headship of an aca- 
 demic school is a place which demands a man with the 
 experience, the discipline, and the ideals of the man who 
 has been trained in college. 
 
 Unquestionably the place needs a man. Its conspicuity 
 in the community, its relations to the educational activities 
 of the state, the masculine qualities desirable in its admin- 
 istration, the needs of the boys in the schools, all call for 
 a man. There will be women enough in the faculty in any 
 event to supply the feminine qualities which are desirable 
 in the management of the school. This is not said in igno- 
 rance of the fact that women are needed more than men 
 in many places in the schools. Nor does it controvert the 
 principle that a strong and good woman is better than an 
 effeminate man in any place in the schools. Every large 
 Work in which many people are associated needs the man- 
 agement of men and women working together. If the 
 academic schools are to have even that, there must be 
 men at their heads. 
 
 Emphasis has been laid upon the qualities and training 
 of the principal because the competent and successful man 
 in that position ought to effectuate suitable appointments 
 throughout the faculty. But it is safe to predict that even- 
 tually all of the teaching in the academic schools will be 
 done by college-trained men and women. New appointees 
 in those schools should be so trained. And with the col- 
 leges turning out so many graduates, particularly so many 
 women, there is no difficulty about it if the compensation 
 is what it ought to be. 
 
162 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 Further statistics from New York state bearing upon 
 this subject may be illuminating. 
 
 There are 665 public high schools in the state. Of these, 
 69 are in the cities, 35 in villages of 5000 or more inhabi- 
 tants, and 561 in the smaller villages. 
 
 The teachers in these schools are classified as follows : — 
 
 College graduates 1824 
 
 Normal school graduates 967 
 
 Holders of state certificates 164 
 
 Holders of other certificates 465 
 
 3420 
 
 In the city high schools: — 
 
 College graduates 1190 
 
 Normal school graduates 238 
 
 Holders of state certificates 84 
 
 Holders of other certificates 257 
 
 1769 
 
 In the village high schools: — 
 
 College graduates 634 
 
 Normal school graduates 729 
 
 Holders of state certificates 80 
 
 Holders of other certificates 208 
 
 1651 
 
 The average salaries of men principals in villages are 
 as follows : — 
 
 College graduates $1,104.52 
 
 Normal graduates 897.65 
 
 Holders of state certificates 905.75 
 
 Holders of other certificates 798.36 
 
 The average salaries of women principals in villages 
 are as follows : — 
 
 College graduates $916.66 
 
 Normal graduates 763.63 
 
TEACHING IN THE HIGH SCHOOLS 163 
 
 Holders of state certificates $875.00 
 
 Holders of other certificates 597.00 
 
 The average salaries of other men than principals in 
 villages are as follows : — 
 
 College graduates $770.07 
 
 Normal graduates 585.92 
 
 Holders of state certificates 735.60 
 
 Holders of other certificates 705.50 
 
 The average salaries of other women than principals 
 in villages are as follows : — 
 
 College graduates $531.97 
 
 Normal graduates 466.76 
 
 Holders of state certificates 547.43 
 
 Holders of other certificates 447.60 
 
 In schools maintaining academic departments, outside 
 of the cities, there are 819 teachers who divide their time 
 between the academic and elementary grades. 
 
 The average number of teachers to a high school in the 
 state is 5.2. In the city high schools it is 25.6. In the village 
 high schools it is 2.8. 
 
 The percentage of college graduate and state certificate 
 teachers in the city high schools is 72; this percentage in 
 the villages is 43. 
 
 The average salary of a man principal in the villages 
 is aOTt.ST. 
 
 The average salary of a woman principal in the villages 
 is $742.56. 
 
 The average salary of men assistant teachers in the vil- 
 lages is $716.95. 
 
 The average salary of women assistants in the villages 
 is $490.43. 
 
 The salaries of the teachers in the high schools are, 
 speaking generally, seriously inadequate to the demands 
 
164 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 of the service. They are unjust to the teachers now em- 
 ployed . They do not give sufficient encouragement to remain 
 in and advance in the profession. They are insufficient to at- 
 tract the most forceful characters and to induce the liberal 
 preparation which the service demands. There are hun- 
 dreds of college graduates, and others, with years of teach- 
 ing experience who have spent from fourteen to eighteen 
 years and much money in preparation, who are receiving 
 compensation which dwarfs the schools and hinders the 
 advance which the common interests demand that they 
 shall make. If the men and women who are members of 
 boards of education would be of real service to their peo- 
 ple, let them exact the highest competency in the high 
 schools, and give efficient teachers a compensation which 
 will attract them. 
 
 The pertinent facts which have been used here have 
 come to the surface in the state of New York, but there 
 is reason enough to believe that they illustrate situations 
 which are common in other states, and that in general the 
 facts point to the same conclusions. 
 
COMMON SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES 
 
 By the "common schools," splendid and meaningful old 
 term that it is, is meant schools that are wholly supported 
 and managed by the people, wholly free from partisanship 
 or sectarianism, and doing the work, either primary or 
 secondary, adaptable to children under the age when they 
 may be deemed to be fairly safe in living away from home. 
 A leading university question relating to these common 
 schools has to do with the length of the courses in the col- 
 leges and below. The older and statelier universities used 
 to receive students in their professional schools without any 
 college training whatever ; now they are beginning to exact 
 a college degree. Thirty years ago a medical course at the 
 best university medical schools in the country covered a 
 working period of from eight to twelve months, whereas a 
 course now requires from twenty-four to thirty-six months 
 distributed through four years. But that is not all. In these 
 schools the implication is very common that if one really 
 expects to be thoroughly equipped for the medical profes- 
 sion he must return and take a year or two of graduate 
 work. And even beyond that looms up the rather definite 
 assurance that complete professional expertness lies in the 
 student's being capable of winning an appointment as 
 interne at a great city hospital, and finally of gaining the 
 great opportunity of working with the old doctors for a 
 couple of years more. Under this process, the danger that 
 the student may die before he is fully qualified to save 
 another from dying, becomes a fact which, if it is to have 
 any general application, must be reckoned with. 
 
166 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 Out of this grade of professional work are likely to issue 
 the most distinctive scientific achievements and the most 
 beneficent service to human kind. If universities can sus- 
 tain professional schools upon this plane, so much the more 
 honor to them. 
 
 But this length of time in preparation for life work is very 
 commonly regarded as unduly long. Allowing eight years 
 for the elementary school, four for the secondary school, 
 four for the college course, and four for the professional 
 course, it delays the real beginning of work until one is from 
 twenty-six to thirty years of age. Certainly all universities 
 cannot sustain that. What is to be done.'' 
 
 It is frequently suggested that the college course leading 
 to the A. B. degree be shortened. It is said that this course 
 may be reduced to three years without any diminution of 
 the work heretofore required. It is quite possible that the 
 greater eflficiency of the secondary schools tributary to 
 some colleges and universities may make this practicable 
 with them. Where this is so, who shall object ? If some 
 universities can take that attitude and sustain it, it may 
 be said again, honor to them. 
 
 But all universities cannot do that. Perhaps such as try 
 it may not succeed in or may suffer for it. That is their 
 matter. They are of age, and of sound mind and memory 
 still, and it is a free country. Let them try it. The uni- 
 versities which are trying it are foremost in America, 
 guided by men who are the most experienced and trusted 
 leaders in American education. If they succeed, as there 
 is reason to believe they will, their move will mark a dis- 
 tinct advance in the standards of professional learning 
 without sacrificing anything preliminary thereto, or dis- 
 arranging the educational system below them. 
 
 But certain it is that all universities cannot do this. 
 The others cannot think of professional courses any shorter 
 
COMMON SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES 167 
 
 or less thorough than the best. And they have sufficient 
 reason to fear that they cannot sustain four-year profes- 
 sional courses on the basis of a college degree for entrance, 
 or that they cannot get students competent to do the work 
 heretofore required for the degree, and thus necessary to 
 maintain its standing, in three years. What are they to do ? 
 In some instances they propose to let the college course 
 be crowded out altogether, or to make a sort of college of 
 the secondary school by extending its course from four 
 years to six- 
 All of these propositions have not come from the same 
 source. The authors of one would not sustain another, and 
 they had the right to propose one without being held re- 
 sponsible for another. But all have come from knocking 
 down the first brick. One has led to another. It is to be 
 hoped that the colleges of America are not to be suppressed 
 through a resolution in a university conference, and the 
 great common school system, primary and secondary, is 
 not to be shuffled in the game of university preeminence. 
 The A. B. degree represents a cherished ideal in America, 
 and a very common sentiment among the educated men 
 and women of the country is outraged at any suggestion 
 of its sacrifice. It is being steadfastly maintained and up- 
 held by many small colleges of moderate means without 
 large equipment. Many of these colleges of slender endow- 
 ments have a splendid history, for they have given trend 
 and fibre to American scholarship through all the forma- 
 tive period of the Republic. The great universities have 
 come to stay, but that is no reason why the colleges shall go. 
 The particular work which they have done needs to be done 
 as much as it ever did, and they can do it as well as they 
 ever did. Surely there is educational work enough for all. 
 They are to be revered and honored for what they have 
 done. Their affectionate children will not permit them 
 
168 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 to be suppressed, and the very common sympathy and 
 support of educated opinion in the country will be with 
 them. It is the poorest kind of educational policy to aid or 
 consent to their overthrow. It is abhorrent to think of their 
 sacrifice because of university competition. 
 
 But this is not all that is to be said if these new schemes 
 are to be urged with any seriousness. A recent report of the 
 United States commissioner of education shows that of the 
 entire attendance upon American schools, public and pri- 
 vate, elementary, secondary, collegiate, normal, law, medi- 
 cal, theological, technological, and all the rest, 93.31 per 
 cent were in the elementary schools, 5.17 per cent in the sec- 
 ondary schools, and 1.52 per cent in all the rest put together. 
 
 Observe the great step there from the elementary school 
 to the high school. Of every hundred youth who come into 
 any American school, ninety-four never go beyond the ele- 
 mentary school. It is said that they may do in six years all 
 the work they now do in eight. That has not been proved. 
 It cannot be proved. Men who say that base their opinion 
 upon children from favored homes, in little hot-house 
 schools, taught by the experts developed in a university. 
 Of the mass it is not true. Of course, a small number 
 of children could do the ordinary work of our elementary 
 schools in six years. Why not let such do it and go on? 
 Why not fix administrative machinery so as to give the few 
 the chance which belongs to them.? Or, indeed, why not 
 have some more work in the elementary schools, some 
 vocational work, or some other device for making sure that 
 we keep all who are not going to the high schools busy 
 for the eight years, and perhaps for prolonging the school 
 life of some of the 94 per cent, who will cease going to 
 school altogether when they leave the elementary schools ? 
 Why shorten the work and lessen the chance of nine tenths 
 of all who ever come into the schools at all? 
 
COMMON SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES 169 
 
 Possibly there is less ground for energy of protest against 
 lengthening the work of the secondary schools than for 
 shortening that of the elementary schools, but valid objec- 
 tions to it are not wanting. The attendance upon the sec- 
 ondary schools is not likely to be increased by lengthening 
 the course. Many parents in moderate circumstances 
 are brave enough to face a four-year course who would 
 feel a six-year course too long for them. Is the attendance 
 upon the colleges likely to be enlarged by making a uni- 
 form secondary course of six years ? Would there be any 
 greater unity in the educational system or any less con- 
 fusion in the colleges with both four-year and six-year 
 high schools ? With the present arrangement, a boy who 
 goes to college does not naturally go before he is eighteen. 
 Should he be delayed beyond that time ? By the time a boy 
 is eighteen it is time he had some severance from his par- 
 ents ; a normal boy knows enough to take it by that time. 
 He will mature and broaden more rapidly and strongly by 
 going away from home. If he is to go to college at all, he 
 should go by that time. And he never " goes to college " 
 until he goes away from home. If he is not to go to college, 
 it is high time at eighteen that he should go to work. 
 
 Again, public high schools on the plane now established, 
 with such natural improvement in accommodations and 
 equipment as time and experience will bring, go about to 
 the limit of cost which it is good policy for the educationists 
 of the country to insist on imposing upon local communi- 
 ties. The people have supported the public high school 
 movement very heroically. It may well be doubted whether 
 it is good educational policy to demand more work of the 
 high schools under all the circumstances of their support 
 and administration, whether they are looked upon as fit- 
 ting schools for colleges or not. 
 
 Yet, again, it may be well to recall that the high schools 
 
170 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 are not the property of the universities. For tone and fibre, 
 and all the uplifting and guiding influences, they are 
 dependent upon the work of the universities; they need 
 the aid of the higher learning to help them to greater pro- 
 ficiency ; and it assuredly would be better for them and for 
 the universities if they saw this more clearly than they do ; 
 but neither the American elementary nor secondary schools 
 are in any sense the creation of the universities. They are 
 both the products of our free democracy. The public free 
 school, in its inception and its development, expressed 
 no purpose of the college, and had nothing to do with 
 supplying students to the college in the formative periods 
 of our social and educational organizations. Indeed, it is 
 not going too far to say that the free public school was the 
 answer and the protest against the sectarianism and the 
 exclusiveness for which the early American college stood. 
 And this is no more true of the free elementary than of the 
 free secondary school. Even fifty years ago only a com- 
 paratively small number of young men from the most in- 
 telligent and best-to-do families went to college, and they 
 went up through the private schools and academies ; and 
 eveiy time a high school was developed in the neighbor- 
 hood of a private school or academy it was against such 
 vigorous opposition as the private institution could gather, 
 and such incredulity, skepticism, and active hostility as the 
 colleges to which the academy was tributary could exert. , 
 The contest was widespread and often exceedingly bitter. 
 But no one will be courageous enough to say that the high 
 schools, however much they have been aided by, have been 
 the product of, the universities. 
 
 The common schools, primary and secondary, are the 
 offspring of American life and conditions. They flow out 
 of those conditions as naturally as the Mississippi flows 
 from the Minnesota lakes. No element in our Republic 
 
COMMON SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES 171 
 
 caused them, and none could stop them, and none can 
 govern them. They are the expression of national life, the 
 instruments of national purposes, unprecedented in the 
 world. They have come to their present form and plan 
 through the self-conscious power, the intellectual foresight, 
 the genuine heart impulses of our steadily unfolding and 
 sturdily strengthening democratic life. They rest upon not 
 a little formal law, and upon at least one great govern- 
 mental power which goes down quite as deeply into the 
 ground upon which the structure of government rests 
 as any other power found in our constitutions. They are 
 safeguarded by common sentiment and by settled usage, 
 which are quite as steadfast as laws and constitutions. 
 
 Of course the common schools are to be changed. They 
 will be changed slowly, conservatively, when it is clearly 
 to the advantage of the common schools that they shall be. 
 They will never be much changed when the advantage is 
 speculative. When changed it will be out of full expe- 
 rience, through the ripened sentiment of the people, by 
 the activity of officials and boards responsible for their 
 efficiency, through the legislatures which alone have sov- 
 ereign educational power. One thing seems very certain. 
 Their terms are not likely to be made shorter that the 
 terms in law schools and medical schools may be made 
 longer. 
 
 No one can object that some of the universities are de- 
 veloping great scientific and professional schools. On the 
 contrary, there is a very common national pride in them. 
 Such youth as can afford the time and the money ought to 
 take advantage of them. Those schools will go ahead and 
 break out new roads and gain the very mountain peaks 
 of professional eminence ; but not at the surrender of cher- 
 ished ideals; surely not at the cost of a balanced educa- 
 tional system, nor at the expense of the largest educational 
 
172 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 opportunity for the ninety-and-nine who go no further than 
 the common schools. 
 
 And it seems quite possible for a small number of these 
 great professional schools to go all the lengths they desire, 
 without suppressing any other educational enterprise, or 
 without attempting to recast in a day or two a school sys- 
 tem which has been a century in the growing. And it seems 
 quite probable that the greater number of universities can- 
 not do that, and therefore that they ought to be complacent 
 about not doing it. 
 
 It is a false assumption that all universities should do 
 the same thing in conditions which are very unlike. The 
 tendency to imitate and the inability to discriminate about 
 what should be imitated is a very great weakness in Ameri- 
 can education. Some universities dare not do what they 
 propose unless all universities will do the same thing at 
 the same time. It is well that the requirements and the 
 offerings and the length of courses of each shall follow 
 the outlook and be limited only by its own resources and 
 bravery. It is more desirable that each university shall 
 serve its constituency, keeping a little ahead of and yet in 
 touch with its people, than it is that all do just the same 
 things and aim at precisely the same ends. Each should 
 have the sense and the courage of its own situations. 
 
 No subject lays more claim to cautious consideration by 
 American universities than the influence of those univer- 
 sities upon the kind of work laid out and the quality of the 
 teaching done in the lower and the middle schools. And 
 there are few subjects with which universities find it more 
 difficult to deal in satisfactory and helpful ways. 
 
 The science of education is a new science. Some uni- 
 versity men are pursuing it carefully and with important 
 results. Of these, more find interest in the psychological 
 than the pedagogical side of it, and even in psychology they 
 
COMMON SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES 173 
 
 find more fascination in abnormal than in normal intel- 
 lectual processes. This is natural enough in the research 
 work of a university, but it is the least helpful to the work 
 and the teaching of the lower schools. But there are more 
 university teachers who have no time for, or no interest in, 
 a science of education than there are who are helping it. 
 There are not a few who repudiate it altogether. Like other 
 institutions, universities do not readily break from the 
 usages and understandings they have commonly followed. 
 Universities have not been accustomed to bend their backs 
 to lift up the schools below. Indeed, they have hardly been 
 used to much association with other institutions of equal 
 grade or of lower grade in an educational system. The tra- 
 ditional tendencies -of universities have been toward in- 
 dependence and exclusiveness. The diflSculty of their 
 teachers in so expressing themselves that they may be 
 understood by the common people has only been excelled 
 by their inability to understand the thought and outlook 
 of the masses. Many university teachers are as uncon- 
 scious of what the people are thinking as the people are 
 ignorant of what the university teachers are doing. It has 
 remained for the developing plans of our American edu- 
 cational system to change this. There was but little move 
 in this direction even in America until the universality and 
 efficiency of the common schools made it rather obvious 
 that universities must expect the students most vital to 
 their life from this source, or contemplate the alternative 
 of lacking students; nor until the marvelous growth of 
 the state universities had given adequate emphasis to the 
 protest of our democratic society against the exclusiveness 
 of attitude and the narrowness and one-sidedness of in- 
 struction prevalent even in American colleges and univer- 
 sities. But the demonstration has been sufficiently com- 
 plete and apparently very well comprehended. They are all 
 
174 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 ready enough now to do and dare for the common schools. 
 The old attitude was sincere and the new one is genuine, 
 if not easy. And if universities are as very clumsy in help- 
 ing the lower schools, as a young father might well be in 
 snuggling his firstborn to his heart, or as a sergeant of po- 
 lice might be in cuddling a foundling, there ought not to 
 be impatience so long as there is evidence of considerable 
 appreciation of what needs to be, and a movement of ade- 
 quate power and good intentions on correct lines. 
 
 The whole plan of the universities — the kind of work 
 and method of procedure, the ways of teaching, the inde- 
 pendent and self-dependent life of the students, the feeling 
 and outlook of the whole university body — is a radical 
 departure from that of the schools below. This, it must 
 be admitted, really unfits some men for usefulness in the 
 world or helpfulness to the schools below. 
 
 Again, some university men lose their heads through 
 their freedom. They go floating around in the upper ether, 
 often in a kind of irresponsible intellectual intoxication. 
 Some of them even soar the higher and dissipate the more 
 recklessly because only fool things get into the newspapers 
 and nothing is so idiotic as to be barred out. But the pri- 
 mary and the secondary schools have to rest upon the earth, 
 and have to respond to very matter-of-fact people who are 
 guided by considerations not ordinarily exploited in the 
 newspapers. To find a way to sustain free thinking and 
 limit fool talk, to protect one in his academic liberty and 
 yet keep him anchored to the verities of life, is a problem 
 of higher education which surely has a very vital bearing 
 upon the helpfulness of universities to a general system 
 of education. 
 
 Nevertheless, universities are not new developments. 
 They are the products of the best thinking and the highest 
 purposes of the world through a thousand years. They 
 
COMMON SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES 175 
 
 have come to their present estate through a long, long pro- 
 cess of accumulation, of opposition and ridicule, of aspi- 
 ration and discussion, of giving and doing and sacrificing, 
 which comprise the finest heroisms in all the world. No 
 ruthless or unfriendly hand shall assail them. As Ran- 
 dolph said of Virginia, " No one shall criticise her but me." 
 The plan and work and ideals of the universities change, 
 but marked change in the thought and policies of univer- 
 sities is a laborious process, and must proceed slowly. Un- 
 der all the circumstances, the American university advance 
 is most surprising. In all the intellectual development of 
 the world there have been no such changes in the work 
 and the ideals of advanced education as in the last genera- 
 tion have been forced upon American colleges by the swell- 
 ing and throbbing impulses of our spontaneous national 
 life. But great as those changes have been, there is suffi- 
 cient reason for believing that American universities will 
 go still farther in response to popular demands, and will 
 be much more serviceable in coalescing a great national 
 system of education in the years to come than in the years 
 that are gone. 
 
 What and how much may the American public expect 
 from American universities in making the best practicable 
 educational system ? The question is difficult to answer, 
 but in part it may be expected that they will realize that 
 there is a science of education and pursue it ; that they will 
 not assume that this may be done very effectually in a 
 laboratory of experimental psychology alone, nor yet in 
 a little school of pupils from favored homes who pay tuition 
 alone, nor yet again by theorists who have little of the feel- 
 ings and know little of the spirit which centres in the com- 
 mon schools; but rather in the ordinary schools of the 
 country, and with knowledge that those schools are the 
 people's schools, are not to be overhauled every time 
 
176 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 a student of education grows a new convolution, but 
 improved cautiously, only by innovations which have 
 passed the stage of doubtful experiment and are able to 
 command a very substantial public approval; and also 
 that they will realize that the problem is exceedingly large 
 because of very wide application, and is nothing short of 
 welding together all kinds of people in a common purpose 
 to raise the level of national intelligence and virtue. 
 
 It may be expected that college teachers will mingle 
 more with the lower schools, gaining a truer understanding 
 of their purposes and their difficulties, realizing, what the 
 public sees, that one may be very expert in one thing and 
 only slightly expert in other things, and that a great expert 
 is in quite as dire peril as any one else when he dabbles in 
 other subjects than the one he possesses. 
 
 University teachers are gathered from the great schools 
 of the world. Some of the greatest have never been in our 
 common schools, and it must be admitted that some who 
 have been in them have been out of them so long, and have 
 gone through so much in the meantime, that they have only 
 a very inadequate conception of the intricacies of common 
 school life. If the common schools are to be the large 
 source of supply to the universities, the process of assimi- 
 lation must lead more university men to understand the 
 limitations which are upon the common schools and to 
 reahze that it may not be well to exact some things of 
 them, or to burden a community beyond the limit. It is 
 likely, too, that more importance will be attached to the 
 exactness of the teaching than to the number of things done 
 in preparation for college work ; that there will be a more 
 generous recognition of the claims of other subjects than 
 their own ; that they will see a larger value in a balanced 
 system of education which holds out the fair chance to the 
 large percentage of pupils who are not going to college 
 
COMMON SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES 177 
 
 as well as to the relatively small number who are ; and that 
 they will get where they can stand for the common oppor- 
 tunity for all, not as a mere form, or in a patronizing way, 
 but with genuine enthusiasm, because they will see that 
 a very large percentage of the captains of the world are 
 men of the crowd who have been able to make the most 
 of their chance. The smooth and continuous road from 
 the kindergarten to the university is an admirable thing, 
 but there will have to be places upon it where the many 
 who must, or who wish, may leave it and go to work with- 
 out being humiliated, or unfitted for the life they are to 
 lead. 
 
 The activities for which the universities stand have a 
 weighty influence upon the lower and the middle schools. 
 Until our day, the universities have mainly stood for liter- 
 ary culture, for philosophical discussion, and for a little 
 research in the natural sciences. They have just fairly 
 begun to investigate the industries of the people and 
 broadly to uplift the intellectual and social life of the mul- 
 titude through the applications of science to work. This 
 new tendency has already engaged popular interest and 
 enthusiasm. It is already bringing popular support to, 
 and creating popular demands upon, the universities. It 
 is inevitably destined to go much further, and it will cer- 
 tainly relate to the instruction in the earlier schools. The 
 trend of those schools, their ideals of the educated man, 
 will not lead inevitably to the library or to the old-time 
 learned professions, but as well to the producing, trans- 
 porting, manufacturing, building, and commercial indus- 
 tries. There may even be danger of this thing going too 
 far. It is for the universities to stand for learning in any 
 field, to repel all that is not scientific and not true, and 
 above all, to keep all the schools of the country bound 
 together in purposeful accord, and moving safely to the 
 
178 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 accomplishment of the national ideals. The destiny of our 
 democracy is wrapped up in integrity, in mental acumen, 
 in manual industry, in living by work more than by wits, 
 in international generosity and straightforwardness. The 
 schools, high and low, must make for these great ends, and 
 the universities must place themselves on stronger ground 
 to help all the schools to realize them. 
 
 There will surely be more concern to avoid any weaken- 
 ing of the schools below by attracting their pupils before 
 they have completed all the work which the elementary and 
 secondary schools can give them. It deals an irreparable 
 injury to those schools. It wrongs the pupil, humiliates 
 the college, and weakens the whole educational system. 
 
 It may confidently be expected that the colleges and the 
 universities will do much more than they are doing to pre- 
 pare teachers for the secondary schools. There has been 
 a good deal of a hiatus in our educational system right here. 
 Teachers for the elementary schools are being very well 
 prepared at the state normals and in the city normal train- 
 ing schools, but in very insufiicient numbers. The breadth 
 of the work in the normals is not equal to the demands 
 of the secondary schools. On the other hand, the univer- 
 sities have given only inadequate attention to the prepara- 
 tion of teachers. Public sentiment would not sustain the 
 expense involved in broadening the curriculum at the 
 normals so as to mieet the needs of the secondary schools, 
 at least until the claims of the primary schools are more 
 fully met. And the secondary schools are not going to be 
 content with teachers without university training. The 
 universities must meet the situation which the rapidly 
 growing high schools have forced. It may be done without 
 impinging upon the domain of the normals. Indeed, it 
 may be best done by not imitating the normal plans. The 
 practice school is well placed in the plan of the normal 
 
COMMON SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES 179 
 
 school : it has very little place in the plan of the university. 
 Because of situation, the experimental school of a normal 
 makes some approach to an ordinary common school; 
 that of a university is much more exceptional. Methods 
 are of much moment in an elementary school, but of less 
 importance in a secondary school, and of little significance 
 beyond that. The subject-matter pursued in a university, 
 coupled with the substantial study of the science of educa- 
 tion, comprises a better preparation for teaching in the 
 middle schools than is to be gained by much emphasis and 
 drill upon methods. But the great educational system of the 
 country must be the laboratory of the university depart- 
 ment of education. A university college for the training 
 of teachers of all grades stands on middle ground, but it will 
 fall short if its most useful laboratory is not in the common 
 schools. 
 
 The universities are anxious to be of all possible help 
 to the schools below. Of course they are not agreed upon 
 details, but they have purposes which are common, and 
 in recent years they have grown in fraternal regard and in 
 cooperative effectiveness. They may seem a little clumsy 
 in the face of duties universities never dreamed of before, 
 but, like everything else in this country, they are adaptable, 
 and they will adjust themselves to the conditions and 
 shoulder the responsibilities." Out of it all will come an 
 educational system with greater solidarity, marked by 
 more exactness of organization and more scientific arrange- 
 ment of work, and moving upon a higher plane. 
 
 There is another great subject in this connection which 
 should not be overlooked, and that is, the moral influence 
 of the universities upon their own students and upon the 
 other schools. The country has the clear right to expect 
 that the universities shall exert a distinctly moral, steady- 
 ing, and uplifting influence upon the educational system. 
 
180 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 That they are leading the purely intellectual development 
 of the country very thoroughly will hardly be questioned 
 in any quarter. But there are many good people who think 
 that religion should be taught in the common schools and 
 that all of our young men and women should be trained in 
 what are called the Christian colleges. There are those 
 who would put the burden of occasional waves of irrespon- 
 sible conduct, disorder, and crime upon the schools moving 
 under the leadership of the universities. It may well be 
 questioned whether there is warrant for the thought that 
 the universities are not scoring up to the measure of their 
 opportunities and their responsibilities in generating spir- 
 itual life and developing moral character among their stu- 
 dents and in the lower schools and in the nation. 
 
 A university is not a show affair ; it is not a specially 
 dressed company of young people on their good behavior 
 for an hour. It is a large crowd of real men and women in 
 natural life. They have real ambitions and real passions. 
 They are not under much restraint. Many are without 
 restraint for the first time in their lives. Often they abuse 
 their freedom ; frequently they do things under the influence 
 of others which they would not do alone. 
 
 The general influences of a university make for versatil- 
 ity and resourcefulness, and stimulate the best ambitions 
 and purposes. The life is democratic and the talk free. 
 Men are sized up quickly. Pretense and indirection do 
 not go. There is no other free life in the world in which 
 integrity and industry and generosity are so speedily and 
 warmly recognized, or in which spuriousness or stupidity 
 carries one so swiftly to the deeps. The sentiment of the 
 college community is as inexorable as the semester exami- 
 nation. This influence upon the individual is marked; 
 
 There is, ordinarily, a very high average, both in quan- 
 tity and quality, of spiritual life in the university. If religion 
 
COMMON SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES 181 
 
 is a matter of living and of thinking rather than of preach- 
 ing and parading, there is more of it under the roofs of a 
 university than in any other miscellaneous assembly gath- 
 ered from the respectable people of the earth. Here, too, 
 the discussion is free, and youths who would hardly express 
 their heart-life under other circumstances find themselves 
 talking about matters that relate to it. Expression pro- 
 motes growth. Cant is not taken seriously. Even religious 
 dyspeptics sometimes have the kinks shaken out of them. 
 Sectarianism is respected, but not accepted as the ground- 
 work of religion. Creeds written in mediaeval times and 
 held too sacred to be analyzed or discussed are passed with 
 more deference for their age than acknowledgment of their 
 right to bind. And this does not promote free thinking, 
 if by that is meant illogical thinking, or any thinking which 
 does not accord with the common experiences of mankind 
 and the truths which the progress of human knowledge has 
 unlocked. All this makes the average of heart-life, as well 
 as of mind-life, in a university exceptionally broad, un- 
 confined, and true. 
 
 There are some special temptations in university life, 
 arising out of the fraternal relations which are very warm 
 among students, and out of the loyal purpose to support 
 a "varsity" team in an intercollegiate contest; and some- 
 times these temptations are given too much opportunity 
 by the very common, but inadequate, plan upon which a 
 university is governed, or upon which a university crowd is 
 left without government. 
 
 There is not much government in a university. The 
 assumption is common, and it is justified, that when stu- 
 dents come to college they are men and women grown, 
 and able to govern themselves. If one cannot do that with 
 such aid as can be given him, he should be sent home. 
 It is convenient for college presidents to know nothing 
 
182 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 of things which may be going on, but if the things spring 
 from or lead to corruption, may imperil others, or stain 
 the name of an institution, it is weak or vicious to know, or 
 to assume to know, nothing of them. The theory of the Ger- 
 man universities, that all they have to do is to teach students 
 without any reference to their morals, cannot widely obtain 
 in America, for it is to be feared that the serious pursuit of 
 study is not yet as uniform here as there, and moreover, 
 the university purpose in America is the making of men 
 even more than the making of scholars. It is well not to 
 meddle with the ordinary plans and ways of young people, 
 but it is well to go with them in doing things so far as you 
 are welcome, whether you are specially interested or not. 
 On the other hand, it is a real satisfaction to the over- 
 whelming number of young people, and it is a genuine 
 public service, if some things are suppressed at the incipient 
 stages by a power which is authoritative and not sleeping. 
 
 A saloon and a university have nothing in common, 
 and if any student is uncertain about that he should be 
 required to elect the one or the other. Drunkenness is a 
 vice not permissible in the least measure in a university 
 society. It is hard to keep university athletics straight and 
 clean; and when success in great intercollegiate contests 
 may be gained by letting corruption in, there is a tempta- 
 tion menacing university boys which calls for the big club 
 of university authority. A college president with a benig- 
 nant countenance and a meek and mild eye says that betting 
 on athletic games ought to be discouraged. Of course it 
 should. It is no better than betting on a horse-race; it 
 undermines and overthrows character. It ought to be 
 discouraged so vigorously that it will take to the swamps 
 and know enough to keep out of a university. Boys are to 
 have such safeguards and helps as may be given them. 
 
 With a little more courage and energy of university action 
 
COMMON SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES 183 
 
 against the evils which are the special menace of the weaker 
 heads through the circumstances of university life, there is 
 not much to be desired in the way of influences which com- 
 bine for the upbuilding of well-rounded men and women 
 in the universities of the country. 
 
 The answer to the question, " Are the universities scor- 
 ing up to their moral possibilities?" must, of course, be, 
 that they are human institutions, and that all such come 
 short of their ideals, but that the prevailing conditions are 
 quite as favorable as could be expected at this early time 
 in the development of our educational system; that the 
 free life vital to the growth of self-reliant men is remark- 
 ably free from excesses, and that moral influences combine 
 admirably in the great universities to develop resourceful 
 and balanced character and to train for useful lives. 
 
 The interests of American education demand closer rela- 
 tions between the public schools — elementary and second- 
 ary — and the colleges and universities. Scientific methods 
 and liberal culture must be carried down into the lower and 
 middle schools in larger measure than has yet been done. 
 College men and women will have to do it. But they will 
 have to do it in a broad-minded way. They must not sup- 
 pose that all in the lower schools must go to college or lose 
 their birthright. The educational system of the country 
 must be a balanced system, holding out the utmost of op- 
 portunity to every one, while promoting the integrity, the 
 industry, and the scientific and literary progress of the 
 nation. 
 
Ill 
 
 THE COLLEGE AND THE 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY 
 
 The world sees, if willing to see, a new type of university 
 in this country in the last half century. It is worth while to 
 inquire how it has come to be, and what are the features 
 which distinguish it. 
 
 All of the older social systems of the world, no matter 
 how advanced in political philosophy or in the arts and 
 sciences of civilization, have shown a distinct cleavage 
 between the upper and the nether classes. The names of 
 things have been different in different countries and the 
 things themselves have had all manner of forms and color- 
 ings, but the fact has been wellnigh universal that there 
 have been two great classes, and that a small higher class 
 has ruled a much larger lower class. As generally as this 
 has been true, the universities have been the creations, and 
 have reflected the outlook and executed the purposes of the 
 higher class. The higher class has never been anxiously 
 concerned about widely diffusing a universal learning. 
 The change is in the interests of the masses, and relates to 
 their concerns, and has come through the fact that in this 
 country the larger class is having much to say about it. 
 
 Until in our country, and practically in our time, the 
 university has stood for some manner of exclusiveness. 
 It may have been for a monarch and what he implies ; 
 it may have been for a more or less constitutional state ; 
 it may have been for a church ; it may have been for a 
 profession or a guild : never, until now, has it stood for all 
 learning and for all the people. 
 
 This was almost as true of early American as of foreign 
 
188 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 colleges or universities. We too often forget — if, indeed, 
 we have ever realized — that our American democracy, 
 with its great elements of toleration, equality before the 
 law, no special privileges, and with its public institutions 
 of equal service to all, did not at once come full-fledged 
 into the world by the migration across the sea of a few 
 thousand people of well-settled notions. The common 
 thought and the social and institutional life of the Old 
 World persisted in the New. Harvard, William and Mary, 
 Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Pennsylvania, Rutgers, Brown, 
 Dartmouth, all stood at first for aristocracy in the state, 
 for denominationalism in religion, and for a learning which 
 was exclusively culturing and professional. They never 
 dreamed of uplifting the common people or of applying 
 scientific research to the industries of the country until new 
 political conditions gave the plain people their opportunity. 
 It does not signify any lack of appreciation of the great 
 qualities which the early settlers brought to this country, 
 to say that the dominant and distinguishing thought of the 
 nation has come from the compounding of a new nation 
 out of pretty nearly all kinds of people in the world. The 
 very necessities of the situation have broken down all 
 general distinctions between classes, and brought forth a 
 national political philosophy with a universal freedom of 
 initiative and a popular efficiency in consummation which 
 the world has never seen before. It is this which has made 
 a new manner of university. It has remodeled the earlier 
 universities, and it has brought very quickly into vigorous 
 life many powerful institutions which stand for the uni- 
 versal purpose to promote the universal good. Some of 
 them have resulted from the benefactions of a man of 
 wealth, some from the leadership of a great executive 
 and the work and love of a multitude of others who had 
 little besides work and love to give, and some through 
 
THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY 189 
 
 the popular determination working through the political 
 machinery of the state. But all have had to appeal to a 
 constituency which was wider than any class, or sect, 
 or party, or lose in the race for efficiency, renown, and 
 usefulness, and such as have been able to meet the needs 
 of such a constituency have found overwhelming support 
 and response to their ability to do it. 
 
 It is interesting to see that the university development 
 has been strongest where our democracy has been the 
 freest. As new states were settled to the westward by a 
 people who lacked little in moral purpose and nothing in 
 initiative or in courage, they not only took good care of 
 an elementary school system, but commonly provided 
 for a state university in their new constitutions. The older 
 states could not do that when they were organized because 
 neither legal opportunity, nor political philosophy, nor 
 educational theory, nor the force of popular initiative was 
 up to the point of doing it at that time. And the lead in 
 freedom and in force of popular initiative which the newer 
 states gained from the fullness of their opportunity, they 
 seem likely to hold. They are certainly diffusing the higher 
 learning more completely among all the people without 
 regard to heredity or wealth than any other people in the 
 world. They have established proprietorship in a univer- 
 sal school system of sixteen grades, beginning with the 
 kindergarten and continuing along a smooth and unbroken 
 road up to and through the university, which is unique in 
 the history of education. They see, as those in the East do 
 not see, that the logical educational result of our funda- 
 mental political theory leads to a university so free at least 
 that no one who is prepared for it, and aspires to it, shall 
 fail to reach it only because he lacks the money to pay the 
 cost. The natural outworking of our political philosophy 
 makes it certain that this ideal will obtain in the course of 
 
190 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 time wherever the presence of the flag of the Union deter- 
 mines the educational policy of the people. 
 
 When it was settled that we were to have a public high 
 school system all over this country, it was practically set- 
 tled that we should have a public university system as 
 well. One thing in intellectual evolution and educational 
 opportunity accomplished in America, another thing, and 
 a higher thing, will follow almost as a matter of course. 
 
 The building of public high schools made it certain that 
 the colleges already established would have to forego much 
 of their exclusiveness, and that there would be new colleges 
 and groups of colleges in which the control would not be 
 with any class. 
 
 The fundamental political philosophy and the deliberate 
 democratic purpose of this country are opposed to the edu- 
 cational exclusiveness in other lands. It is not that any one 
 is against all the exclusiveness that anybody wants in his 
 private or family life ; it is a matter of temperament, of con- 
 geniality, of experience, and of taste, and in personal affairs 
 these are to have their way ; but the settled purpose of the 
 country will have no barriers in education, — at least so far 
 as the common wealth and the common political power 
 may be used to afford educational opportunities to all. 
 
 Happily, the high school movement in America has 
 proved to be a great disorganizer of classes, as well as a 
 great help to the diffusion of higher learning. It has made 
 men and women of all classes know one another better and 
 regard one another more. It has gained and retained the 
 interest of many of quick mentality, marked business 
 success, and newly acquired wealth in popular education. 
 It has been the secret spring of many a great gift to a uni- 
 versity, and of much munificence for the common good. 
 
 And, whatever else it has done, it has created an over- 
 whelming influence for the development of universities 
 
THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY 191 
 
 and for determining the essential features of new univer- 
 sities in America. There was reason for the earliest and 
 most decisive manifestation of this movement in the newer 
 states. There were no old-line academies and colleges there 
 to stand in the way of it. The settlers were of the finest 
 New York and New England stock ; they knew about the 
 very best in education. The parents were ready to lay 
 down their all, even their lives, for their children; and 
 they had a clear field. Of course, with such a people the 
 schoolhouse became the most conspicuous building in the 
 pioneer village, and of course a little "college" sprang up 
 in every considerable town. Of course, again, with such a 
 people the public high school had its quickest and perhaps 
 its most luxuriant development. The sooner the high 
 school became a fact, the sooner higher education became 
 a passion. When the federal land grants were made to 
 higher education in all the states, right at the darkest hour 
 in the Civil War, the eastern states hardly knew about them 
 at all, and have never made more than perfunctory and 
 indifferent use of them, while the western states have seized 
 them with avidity, put them to their utmost possibilities, 
 and added to them from ten to an hundredfold. 
 
 And these federal land grants in themselves have had 
 much to do in fixing the predominant type of university 
 in America. With the complete recognition of the principle 
 that it is within the functions of a democratic state to do — 
 or to delegate the legal power to do — whatsoever the 
 people want to do for learning, and with general education 
 boards with millions at their disposal every year for the 
 higher institutions, it is not difiicult to see that the colleges 
 and universities in America which will endure will minister 
 to all the people, without reference to their means, and will 
 promote every phase of honorable endeavor without regard 
 to class or station. 
 
192 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 Let it not be inferred that the typical American univer- 
 sity is, or is to be, the poor man's university. It is not to 
 be burdened with any qualifying adjectives. It is to be the 
 rich man's and the poor man's alike. Its strength is, and 
 is to be, in the fact that it is representative of the common 
 life. It is to be no more exclusive than the Constitution of 
 the country is exclusive, save upon the one point of ability 
 to do its work. It brings rich and poor, men and women, 
 together upon the basis of advanced scholarship, and it 
 gives intellect an opportunity which is distinctly higher 
 and nobler than any that can follow the mere accidents 
 of birth or the mere incidents of life. 
 
 No university can be a real or an effective American uni- 
 versity and follow the exclusive educational ideals of other 
 countries and other times. A new nation has been com- 
 pounded in this country out of people from all social, in- 
 dustrial, political, and moral conditions in the world. That 
 nation is working out its own salvation. It is doing it safely 
 and effectually upon lines that are peculiar to itself. The 
 net result will be the freest and the finest uplift to the in- 
 tellectual and moral state of men and women that the 
 world has ever seen. This thing is not only going through 
 this nation, but, largely through the instrumentality of 
 this nation, it is going through the world. It must, of 
 necessity, create instrumentalities which are peculiarly its 
 own. Above all, its educational institutions of the first 
 rank, which must regulate the ebb and flow of the nation's 
 best and truest thought, cannot be limited by ideals which 
 had reached their zenith before our nation was born and 
 before our political science had begun to make its revolu- 
 tionary impressions upon the thinking and the destiny of 
 mankind. America cannot be limited by conditions which 
 prevail at this time in other nations and their institutions. 
 Without, by any means, descending to the low level of 
 
THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY 193 
 
 declaring that things in this country are better than things 
 in other countries only because they are in this country, 
 and cheerfully recognizing the vastness of the knowledge 
 yet to be gained from other lands, it may yet be asserted, 
 in words that will leave little to be misunderstood, that 
 our universities cannot follow the British university, with 
 its narrow, purely classical and purely English scholar- 
 ship, which is studiously prevented from being broadened 
 by that fatuous policy of the ruling classes which stubbornly 
 refuses the organization of all secondary schools through 
 which the only people who can broaden it may come to the 
 universities at all. Neither is the scheme of the French uni- 
 versities acceptable, overbalanced as they are with the 
 mechanical and the imaginative, and dominated by the 
 martial feeling and the military organization of a people 
 who need the opportunity of thinking freely above all other 
 things. Nor is the German university to be copied, which 
 puts the scientific method first, regards sound morals but 
 little, and conveniently absolves itself from all responsibil- 
 ity about the character of its students, so long as they can 
 use a microscope to magnify the strength of the empire. 
 And if our universities cannot be guided by the English 
 or French or German, they cannot be guided by any. They 
 will take and they will leave whatever will serve their ends 
 either by taking or leaving. Institutions will be built up 
 which make for scholarship, for freedom, and for charac- 
 ter, and which, withal, will look through American eyes 
 upon questions of political policy, and train American 
 hands to deftness in the constructive and manufacturing 
 industries of most concern to the United States. 
 
 There has been no more noteworthy or promising de- 
 velopment in our intellectual, political, or industrial life 
 than the flocking of students in recent years to the univer- 
 sities which show a rational appreciation of the educational 
 
194 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 demands of our American life, and a reasonable disposition 
 to meet tJie needs of the educational situation. Even where 
 a university is not situated in a large city and is not sus- 
 tained by an attendance which will go somewhere and 
 can go nowhere else, it has stood in no need of students or of 
 support if it could enter into the spirit of the Republic and 
 would offer sound instruction which had some human 
 interest and some real bearing upon practical training for 
 our own professional and industrial life. 
 
 A mere English or culturing training, no matter how 
 excellent and necessary a thing in itself, is no longer a 
 preparation for the professions. The legal profession de- 
 mands that, and also a great and varied special library; a 
 knowledge of legal history and theory ; certainty about the 
 statutes and the decisions; aptness at associating all in a 
 comprehensive and logical whole, and readiness at apply- 
 ing the correct parts to new cases. It requires years of 
 study under expert and practical teachers, with ample 
 accommodations, in a special school, almost necessarily 
 associated with a university. Medicine claims the English 
 training, and then exacts years of research in chemistry, 
 zoology, bacteriology, physiology, and other fundamental 
 and kindred sciences, requiring great laboratories and 
 costly equipment which can hardly be provided at all out- 
 side of the great universities. After that, the theory and 
 practice specially appertaining to the profession must have 
 a special school, and again almost necessarily, one asso- 
 ciated with a university. It is the same with architecture, 
 and engineering, and agriculture, and all the professional 
 and industrial activities of the country. It is even largely 
 so with the fine arts. All demand the libraries, and labora- 
 tories, and drafting-rooms, and shops, and athletic grounds, 
 and gymnasiums, and kitchens, and all the other things 
 which only the large universities can provide, and all stu- 
 
THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY 195 
 
 dents do their own work more happily and absorb much 
 from the work of the others when they get their training in 
 association with the crowd in the university. Wherever 
 the university offers all these things, there the students 
 gather ; there thought is free, — but is very liable to have 
 the conceits taken out of its freedom ; there the actual do- 
 ing outweighs the mere talk ; there practical research cuts 
 dogmatism to the bone; there honest work has its reward, 
 and pretense its quick condemnation; there men and wo- 
 men measure up for what they are rather than for what 
 they claim ; there inspiration is given to every proper am- 
 bition, and there a great and true American university 
 develops. 
 
 All this has led to some very sharp differentiation be- 
 tween the external forms and the manner of government 
 and the plan of work of American and foreign universities. 
 For example, the board of trustees is largely peculiar to 
 American universities. It stands for the mass in university 
 government and policy. On the other side of the sea there 
 is no mass in university affairs. Charters run in the name 
 of the king ; the king is the head of the university, as of the 
 state ; and the king, or the king's minister, determines the 
 course the university is to pursue. The early American 
 colleges were all chartered by the king; even parliament 
 had no part in the matter. In the midst of the Revolution, 
 just following the defeat of St. Leger at Oriskany, of Clin- 
 ton in his movement up the Hudson, and of Burgoyne at 
 Saratoga, when neither king nor parliament was much in 
 vogue in New York, and when a petition was presented to 
 the young state government for the chartering of Union 
 College, there was not a little embarrassment as to whether 
 it should be addressed to the governor or to the legislature, 
 and as to which should deal with it. Yankee ingenuity 
 met the difficulty by addressing the prayer to both, and 
 
196 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 statecraft split the difference by creating the board of 
 regents to deal with such matters. But, however char- 
 tered, the board of trustees stands for the donors, the crea- 
 tors, and the public, in giving trend to the course of the 
 university. The point of it is that the founders, either 
 the donors or the public, or both, are represented by the 
 trustees. 
 
 The early American colleges, copied upon foreign pro- 
 totypes, have had to do so much readjusting that their 
 old friends would not recognize them, and the ones which 
 came a little later were shaped to fit situations which have 
 nearly or quite disappeared. From now on they will not 
 be able, and probably they will not be disposed, to dom- 
 inate university policy in the United States. They will 
 be obliged to work in accord with the overwhelming num- 
 ber of universities, colleges, and secondary schools, taken 
 together. They will have to accept students who can do 
 their work, and who want to do it, without so much reference 
 to how or what they have studied somewhere else. The 
 western boys and girls say that under the accrediting 
 system, by which institutions are examined more than 
 students, it is easier to get into western than into eastern 
 universities, but that, once in, it is hard to stay in a western 
 university, while one who gets into an eastern university 
 can hardly fail to be graduated if he will be polite to the 
 professors and pay the term bills. And the western people 
 say that their way is best; that every one must have his 
 chance; that at least his chance is not to be taken away 
 upon a false premise; that if he "flunks out" after having 
 had his chance it is his fault, and no one is going to worry 
 about it; and that it is better to regard the graduation 
 standards and apply them to four years' work that the 
 faculty must know all about than to make a fetich of en- 
 trance requirements and have so much ado about prior 
 
THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY 197 
 
 work, — about which they can know very little at the best. 
 It is all worth thinking about. 
 
 The large and strong universities will not only wax 
 larger and stronger, but they will multiply in number. Be- 
 cause there will be so many of them, no one of them will 
 serve so widely scattered a constituency as heretofore. 
 Women are going to have the same rights as men to the 
 higher learning. Boys will not always go to a university 
 because their grandfathers went there. The time will come 
 when every large and vigorous city and the territory natu- 
 rally tributary thereto will have a great university, able not 
 only to satisfy its needs of the culturing studies, but also its 
 demands for professional and business upbuilding. 
 
 What is to become of the literary colleges ? They are to 
 flourish so long as they can provide the best instruction in 
 the humanities, and do not assume names which they have 
 no right to wear, and do not attempt to do work which they 
 can do only indifferently. They will train for culture and 
 they will prepare for the professional work as of yore. And 
 wherever one does this well and is content to do so, it is to 
 have every sympathy and support which an appreciative 
 public can give. But no institutions, of whatever name or 
 grade, are going to fool all the people for a great while, and 
 the young men and women of America are going to have the 
 best training that the world can give, and have it not a 
 thousand miles from home. It is no longer necessary to 
 cross the sea in order to get it, and even our own older 
 universities are close upon the time when they must take ^ 
 from the newer ones more than they give to them. 
 
 Obviously, the American university, as no other univer- 
 sity in the world, must regard the life and especially the 
 employments of the people. It must exhibit catholicity of 
 spirit ; it must tolerate all creeds ; it must inspire all schools ; 
 it must guard all the professions, and it must strive to aid 
 
 D 
 
198 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 all the industries. It must quicken civic feeling in a system 
 where all depends upon the rule of the people. It must 
 stand for work, for work of hand as well as of head, where 
 all toil is alike honorable, and all worth is based upon 
 respect for it. 
 
 In a word, our immigration is making a nation of a wholly 
 new order; our democracy is developing a new kind of 
 civilization; our system of common schools, primary and 
 secondary, has brought forth a type of advanced schools 
 peculiar to the country. Institutions that would prosper 
 may well recognize the fact. The universities that would 
 thrive must put away all exclusiveness and dedicate them- 
 selves to universal public service. They must not try to 
 keep people out; they must help all who are worthy to get 
 in. It is not necessary that all of these institutions shall 
 stand upon exactly the same level ; it is necessary that each 
 shall have a large constituency; it is necessary that all shall 
 connect with the schools that are below them. It is im- 
 perative that all shall value the man at his true worth and 
 not reject him because his preparation has lacked an in- 
 gredient which a professor has been brought up to worship. 
 Essentially so when, in case the boy has studied the sub- 
 ject in the high school, the professor is as likely as other- 
 wise to tell him that he has been wrongly taught, and that 
 he must get what he has learned out of his head before he 
 can start right and hope to know the thing as he ought. It 
 is necessary that all shall be keen enough to see what is 
 of human interest, and broad enough to promote every 
 9,ctivity in which any number of people may engage. 
 
 The American university will carry the benefits of 
 scientific research to the doors of the multitude. It will 
 make more sanitary houses and handsomer streets, richer 
 farms and safer railways, happier towns and thriftier cities, 
 through the application of fundamental principles to all 
 
THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY 199 
 
 the activities of all the people. It will train balanced men 
 and women, and therefore it will promote sport as well as 
 work, and control the conduct of students as well as open 
 their minds. It will not absolve itself from any legitimate 
 responsibilities which instructors are bound to bear towards 
 youth. It will preserve the freedom of teaching, but it 
 will not tolerate freakishness or license in the nanje of 
 freedom of teaching. It will engage in research as well as 
 instruction, but when men absolve themselves from teach- 
 ing for the sake of research it will insist upon a grain of 
 discovery in the course of a human life. There is a distinct 
 national spirit in America. An American university will 
 understand how that has come to be and what it is aiming 
 at, will fall in with it, will be optimistic about it, and will 
 help it on to its fullest consummation. 
 
II 
 
 THE TREND IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 Americans are ever ready to try out new propositions. Not 
 many Americans are very discriminating about projects. 
 The spirit of the country is not satisfied until suggestions 
 have been put to the practical test. If individual and per- 
 sonal initiative is needed, any number of people will supply 
 it ; if public action is necessary, nearly everybody will sup- 
 port it. As individuals, and even more as a people, we 
 are bound to get all the possibilities out of all the things 
 we chance to think of. Our native energy and common 
 optimism are ever disposed to experiment, and our free- 
 flowing democracy and our much legislation make it easy 
 enough to do so. If something results we are very happy 
 for we have made an addition to our already very good 
 collection of national assets ; if nothing results there is no 
 harm, — we have had the fun which we get out of experi- 
 menting, and the laugh which we associate with failure. It 
 all stimulates productivity. It puts a premium upon the 
 novel ; but it makes headway and brings out great results. 
 Our energy and our optimism are valuable national prop- 
 erties. They lead us into some passing blunders, but they 
 give us many enduring results. 
 
 It is strikingly so in matters educational. It is the inten- 
 tion of the people who control the destiny of the United 
 States to do everything, to try out every manner of experi- 
 ment, which may raise the common level of intelligence and 
 enlarge the opportunity of the boy or girl, the man or wo- 
 man, in the crowd. It comes pretty near being the national 
 religion. It leads to some incidental absurdities, but to 
 more very striking and permanent advances. 
 
TREND IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 201 
 
 There is apparently some growing doubt in the land 
 about all men being created equal. There is even some 
 skepticism about the laws being wholly without favor, or 
 at least about their being administered so that the rights 
 of all are exactly alike ; but there is no doubt whatever of 
 the common determination that every American boy or 
 girl shall have his or her full opportunity through an ab- 
 solute equality of right to an education. That, at least, has 
 by the common impulse become the first law of our land. 
 The sense of proprietorship in the educational system is 
 universal, and the purpose to make that system the widest 
 and the best in the world is not at all obscure. 
 
 The early thought of the nation about education — the 
 thought which our English forefathers brought from over 
 the sea — has completely changed. It is not something 
 good which government is to encourage, but something 
 vital which government must provide. And the govern- 
 ment which is to provide it must of necessity be sovereign 
 as well as local and administrative. The educational sys- 
 tem is no longer a system which shall supply the elements 
 of knowledge or the primary instruments for gaining know- 
 ledge, but a system which is expected to supply all the 
 knowledge which any son or daughter of the state has the 
 preparation and the will to come and take. It no longer 
 acts through schools alone, but through libraries, museums, 
 clubs, lectures, publications, and all other instrumental- 
 ities which may possibly raise the level of the intellectual 
 plane. 
 
 And when so much in every direction is being attempted 
 at public expense, through officials who are not always 
 experienced, and who get no credit for being conservative, 
 there must be a good deal of commotion much of the time, 
 and no little uncertainty about the net results. 
 
 Teachers and other professional managers naturally 
 
202 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 respond to the popular impulse ; not a few of them capital- 
 ize it. When the voice of the people sounds an advance, 
 when the educational associations are ravenous for some- 
 thing new to discuss, when the daily newspapers discrimi- 
 nate in favor of things that are novel, when celebrity is 
 dependent upon proposing something out of the ordinary, 
 teachers, like other classes of our resourceful fellow country- 
 men, are not likely to be weighed in the balance and found 
 wanting. And it must be admitted that they enjoy it. Even 
 if discussion and agitation do not bring forth results that 
 are lasting, they supply the intellectual pastime which 
 teachers sorely need. 
 
 But propositions and projects are not tendencies. Even 
 discussions which entertain for an interminable time and 
 movements which take forever to come to something or 
 nothing, are not trends, but only persistencies, in educa- 
 tion. The national character goes on unfolding in its own 
 exclusive and imperial way. It adopts and adapts what can 
 enlarge and enrich the soul of the Republic: all the rest 
 comes to naught. American education accepts and incorpo- 
 rates what can add to the intellectual stores, the mental 
 culture, the philosophical sense, and the industrial pro- 
 ductivity of a free people; the rest is forgotten. 
 
 One cannot traverse the last twenty-five years of Ameri- 
 can educational progress without seeing many develop- 
 ments which are so substantial and decisive, and withal 
 so completely accomplished, that they must have become 
 permanent. That period has been marked by truly mar- 
 velous advances, not only in the professional, but in the 
 common thought of the nation. It is not too much to say 
 that no such educational advance has been made in all the 
 other history of democratic government and of the English- 
 speaking race. So rapidly and confidently has universal 
 education moved in this country and in our generation that 
 
TREND IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 203 
 
 the outlines of the national educational system of the future 
 begin to appear. 
 
 A very distinct differentiation of the schools into ele- 
 mentary, secondary, and higher grades, for the purpose of 
 administration, is going forward. The professional mind 
 is making it and the lay mind is accepting it. It is advan- 
 tageous to each grade of schools because it puts each upon 
 its own ground and holds each to its own responsibilities. 
 It makes educational values more stable and constant, and 
 it fixes standards capable of wider use. It discredits pre- 
 tenders, and helps to clear away popular confusion. 
 
 In the last thirty or thirty-five years the system of collegi- 
 ate schools has advanced in numbers, in character, in at- 
 tendance, in the multiplicity of offerings, and in the measure 
 of public support and popular interest, to an extent which 
 is alike surprising and gratifying to educationists. The col- 
 lege system is giving far more uplift and direction to all 
 schools than the people realize. True as to all parts of the 
 country, this is most emphatically true in the newer parts 
 where democracy has little to hamper it, where new insti- 
 tutions have not come into conflict with older ones which 
 had pretty good rights to the ground and could neither give 
 way nor easily change in character, theory, spirit, relations, 
 or outlook. The sure trend of our educational system is 
 certainly more clearly apparent in the newer states where 
 both the national and state governments have freedom and 
 disposition to cooperate with exceedingly ambitious people 
 who are setting up new institutions. It is particularly true 
 concerning institutions of advanced grade which are pro- 
 viding a general rather than a local service. 
 
 Of course no unfavorable implications are cast upon the 
 eastern and older colleges. Indeed, it is doubtless true that 
 some of them are entitled to great credit for having broken 
 away from educationally hide-bound constituencies and 
 
204 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 supposedly settled theories, for having accepted the guid- 
 ance of liberal and masterful leaders, and for having pos- 
 sessed the courage and asserted the freedom necessary to 
 wider service. Possibly the western pioneers, with a neces- 
 sarily wider because a later outlook, and with less hin- 
 drances than the eastern pioneers, are not entitled to so 
 much credit for drawing upon the world's later experi- 
 ences and making at first hand, controlling, supporting, 
 and shaping to their own ends what the country most needs 
 in the way of both upper and lower schools. 
 
 Any substantial uplift in a system of education must 
 come from above. Any great improvement or advance in a 
 class of schools must come from a class of schools higher 
 up. This fact is now actually coming to be recognized by 
 the lower schools themselves in America, and that of itself 
 is giving unwonted trend and character to the national 
 school system. But it necessarily follows that the factors 
 which enter into the scheme and give turns to the plans of 
 the upper schools exert a very strong influence upon the 
 kind of uplift and the direction of the development which 
 those schools give to the middle and lower schools. 
 
 In the older states three or four of the better colleges of 
 our fathers have in the last generation developed into lead- 
 ing universities with most of the faculties which educa- 
 tional traditions and modern philosophical and material 
 development make needful. In the meantime the other 
 earlier colleges are getting their ratings and finding their 
 real work in a somewhat exclusive field, but finding new 
 satisfaction in occupying that field with added usefulness 
 and honor. And many new institutions have been estab- 
 lished, to fall into one class or another of the higher insti- 
 tutions. The stronger of these institutions in a very great 
 measure, and the others in some measure, are giving tone 
 and breadth to our national scholarship. But, on the whole, 
 
TREND IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 205 
 
 it must be said that they are doing this through their grad- 
 uates, through our professional and business affairs, through 
 the teachers they have trained for other colleges and uni- 
 versities, rather than through any very direct bearing which 
 they have had upon the lower schools. They have sus- 
 tained no organic, nor indeed any very sympathetic, con- 
 nection with lower schools, and their main influence upon 
 the middle schools has had reference to getting students 
 for themselves and to having them prepared to meet their 
 own circumstances and their particular demands. Not 
 more than two or three of the older universities, of which 
 Harvard and Columbia are conspicuous examples, have 
 provided substantial offerings in educational science and 
 administration, or really undertaken in a rational way to 
 study, to train teachers for, or to give energy and direction 
 to, the schools below them. With these very rare exceptions, 
 the older universities and colleges have given only very 
 indirect and disjointed, and often very self-interested, aid 
 to the primary and secondary school systems which have 
 been maturing very rapidly and substantially all around 
 them. 
 
 In all states west of New York and Pennsylvania, and in 
 many of the southern states, a distinctly new class of ad- 
 vanced institutions has grown up. In many cases they 
 came into being before the Civil War, and often they were 
 established and provided with revenues by the state con- 
 stitutions. In several instances the state universities already 
 established were given the federal grants of common lands 
 and public moneys for research ; in other cases these grants 
 resulted in new institutions of the more distinctly agricul- 
 tural and mechanical type. With or without this aid, the 
 state universities began to enlist the enthusiastic interest 
 and financial support of the people of their states in the 
 seventies and eighties, which became even more decisive 
 
206 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 in the nineties, and has now gone so far as to completely 
 assure not only their continuance, but their continually 
 enlarging and absolutely decisive influence upon all of the 
 educational activities of their states. 
 
 If we were to name twenty of the largest American uni- 
 versities, counting by buildings, equipment, faculties, reve- 
 nues, offerings, libraries, and attendance, more than half 
 of them would be state universities. Several of these have 
 faculties numbering from three hundred to five hundred 
 teachers, representing every culturing, professional, philo- 
 sophical, and industrial interest of our widely diversified 
 modern education; and their student bodies often include 
 from three thousand to five thousand people. Their as- 
 sured support in popular sympathy and public money is 
 alike munificent and magnificent. Their graduates are of 
 course most numerous in their own states, but they are not 
 unknown in any part of the country, nor indeed in any part 
 of any country where something worth while is going on. 
 
 The influence of Columbia and Harvard and Yale and 
 some others upon these western universities will always be 
 gratefully admitted, but that should not disguise the fact 
 that they have individuality, purpose, and outlook very 
 thoroughly their own. Refraining from comparisons — 
 as idle as odious — it is moderate to say that in ambition 
 and energy, in the variety of their work and the plane 
 of their standards, in the seriousness and the democratic 
 resourcefulness of their students and the steadily aug- 
 menting power of their graduates, and particularly in 
 what they are doing for the industrial development and the 
 sane thinking of the country, they have come to give a 
 decisive trend to the future of American education. 
 
 To bring out the special bearing of this work, under the 
 particular environing influences, on literary culture, on the 
 political sciences, on scientific research, on law, medicine. 
 
TREND IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 207 
 
 and architecture, on all lines of engineering, and upon the 
 constructive and agricultural industries, very much might 
 be justly said. 
 
 In all parts of the country the secondary schools have 
 become an integral part of the public educational system. 
 In all of the Central, Rocky Mountain, and Pacific states 
 the universities have also become a part of that system. 
 In the East the public school system has twelve grades ; in 
 the West it has sixteen. The extent to which the university 
 has become a part of the common school system may be 
 seen from the following bare statements: (a) It lays out 
 the courses for the high schools. (6) It supplies a very con- 
 siderable part of the high school teachers, (c) It inspects 
 the high schools regularly with its own oflBcer. (d) It ad- 
 mits students to the university without examination, from 
 approved high schools, and under the stimulus of popular 
 demand all of the high schools must become worthy of 
 approval, (e) The university takes a keen interest in ele- 
 mentary school questions, and is an ever present influence 
 in the teachers' associations. (/) It makes the common 
 schools the laboratories of its education department, (g) 
 It responds to all popular demands, and becomes a potent 
 factor in determining educational legislation and shaping 
 educational policy, (h) It is free, and all ambitious eyes 
 are turned toward it ; it is popular, and all boys and girls 
 in the high schools think about going to it. (i) It naturally 
 comes to be looked upon as belonging to all the people and 
 so becomes the responsible head and guide of the public 
 educational system. 
 
 Of course, this affects the university itself as much as the 
 rest of the system, and again, of course, it brings out a 
 university suited to the needs of a busy, prosperous, and 
 ambitious people, who want the best in the world educa- 
 tionally and are determined to make very free use of their 
 
208 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 power to have it. In other words, it is bringing out in our 
 states a new style of university which is already giving 
 decisive trend to the national system of education. And a 
 process which has gone so far in all the states save a half 
 dozen seems likely to be adopted in every state where exist- 
 ing universities do not meet every need at a nominal cost. 
 In newer and older states the new order of university is 
 sure to become yet more decisive in its influence. 
 
 Again let it be said that in all this there is no element 
 of implication against the older universities or the literary 
 colleges, which find all the work that they can do thor- 
 oughly and well. Inheriting much from European thought 
 and forms, shaped by American conditions when classical 
 training was the sum and professional employments the 
 goal of college work, they have aided and been themselves 
 influenced by the development of a distinctly new class of 
 institutions of higher learning, which have been obliged 
 by the democratic advance in political science and indus- 
 trial prosperity to defy both English and German models, 
 train for both scholarship and character, and provide 
 practically free instruction in any study to any qualified 
 student. 
 
 If one will realize that this great and popular university 
 development within the public educational system is uni- 
 versal in the states which embrace the centres of popula- 
 tion, of industrial productivity, and of political control in 
 our country, one will be able to appreciate something of 
 the overwhelming trend which it is giving to our education, 
 and that it is clearly moving our entire system of schools, 
 higher and lower, toward resourcefulness, by the training 
 which fits one for successful living in our complex civiliza- 
 tion. The mere rudiments which enable a child to read and 
 write are far from sufficient in the elementary schools, and 
 the linguistic studies which are merely culturing, in the old 
 
TREND IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 209 
 
 sense of the term, are no longer in the highest favor in the 
 advanced schools. The early ideals are passing away. The 
 little child must be trained to see, to think, to do, and to 
 express himself; the college student must get the know- 
 ledge, the purpose, the power, the steadiness, and the 
 endurance which accomplish substantial results, through 
 mental or manual labor. Culture which gains recognition 
 in this country must be more than skin-deep, and must 
 come from thfr reactionary discipline of work upon the 
 workman. 
 
 The trend of our higher education, up to the present 
 generation, was toward respectable polish for the idle rich, 
 and toward some preparation for the learned professions. 
 The trend of our higher education now is toward a much 
 better preparation for the professions and toward very 
 complete preparation for all of the skilled employments, 
 all of the constructive industries, and all of the commercial 
 activities. 
 
 The more complete preparation for the professions has 
 arisen from within the professions themselves, and has 
 resulted very largely from legislation limiting admissions 
 to them. It is but just to say that in this the state 
 of New York has been foremost. In requiring (a) four 
 years' satisfactory work in an approved school of academic 
 grade; (b) four years' satisfactory work in an approved 
 professional school, with the bachelor's degree from an 
 institution duly empowered to confer it, as conditions for 
 admission to the state licensing examination ; and (c) in 
 sharply limiting the use of the terms college and university. 
 New York has given real trend to professional education 
 and professional standards, which many of the states 
 about her are happily beginning to adopt. 
 
 In this connection it would be a mistake to omit mention 
 of the decisive tendency to prepare for the professions in 
 
210 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 professional schools which are associated with the univer- 
 sities, rather than in offices or in independent institutions. 
 This has led many independent professional schools to seek 
 alliances with universities. It is surely making both the 
 preliminary and professional training much stronger, and 
 it is leading a much larger number of students to more 
 thorough training than they would otherwise get. When 
 we recall how recently there was little preparation, either 
 scholastic or technical, for the professions in America, and 
 how superficial much of the training in independent schools 
 by lecturers who were carrying on regular practice has 
 been, we have special satisfaction in realizing the extent 
 and excellence of the work which the universities are now 
 doing for professional learning and expertness. 
 
 The aggressive work of the universities, other than that 
 which is in preparation for the learned professions, has 
 come to be in the courses which are fundamental in ad- 
 ministration and in the most successful carrying on of the 
 commercial activities and the constructive and manufac- 
 turing industries. There is large demand for training in the 
 chemistry which enters into agricultural and manufacturing 
 activities, in all lines of engineering, in the economics of 
 productivity and trade, and in the technic of all the busi- 
 nesses which follow after them. There is more demand also 
 for the basic work of the political sciences. The demand 
 is the largest where the equipment and teaching are the 
 best. Of course, this all relates to and shapes the courses 
 in the high schools, and in some measure in the elemen- 
 tary schools. 
 
 It is doing more than causing the lower schools to pre- 
 pare students for the higher schools. It is developing a 
 rather common belief in the crowd that a university which 
 does little besides berate the lower schools about suitably 
 training students for itself, is not doing overmuch for edu- 
 
TREND IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 211 
 
 cation ; that young people must be trained for subordinate 
 places in business and for manual skill in the trades as well 
 as for the colleges and for positions claiming deep scientific 
 knowledge ; that the high schools have not yet accomplished 
 all they ought in this direction, and that there is something 
 lacking in the way of training the masses of children in the 
 elementary schools for efficiency and contentment in the 
 situations in life which they are likely to occupy ; that some- 
 thing in the way of public trade schools must be estab- 
 lished for the children of the masses at a rather early age, 
 and that the universities and colleges are called upon to 
 recognize that fact and help realize it. In a word, the very 
 development of the higher learning is creating the common 
 thought that more must be done for the elementary learn- 
 ing, that not so much is being done for those who do not go 
 to college as for those who do, and that more must be done 
 to adapt the training of the masses to probable environ- 
 ment and to the inevitable conditions of hand labor and 
 other self-respecting and useful employments. 
 
 One of the most gratifying developments of recent 
 years in school administration relates not more to the bet- 
 ter understandings and the warmer friendships between 
 schools of different grades than between public and private 
 schools, and between schools in one section of the country 
 with those in another. Presidents and principals and 
 superintendents and teachers are beginning to learn that 
 one gets rich in education not by withholding, but by giving, 
 and that prosperity comes to an institution which knows 
 enough to attend to its own business when it ought and to 
 aid other institutions when it may. This knowledge is 
 propagating deeper mutual respect and closer fraternal 
 regard. Cooperation, rather than competition, is coming 
 to be the policy of the schools. 
 
 This growing disposition toward mutual helpfulness 
 
212 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 recognizes no state lines or other political boundaries. It is 
 indifferent to provincialism, to sectarianism, to politics, and 
 to all other forms of exclusiveness. That there is a " de- 
 mocracy of learning" which embraces men and women 
 who live in every state and every land, and which gives its 
 ennobling inspiration to persons of every class or race, or 
 church or party, and which is going to aid every intellec- 
 tual and moral interest of mankind at every opportunity, 
 is coming to be known wherever there are men and w^omen 
 who are moved by the spirit which God has placed in every 
 human breast. It is making the widest, the finest, the most 
 inspiring, and the most influential fraternity that the 
 world has ever known. 
 
 In later years there has been a very significant enlarge- 
 ment of the understanding that the true functions of a 
 democratic state justify it in entering upon divers educa- 
 tional activities outside of the schools. It is coming to be 
 accepted without cavil that the state may not only build 
 up a state library for the use of state officials, legislators, 
 and judges, but a state library for the aid of the professions, 
 or for any other interest which may be aided by a collection 
 of books which it cannot itself easily secure or maintain; 
 that books may be loaned from the state library to any one 
 needing them ; that local libraries are to be encouraged, 
 subsidized, and guided; and that traveling libraries may 
 be sent about the state to quicken study in every direction. 
 This tendency goes beyond libraries; it extends to mu- 
 seums and all collections which may interest and instruct 
 the crowd ; it is very jealous of original historic manuscripts 
 and mementos; it sends standard pictures to the schools 
 and all manner of institutions, and it gives help to art 
 centres, reading circles, study clubs, lecture assemblies, 
 and all other intellectual activities whether they are in- 
 dividual or associated. 
 
TREND IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 213 
 
 The tendency is going yet further. It is extending 
 scientific research to matters concerning the public health, 
 and even to commercial and industrial activities. It would 
 extend every facility to sane and logical thinking and to all 
 rational doing. One state erects laboratories for the chemi- 
 cal, microscopical, and bacterial examination of diseased 
 tissue; another analyzes all drinking water sent to its 
 scientific laboratories and determines whether or not the 
 specimens are free from contamination ; another conserves 
 the animals in its forests and propagates the fishes in its 
 waters ; another works up its clays into forms both useful 
 and beautiful; another measures the carbon in its coals; 
 another tells its farmers how to add to the potentiality of 
 their acres and what crops will command the readiest 
 markets ; and yet another shows its railroads how to get a 
 maximum of speed and hauling power at a minimum of 
 cost. All this and much more is going on, often all of 
 these things, and more, in the same state. The tendency 
 is growing rapidly. It seems destined to give even more 
 decisive turns to the future of our education and our civil- 
 ization. 
 
 The truly significant thing about it is that the more and 
 the better it is done the stronger is the popular support. 
 There is no socialism or paternalism about it. It is merely 
 the outworking of the fundamental American doctrine that 
 in education the masses have the same right of opportunity 
 as the classes. It is using the combined political power to 
 gain the educational results in a short time which without 
 that power a few favored people may get in a long time, and 
 often keep to themselves for a yet longer time. It is all 
 illustrative of the inherent spirit of the country and of the 
 roads which that spirit is bound to break out and follow. 
 
 The growing culture, as well as the ever developing 
 business of the country, is quickly reflected in our schools. 
 
214 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 There is no country in which the changes are so frequent 
 and the accumulations so apparent, and the progress so 
 rapid ; and there is none in which all this so quickly affects 
 the situations and policies of the schools. This is well il- 
 lustrated in the architecture and the multiplying adorn- 
 ments of the newer school buildings at nearly all of the 
 centres of population. It appears, also, in the art courses 
 which are making their way into the programmes of the 
 schools. The great wealth of the country which embellishes 
 and cultures so many homes does the same for the schools 
 — with this difference, that the influence of it is even more 
 widely and sanely exerted in the schools than in the homes, 
 because the schools are not so likely to be inherited by the 
 superficial and idle rich, with all that is implied thereby. 
 The schools are, in a way, becoming more and more the 
 accumulating and distributing points of the country's cul- 
 ture as well as of the country's justice and prosperity. 
 
 Of course, the large fortunes are producing some exces- 
 sive and unwholesome luxury in the life at some of the 
 universities, but there is no more democratic and leveling 
 institution in the world than an American university, and 
 the students who use their wealth grossly and live riotously 
 are no less likely to lose standing in the common sentiment 
 of the crowd than they are to meet their fate in the semester 
 examinations. 
 
 The physical training which is now required very uni- 
 formly of the mass of college students and the extent to 
 which sports have been organized are giving manifest turns 
 to our newer education. There is a new respect for health 
 and a new enthusiasm for physical accomplishment. There 
 is a new valuation upon sport and a wider interest in keep- 
 ing it clean. The whole thing is doing much to attract 
 youth to the high schools and colleges, and is exercising 
 an unmistakable influence upon the life in the elementary 
 
TREND IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 215 
 
 schools. Of course there are and will be excesses, but, on 
 the whole, the influence is good. Children endure pain with 
 less whimpering; life in the open is not only generating 
 new power, but creating new ideals ; and the thinking of 
 young people in both city and country grows more sane 
 and ambitious through the striking development of physical 
 training in the schools and of organized interscholastic 
 sport. 
 
 No one can foresee the destiny of the Republic, but that 
 there is an educational purpose abroad in the land which 
 has never before been so pervasive and so ambitious in any 
 land seems clear. It is the spirit of a mighty people, gath- 
 ered from the ends of the earth, enlightened by the world 
 experiences of a thousatid years. It is the spirit of a people 
 with outlook and expectancy. The functions of the state 
 concerning every manner of educational activity, in and 
 out of the schools, are being steadily enlarged and 
 strengthened through the initiative or the common desire 
 of the multitude. Growing appreciation is giving greater 
 heed to the advanced institutions and bringing them 
 to the aid of all institutions, and therefore to the intel- 
 lectual quickening of the entire country. Everything that 
 the nation, the state, or the municipality can do to aid true 
 learning, without any injustice, it is to be made to do. And 
 the learning which aids doing and the culture which is the 
 product of labor are to be of the most worth. 
 
Ill 
 
 STATE UNIVERSITIES 
 
 One who has been privileged to sustain living relations 
 with the educational work of the East and the West of our 
 country soon realizes that the educational atmosphere of 
 each section has qualities which are peculiar to it, and soon 
 sees that the points of view, the habits of thought, and the 
 ways of going about things east and west of the Alleghanies 
 are quite distinct. Educationally the East is given to wis- 
 dom, is deliberate, has quite as much resistive power as 
 aggressiveness, is inclined to be suspicious, and refuses to 
 initiate a movement until it thinks it sees clearly what the 
 end will be. The West is hearty and impulsive, plunges into 
 whatever engages its interest, relies upon its resourceful- 
 ness, and worries very little about results. The results are 
 never disappointing. If the outcome is good much is made 
 of it; if not, the movement is lightly regarded, for by that 
 time the mind is fully occupied with other things. The 
 Westerners are easier travelers, better "mixers," and more 
 enthusiastic and aggressive searchers for information than 
 the Easterners. An eastern schoolman knows much about 
 schoolhouses and appliances, and is reasonably content 
 with what he knows ; a western man is never too old or too 
 tired to go to the top or the bottom of a school building, in 
 the hope of finding a new appliance or a fresh suggestion 
 in it. The eastern men may go to educational conferences 
 two or three times a year, in the stern performance of a 
 religious duty ; the western men want a convention every 
 week, and seldom lose an opportunity to be in at the start 
 and open a discussion of facts and philosophies at a canter. 
 
STATE UNIVERSITIES 217 
 
 Many of the western schoolmen have lived in the East, 
 and although they have been lured by the star of empire, 
 their interest in the East will never abate. More of them 
 go to the Middle and New England states every year, for 
 they will travel, and all the roads lead that way and they 
 know where the good roads are. Practically all of them 
 read the eastern educational periodicals, gaining informa- 
 tion, and looking for things worth discussing or proposing at 
 home. One result of all this is that the western men know 
 infinitely more about matters educational in the East than 
 the eastern men do of such matters in the West. Indeed, 
 it is not too much to say that many of the schoolmen in the 
 great states which are now central in the Union are quite 
 as much in touch with matters educational in the East as 
 many of the eastern men are themselves. The converse 
 of all this is not generally true, and it is strikingly untrue 
 so far as an understanding in the East of the growth and 
 the work of western universities is concerned. 
 
 Of course, the intellectual activity and the prevalent 
 commercial spirit of the West have combined to produce 
 many concerns which are worthless, some of which should 
 be brought within provisions of the penal code and engage 
 the active attention of the police. The proprietors seek 
 high-sounding names for such establishments, and the 
 public sense of propriety and of justice has not yet reached 
 the point of aiding the worthy by stopping the misap- 
 propriation of titles by the unworthy to any such extent as 
 has been well commenced in the East. Yet there are en- 
 couraging signs of public interest in the subject, and when 
 it has advanced a few steps further corrective remedies are 
 likely to be applied with a rush. 
 
 The West is dotted over with commercial institutions, 
 many of them worthy enough, trying to sustain names which 
 do not fit, and which really curse them. While this is not 
 
218 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 at all peculiar to the West, it is true that it is more common 
 there than in the East. May the time speedily come when 
 the common sentiment of the country will make it clear to 
 educational enterprises that it will be to their advantage 
 to discriminate in the use of titles and claim only what 
 they are able to perform, and that it will be quickly to their 
 hurt to fall short of making goo^ their assurances. 
 
 There are a score or more of (denominational colleges in 
 every western state. These were founded by the churches, 
 in the pioneer days, as instruments for denominational up- 
 building. For long years they were the only schools with 
 any pretense to advanced grade in the West ; and they are 
 always to be regarded with sympathy and spoken of with 
 respect. Some of them, of which Oberlin (1833) , in Ohio ; 
 Illinois (Jacksonville, 1829) and Knox (Galesburg, 1837), 
 in Illinois; Beloit (1846), in Wisconsin; Iowa (Grinnell, 
 1847), in Iowa, and Colorado (Colorado Springs, 1874), 
 in Colorado, are perhaps the best types, have been able to 
 adjust themselves to the new conditions which have been 
 brought about by the filling up of the country and by the 
 educational advance, have been content to do college work 
 well, have gathered considerable endowments, and have 
 become so influential and so much beloved as to be assured 
 of strong and useful futures ; and all lovers of learning re- 
 joice with them in the fact. Some of them, with no abate- 
 ment of the spirit of Christianity, have laid aside the de- 
 nominational garb in order to attract the support of wider 
 constituencies. But a larger number of the denominational 
 colleges have been unable to cope with or adjust them- 
 selves to the educational evolution of recent decades. Some 
 of them are doing work which, in quality and in quantity, 
 is below the grade of good high schools. Their churches 
 are being enjoined, as a Christian duty, to give what they 
 are unable to give to their support, when all that these 
 
STATE UNIVERSITIES 219 
 
 schools are doing, and much more, is being better done 
 than they can hope to do it by the ordinary schools and the 
 publicly supported institutions of their states. Of course it 
 will be said that the denominations are unwilling to educate 
 their youth except under denominational supervision ; that 
 it is a matter of faith and cannot be departed from. The 
 merits of that subject cannot be discussed here, but it is 
 not too much to say that the logic of events has proved that 
 the inevitable trend of American sentiment is strongly 
 against that position. 
 
 The logic of events is abundantly exemplified in the 
 munificent provision for a public high school in every city, 
 village, or sparsely settled township, and particularly in 
 the splendid advance of the state university movement 
 in the West. 
 
 There has been no movement undertaken by our de- 
 mocracy so significant and encouraging as that which has 
 resulted in the great state universities of the Central and 
 Western states. The sentiment which supports it is prac- 
 tically universal. No people have ever before carried 
 forward such a movement on any similar scale. In the 
 early days Massachusetts and Connecticut and New York 
 and New Jersey gave substantial aid to Harvard and Yale 
 and Columbia and Princeton, but without any idea of 
 becoiping responsible for their permanent support and 
 management. The common thought as to the functions of 
 government touching education would not permit more 
 than state aid and encouragement to a university in the 
 colonial days, or even in the earlier years of the "more 
 perfect Union." The advance of the Republic created the 
 need, and the breaking of the great West opened the way for 
 a new educational order of things. The pioneers built for 
 the future. They were proud to commence new movements 
 and to lay broad foundations. They believed that govern- 
 
220 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 ment should stand for the progress as well as for the mere 
 security of the people, and they were only too glad to 
 struggle and sacrifice in the hope that their children would 
 fare better than they. 
 
 Out of this came provisions for people's universities in 
 the constitutions of many of the new states, and an actual 
 university supported and managed by every state west of 
 New York and Pennsylvania. Such universities were 
 founded in Indiana in 1820, in Michigan in 1837, in Mis- 
 souri in 1839, in Iowa in 1847, in Wisconsin in 1848, in 
 Kansas in 1864, in Illinois in 1867, in California in 1868, 
 in Minnesota in 1869, in Nebraska in 1869, in Ohio in 
 1870, and in Colorado in 1876. And in practically every 
 case a university has developed to a plane not reached by 
 the oldest and strongest institutions of the country a single 
 generation ago, and not attained by more than a bare 
 half dozen now. 
 
 In some states the state universities are united with the 
 agricultural and mechanical colleges resulting from the 
 national land grant acts, while in others they are main- 
 tained separately. In either case, the common sentiment 
 of the people supports the purpose of the universities to 
 enter every field of scientific research and intellectual 
 activity. Ancient and modern languages and literatures, 
 rhetoric and oratory, history and philosophy, economics and 
 sociology and ethics, pedagogy and psychology, music and 
 sketching and painting, mathematics, the earth and air and 
 water and sky and life sciences, medicine and pharmacy 
 and dentistry, law in every phase of the science, agriculture 
 and horticulture, the raising of wheat and corn as well as 
 of animals, dairying and home-making, architecture, civil 
 engineering, electrical engineering, mechanical engineer- 
 ing, municipal and sanitary engineering, railway engi- 
 neering, mining engineering, library science, physical train- 
 
 cii;j;;l>^^n^'"v~-'> 
 
STATE UNIVERSITIES 221 
 
 ing, and every other interest which challenges thorough 
 study are grouped in separate colleges, schools, or depart- 
 ments, with the necessary libraries and laboratories and 
 farms and shops for the most practical and effective 
 work. ' 
 
 In all these universities there is a complete military 
 organization in charge of a United States army officer, and 
 no one of them is without a military band and an orchestra, 
 a choral society and glee clubs and quartettes, an athletic 
 field and "teams" without number, social and literary 
 clubs, Greek letter fraternities galore, men and women's 
 Christian associations, and all the other acquisitions of 
 modern university life. 
 
 The relations between the state universities and the pub- 
 lic high schools are direct and close. The universities re- 
 ceive students upon examination, but they also have a 
 system of accrediting high schools which is peculiar to the 
 West. The universities inspect the high schools — the 
 courses of work and the teaching — by faculty commit- 
 tees, or, now, more commonly by an officer called the high 
 school visitor; and, upon approval, receive their graduates 
 without examination. This aids the high school, for it is 
 held to reflect upon one if it is not upon the accredited list 
 of the university. The eastern universities are inclined to 
 scoff at this, but it will be surprising if they are not doing 
 the same thing before many years. Of course some students 
 get into the universities who cannot sustain themselves, 
 but it is better so than it is to keep students out of college 
 who want to go and who cannot fit into the precise grooves 
 of an examination set by persons knowing little of their 
 work and nothing of their resources. 
 
 All classes are represented in the great student bodies of 
 the state universities, but the middle class predominates 
 overwhelmingly. There are some who find it necessary 
 
222 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 to "work their way," and if they do it and sustain them- 
 selves in their university work they uniformly gain the 
 respect they deserve for it. There is no discussion of the 
 merits of co-education, and no isolated woman's college 
 in the university group. Young men and young women 
 work side by side in classrooms and laboratories, they 
 attend social gatherings in company, with little in the way 
 of regulations which is not self-imposed, and with the very 
 best results. Comradeship between faculty and students is 
 free and helpful to both. Life is free and genuine and nat- 
 ural and earnest, the sentiment of the campus is whole- 
 some, the work is severe, and the semester examinations 
 are inexorable. 
 
 An eastern man is likely to inquire about the part which 
 politics plays in the administration of the state universities. 
 It plays no part. There is no state college or university of 
 any standing that is not wholly free from political or other 
 domination, and nothing is clearer than that the people 
 intend to have it so. 
 
 The higher institutions of learning in the West have come 
 to know very well that the advance of each strengthens all. 
 Relations are cordial, and all seem to be working effectually 
 together to stimulate the secondary schools and exert a 
 decisive and ennobling influence upon the life of the people. 
 The age is one which will be distinguished by the diffusion 
 of the higher learning, by its much wider applications to 
 the daily life and institutions of the people ; and it may be 
 confidently believed that time will show abundantly that 
 the people of the Central and Western states have borne a 
 notable and an honorable part to that great end. 
 
IV 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY PRESIDENCY 
 
 The responsible authorities in the management of a uni- 
 versity are the trustees, the president, and the faculty. 
 Legal enactments settle in some measure the exact func- 
 tions of each, but common knowledge of the kinds of gov- 
 ernment which succeed when much property and many 
 interests are involved, as well as the imperative necessities 
 of the particular situation, have gone much further to 
 establish the governmental procedure in the university. 
 While the immediate purpose is to exploit the functions 
 and powers of the university president, some reference, 
 necessarily brief, must be made to the prerogatives and 
 duties of the trustees and faculty. 
 
 A vital principle in all government involving many cares 
 and interests is tersely expressed in the statement that 
 bodies legislate and individuals execute. It goes without 
 saying that legislation must be by a body which is both 
 morally responsible and legally competent, and common 
 observation proves that it must concern a real situation, to 
 be of any real worth. If it involves special knowledge, it 
 must be by men who have the knowledge or who will re- 
 spect the opinions of others who have. 
 
 The trustees of a university are charged by law, either 
 statutory or judge-made, or by widely acknowledged 
 usage, with that general oversight and that legislative 
 direction which will make sure of the true execution of the 
 trust. They are to secure revenues and control expendi- 
 tures. They are to prevent waste and assure results. They 
 are never to forget that they represent the people who 
 
224 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 created and who maintain the university. They are not 
 to represent these people as a tombstone might — but as 
 living men may. They are to do the things their principals 
 would assuredly do, if in their places, to enlarge the ad- 
 vantage to the cestui que trust. This is a heavy burden. 
 It must be assumed that it is given to picked men who are 
 especially able to bear it; who would not give their time 
 to it for mere money compensation, but are happy in doing 
 it for the sake of promoting the best and noblest things. 
 
 The trustees do not live upon the campus, and they are 
 not assumed to be professional educationists. Their judg- 
 ment is likely to be quite as good upon the relations of the 
 work to the public interests, and as to what the institution 
 should do to fulfill its mission, as that of any expert would 
 be. To get done what they want done, they must enact di- 
 rections and appoint competent agents. The individual 
 trustee has no power of supervision or direction not given 
 to him by the recorded action of the board. What they 
 do is to be done in session after the modification of indi- 
 vidual opinions through joint discussion. It must be re- 
 duced to exact form and stand in a permanent record. 
 Trustees make a mess of it when they usurp executive 
 functions, and they sow dragons' teeth when they intrigue 
 with a teacher, or hunt a job for a patriot who thinks he is 
 in need of it. They are bound to regard expert opinion 
 and to appoint agents who can render more expert ser- 
 vices than any others who can be procured. They are to 
 keep the experts sane, on the earth, in touch with the 
 world, as it were. They are to sustain agents and help 
 them to succeed, and they are to remove agents who are 
 not successful. From a point of view remote enough and 
 high enough, they are to inspect the whole field. They are 
 bound to be familiar with all that the institution is doing. 
 They are to be alert in keeping the whole organization 
 
THE UNIVERSITY PRESIDENCY £25 
 
 free from whatever may corrupt, and up to the very top 
 notch of efficient public service. There is too much money 
 involved to permit of foolishness, too high interests at 
 stake to allow of vacillation and uncertainty. Under a 
 responsibility that is unceasing and unrelenting they must 
 learn the truth and never hesitate to act. And they must 
 find their abundant reward, not in any material return 
 to themselves, but in the splendid fact that the great ag- 
 gregation of land and structure and equipment, of great 
 teachers and aspiring students, of sacred memories and 
 precious hopes and potential possibilities, is doing the 
 work of God and man in the most perfect way and in the 
 largest measure which their knowledge and experience, 
 their entire freedom, and their combined energy can devise. 
 The business of university faculties is teaching. It is not 
 legislation, and it is not administration — certainly not 
 beyond the absolute necessities. There is just complaint 
 because the necessities of administration take much time 
 from teaching. It lessens the most expert and essential 
 work which the world is doing. It seldom enlarges op- 
 portunity or enhances reputation. It is true that teachers 
 have great fun legislating, but it is not quite certain that, 
 outside of their specialties, they will ever come to conclu- 
 sions, or that, if they do, their conclusions will stand. The 
 main advantage of it is the relaxation and dissipation they 
 get out of it. That is great. And, in a way, it may be as 
 necessary as it is great. Of course teachers could not endure 
 it if they were always to conduct themselves out of the 
 classroom as they do in it. Perhaps others would also have 
 difficulty in enduring it. They are given to disorderliness 
 and argumentation beyond any other class who stands 
 so thoroughly for doing things in regular order. It is not 
 strange. It is the inevitable reaction, — what some of them 
 would call the 'psychological antithesis. Nor is it to be 
 
226 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 repressed or regretted, for it adds to the effectiveness and 
 attractiveness of the most effective and attractive people 
 in the world. All this is often particularly true of the 
 past masters in the art. No wonder that Professor North, 
 who taught Greek for sixty years at Hamilton College, — 
 "Old Greek," as many generations of students fondly 
 called him, — wrote in his diary that it would have to be 
 cut in the granite of his tombstone that he " died of faculty 
 meetings," for he was sure that some day he would drop 
 off before one would come to an end. 
 
 University policies are not to be settled by majority vote. 
 They are to be determined by expert opinion. The very 
 fact of extreme expertness in one direction is as likely as 
 not to imply lack of it in other directions. Experts are no 
 more successful than other people in settling things outside 
 of their zone of expertness. Within that they are to have 
 their way so long as they sustain themselves and the money 
 holds out. But the resources are not to be equally divided. 
 University rivalries are not to be adjusted by treaties be- 
 tween the rivals. More of university success depends upon 
 keeping unimportant things from being done in a mistaken 
 way than in developing useful policies and pursuing them 
 in the correct way. Department experts are to determine 
 department policies, college experts college policies, and 
 university experts university policies. 
 
 What the President of the United States is to the federal 
 Congress, the president of the university is to the board of 
 trustees. It has not long been so, because American uni- 
 versities are recent creations. When colleges were small, 
 when the care of their property was no task, when all of a 
 college were of one sect and theology was the main if not 
 the only purpose, when there was but one course of study 
 and the instruction was only bookish and catechetical, — 
 administration was no problem at all. There was nothing 
 
THE UNIVERSITY PRESIDENCY 227 
 
 to put a strain upon the ship. Even though there was no 
 specific responsibility and no delegation of special functions 
 with immediate accountability, possessions did not go to 
 waste, frauds did not creep in, and injustice and paralysis 
 did not ensue. It may easily be so now in the smaller col- 
 leges; it cannot be so in the great universities. The at- 
 tendance of thousands of students, the enlargement of 
 wealth and of the number of students who go to college 
 without any very definite aim, the admission of women, the 
 more luxurious and complex life, the greater need of just 
 and forceful guidance of students, the multiplication of 
 departments, the substitution of the laboratory for the 
 book, the new and numberless processes, the care of mil- 
 lions of property and the handling of very large amounts of 
 money, and the continual and complete meeting of all the 
 responsibilities which this great aggregation of materials 
 and of moral and industrial power owes to the public, have 
 slowly but logically, and as a matter of course, developed 
 the modern university presidency. It is the centralized and 
 responsible headship of a balanced administrative organi- 
 zation, with specialized functions running out to all of the 
 innumerable cares and activities of the great institution. 
 It is the essential office which holds the right of leadership, 
 which has the responsibility of initiative, which is charge- 
 able with full information and held to be endowed with 
 sound discretion, which may act decisively and immediately 
 to conserve every interest and promote every purpose for 
 which the university was established. 
 
 It may be well to specify and illustrate. Conditions are 
 not wholly ideal in a university. Men and women not al- 
 together ripe for translation have to be dealt with. Real 
 conditions, often unprecedented, have to be met. Not 
 only effectiveness within, but decent and helpful relations 
 with neighbors, constituents, and the world are to be as- 
 
228 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 sured. Some authority must be able to do things at once, 
 and some word must often be spoken to or for the university 
 community. When spoken, it must be a free word, uttered 
 out of an ample right to speak. 
 
 An American university may be possessed of property 
 worth from three to fifty millions of dollars. This is in 
 lands and buildings and appliances and securities. These 
 things may be legislated about, but that is not the care of 
 them. To keep them from spoliation and make the most 
 of them, there must be expert care through a competent 
 department, but in harmonious relations with an ever 
 present power which has the right and responsibility of 
 declaring and doing things. 
 
 The very life of the institution depends upon eliminating 
 weak and unproductive teachers, and upon reinforcing the 
 teaching body with the very best in the world. Unless there 
 is scientific aggressiveness in the search of new knowledge 
 some very serious claims must be abandoned and some 
 attitudes completely changed. No board ever got rid of a 
 teacher or an investigator — no matter how weak or ab- 
 surd — except for immorality known to the public. The 
 reason why a board cannot deal with such a matter is the 
 lack of individual confidence about what to do and of 
 individual responsibility for doing nothing. But, with three 
 or four hundred in the faculty, the need of attention to this 
 vital matter is always present. No board knows where 
 new men of first quality are to be found ; no board can con- 
 duct the negotiations for them, or fit them into an har- 
 monious and effective whole. The man who is fitted for 
 this great burden, and who puts his conscience up against 
 his responsibility, can hardly be expected to tolerate the 
 opposition of an unsubstantial sentiment which would 
 protect a teacher at all hazards, or the more subtle com- 
 bination of selfish influences which puts personal over and 
 
THE UNIVERSITY PRESIDENCY 229 
 
 above public interests when the upbuilding of a university 
 is the task in hand. 
 
 Not only must the teaching staff be developed, — the 
 work must be organized. It must develop a following, 
 connect with the circumstances and purposes of a con- 
 stituency, and lead as well as it can up to the peaks of 
 knowledge. It is not necessary that all universities cover 
 the same lines of work or have the same standards. It 
 is not imperative that all have the same courses, or 
 courses of the same length. It is necessary that all serve 
 and uplift their people. But how ? A master of literature 
 will say through classical training and literary style; a 
 scientist will say through laboratories ; a political economist 
 will say through history and figures and logic ; an engineer 
 will say through roads and bridges and knowledge of 
 materials, and the generation and transmission of power, 
 and skill at construction ; and a professional man will say 
 through building up professional schools, providing no 
 mistake be made about the particular kind of school. Some 
 one of wide experience, having a scholar's training and 
 sympathies, possessed of a judicial temperament and with 
 decisiveness as well, must have the responsibility and the 
 initiative of distributing resources justly as between the 
 multifarious interests and binding them all into an har- 
 monious and effective whole. Difficult as that is, it is not 
 the heaviest burden of university leadership. Ideals must 
 be upheld and made attractive ; they must be sane ideals 
 which appeal to real men, — and not only to old men, but 
 to young men. There must be no mistaking of dyspepsia 
 for principle, no assumption that character grows only 
 when powers fail; but a rational philosophy of life by 
 which men may live as well as die. Nor is this all. There 
 must be forehandedness. Some one must be charged with 
 the responsibility of peering into the future and leading 
 
230 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 forward. New and yet more difficult roads must be broken 
 out. Some one in position to do it must be active in initiat- 
 ing things. He must see what will go — and, quite as 
 clearly, what will not go. Subtle but fallacious logic — 
 and a vast deal of it — must be resisted, greed combated, 
 conceits punctured, resources augmented, influences en- 
 larged, forces marshaled for practical undertakings, and 
 the whole enterprise made to give a steadily increasing 
 service to the industrial, professional, political, and moral 
 interests of a whole people. 
 
 Then there is the management and guidance of students. 
 One may as well complain because this country is a demo- 
 cracy as to repine because the sons and daughters of the 
 masses want to go to college. There is no ground for 
 regret in the fact that our universities are not just like 
 some universities over the seas. We have much to learn 
 from them, and we are likely to learn much. We have quite 
 as much to avoid. It seems too much to expect to work 
 un-American ideas, and perhaps loose habits, out of 
 American students who study in Europe, when they come 
 home. We are different from Europe because of circum- 
 stances and political history, because of our spirit and 
 outlook. That is reason enough why our universities are 
 different from theirs. 
 
 It is useless to question whether all who come to the 
 higher educational institutions are wise in coming. They 
 are coming. The work will have to be broad enough to 
 meet their needs. Nor is it worth while to bewail the fact 
 that all who come are not serious students. Their purposes 
 are good enough and serious enough according to their 
 lights. Their preparation is what has been exacted by the 
 university and provided by the high school. Some of them 
 have to be pulled up and pushed along, but the process often 
 brings out most unexpected results. Students are not all 
 
THE UNIVERSITY PRESIDENCY 231 
 
 angels, but every student is worth being helped by an angel 
 up to an angel's place^ The task is upon the people who 
 undertake to manage universities. Students have to be 
 directed in companies but dealt with individually. They 
 may be directed by a rule : when they break the rule they 
 must be dealt with by a man. It must be a man who can 
 stand pat for all that ought to inhere in a university ; but 
 such a man will get on best if in addition to being able to 
 stand pat he is able to like boys ; he is likely to get on still 
 better if he was once a rather lively boy himself ; or, at least, 
 if he is a kind of man for whom a boy with some ginger in 
 him can find it in his heart to have not only considerable 
 respect but some regard and admiration. 
 
 This is not saying that college students are to be treated 
 like children. It is not implied that they are to be excused 
 for being ruffians. Quite the contrary is true. They are 
 to be held exactly responsible to law and rule and all well- 
 known standards of decent living. There must be less 
 viciousness in the life of American universities, or they 
 must and ought to suffer seriously for it. It is to be resented 
 and punished far more forcefully than it has been. Students 
 who get into this kind of thing and persist in staying in 
 are to be punished, even to the point of being thrust out, 
 and even though it changes the course of their lives and 
 breaks the hearts of fathers and mothers. The good of all 
 is the overwhelming consideration. A university is to be 
 a university and not something else. Of all institutions it 
 is to stand for character and ideals. The universities are 
 not to be closed and all youth denied their advantages 
 because a few abuse their privileges. The punishment of 
 the bad, if there are any bad, is the protection of all the 
 rest. It is an essential safeguard to safe administration 
 and the wholesome living of the crowd. But is it not bet- 
 ter to hold all the boys we can from going to the dogs by 
 
m AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 keeping in sympathy and touch with them, than it is to 
 encourage them into deviltry through the coldness or the 
 downright dullness or nervelessness or cowardliness of an 
 administration ? 
 
 The logic of the situation puts this burden upon the 
 president, or upon one working with singleness of purpose 
 with him. Likely the president cannot deal with all directly, 
 but that is no reason why he should not go as far as he may. 
 He must assume responsibility for management, giving 
 the right turn and inspiration to it. It is essentially an 
 executive function. 
 
 So much in reference to routine. The president who only 
 follows routine of course falls short. He is to construct as 
 well as administer. He must initiate measures which will 
 result in larger facilities, in added offerings and enter- 
 prises, in searching out new knowledge, in the wider appli- 
 cation of principles to work, and not only in the usual but 
 in the better training of men and women for distinct use- 
 fulness in life. He is not only to see that plans are within 
 the limits of revenues, that the physical condition of the 
 plant improves, that everything is clean and attractive, 
 that the faculty is scientifically productive, that the in- 
 struction is exact and the spirit true ; but he is to take the 
 steps which will keep the whole organization moving 
 ahead. He must adopt and promote and give full credit 
 for movements initiated by others when their propositions 
 are safe and practicable, — but he must also be alert in 
 stopping movements which will not go. 
 
 Perhaps more important than all, the president is to 
 declare from time to time the best university opinion con- 
 cerning popular movements and the serious interests of the 
 state. He must connect the university with the life of the 
 multitude, and exert its influence for the quickening and 
 guidance of that public opinion which, as Talleyrand said. 
 
THE UNIVERSITY PRESIDENCY 233 
 
 is more powerful than all the monarchs who ever lived or 
 all the laws which were ever declared. 
 
 The unity and security of a university can only be 
 assured through accountability to a central office. While 
 every one is to have freedom to do in his own way the thing 
 he is set to do, so long as his way proves to be a good way, 
 the harmony of the whole depends upon the parts fitting 
 together and upon definiteness of responsibility and fre- 
 quency of accountability. No self-respecting man is going 
 to administer a great office, or an office responsible for 
 great results, and have any doubts about possessing the 
 powers necessary or incident to the performance of his 
 work. He will have enough to think of without having 
 any doubt upon that subject. There need be no fear of his 
 being too much inflated with power. There will be enough 
 to take the conceits out of him and keep him upon the 
 earth. If he cannot exercise the powers of his great office 
 and yet keep steady and sane there is no hope for him, and 
 he will speedily come to official ruin. It is not a matter of 
 uplifting or of inflating a man, but of getting a man who 
 can meet the demands of a great situation. 
 
 Of course, no one can realize the hopes which centre in 
 a university presidency without being able to work har- 
 moniously with others. There must be true deference to 
 the opinions of many and scrupulous recognition of the 
 just, though unexpressed, claims of all. But he must never 
 forget that administrative freedom is quite as inviolable as 
 any other freedom, even in a university. He must mark 
 out his official course for himself and bear the responsi- 
 bility of it without cavil. He must expect to suffer criticism 
 and opposition, even contumely. He cannot expect that 
 the work he has to do will make every one happy. It will 
 discomfit many. Conditions may easily make a mere com- 
 promiser of him. If they do, the waves will speedily close 
 
,'234 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 over his official remains. Some choice and magnanimous 
 spirits will help him ; but he need entertain no doubt that 
 there will be plenty more on every side to try out the stufif 
 that is in him, and that they will diligently attend to the 
 trying out process until enough occurs to convince them 
 that his wisdom, his rational conception of his task, his love 
 of justice and sense of humor, his constructive planning, 
 his independence, and his fearlessness are sufficient to 
 prove him worthy of as great an opportunity for usefulness 
 and honor as ever comes to any man. 
 
 All this calls for a rare man. He ought, in the first place, 
 to be reasonably at peace with mankind and in love with 
 youth. He must have the gift of organizing and the quali- 
 ties of leadership. He ought to have been trained in the 
 universities, not only for the sake of his own scholarship, 
 but that he may be wholly at home in their routine and 
 imbued with their purposes. He must be moved by public 
 spirit as distinguished from university routine or mere 
 scholarly purpose. He must be a scholar, — but not neces- 
 sarily in literature or science or moral philosophy. It is 
 quite as well if it is in law, or engineering, or political 
 history. He must be sympathetic with all learning. He 
 can no longer hope to be a scholar in every study. He can 
 hardly hope to administer such a trust or fill such a post 
 without some knowledge of and considerable aptitude for 
 law. His sense of justice must be keen, his power of dis- 
 crimination quick, his judgment of men and women ac- 
 curate; his patience and politeness must give no sign of 
 tiring, and the strength of his purpose to accomplish what 
 needs to be done must endure to the very end. Yet he must 
 determine differences and decide things. He must have 
 the power of expression as well as the more substantial at- 
 tainments. Beyond possessing sense, training, outlook, 
 experience, resistive power, decisiveness, and aggressive- 
 
THE UNIVERSITY PRESIDENCY 235 
 
 ness, he ought to be a forceful and graceful writer and at 
 least an acceptable public speaker. In a word, the presi- 
 dent of an American university is bound to be not only 
 one of the most profound scholars, but quite as much one 
 of the very great, all around men of his generation. 
 
V 
 
 LIMITS OF ACADEMIC FREEDOM 
 
 The literature bearing on the freedom of teaching in ad- 
 vanced schools is plentiful. The discussion has been heated, 
 but there is no clamor just now. There has been no 
 recent crucifixion without cause. There is no one in the 
 stocks. There is no impending trial. There is no ominous 
 raven on a bust of the goddess of wisdom above the 
 chamber door. Freedom may be discussed with freedom. 
 An academic question may be treated in an academic way. 
 The development of college and university teaching in 
 America makes a surprising and fascinating story. Look- 
 ing for the mere statistics bearing upon it, we find none 
 of much service to us before 1870, when the reports of 
 the bureau of education begin to be available. Even in 
 1870 the classification was much less rigid than it has 
 since become. In 'that year there were 369 institutions, 
 with 3201 teachers and 54,500 students. In 1908 there 
 were 573 institutions, 24,489 teachers, and 292,760 stu- 
 dents. Rigidly excluding all schools of actual secondary 
 grade, all preparatory departments, and all professional 
 schools not associated with a university, but including the 
 advanced technical schools, there were 464 institutions 
 with 21,960 teachers and 265,966 students, — 195,391 men 
 and 70,575 women. In 1880 the income of the colleges and 
 universities was $2,225,915; in 1890 it was $10,801,918; 
 in 1900 it was $26,550,967 ; and in 1908 $66,790,924. In 
 1880 the value of buildings and grounds was $48,427,875; 
 in 1890 it was $80,654,520; in 1900 it was $154,203,031; 
 and in 1908 it was $300,868,081. 
 
LIMITS OF ACADEMIC FREEDOM 237 
 
 It is not necessary to remind ourselves liow little even 
 these figures really express. To gather and expend this 
 money honestly and beneficently has been a task of no 
 ordinary difficulty ; but to develop such a great throng of 
 uniformly satisfactory college and university teachers in 
 this brief time has been practically impc^sible. 
 
 In this single generation all of the essential factors of a 
 unique system of university education have developed in 
 America. If it is not better than any other, it is better 
 for us than any other. It is within bounds to say that there 
 is no longer need of forcing students into the foreign life 
 which the late President Harper used to lament, in order 
 to give them as scholarly instruction as is provided any- 
 where in the world. 
 
 We will not deny that, upon the whole, our system is 
 different from every other. In this generation the sciences 
 compelled the same recognition as the classics, and forced 
 their methods upon all the rest. They created colleges 
 of their own. The applications of scientific study to the 
 constructive and manufacturing industries came and made 
 other colleges of their own. The higher education of 
 women upon an entire equality with men, and the carry- 
 ing of liberal learning into numberless phases of the 
 natural activities of women, made the men move around, 
 and forced so much moving that some of the wise men of 
 the East, with the best intentions and the utmost effort, 
 have not yet been able to become quite reconciled to it. 
 The imperative needs of the professions, and of a con- 
 tinually increasing number of professions, have taken up 
 large tracts of university territory because they could not 
 be met outside of the university inclosures. To make it 
 possible, a great and universal system of middle schools, 
 peculiar to the country, had to be estabUshed to connect 
 the universities and the elementary schools. And such 
 
238 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 a system has been so highly developed that it is doing 
 more for the larger number of students than the colleges 
 did for the smaller number before 1870. 
 
 The free right to get what one wants without submit- 
 ting to so much that he does not want, and the liberalized 
 methods of invesfigation and instruction, add overwhelm- 
 ing and often unmanageable features to the unfolding 
 character of American universities. The obvious educa- 
 tional advantage, to each college or school, of association 
 with other colleges and schools, and manifest economy, 
 educational and pecuniary, group them about the same 
 campus while they add to the intricacies of life and the 
 difficulties of administration. In a word, the offering of 
 all there is in learning to all who want it and will fit them- 
 selves to come and take it, and the applications of the 
 higher learning to every human activity, have become 
 the self-assumed and the measurably accomplished task 
 of American universities. 
 
 This would not have been attempted, and it could not 
 have been realized, but for the political philosophy of the 
 country. But the political thinking which inspired the 
 undertaking would never have accomplished it without 
 putting into it two great factors which are essentially un- 
 known to the universities of other lands. One is the 
 board of trustees composed of educational laymen, chosen 
 for their character, their benevolence, and their experi- 
 ence in managing affairs ; and the other is the payment of 
 teachers without reference, or often in inverse proportion, 
 to the number of students whom they instruct. 
 
 Not many universities in other countries owe their 
 being to private benefactions, or to the efforts of a re- 
 presentative democracy to work out its theories and prove 
 its worth through education. The universities of other 
 nations are expressive of the national intelligence and pro- 
 
LIMITS OF ACADEMIC FREEDOM 239 
 
 gress, of the national experiences and needs, and of the 
 national attitudes and power. Beyond their revenues from 
 fees, they are but meagrely supported by government 
 funds. Their internal organization and administration 
 rest with the educational faculty or the leaders of it; and 
 within the ordinary activities of accepted procedure they 
 are unhampered. The means of expansion are seldom 
 within themselves, however, and the external powers which 
 limit their possibilities are themselves limited by social, 
 religious, political, and pecuniary conditions, which those 
 powers could hardly change if they would, and probably 
 would not change if they could. 
 
 No one can fail to note that regularly recurring salary 
 warrants and the absence of a system which automatically 
 rids an institution qf teachers who do not teach what is 
 wanted, or in the way wanted, have a very decisive bear- 
 ing upon the freedom and the expansion of universities. 
 But the direct bearing of the board of trustees upon the 
 life and growth of a university, while no less potential, 
 is not quite so obvious. 
 
 An English or German university professor has only 
 amazement at the presence of a lay court of last resort 
 in the government of an American university. He holds 
 it to be a limitation upon university freedom and a dese- 
 cration of very holy ground. On the contrary, it brings 
 into the affairs of a university a factor which makes for 
 freedom, and particularly for growth. Standing for donors 
 in time past and in time to come, no matter whether the 
 donors be individuals or a state, the trustees come into 
 sympathy with the teaching, and add the factor which 
 gives the institution very complete independence. Ordi- 
 narily composed of men or women of representative char- 
 acter, the board of trustees regulates the business affairs 
 of the institution, and holds the confidence of the public 
 
240 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 concerning its needs. They are themselves sorely per- 
 plexed about its instructional and research work, but after 
 a year or two they realize that they have limitations of their 
 own, and then matters run smoothly enough. The con- 
 stant presence in university councils of representatives of 
 the external world, to which the institution must look for 
 support of every kind, and of which it must be a part if 
 it is to give back an acceptable intellectual service, doubt- 
 less goes further than anything else to explain the wholly 
 unparalleled advance of higher learning in this country 
 during the last generation. 
 
 However the matter analyzes, and whatever the explana- 
 tion, these American universities are the finest illustrations 
 of human power and human reason and human freedom, 
 working together for beneficent ends, which the minds 
 and hearts of men and women have brought about. They 
 pursue their great courses, controlled by both centripetal 
 and centrifugal forces, as freely as a planet revolves about 
 its sun. They exemplify free government in its most re- 
 fined form because a real university will be free any- 
 where, and here a university is in the midst of the freest 
 government in the world. They stimulate every human 
 interest and respond to every rational demand. Their 
 very existence is wrapped up in their freedom. They at- 
 tract munificent gifts of money and affection because they 
 are free to administer them for the enlargement of human 
 efficiency and good will. But their power is in their free- 
 dom to resist as well as in their freedom to do. Their 
 moral forces are energized, and their spiritual aims quick- 
 ened, because they are free enough to resist mere eccle- 
 siasticism. They enrich the rich through intellectual asso- 
 ciation with the poor, and the poor through the same 
 association with the rich. In their affairs men and women 
 find the places to which they are entitled, and are thrust 
 
LIMITS OF ACADEMIC FREEDOM 241 
 
 out of tlie places which they lack the moral and intellectual 
 right to hold. The semester examinations are no more 
 inexorable than the sentiment of the campus. Always 
 surrounded by politics in a state of eruption, they easily 
 defy political intrusion, and are expected to refuse to pro- 
 mote any political end. Giving instruction in every study, 
 they try out educational values through processes which 
 are imrelenting and by standards which will not give way. 
 They make their own organization, they administer their 
 own estate, they hold the right of initiative as to every 
 undertaking. They may refuse as well as accept, and they 
 have within themselves the men and women, the powers 
 and the means, of steadily enlarging their reach and of 
 continually enriching their lives and their work. In sane 
 and unselfish hands, guided by scholarship and by moral 
 sense, they grow large because they accord with the pre- 
 vailing opinions of the Republic, and their very enlarge- 
 ment, as well as their learning, makes for the freedom of 
 the truth. 
 
 Happily something occurs now and then to remind us 
 that these universities are very human institutions. They 
 are in the world: the people who are making them great 
 are not yet ripened for translation. Their officers and 
 teachers have been gathered quickly, and opportunity 
 acquired suddenly is often misused. In his inexperience 
 and enthusiasm, particularly in his unfamiliarity with the 
 thinking and the pace of the Mississippi Valley, a young 
 professor from New York might forget that the intellectual 
 capital of the ages may exceed the brief output of a 
 New York, a German, or an English school. And am- 
 bition, vaulting ambition, may impel a mere human to 
 overlook the need of time, labor, and the forgetfulness of 
 self by which academic preference may be secured or 
 held when conferred. 
 
242 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 Academic freedom rests upon the same principles as 
 political freedom; but it rests upon other principles also. 
 Formal law is an insufl&cient basis for academic freedom. 
 Mere inclination cannot prevail in a university so much 
 as it may outside of it. The associations of the academic 
 body are freer than those in the civic state. The propriety 
 and the possibility of it come from the clearer under- 
 standing of freedom and the surer capacity for it. It rests 
 not upon legal obligation so much as upon generosity; 
 not so much upon possibility and opportunity as upon 
 the subordination of self to the atmosphere of the place 
 and the common good. 
 
 Academic freedom is not for the sake of the teacher; 
 it is for the sake of the truth. Scientific truth goes further 
 than civic truth or social truth. The puritan doctrine 
 that he vsrho hears untruth or partial truth, and fails to 
 rebuke it, participates in it, has never prevailed, and ought 
 not to prevail in the civic state or in social life. All of the 
 truth about the mere incidents of life happily does not 
 at all times have to be spoken. Untruth about mere mat- 
 ters of opinion does not always have to be corrected. But 
 the main function of academic freedom is the unlocking of 
 scientific truth. There can be no academic freedom which 
 is opposed to it. Scientific truth invites and stands the 
 last analysis. There can be no compromise about it. 
 Scholarship covets an opposition which reveals misap- 
 prehension or gives added significance and strength to 
 the truth. The acceptance of alleged truth without evi- 
 dence is bad enough in a university, but not quite so bad 
 as the self-interest and conceit which necessarily protect 
 it in the name of academic freedom. Academic freedom 
 which is self-seeking more than truth-seeking is mere 
 license and cannot live in the academic atmosphere. For- 
 tunately, it is governed by a higher law. It is an attribute 
 
LIMITS OF ACADEMIC FREEDOM 243 
 
 of normal lives. One who cannot safely exercise it may 
 not have it ; and from one who can exercise it safely it can- 
 not be withheld. It goes with one who not only can ap- 
 preciate his obligations to a human institution, — to its 
 donors, its officers, its teachers, its students, and its 
 graduates, — but can also appreciate the responsibilities 
 of that institution to the constituency it is bound to serve, 
 and to the world it is bound to enlighten and make better ; 
 and it departs from one who is so academically abnormal 
 as really to put his mere liberty of personal movement 
 above the institution which gives him his opportunity and 
 above the truth which he engages to set free. 
 
 Universities are very great, and very complex, and very 
 human organizations. They have to care for property, 
 they have to handle much money, and they are obliged to 
 account for what they do in very worldly fashion. They 
 must break out new roads, and they must equip them- 
 selves with a great array of educational implements; they 
 must lay hold of rational educational theories, and they 
 must have a superior knowledge of educational values. 
 That has to be done through experts and teachers, for 
 whom universities have to assume responsibility. 
 
 The freedom and the accountability have to balance 
 each other, or there can be no harmony and efficiency; 
 and without these there can be no internal enthusiasm and 
 no external confidence and growth. It all depends upon 
 a true educational spirit which enriches itself by giving, 
 and upon a balanced organization which assumes respon- 
 sibility without limiting educational opportunity. 
 
 Our great American universities, above any others in 
 the world, are forced to the necessity of discrimination. 
 Their very lives depend upon it, and their peril is in the 
 lack of men who can discriminate with justice and confi- 
 dence, and who will not be turned from doing it by falla- 
 
244 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 cious theories about freedom. Not only because of their 
 youth, and their rapid growth, and the fixed compensations 
 of their teachers, and their permanent tenures, but because 
 of the universal ambitions and the intellectual traits of the 
 country, they are at all times encompassed with difficult 
 and serious questions; and they cannot hope to meet the 
 expectations and gather the confidence of the country 
 unless individuality is made to respect organization, while 
 organization is moved by the academic spirit and responds 
 to educational opportunity. 
 
 There are some spiritual educationists who seem to 
 think that Garfield was assuming to describe a university 
 when he said that a log with Mark Hopkins on one end 
 and a student on the other would make one. He was doing 
 nothing of the kind. His fine imagination was paying a 
 fine compliment to his fine old college president. If there 
 is one in a university who permits such an ideal to beat 
 against the imperative factors of organization, it would 
 be well for himself and perhaps for the rest of the world if 
 he would go out and find a log, impress a student into his 
 experiment, pass his hat for sustenance, and work his ideal 
 out to its beggarly conclusion. 
 
 If there are minor disadvantages, they have to go with 
 the superior advantages of organization. The mighty 
 results of coiSperative life and effort far outweigh any 
 sweets which the recluse may gather by himself. The intel- 
 lectual and the moral, the civic and the legal, advance has 
 come through yielding the mere independence of self to the 
 advantage of living together. 
 
 The trend of the world is not in the wrong direction. 
 Individualism, the opportunity of selfishness to have its 
 own sweet way, will have to reckon with organization 
 inside, as outside, of universities. Organization protects 
 against want, and associates thinking with fact ; it energizes 
 
LIMITS OF ACADEMIC FREEDOM 245 
 
 intellectual productivity, and gives scholarship its real 
 opportunity. The laws of society and of organization will 
 have to prevail. The organization, as well as the individual, 
 has rights, and a university invades no sound principle 
 when it maps out its own course, builds its own character, 
 gets the best it can in scholarship and in teaching, loses 
 no just opportunity to reinforce its strength, holds the good 
 of all above the interest of one, insists upon good citizen- 
 ship in the democracy of learning, and gives the world the 
 benefit of it. 
 
 There are some things about which academic freedom 
 must be apprehensive. Self-seeking must go out at once. 
 Manoeuvring for promotion or for pay, combining to con- 
 trol policies, and agitating to limit the freedom of any 
 other officer or teacher in the institution, must lay no claim 
 to academic freedom. Even a little of this is exceedingly 
 repugnant to truth. If one will resort to it he must abide 
 the result without any thought of being a martyr. 
 
 The choice of studies in a university is not wholly free. 
 Certain studies are required to be taken before others 
 may be. What shall be required is often a matter of 
 opinion and it may be a means of abuse. It might happen 
 that the weaker a teacher is the more preference he must 
 have in the requirements. There are tariffs in university 
 schedules as well as schedules in government tariffs. The 
 arranging of schedules for favor or for monopoly is no 
 more within academic policy than within the political 
 policy of the country. If one will indulge in it he must take 
 his academic life in his hand and abide the issue. 
 
 "Sensationalism has no rights of any kind in a university. 
 Yet we must have learned that it is not to be kept out by 
 the saying. Novelty of theme or of statement, suited to 
 newspaper exploitation and to personal notoriety, is as 
 repugnant to the traditions, the philosophic basis, the 
 
246 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 moral sense, and the freedom of a university, as illiteracy 
 is a menace to government in a democratic state, or as 
 greed is repugnant to fellowship in a philanthropic guild. 
 One cannot be allowed to propagate his vagaries at the 
 expense, upon the time, and in the name, of a university 
 that would like to be thought prudent and rational. If one 
 wants to be a professor of myths and ghosts, he ought to 
 go out in the woods and pursue his inquiries on his own 
 time and in the most appropriate place. Everything lack- 
 ing complete intellectual sanity and sincerity is not only 
 without the bounds of the academic privilege, but is a 
 menace to academic freedom. 
 
 It has transpired in academic experience that one has 
 had credit for the work which another has done, or has 
 transferred the responsibility for his own shortcomings. 
 This may happen without wrongful intent, through subtle 
 reasoning, or lack of reasoning, upon a subject about 
 which one's mind is exclusive and intense. It is surely 
 outlawed in a university, and it must be settled by the 
 ordinary processes and standards of intellectual integrity. 
 
 The processes of learning must operate freely, but they 
 cannot extend to every field of inquiry in one institution. 
 There is no academic right to force an institution into un- 
 dertakings it cannot afford, or to extend processes once 
 started to lengths which are extravagant in time and 
 money, and unpromising in result. And there is no actual 
 hardship about it, because experience shows that the man 
 and the institution who gratify inclinations without refer- 
 ence to the material cost, are less productive in new 
 scientific truth than those who are compelled to square 
 their work with the usual limitations upon human conduct. 
 
 There is less difficulty about all this in the field of the 
 physical sciences than of the mental sciences. A univer- 
 sity which would call back an investigator who is any- 
 
LIMITS OF ACADEMIC FREEDOM 247 
 
 where in the region of a grain of new truth in nature, would 
 cease to be a university, and the moment it was done the 
 doors of every university in the world would swing wide 
 open to that investigator. But when we come to the philo- 
 sophical sciences, to matters of opinion, we shall have to 
 say that, while the right of individual theory and expression 
 is free, the right of place, and of association, and of time, 
 and of opportunity, is not without its very decisive limita- 
 tions. 
 
 There is scarcely an institution of higher learning in 
 this country in which the Christian religion is not a matter 
 both of philosophy and of feeling. It is expressed in the life 
 and functions of the institutions. Would the denunciation 
 of Christianity and the propagation of some other religion 
 be within the academic privilege in an institution founded 
 upon, and nurtufed by, Christianity? There are differ- 
 ing philosophical attitudes, and different understandings 
 of history, concerning Christianity. Would an interpreta- 
 tion of history and a theory of religion consonant with 
 Protestantism be within the academic privilege at the 
 Catholic University at Washington, and would such inter- 
 pretation and such theory be without such privilege at 
 Yale .? 
 
 All of our higher institutions are chartered by, and many 
 of them are supported by, a democratic state. Would the 
 contention that democracy is a vicious system, or that all 
 government is an improper constraint upon the governed, 
 be within the rights of free teaching in one of these insti- 
 tutions ? May theory pull down the roof that shelters it ? 
 May a mere doctrinaire overturn the fundamental political 
 philosophy which has been worked out in this country by 
 hard thinking, by consecration, and by blood ? 
 
 Even Germany does not allow that ; and it may well be 
 doubted whether the United States will ever go, or ought 
 
248 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 to go, as far as Germany does in reference to what teach- 
 ers teach and what students do in the name of "scholar- 
 ship," and without reference to the balanced character and 
 moral fibre which we hold to be vital to the genuineness 
 and the worth of scholarship. 
 
 There is little difficulty about what shall be taught in the 
 schools, or the freedom with which it shall be taught, until 
 we come to topics which, for the time being, are subjects 
 of party warfare. And there is no ground for difficulty 
 about those if teachers observe the reasonable proprieties 
 of the teacher's office. That office is not that of the advo- 
 cate. It is not that of the agitator. It is not that of the 
 executor. It is not that of the legislator. It certainly is 
 not that of the dictator. It is that of the judge. Its function 
 is to ascertain and enlarge and expound the truth. It must 
 do that judicially. It may be well to observe that there is 
 no other judicial power in the organization of a university 
 than what inheres in the essential attributes of its officers 
 and teachers. The university has the powers of determina- 
 tion, and expression, and propagation, and expansion, 
 wholly within itself. Beyond all other human institutions 
 the American university is without limitations. There is 
 no court to say that any educational policy of the corpora- 
 tion is in conflict with the Constitution, and therefore void 
 and of no effect. And we are easily able to "construe" all 
 formal words that relate to education in ways which easily 
 paralyze the profane minds which are not acclimated to 
 the atmosphere of the universities. 
 
 Upon what may be called "live questions" we are de- 
 pendent upon the judicial sense, the good breeding, the 
 common sense, the sense of the proprieties, the sense of 
 humor, of the teacher. Happily, he fails us in only one 
 case in a thousand. In the exceptional instance the sense 
 of others comes to his rescue. There is no limitation what- 
 
LIMITS OF ACADEMIC FREEDOM 249 
 
 ever upon the sincere effort of such a one to ascertain the 
 truth or to express his conclusions as to what is the truth. 
 The inteUigence of the country would sharply resent any 
 interference with such effort or such expression within 
 the well-understood conventionalities of the professorial 
 ofiSce. 
 
 But as there are conventionalities which one must ob- 
 serve in order to be a judge, so there are those which one 
 must observe in order to be a teacher, certainly in order 
 to be a university professor. For common example, a 
 professor of economics may believe in international com- 
 mercial freedom of trade. It is a mere matter of opinion. 
 He has the clear right to express his opinions; but surely 
 he has no right to enforce them upon students without 
 telling them of the objections and the arguments upon 
 the other side. Indeed, an intellectually honest man in 
 such a situation will be specially careful to elucidate all 
 the contentions of those who believe in protection, because 
 he does not agree with them. One can have no valid ob- 
 jection to a professor being a free trader, or object to his 
 telling students the reasons why. But one has abundant 
 reason for objecting to his hiding from students the argu- 
 ments which support the policy of protection, and to his 
 enforcing his partisan view against mere youth with the 
 ponderous solemnity and the unfailing certainty of a mili- 
 tary execution. 
 
 Again, there are limitations upon the time and place 
 for the proper exercise of the professorial, as of the judi- 
 cial, office. These limitations aid rather than destroy the 
 mental balance. One who would appear upon the hustings 
 and say, "I am a judge, I have been elected, I have 
 taken the oath of office, I know the law and the right of 
 this matter is thus and so," would divest himself of all 
 right to respect, and his office of all right to prerogative 
 
250 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 and power. He must sit upon the bench; he must have 
 jurisdiction; he must have an issue properly joined; he 
 must give the parties in interest their day in court; he 
 must hear the contending views patiently; he must de- 
 termine only what he has the right to decide, and he must 
 do that without bias, with deliberation, and with dignity, if 
 he expects to give potency and effect to his judicial office. 
 The professor, no less than the judge, is in quest of the 
 right and of the truth. To have result, or to have weight, 
 his quest must be within the domain of his professorship, 
 must be pursued with an open mind, and must be con- 
 ducted with a scrupulous regard for the amenities of his 
 office. Standing for his science, and for the truth, and for 
 the university which gives him his right and his opportu- 
 nity, he may reasonably be expected to refrain from ir- 
 responsible conduct which, in the judgment of responsible 
 authority, is not compatible with either. 
 
 But suppose he is unable to see that it is not the freedom 
 of teaching, but only the misconception of the teacher, 
 which is involved. If he is worthy of a university, the 
 matter will correct itself in time, and more than the 
 requisite time is always allowed ; if unworthy, he will assert 
 misuse, and have things said, and invoke sympathy, and 
 perhaps enjoy martyrdom. He will have the newspapers 
 and educational journals largely to himself. The presidents 
 and trustees of colleges and universities will doubtless have 
 enough to answer for, but there is reason to believe that it 
 will be well atoned for by the truths they might have told 
 but considerately kept to themselves. But shall there be no 
 determination? There are those who say, "Let it all go; 
 it is the price we must pay for academic freedom." The 
 price may be wholly unnecessary, or far too high. May one 
 promulgate as truth mere opinions which are not sus- 
 tained by the body of his colleagues in this branch of 
 
LIMITS OF ACADEMIC FREEDOM 251 
 
 study ? May he proclaim to the public as discovered truth 
 that which is still hidden? May he propagate partisan 
 views and possible untruth in his classroom for all time 
 and without hindrance? May he employ sensational 
 methods to attract attention? May he assume to speak 
 authoritatively upon subjects foreign to his own ? May he 
 bring ridicule upon his university by going to the world 
 upon propositions about which he has had no experience ? 
 May he outrage the rights and reasonable expectations of 
 students, and subject donors and trustees and colleagues 
 and alumni to humiliation ? May he do all this and more, 
 and there be no proper remedy ? The sense of the world, 
 even of the academic world, will not assent to it. If 
 honest, he should be given time, and consideration, and 
 perhaps opportunity for a "call" to some other place. 
 There will be some solution. If his intellectual integrity 
 limps, let him have the admonition of the saints and the 
 prayers of the congregation. Paul adjured the Thessalo- 
 nians that they should " study to be quiet," and a sermon 
 on that text might be preached to him. If nothing else 
 avails, the sound discretion of the board of trustees should 
 be exercised. 
 
 Our democracy is bringing out a type of university 
 peculiar to the country. There can be no university without 
 scientific teaching. There can be no great university with- 
 out teaching that is scholarly, free, and aggressive. But 
 there will never be a university strongly sustained in this 
 country in which balanced sense does not combat unsci- 
 entific teaching. 
 
 And we may safely go further and say that an American 
 university must be the home of other things than mere 
 scientific research. An American university will not be 
 projected in a groove; it will not be based upon a single 
 idea; it will not consent to serve a single interest. It will 
 
252 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 have to give free play to the poHtical philosophy of the 
 nation. It will have to stand for character as well as 
 scholarship. It will have to be the conscience as well as 
 the brains of its constituent factors. Opposing points 
 of view are vital to the unlocking of the whole truth, and 
 opposing intellectual forces will have to enter into the 
 training in moral sense, and manliness and womanliness, 
 which the Republic claims for her college youth. There 
 is more danger to the future of some American universities 
 through the fettering of administrative than of academic 
 freedom. And there will never be a representative Ameri- 
 can university, with virile and growing power in it, where 
 the forces which are essential to self-expansion and to its 
 representative character are not all present, are not held 
 in common respect, and do not balance one another in 
 rational equilibrium. 
 
 Those forces are the public, the donors, the trustees, 
 the president, the teachers, the students, and the alumni. 
 Each is to have its independence. Each is to be aggressive. 
 None is to trench upon the independence of any other. 
 Each is to regard the fundamental principles and the im- 
 perative limitations of cooperative and organized effec- 
 tiveness. There is no cause for conflict which is not alien 
 to a university, and which in an institution worthy of the 
 name will not in due time and by natural processes be 
 pushed into its subordinate and impotent place or forced 
 out of the fellowship. In a university, as nowhere else, 
 selfishness defeats its own ends. Generosity and truth 
 fit together, and where they join forces learning will be 
 uplifted, and multitudes of men and women will gather 
 about its home. 
 
 The freedom of American sentiment, the history and 
 traditions, the temperament and ambitions, the moral fibre 
 and sense of humor, the indifference to hurts and confi- 
 
LIMITS OF ACADEMIC FREEDOM 253 
 
 dence in the future, the feeling of common proprietorship 
 and the exactions of common sense, are all mighty forces 
 in the evolution of a university which can endure in the 
 United States. 
 
 President Hyde, of Bowdoin, in one of the best maga- 
 zine articles to be found in the literature on this subject, 
 sounds one note that seems discordant. Speaking of the 
 donor, he says, "He may give or he may not give. After he 
 has given he has no rights." One can hardly think that 
 he meant to say that a man with millions, which he can 
 never use except by giving, is quite as free not to give 
 as he is to give ; and after one has given, his rights to the 
 realization of his expectations are surely as fixed as law 
 and as sacred as honor can make them. Doubtless the 
 intent was to say that we may accept or we may not accept. 
 A university will not accept an absurd bequest, and it is 
 powerless to accept an unconscionable one. But obviously 
 the best practical realization of a donor's thought is vital 
 in a country where universities have grown out of benefi- 
 cence, in a way and in a measure wholly new to educational 
 history in the world. 
 
 The teacher who seeks and uplifts the truth will have 
 in this country a measure of freedom for the accomplish- 
 ment of his end larger than that of any other country. 
 If he cannot do it in one place, there will be plenty of 
 other places where he may. If one man opposes him, there 
 will be plenty more to give him a helping hand. The 
 measure of his support will be in very close proportion 
 to the sincerity of his purpose and the intellectual sanity 
 and integrity of his effort. But we can accept no theory con- 
 cerning the relations, no rule concerning the treatment 
 of a teacher, which does not make him a well-rounded, 
 independent, manly, attractive character, who asks no 
 special privilege and avoids no ordinary obligation. 
 
254 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 The just freedom of the student is as sacred as that of 
 any one else in the university. Like all others, he is re- 
 sponsible to law and order. If he violates the penal code 
 he should sujGFer its penalties. If he dishonors the institu- 
 tion, he should be excluded from it. The modern enlarge- 
 ment of his freedom has made him a better and a stronger 
 character than he used to be. In his quest for learning he 
 is just as free as the teacher. The freedom of the student 
 is often the main assurance of the virility and balance of the 
 teaching. He must know that somewhere in the institu- 
 tion there is a court of last resort that will give him justice, 
 no matter who is involved. 
 
 And any course which would repress the free word of 
 the alumni in the affairs of a university would certainly 
 be a fatuous one. Of course, they may not have thrown off 
 their student feelings or departed altogether from the 
 student point of view, but their word may be no worse 
 on that account; and whether it is or not, the heartbeats 
 of the great organization will quicken a little when the 
 word of the "old grads" is spoken. 
 
 If the guardianship of law, through the protection of 
 powers and the enforcement of limitations by the judiciary, 
 is the greatest contribution of America to the science of 
 politics, then the guardianship of truth in every branch of 
 human study, through the amplitude of powers, the bal- 
 ance of forces, the freedom of procedure, and the limitations 
 upon mere human inclinations, in American universities, 
 may yet prove to be the greatest gift which America will 
 make to world education. 
 
 There are no limitations upon learning in the United 
 States. But there will never cease to be limitations upon 
 men and women who are promoting learning. Limitations 
 are what earnest men need and what great men impose 
 upon themselves. University courtesy may be a hindrance 
 
LIMITS OF ACADEMIC FREEDOM ^55 
 
 to the truth and a curse to teaching. When academic free- 
 dom is permitted to further the merely human inchna- 
 tions, it is more than Hkely to thwart the interests of learn- 
 ing. The truth will have to be unlocked and transmitted 
 through diligence, and patience, and self-abnegation, and 
 love of men, and love of the truth; and the compensations 
 for the service will have to be in the gold coin of heaven. 
 
VI 
 
 CO-EDUCATION 
 
 It can hardly be denied that the policy of educating 
 boys and girls, young men and young women, and grown 
 men and women together, is overwhelmingly popular in 
 America. 
 
 In the elementary schools it is practically universal and 
 excites no comment. It is true that there are rare excep- 
 tions to this in two or three eastern cities, due to accidental 
 conditions, such as the location or structure of school- 
 houses, or possibly they may be the survivals of the feeble 
 beginnings in the public school system, when there was 
 doubt about the public education of boys and certainty 
 that it was not proper for the public to educate girls at all. 
 
 Practically the same conditions prevail as to the public 
 secondary schools. Here, too, the exceptions seem to be 
 due to special circumstances, such as the survival of 
 primitive efforts, or dense population and public con- 
 venience, or the opening of manual training or other 
 schools in which but one sex would be mainly interested, 
 and have but little bearing upon the broad question of the 
 wisdom of co-education. 
 
 In the higher institutions the exceptions are much more 
 numerous, but comprise considerably less than half of the 
 whole number. 
 
 In 1870 the men's colleges comprised 69.3 per cent of 
 the whole number for men and for men and women to- 
 gether; in 1880 they had fallen to 48.7 per cent; in 1890 
 to 34.5 per cent; in 1900 to 29 per cent. 
 
 Allusion has been made to early conditions which stood 
 
CO-EDUCATION 257 
 
 in the way of girls in the early primary and then in the 
 early secondary schools. Democracy triumphed over those 
 conditions long ago. Similar and even more stubborn 
 obstacles stood in the way of collegiate training for women. 
 The common thought of the whole world was against it. 
 The number of colleges exclusively for men is accounted for 
 by the fact that they were established before there was any 
 serious thought of giving college privileges to women at all. 
 The decline in the relative number of men's colleges is due 
 in some part to the admission of women to the older institu- 
 tions, but in larger part to the founding of new institutions 
 for both in the newer and freer states. Democracy has 
 broken through tenacious conditions in the East ; she has 
 had her free way in the West. 
 
 The education of the mass has not been and is not yet a 
 world policy. Wherever it has come to be a national policy 
 it has been made so by the political power of the common 
 people. This is none the less true when it has been grudg- 
 ingly conceded by an autocratic government or an aristo- 
 cracy of wealth, because of the apprehension of danger 
 from the ignorant crowd. The power of woman was not 
 recognized as early as that of man, and opportunities, from 
 the lowest to the highest, for her enlightenment have 
 lagged behind those for man. 
 
 The reasons for the historic evolution of the schools are 
 obvious enough. In the long years while physical force 
 fixed the boundaries and settled the course of empires and 
 whole peoples blindly submitted to the rule of one man or 
 of a few men, and the right of absolutism descended by 
 inheritance, there was reason enough why the mass should 
 not be trained to anything save effectiveness in battle, and 
 why even the intellectual quickening which might come 
 out of that poor privilege should be denied to women. It 
 was natural enough that such conditions should make 
 
258 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 woman the mere supporter and subordinate, the toy and 
 task-bearer of man. It was logical and convenient enough 
 to continue and establish in the law of the land the sub- 
 ordinate status which these conditions had given her even 
 after legislative assemblages came to be a necessity with 
 princes, and the more or less comfortable fashion of having 
 laws of some kind forced its way upon the society of the 
 polite. 
 
 Our English forefathers, from whom we derived the 
 sources of our law, fixed the status of woman in their 
 law, and so in ours, in a way which retarded the develop- 
 ment of her rights in this country. It is comforting to know 
 that the world was relative then as now, and that they 
 had advanced even further than the forefathers of other 
 peoples at the time when English law began to form. How 
 far they had advanced is seen from the assurance in the 
 Magna Charta which was wrung from the king "in the 
 meadow called Runingmede," that " a widow may remain 
 in the mansion of her husband forty days after his death," 
 and that "no widow shall be destrained to marry herself 
 so long as she has a mind to live without a husband, but 
 she shall give security that she will not marry without our 
 consent." If the men looked after the women in such mat- 
 ters as marriage and property, it is interesting to note that 
 they looked after themselves quite as well, for they also 
 made King John promise " that no man shall be taken or 
 imprisoned upon the appeal of a woman for the death of 
 any other than her husband." 
 
 About the only right our foremothers had was the right 
 to live and be our foremothers. Indeed, the law knew 
 nothing of them beyond keeping their marriage within the 
 control of the king, or the lord of the manor, until they 
 took the step which conferred upon us the high privilege 
 of being here. After that if by any chance they had personal 
 
CO-EDUCATION 259 
 
 property, it became the husband's absolutely. So with 
 real estate; he could alienate it by deed or by will. Man 
 and wife were in no sense equal before the law. Their 
 lives were legally merged in one, but the one was not a new 
 creation: the one remained the life of the man. And the 
 law made him about as troublesome to her after he was 
 dead as when he was alive. If he left any property when he 
 died she could claim the income of one third of it, and no 
 more, during the ordinarily brief time while she remained 
 his widow. If she had brought the property to him when 
 she married him, or if they had accumulated it together, it 
 made no difference. If he failed to sell it or give it away in 
 his lifetime, or neglected to dispose of it by will, the law 
 came in at his death and considerately corrected his over- 
 sight in his interest. She could not make a will at all. He 
 could give or will her property to his relatives. Her ser- 
 vices and earnings were his. She had no right of control 
 over the children, except in subordination to him; the 
 income of their labor, as well as of their mother's, was his. 
 He had the right to chastise not only them, but their 
 mother as well. Often the man was so sane that he did not 
 think of going to the limits of this insane law ; and some- 
 times the woman was so strong that he considerately 
 waived his technical right for reasons which were both 
 obvious and conclusive. 
 
 So long as all this could persist, no one, not even woman 
 herself, could think of the education of woman. And it did 
 persist until democracy, without chart or plan or under- 
 standing of what the end would be, merely obeying the 
 conscience and using the force of the mass, bore down the 
 unbroken traditions of a thousand years. Our often dep- 
 recated legislating habit is entitled to the credit of it. The 
 statutes of our many states, a little here and a little there, 
 copying and advancing upon one another, have made the 
 
260 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 legal rights of woman about the same as those of man. 
 Where not fully equal they will yet be made so. 
 
 No one can doubt the cause of this, for wherever de- 
 mocracy has had any development in the world, even 
 under autocratic or aristocratic forms, there the rights of 
 women have been enlarged. The opportunity has been so 
 much larger and the advance so much stronger in America 
 than in any other land that we have been conspicuous in 
 this world movement ; but the movement is on all over the 
 world. It is one of the great strides to the high destiny of 
 the race. Ill-advised selfishness was able to keep the mass 
 in ignorance of natural rights through long, long years, but 
 the dawn of a glorious day came at last, and the sun of 
 promise is now well up in the heavens. 
 
 Naturally there has been some illogical reasoning, some 
 irrational misconceptions about it all. Confusion about per- 
 sonal rights and public duties has arisen. Because a wo- 
 man has the right and should have the opportunity to 
 make the most of herself it does not follow that she should 
 serve in the army or the jury box. It would be a brutal 
 view that because she should have the same opportunities 
 as man for moral and intellectual advancement, she should 
 be made to stand while a man sits in a street car, or in any 
 other way bear a man's part in public places. The opening 
 of the advanced schools to woman has nothing to do with 
 imposing the franchise upon her. 
 
 Woman is by her very nature fitted for certain functions 
 and man for certain other functions in the social economy. 
 Each class of functions and the inherent rights of each sex 
 claim as a right the best that the schools can give. But it 
 does not follow that each is to bear the same burden. The 
 essence of government is protection. Voting, serving in the 
 legislature, is sharing in government. It is a burden, not a 
 right. When it comes to bearing burdens, man is to do 
 
CO-EDUCATION 261 
 
 what he can do best and woman what she can do best. 
 Man is the natural protector, the natural voter. Physio- 
 logical and social considerations come in. Because men 
 do not always vote as safely as they ought, it does not follow 
 that women would do it any better. There is some reason 
 for fear that they might not do it as well. Because a few 
 men and a few women want to change the political order 
 of things, and possibly the natural order of things, it by 
 no means follows that it should be done. When the ma- 
 jority of the most substantial women want to take up the 
 burden of managing government, the majority of the men 
 will doubtless be willing. It is a matter of expediency, and 
 if that time ever comes the men may agree to it. 
 
 But natural rights are not to depend even upon major- 
 ities. They are to inhere in every one and be enforceable 
 by every one regardless of sex. Participation in govern- 
 ment is not necessary in order that woman may secure her 
 rights. Sufficient proof of this is found in the fact that 
 the widest range of civic and political rights conferred upon 
 woman in all the world, or in all time, has been given in 
 this country, not by princes, or by judges, but by the plain, 
 common, blundering men. But they do not always blunder. 
 Acting in the mass, and after discussion, they do not often 
 blunder. They have not blundered in this matter, for in 
 the social economy women must bear responsibilities quite 
 as important to the common good, and claiming quite as 
 high an order of moral and intellectual aptitude, as the 
 burden of protection against the external and internal 
 enemies of the social order which logically falls upon men. 
 
 Because in the economy of our social and political life 
 woman must necessarily have the same educational rights 
 as man, co-education has become the overwhelming edu- 
 cational policy of the country. Those rights can be com- 
 pletely secured in no other way. It may not be necessary 
 
262 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 that men and women shall study the same things or recite 
 in the same classes, but they must have the right to do so. 
 Whether women will take the right is not to be decided for 
 them by men. They are to decide it for themselves. Con- 
 ditions and influences will aid the decision by giving re- 
 wards when it is wise, and inflicting failures when it is 
 mistaken. Private or local institutions may appeal to a 
 class and find constituents. No harm results. But the great 
 universities, even those upon endowment foundations, are 
 not private or local institutions. Their own wise course 
 has taken them out of that list. Public institutions, either 
 those supported by public moneys, or which have become 
 public by reason of long life, wide constituencies, and 
 splendid public service, cannot be at odds with the ac- 
 cepted political theories and the common educational pol- 
 icy of the country. 
 
 The extent to which provision for popular education, 
 primary, secondary, and higher, has followed closely upon 
 self-confidence in democratic life is an interesting study. 
 The way in which educational equality has accompanied 
 the extension of political rights to women is no less interest- 
 ing. A hundred years ago such discussion as there was 
 concerning the education of girls related not to the colleges, 
 but to the elementary schools. The Massachusetts town 
 which is now the seat of one of the foremost woman's 
 colleges in the country voted in town meeting that it would 
 not be proper to use public moneys to give schooling to 
 girls. In Boston girls were not admitted to the public 
 schools at all until 1789, and for only half time until 1828. 
 The first high schools were opened before the public was 
 accustomed to anything beyond the rudiments for girls, 
 and were for boys alone. When a high school was opened 
 for girls they came in such numbers that the mayor was 
 simply paralyzed and closed the school in despair. There 
 
CO-EDUCATION 263 
 
 was nothing strange about this halting of thought over the 
 education of women. It took time to become accustomed 
 to the idea. But the idea had to prevail. In the larger 
 cities provision was first made for separate secondary 
 schools ; when schools were opened in the newer parts of 
 these growing cities they were for both sexes. It was so in 
 the newer towns of the older states, and universally so in 
 the newer states. 
 
 Harvard College was founded before the time when the 
 dandies at the court of Charles II thought the women were 
 sufficiently educated if they could spell out the recipes for 
 puddings and pies, and all of the earlier American colleges 
 started before Mrs. John Adams wrote: " Female education 
 in the best families goes no further than writing and arith- 
 metic, and in some few rare instances music and dancing." 
 Of course those colleges were for men alone. And for 
 men alone they long continued. But the logic of events 
 created a demand for college privileges for women which 
 must be met. It was met in four ways : (a) By establishing 
 colleges exclusively for women, (6) by opening new institu- 
 tions with equal rights for both sexes, (c) by admitting 
 women to men's colleges on equal terms, and ((f) by 
 setting up annexes or independent women's colleges with 
 some form of organic union with the larger universities. 
 
 Some of the women's colleges were the outgrowth of 
 seminaries for women established to prepare them for 
 teaching, or to prepare them for polite society, before there 
 was any thought of real college work for women. Some 
 have been established at a later day to meet a definite 
 preference. Doubtless it would be distinctly asserted by 
 all the women's colleges that they are intended to meet 
 the ideas of people who do not want their daughters edu- 
 cated in association with men, and prefer that they shall 
 have an education of a different kind, or with very different 
 
264 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 shadings from that which men would have at all. It is a 
 matter of preference. Sometimes it is a matter of con- 
 venience. Often it is a matter of daughters. In any case 
 it is all right. The work is substantial. Much good and 
 no harm results. No one resents the exclusiveness. There 
 is nothing there that any man wants which he cannot get 
 easily elsewhere, unless it is one of the daughters, and he 
 gets her if he ought to have her. 
 
 The concessions which the larger universities, accus- 
 tomed to the old ways, have made to women are all that 
 could have been expected. They are more than have been 
 made by the universities in other lands. They are proof 
 of the influence of democratic society and of the irresistible 
 impulse for educational equality in America. Whether the 
 arrangement will long continue, or will go further, whether 
 some universities will permanently remain for men and 
 some others for women, may well be a subject of con- 
 jecture. 
 
 There are a number of institutions of the Roman Cath- 
 olic Church which admit only men for reasons peculiar 
 to the tenets of that denomination. But by all odds the 
 greater number of colleges and universities, save these, 
 which were founded in the last generation, afford equal 
 privileges for each sex. Leaving out the institutions of the 
 Roman Catholic Church, and a very few other denomina- 
 tional institutions started very early, it is difficult to find an 
 institution of college or university grade west of the AUe- 
 ghanies which is not co-educational. 
 
 Higher learning in America will always owe much to 
 the different religious denominations for the innumerable 
 colleges which they placed all over the public domain while 
 American institutional life was really getting upon its feet. 
 Many of them were not more than high schools ; and some 
 have remained such. But their number was large and 
 
CO-EDUCATION 265 
 
 their purposes high, and they gathered up the best they 
 could find in the pioneer days for the higher intellectual and 
 spiritual life. Practically all of them were co-educational. 
 
 With full appreciation of all this, and with no less ap- 
 preciation of what private munificence has done for 
 higher learning through a small number of conspicuous 
 new foundations, it may well be said that by all odds the 
 most important factor in the enlargement of college and 
 university work in America has been the state universities 
 and the institutions founded upon the national land grant 
 acts. They are all co-educational. Institutions supported 
 by public moneys could not logically discriminate between 
 citizens, in educational privileges at least. They came at 
 the rise of the tide in public sentiment concerning the 
 natural rights of woman, and there was no occasion to 
 discriminate against her. Indeed, the great West would 
 not permit it. Tax-supported colleges and universities, 
 with the best that the common means could provide, and 
 equal privileges for all, were the natural and inevitable 
 response to that aggressive democratic sentiment which 
 prevails everywhere beyond the Alleghanies. 
 
 Too many in the East know little of the strength or the 
 import of this mighty manifestation of the common im- 
 pulse of really democratic society towards the higher 
 learning. It is not a heedless impulse. Equality of op- 
 portunity is the very gist of it. Fullness of information 
 and freedom of thought are the very soul and spirit of it. 
 Work which bears upon the vocations of the people and a 
 philosophy which squares with life are the sum and sub- 
 stance of it. It was born of mistrust of the ideals and the 
 philosophy of private institutions, and it has already had a 
 decisive influence in recasting universities established upon 
 traditional lines. 
 
 The growth of these institutions is not the least remark- 
 
266 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 able development of our wonderful country and our 
 marvelous times. If anything were needed to settle and 
 clinch the matter of absolute educational equality in 
 America, and to disprove the dangers or difficulties of co- 
 education, this great movement did it. There is nothing like 
 a practical demonstration to explode the theories of people 
 who know so much that is not so, of things they never 
 saw. 
 
 In all of these institutions and in hundreds of other in- 
 stitutions, and in all parts of the country, young men and 
 women are mingling in perfect and proper freedom. For 
 the most part the men and women live in separate homes, 
 boarding-houses, clubs, or fraternity houses. Wherever 
 the women live by themselves in a club or fraternity 
 house, that is, outside of the life of a family, they 
 themselves arrange for proper chaperonage. The common 
 sentiment of the community exacts this. A university dean 
 of women acts as their friend and adviser, but not as their 
 superintendent. In work there is equality. Young men and 
 women search for the truth in the same library, and tell 
 what they have found, or reveal how much they have not 
 found, in the same classes. They of course have separate 
 gymnasiums, and often naturally prefer separate play- 
 grounds. They very commonly go in couples to the ath- 
 letic field to see an intercollegiate contest, or to the armory 
 on a Saturday afternoon once a month to a military hop, 
 or to university events in the evenings. By common consent 
 all social functions are arranged for Friday evenings or 
 Saturday afternoons and evenings. There are no rules to 
 break, and there is no spying to stir indignation. A good 
 deal of sense and not much foolishness are manifested in 
 it all. 
 
 These young people are quite as safe in this environ- 
 ment and atmosphere as in their own homes. All that this 
 
CO-EDUCATION 267 
 
 atmosphere is doing for them has as much protection in it 
 as the uncertain oversight and slender authority of fathers 
 and mothers at the age when young manhood and woman- 
 hood have arrived. And it has infinitely more incentive 
 and inspiration in it. Marriages often follow after college 
 days are over, but it is seldom that either party gets a stick 
 or a poltroon without being chargeable with notice, for uni- 
 versity sentiment has fixed the status of each beyond a per- 
 adventure. Ordinarily each will get a sane, substantial, 
 true, and hard-working associate ; and ordinarily together 
 they will prove to be the best intellectual leaven in the 
 neighborhood mass. 
 
 The wisest course in education is inevitably upon lines 
 parallel with the highways of Nature. She helps us on our 
 way, if we do not cross her tracks. The less of the artificial 
 and the unnatural there is in educational work the better. 
 It is not uncommon to think some other arrangement than 
 the one we have is better, because we know the diflSculties 
 of our own organization more completely than those of one 
 that is far away or yet untried. 
 
 Of course there are some branches in education which 
 appeal to men more than to women, and others which 
 appeal to women more than to men. In the smaller col- 
 leges the work is of the kind which meets the need of stu- 
 dents of both sexes who go to those colleges. In the large 
 universities there is sufiiciently wide opportunity for elec- 
 tion. The process of natural selection will take more wo- 
 men than men to some classes, and more men than women 
 to others. Possibly, in cases, some classes will be made 
 wholly of women, and others wholly of men. It is all 
 right. It is natural. There is nothing artificial about it. 
 There is no one to complain, and nothing to complain of. 
 
 The point is that there are no general reasons, at this 
 stage of intellectual progress, for the separation of the 
 
268 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 sexes in education. If either men or women wish to with- 
 draw themselves from working jointly with the others, 
 either wholly or in part, there is abundant provision for 
 their doing so. They are not to force others to do so. 
 Much less are a few managers to force all to do so. It is a 
 matter of personal preference and individual right. The 
 right of the woman to the best there is in college is just as 
 inviolable as that of the man, and it cannot be met unless 
 she may have the same instruction, if she wants it. Physio- 
 logical, psychological, and social difficulties exist only in 
 the imagination. It has been proved that intellectual and 
 social healthfulness follow the companionship of the sexes 
 in a large, even more than in a small, institution. If the 
 small colleges choose to keep out either men or women no 
 serious wrong or harm follows, for one may easily get else- 
 where all that they can offer. If a woman's college, even 
 of first prominence, continues to exclude men, it does not 
 violate the right of any man, for there are no facilities, and 
 there is no teaching there which is not quite equaled in 
 the leading universities, unless of a class which none but 
 women want. But if the great universities have equipments 
 which the women's colleges cannot rival, and if their 
 teaching staffs are the very climax of the work of educa- 
 tional institutions since the beginning of universities, and 
 if women are to be denied these advantages, wholly, or in 
 part, it is taking away a substantial right which is theirs 
 under all the theories of our government, and which all the 
 interests of our democracy loudly demand that they shall 
 have. 
 
 In point of intellectual proficiency in co-educational 
 institutions there is no noticeable preponderance with one 
 sex or the other. Socially they separate into sets very much 
 as people ordinarily do. There is a "society" set. The 
 numbers are not very large. They manage the social func- 
 
CO-EDUCATION 269 
 
 tions, dress well, and have a good time. Some of the 
 lighter-headed ones get into this set and fall short in the 
 examinations, but there are really very few of these. The 
 larger number can regard social life and personal attrac- 
 tiveness without falling down at the end of the semester, 
 and a university owes much to this class of students. Then 
 there is a set who may be called the drudges. Life is ter- 
 ribly severe with them, and they are indifferent to appear- 
 ances. It is not due to want of money so much as to lack 
 of home training and of i-ntellectual fibre. Their number is 
 happily small also. Between these two stands the great 
 body of students, the great middle class, who lead ordi- 
 nary lives, do ordinary work, mingle in the ordinary intellec- 
 tual and religious associations, keep things balanced, and 
 develop a very large number of sane men and women who 
 in time transfer the substance which the university did 
 not create, but which it developed, to the social, political, 
 industrial, professional, and spiritual life of the world. It 
 is all very natural, and it is charming and effective be- 
 cause it is nature at its very best. 
 
 Perhaps it remains to be said that there are men in the 
 universities, and unhappily they are not all among the 
 students, who are either woman-haters, or who satisfy their 
 code of social ethics by chivalrous attention to women on 
 special occasions, and by living like barbarians all the rest 
 of the time. They cannot keep up so much artificial 
 politeness all the time, and the continuing presence of 
 women is an intolerable restraint upon them. Of course 
 they will not say this. Perhaps they hardly know it. Hun- 
 ger for investigations and discussions which cannot be 
 carried on in the presence of women is but a thin disguise 
 for the natural tendencies of a learned mountaineer. What 
 is scientific is not vulgar, and what is vulgar is not scientific. 
 The vulgar has no place in a university. It has no more 
 
270 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 place in a man's university than in a co-educational uni- 
 versity or a woman's college. The man who wants to 
 smoke in the midst of educational work, or to swear or 
 talk coarsely anywhere, is out of his latitude if in some in- 
 conceivable way he has broken into a university; and the 
 natural course of democracy and of education is not to be 
 turned aside on his account. 
 
 Men and women supplement each other ; each supplies 
 the factors in thought and endeavor, in discretion and 
 stability, in force and progress which the other lacks ; and 
 the great accomplishments in human society have been 
 worked out by men and women of character working in 
 cooperation. They modify and strengthen and regulate 
 and guide each other. The greatest good of the race is 
 to be attained through the best possible education for 
 both. Why should they not be educated together? Why 
 should the men and women who are to be the greatest 
 factors in our democratic society be educated under condi- 
 tions which promote self-consciousness and liking for the 
 life of a club, either a man's club or a woman's club, rather 
 than under conditions which make the recognition of inter- 
 dependent relations imperative and give the best assurance 
 of intellectual equality and similarity of outlook in the 
 household, and of effective and balanced service in the 
 state ? 
 
 There is no reason. If there is such reason anywhere 
 in all the world, there is none in America. We have 
 made practical demonstrations and the results are good. 
 We have done more for woman than any other land 
 has done ; woman has done more for our country than she 
 has been able to do for any other country. The facts and 
 the reasons are obvious enough. No one, no party or 
 school, is going to turn the hands back on the great dial 
 which registers the progress of democratic institutions. 
 
CO-EDUCATION 271 
 
 We are right, we will go forward. We will not be turned 
 aside because a few men cannot see, or a few women do 
 not use their new freedom rationally. We will go forward, 
 holding out the very highest opportunities to both men 
 and women, and we will do it in a way which will en- 
 courage the very highest usefulness, cooperative useful- 
 ness, in the home and in the state. 
 
IV 
 SPECIAL ASPECTS AND PROBLEMS 
 
EDUCATION FOR EFFICIENCY 
 
 Americans are as free in their right of censure as in any 
 other of their freedoms. The elementary schools are 
 everywhere, and often they find themselves within the in- 
 tellectual limitations of senseless criticism. The loosening 
 obligations of domestic duty and the very weaknesses of 
 the schools have produced an undue supply of people 
 of superficial culture and of "professionals" without em- 
 ployment; and the universal interest in education makes 
 it quite possible for these to occupy themselves, and per- 
 haps gain a little standing, by endless propositions about 
 the schools. There is evidence enough that they are not 
 slow to take advantage of it. The factors which these 
 people have added and would add to the schools are the 
 essential cause of a widespread difficulty. 
 
 When but one third of the children remain to the end of 
 the elementary course, there is something the matter with 
 the schools. When half of the men who are responsible for 
 the business activities and who are guiding the political 
 life of the country tell us that children from the elementary 
 schools are not able to do definite things required in the 
 world's real affairs, there is something the matter with the 
 schools. When work seeks workers, and young men and 
 women are indifferent to it or do not know how to do it, 
 there is something the matter with the schools. 
 
 The length of the school period and the productive value 
 of the citizen are closely related. Industrialism is the great 
 basis of a nation's true strength and real culture. Knowing 
 this we have seen that there is not sufficient articulation 
 
276 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 between the educational and the industrial systems of the 
 country. We have seen the indefinite expansion of instruc- 
 tion and the unlimited multiplication of appliances leading 
 to literary, and professional, and managing occupations, 
 without any real solicitude about the vital industrial foun- 
 dations of the nation's happiness and power. A situation 
 manifestly unjust to the greater number, even unjust to 
 those for whom it has done the most, has resulted. Not- 
 withstanding our boasted universality of educational op- 
 portunity, there has grown up a condition in the edu- 
 cational system, which overlooks the just rights of the 
 wage-earning masses, and grievously menaces the indus- 
 trial efficiency and the material prosperity of the country. 
 
 The overwhelming trend of the programmes of the 
 schools and of the influences of the teachers, acting upon 
 our national temperament and aspirations, has led an un- 
 due proportion of youth to literary and scientific study 
 which too often ends either in idleness and insipidity, or in 
 professional or managing occupations for which they are 
 not well prepared, and which are already overcrowded. 
 
 Nor is the inevitable disappointment the worst of it. 
 There are a glare, a gamble, and a subtlety about it which 
 are demoralizing to all youth. In the marvelous advance 
 and by some legerdemain, men get to be generals who have 
 never been captains, and overseers who have never been 
 workmen. That aflfronts the sense of the country. We 
 believe in the natural order of progress. While we hold 
 that any one may aspire to any place, we hold also that he 
 must win it, not by pretense, or by subtlety, or by favor, 
 but through the work which leads to it, and by the gradual 
 accretion of the substantial qualities which are the only 
 true basis of his right to it. We care very little what the 
 work is. We say that one who may work and will not work 
 is not to be taken seriously. We have more love for a force- 
 
EDUCATION FOR EFFICIENCY 277 
 
 ful corporal than for an insipid colonel. We say that the 
 only way to proficiency and the only claim upon respect 
 come through the reflex influence of much work upon the 
 worker. We believe that one whose labor, either mental or 
 manual, adds to the power and the assets of the world has 
 a wealth and a joy of his own to which the idler, no matter 
 how rich, has no claim whatsoever. 
 
 Manual labor is not urged as against intellectual labor, 
 any more than intellectual as against manual labor. It is 
 not said that one should remain in the "class" in which 
 he was born, for we know nothing of classes in America, 
 and we do not admit that any one in this country is ever 
 born in a class. Work makes the worker. The willing 
 workman, whatever his poverty or his work, is likely to 
 be a better citizen and a better man than the willing idler, 
 whatever his riches or his superficial accomplishments. 
 It is not a matter of class at all, but of the adaptation 
 of men and women in general to the work which they can 
 do best. This need not discourage those of exceptional 
 gifts, for all experience proves that the exceptional and the 
 great have at first been inured to the severe labor which 
 was at hand, and that this very fact opened the door of 
 opportunity, pointed the way to the thing which they could 
 do best, and seasoned them for the doing of it. It is a mat- 
 ter of efiiciency, and therefore of happiness and growth, in 
 occupation. The schools must keep abreast, now and in 
 time to come as they have been doing in time past, with the 
 natural outworking of our democracy; they must not be 
 exclusive in any sense, but must be no less concerned about 
 industrial than about intellectual education. The impli- 
 cations and the influences of the schools must not lead boys 
 who might become excellent cabinet-makers into becoming 
 no-account lawyers, and girls who might be first-class bread- 
 makers or dressmakers into becoming fourth-class music 
 
278 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 teachers. The best chance of every one is through the thing 
 that he can do best, and while the schools are to inspire and 
 encourage him, they may well be on their guard lest in 
 misguided enthusiasm of their own they turn him from 
 the course which is likely to be the best for him. 
 
 All education must be provided in American schools, 
 but conclusions about life occupations are not to be forced, 
 — not even by implications. Determinations are to be 
 left to natural inclinations and to the fates which are kindly 
 to those who have real inclination to actual work of any 
 kind. 
 
 All this points to the fact that the school system has 
 grown deformed; it is one-sided and not broad enough at 
 the base. The trouble is not that the higher institutions 
 have grown abnormally. They are doing what colleges and 
 universities ought to do. They are not doing what they 
 ought not to do. Free universities have become the finest 
 expression of the souls of great states, and they are begin- 
 ning to be the best expression of the souls of great cities, 
 in all parts of the country. Nor is the difficulty in the 
 secondary schools, although they are affected by it. The 
 ailment is in the elementary schools. 
 
 Our elementary schools train for no industrial employ- 
 ments. They lead to nothing but the secondary school, 
 which in turn leads to the college, the university, and the 
 professional school, and so very exclusively to professional 
 and managing occupations. One who goes out of the school 
 system before the end or at the end of the elementary 
 course is not only unprepared for any vocation which will 
 be open to him, but too commonly he is without that 
 intellectual training which should make him eager for op- 
 portunity and incite him to the utmost effort to do just as 
 well as he can whatever may open to him. He goes without 
 respect for the manual industries, where he might find 
 
EDUCATION FOR EFFICIENCY 279 
 
 work if he could do it. He is without the simple prepara- 
 tion necessary to definite work in an office or a store. He 
 is neither clear about his English, nor certain about his 
 figures. Parents often take their children from the ele- 
 mentary school before the end of the course, not only be- 
 cause they do not appreciate the value of education gen- 
 erally, but also because they feel that the completion of 
 the course will not add to the earning capacity of their 
 children in the work which they must necessarily do. 
 
 The programmes in elementary schools are overloaded, 
 and the teachers are overtaxed. The terms have become 
 too short and the vacations too long, in the interest of 
 teachers who are often overworked by schools that are too 
 large and programmes that are too crowded and complex. 
 But that is not the worst. There is too much pedagogy and 
 too little teaching. There is too much artificial, and super- 
 ficial, and therefore false, culture, and too little of the only 
 thing that makes true culture. There are too many classes, 
 too many books, too many visionary appliances. The 
 teachers are forced into fanciful speculation and airy 
 methods in order to be thought at the fore of pedagogi- 
 cal progress. There are pedagogical and psychological 
 wretches who seem to think that they can experiment upon 
 children as physiologists and bacteriologists practice upon 
 guinea pigs, and that without any equivalent basis of scien- 
 tific knowledge. The result upon the child is confused 
 conceit rather than mental clarity, and a little information 
 about everything rather than exact efficiency in any definite 
 thing. The Germans surpass us in exactness and in the 
 habit of taking care. Our schools lack concentration and 
 drill upon any one thing until it is mastered, and therefore 
 there is little exultation over accomplishment, small in- 
 spiration to new undertakings, and a dearth of either in- 
 formation or power that is permanently retained. It 
 
280 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 wearies the teacher and mystifies the child; it confounds 
 the father and mother, and deprives the school of the in- 
 telligent cooperation of the home. 
 
 Even that is not all. We are more prodigal of the lives of 
 children than is any other constitutional nation upon the 
 globe. We frequently let them commence school late and 
 come irregularly, and loiter along through a confused 
 course at their pleasure or discomfiture. Between sub- 
 ordinating our elementary schools to the requirements for 
 admission to a literary high school, and the indifference 
 of legislators and petty magistrates about making and 
 enforcing attendance laws, we are doing a great wrong to 
 millions of children, and withholding the support which 
 the schools are bound to give to the strength and character 
 of the Republic. 
 
 The real situation in our elementary schools is not 
 widely appreciated : the trouble is not where the uninitiated 
 are looking for it. It is not, for example, with what the 
 editorial writers call the "fads and frills." Drawing, 
 basketry, modeling, sloyd, joinery, cooking, and sewing, 
 for an hour or two each week, impose no burden. They 
 afford relaxation, open the way for healthful comradeship 
 and rivalry, supply motive, and lay a little of the ground- 
 work for happy lives, by looking toward both the manual 
 and mental efficiency so sorely needed. But we do not lay 
 the first courses in the building with sufficient exactness 
 and strength to enable our young men and women to erect 
 either successful professional or successful industrial lives 
 upon them. Good housewifery and good craftsmanship 
 are not forging ahead. The bakeshop is a menace to 
 stomachs and to homes. The woman who cannot bake a 
 light loaf of bread, or broil a steak and keep the juices in 
 it, or happily employ her odd moments with a needle, may 
 be a very charming institution ; she may keep us posted 
 
EDUCATION FOR EFFICIENCY 281 
 
 about the new novels and the opera; she may amply make 
 up for shortcomings by teaching school, but she is an 
 inefficient home-maker, and it is not given to many to 
 make up for that. The lack of housekeepers is as serious 
 as the dearth of mechanics, and whatever the schools have 
 done to correct the trouble, in either case, has been but 
 little, and it has not been a waste of time. The only legiti- 
 mate criticism upon it is that there has not been enough 
 of it, or enough definiteness about it, to make sure of good 
 results. If more of the time of the schools were given to 
 these things, with a stern eye to efficiency, and if there 
 were less waste of time in connection with books, we should 
 soon see a new and more auspicious epoch in American 
 education and in American life. 
 
 The things that are weighing down the schools are the 
 multiplicity of studies which are only informatory, the 
 prolongation of branches so as to require many textbooks, 
 and the prolixity of treatment and illustration that will 
 accommodate psychological theory and sustain pedagogical 
 methods which have some basis of reason, but which have 
 been most ingeniously overdone. 
 
 There is a waste of time and productivity in all of the 
 grades of the elementary schools. If a school is to be 
 graded, then a grade should mean something. A child is 
 worse off in a graded school than in an ungraded one, if 
 the work of a grade is not capable of some specific valua- 
 tion, and if each added grade does not provide some added 
 power. The first two grades run much to entertainment 
 and amusement. The third and fourth grades repeat the 
 work supposed to have been done in the first two. Too 
 many unimportant and unrelated facts are taught. It is 
 like the wearying orator who reels off stories only to amuse, 
 seems incapable of choosing an incident to enforce a point, 
 and makes no progress toward a logical conclusion. The 
 
282 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 early grades constitute the period of imitation, and tire 
 work should be mainly drill based on memory and imita- 
 tion. It is not the period of much thinking ; it requires such 
 drill as will result in exact knowledge of the rudiments when 
 the time for using them really comes. Thought should not 
 be much expected in these grades. The reading should 
 be for the quick recognition of the word and the proper 
 expression of it, rather than to germinate thought. When 
 thinking is possible and normal, the time to encourage it 
 has arrived. Then it is done too slowly. The work of the 
 first four grades is too much extended, and that of the last 
 four is not commenced early enough. 
 
 To illustrate: the backbone of our elementary work 
 should be the English language, not language lessons 
 learned and recited, but a progressive knowledge of gram- 
 matical analysis, much reading for the pleasure there is in 
 it, and a use of the language in accurate and forceful state- 
 ment. If this is true, much of what we are now doing 
 may be omitted. There is much in our elementary mathe- 
 matics that is of little value as mental discipline and of 
 little use in life. In the lower grades the pupils should 
 be made "letter perfect" in the tables and the funda- 
 mental processes. This perfect knowledge will enable 
 them to master fractions, decimals, and percentage, 
 which are the same things in different forms. The rest 
 of the subjects treated in arithmetics is of little value 
 except in particular employments which few of the pupils 
 will enter. There is too much geography taught, and 
 much is gone over again and again. Only the relations 
 of the great natural and political divisions of land and 
 water, the location of the great centres of population, with 
 more of the details of one's own state, need find an early 
 place in the schools. The rest is unremunerative to small 
 children, and they will get it in a few minutes by and by, if 
 
EDUCATION FOR EFFICIENCY 283 
 
 it ever becomes necessary for them to know it. In physio- 
 logy we are trying to teach much which only a physician 
 can understand, and which there is no present call for the 
 child to know, and we are doing it badly and using the time 
 wastefuUy. We reach after too much mere information in 
 the lower grades, and in the later ones we are not up with 
 the normal powers of the healthy child. And the full 
 and proper exercise of the intellectual, as of the physical 
 powers is the essential condition of mental health. 
 
 The larger part of this waste is due to two very plausible 
 and very baneful doctrines which have pretty nearly taken 
 possession of the schools in the last quarter-century; that 
 is, the unsubstantial and delusive theories about speculative 
 psychology, and the cure for all educational ailments which 
 is falsely called "culture." 
 
 Psychology, and deduction, and imagination, and senti- 
 ment have a place in a system of education. Each has a 
 large place where sense is free to ridicule its excesses and 
 science may impose limitations upon its license. The 
 forms and accomplishments of polite society are of course 
 worth while, but mere manners may be only boorishness 
 and brutality refined, or insipidity but little disguised. 
 Culture worth seeking, in or out of the schools, must come 
 from labor upon things worth doing, and from the in- 
 fluence of the power to do and the pleasure of real accom- 
 plishment upon the soul of the one who does. The external 
 forms^ culture do not make real men and women, but 
 enough work, and true teachers, and a healthful and at- 
 tractive environment are more than likely to start boys and 
 girls on the road to culture worth the having. 
 
 There are people who worship theory as though it were 
 greater than life, and culture as though it were something 
 to be put on like a jacket, instead of being the result of re- 
 fining the soul through labor and experience. Emotion, 
 
284 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 and ecstasy, and affectation, are made to do duty for sin- 
 cerity and power, and for religion and patriotism too. 
 These people ignore the culturing value of labor, and of 
 deprivation, and of sorrow. They are flippant about the 
 Bible, without feeling its inspirations or studying its trans- 
 lations. They are not much stirred by the flag, for they 
 know little of the heroism that has reddened so many 
 stripes, and they feel little of the aspiration that is emblaz- 
 oned in every star. It is not said that these people are the 
 rich. Quite as often they are people who make "culture" 
 do duty for riches. Frequently they are people who have 
 gained wealth faster than they could assimilate it. Who- 
 ever they are, they should no longer be permitted to tear 
 out the substantial underpinnings of the schools. 
 
 These things are said only in explanation of the diffi- 
 culties and in hope of finding a remedy for the troubles 
 of the elementary schools. Whatever the explanation, the 
 difficulty is manifest and the need of remedy is imperative. 
 We must know what children of school age there are in a 
 state, and where they are when the schools are open. We 
 must stand for simplifying the course and shortening the 
 time of the elementary schools, and for making their teach- 
 ing of more definite worth. We must try very hard to have 
 the child able to do some definite thing, no matter at what 
 age we lose him. 
 
 We must organize an entirely new system of general 
 industrial and trades schools, which will make it worth 
 while for all children to remain in school, and which will 
 provide for the children of the masses, and for the great 
 manufacturing and constructive industries, something of 
 an equivalent for what we are doing for the children of the 
 more well-to-do and for the professional interests and the 
 managing activities of the country. 
 
 It is time to organize a wholly new order of schools as a 
 
EDUCATION FOR EFFICIENCY 285 
 
 part of the public school system. We may separate the new 
 order into two general classes. One class may train all- 
 round mechanics for work in factories, where workmen act 
 in cooperation, where each is part of an organization, and 
 where much machinery is used, and these may be called 
 factory schools. The other class may train mechanics who 
 work independently, mainly with their own tools, and 
 without much machinery, and these may be called trades 
 schools. 
 
 We say a " new order of schools " because the new schools 
 ought to be sharply distinguished from any schools that are 
 now known in America. They ought to be wholly apart 
 from the manual training schools. They will have a distinct 
 individuality and a definite object of their own. They are 
 neither, primarily, to quicken mentality, nor to develop 
 culture; those things will come in the regular order. The 
 "culturists" are not to appropriate these new schools. 
 They are not to train mechanical or electrical engineers; 
 the literary and technical schools are doing that very 
 amply. They are not even to develop foremen ; leaders will 
 develop naturally, for they will forge ahead of their fel- 
 lows by reason of their own ability, assiduity, and force. 
 The new schools are to contain nothing which naturally 
 leads away from the shop. They are to train workmen to do 
 better work that they may earn more bread and butter. 
 
 A tentative plan would make these new schools more 
 like shops than like schools ; put them in plain but large 
 buildings, sometimes using idle factories of which many 
 cities have a supply ; use books somewhat, but make reading 
 subordinate to manual work ; refuse to permit our charm- 
 ing friends, who write and print and sell books, to inflate 
 these schools, as they have the elementary schools, to 
 the bursting point; put them in charge of craftsmen who 
 can teach, rather than of teachers who are indifferent me- 
 
286 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 chanics ; keep them open day and evening ; make the instruc- 
 tion largely individual; adjust them to the needs of those 
 who must work a part of the time at least in order to earn 
 a living, and make them for boys and girls and men and 
 women, and of every kind and description which may be 
 necessary to meet the demands of the local factories and 
 trades. 
 
 These schools will have to be an integral part of the 
 public school system, for the double reason that they can- 
 not be successful without articulating with that system, and 
 that they will not be accepted either by capital or organized 
 labor without standing upon a legal footing which is in- 
 dependent of both and fair to each of them. It may as well 
 be said at once that any school, teaching a definite trade, 
 will fail without the sympathy of both the capital and the 
 organized workmen engaged in that trade. They cannot 
 be expected to support it, if it can be used in favor of 
 another interest and so arrayed against their own. Capital 
 will take care of itself under economic laws that are well 
 understood. If it cannot venture with reasonable expec- 
 tation of profit, it will retreat; but it will exist. Capital 
 has a strong enough motive for activity in the hope of 
 profits, but labor has a stronger one in the need of bread. 
 In this country it is not in the nature of either to brook 
 injustice, and the needs of each make it unnecessary that 
 the other do so. In the last analysis each will have to 
 square with the plan that stands fair, that encourages 
 capital to provide labor for workmen by protecting all of 
 the just rights of capital, and that encourages the man to 
 make the most of himself by assuring all of his just rights 
 in his individual industry and skill. 
 
 That is an American plan, and it ought to prevail. Such 
 a plan cannot in the nature of things be left to private 
 enterprise. It cannot be dominated by any forces which 
 
EDUCATION FOR EFFICIENCY 287 
 
 are in the least exclusive. American workmen are not will- 
 ing to depend upon philanthropy. They will not widely 
 accept the training schools set up by the manufacturing 
 corporations . They are entitled to the same, or equivalent, 
 rights as those which are already granted to the professional 
 and employing classes. They know that, and will exact 
 what belongs to them. Whatever is done they want done 
 so completely as to command the respect of the best skill. 
 They will tolerate no false pretense about mechanical skill, 
 but they will be glad to shorten the time in which their 
 boys may become real journeymen. In any event, they 
 know very well, at least their leaders do, that sound, 
 practical training for their boys and girls can come in no 
 other way than upon the basis of, and in association with, 
 the public schools. 
 
 The new schools cannot displace, or half displace, the 
 common, elementary school. They will have to follow and 
 supplement it. The reason lies both in educational neces- 
 sity and in the likes and the needs of the people. But it is 
 quite possible that the compulsory attendance age, in cities 
 at least, may be so extended as to cover the time of these 
 industrial schools; easily so, if the elementary course can 
 be shortened, or children can be brought to the end of it 
 earlier than they are. The law should see that a child is 
 either in school or at work up to his seventeenth or eigh- 
 teenth year. 
 
 How far we can succeed in establishing these purely 
 industrial schools is, of course, problematic. Cities and 
 towns will have to be encouraged by liberal state support. 
 No trades schools have ever been successful without gov- 
 ernmental aid. The experiences of other lands — and there 
 have been rich experiences in other lands — will have to 
 become well known among our people. In any event, it is 
 certain that the extent to which the movement takes hold 
 
288 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 upon our life seems to be filled with a significance to which 
 no intelligent American can remain indifferent. 
 
 Definite propositions have already taken shape concern- 
 ing the articulation of these new schools with the public 
 school system. It is proposed to have the compulsory at- 
 tendance age begin at seven years in cities and towns; to 
 take definite measures for a far more complete and regular 
 attendance ; to lengthen the term and lighten the work ; to 
 simplify the courses, and to give them a more industrial 
 and efficient trend through the simple forms of hand work, 
 such as paper cutting and folding, moulding in sand and 
 clay, plain knife and needle work, and the like, which can 
 be done in the regular school-rooms from the very begin- 
 ning of the primary grades, and to push children along so 
 that they will at all times have work which appeals to their 
 years, and will complete the present work up to the end of 
 the sixth grade at an earlier age than now. If the present 
 eight grades can be shortened by one or two grades and a 
 year or two of time, so much the better. 
 
 At the end of the present sixth grade it is proposed to 
 have the system begin to separate into three very distinct 
 branches. The larger part of the work of the present 
 seventh and eighth grades would be uniform, but some 
 differentiation, looking to very complete separation, would 
 begin with the present seventh grade. 
 
 The three distinct classes of schools to follow the ele- 
 mentary schools would be : First, the present high school 
 system, which would be somewhat relieved because of the 
 new arrangement; second, business schools looking to 
 work in offices, stores, etc. ; and third, factory and trades 
 schools looking to the training of workmen. 
 
 With the work of the present seventh grade there might 
 be commenced some study of modern foreign languages 
 by pupils destined for the literary and classical high 
 
EDUCATION FOR EFFICIENCY 289 
 
 schools; some special commercial subjects by pupils des- 
 tined for the advanced business schools, and some special 
 training at benches with tools, and in the household and 
 domestic arts, for those who are to stop with the elementary 
 schools, or are to go to the factory schools or trades schools. 
 
 At least half of the teachers in the seventh and eighth 
 grades should be men; and these grades may well be 
 housed in central and specially prepared rooms. 
 
 We might hope to economize the time and increase the 
 efficiency and productivity through the grammar grades to 
 such an extent that a part of the compulsory school life of 
 the child would remain at the end of the eighth grade ; and 
 we might also hope that there would be schools beyond the 
 eighth grade which would be able so to increase the earn- 
 ing power of the child, no matter what his life work should 
 be, that it would be clearly to his interest to remain in 
 school. Then as he approaches what is now the seventh 
 grade, he and his teachers and parents will begin to 
 think of the work he is ultimately to do, and by the time 
 he is through the elementary course he will find abundant 
 opportunity and have some enthusiasm for a school which 
 may exactly qualify him for that work, no matter whether 
 it is professional, or in business activities, or in purely 
 industrial lines. 
 
 The sure basis of a nation's strength is in industry as 
 much as in intellect, and in skill as much as in resources. 
 The assurance of a nation's greatness is in the equipoise 
 of mental and manual activities. We do well to open 
 treasure-houses of higher and liberal learning, but they 
 will avail little if we permit inefficient primary schools and 
 if we turn away from the labor of the hand. We do well to 
 conserve material resources, but it will not count for much 
 unless we conserve the time of boys and girls and enlarge 
 the efficiency and versatility of the craftsmanship which 
 
290 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 must convert resources into merchantable goods. It is 
 idle to pursue a course which is destructive of the equilib- 
 rium of the common life and ignores the decisive influence 
 of work upon the worker. Heads and hands and hearts, 
 acting together, are larger factors than wood and iron and 
 water in the economic problems of the world, and they are 
 infinitely larger factors in the moral, and constitutional, 
 and international, and eternal problems of men and 
 women. 
 
 We cannot escape the fact that the elementary schools 
 are wasting time, and that the lack of balance in the edu- 
 cational system is menacing the balance of the country. 
 Children, schools, and country are being ground out 
 between fanciful and conflicting educational theories. 
 The demand that there shall be less mystery and exploita- 
 tion, less prolixity and parade, that the programmes of the 
 schools shall be more rational and the work of the teachers 
 shall fit children for definite duties with more exactness, 
 is heard on every side. 
 
 It does not mean that we must give over the work which 
 goes to literary accomplishment, or art sense, or refined 
 manners, or professional equipment, or scientific learning 
 of whatsoever kind. It does mean that the equilibrium 
 between intellectuals and industrials is being lost and must 
 be restored. It does mean that children are being mis- 
 directed into misfits and that it must cease. It means 
 more concern for life, increased productivity in the ele- 
 mentary schools, and incidentally, more rational courses in 
 the secondary schools. 
 
II 
 
 THE FARM AND THE SCHOOL 
 
 The success of the farmer depends upon balanced char- 
 acter, love of the earth and of life in the open, knowledge 
 of his farm and the ability to make some scientific appli- 
 cations, practical experience, a grasp of market conditions, 
 sound relations with railroads, aggressiveness in planning, 
 and good business methods, more than upon expertness in 
 craftsmanship. The farmer is his own capitalist. There 
 is little room for capital to dictate. Hardly any other man 
 has the earning capacity of so much property dependent 
 upon his personal attributes as the farmer. The mechanic's 
 equipment is in his skill of hand, and in his not expensive 
 tools if he works by himself, or in a plant owned by others 
 if he works in a factory. In either case he may move 
 readily. The farmer's equipment is in his farm and in his 
 trained and dependable judgment. He is very much a 
 fixture wherever he is. 
 
 In the mechanical industries men live and think and plan 
 and work collectively. They go out much of nights; they 
 associate in organizations easily. In the agricultural in- 
 dustries men live and work very individually. They come 
 to conclusions and carry out plans by themselves. In the 
 cities, centralized capital on the one hand, and the leaders 
 of labor organizations on the other, struggle with one an- 
 other, to the frequent disadvantage of both. ^There much 
 depends upon others. The farmer controls a considerable 
 property, and the responsibility of prosperity or penury 
 is very largely upon himself. With both the farmer and the 
 mechanic the personality is of overwhelming importance. 
 
292 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 but the conditions give the individuality of the farmer 
 larger opportunities and make his success or failure more 
 notable. Essentially, the farmer lives at home. The family 
 life is by itself. The work is at home. The family all have 
 part in it. There is less mingling with fellow craftsmen 
 and with the men and women of other crafts. Trades 
 unionism is absent. The blacklist and the boycott are 
 almost unknown. The farmer is both a capitalist and a 
 laborer. If there are combinations to control the prices of 
 labor, they will not hold together; and if there are com- 
 binations to control the prices of products, they are made 
 by manipulators who get the advantages. It all makes so 
 distinct a manner of life that it must create instrumentali- 
 ties and policies of its own. 
 
 This is an industrial democracy. People are to do what 
 they can for themselves. What can be done only in com- 
 bination and through the use of common power may be 
 done in that way so long as the fundamental equality of 
 right is preserved. With this simple limitation, the state 
 must aid all of its industries. And the manner of its aid 
 must be specific, and the measure of it must regard the 
 significance of the industry. 
 
 There are two great lines of policy which the combined 
 action of the people of every state ought to assure. One 
 concerns a system of education which is calculated to sus- 
 tain modern agriculture, and the other relates to the things 
 which combined intelligence and power may carry directly 
 into all of the agricultural parts of a state to help the 
 people of readiest wits who are most disposed to help 
 themselves. 
 
 Not all that agriculture needs is to be supplied by public 
 schools. There are other great factors in the problem. With 
 agriculture, as with every other great interest and its 
 attendant life, there is as much to be reckoned with outside 
 
THE FARM AND THE SCHOOL 293 
 
 as inside of the schools. But it is not too much to say that 
 agriculture, above almost any other great human or com- 
 mercial interest, now claims the support of an adequate 
 and comprehensive system of schools. 
 
 Primary schools alone, no matter how good, cannot 
 supply the education which is required to make the most 
 of the agricultural industries. The man who says high 
 schools are unnecessary, in the country or anywhere else, 
 is behind the times, and as much out of touch with rational 
 educational policy as with the spirit of the country in which 
 he lives. Nor is it going too far to say that colleges are as 
 vital as high schools to a system of instruction which will 
 be equal to the demands of agricultural necessity. The first 
 national industry, which supplies the larger part of the 
 raw material for our manufactures and produces four times 
 as much in value as our mines and oil wells together, brings 
 good policy to the aid of necessity in claiming the support 
 of a universal system of education. It is not merely that the 
 farmers' boys and girls, like all other American boys and 
 girls, are entitled to their utmost chance; the nation's 
 educational purpose has combined with the importance of 
 the industry to settle the question. 
 
 There is not much to be said in criticism of the rural 
 schools so far as general elementary instruction is con- 
 cerned. It is true that there is a lack of grading and an 
 absence of plan by which pupils may progress from one 
 plane to another and continually look forward to higher 
 work. But it is also true that the instruction is more indi- 
 vidual, and that all the pupils hear all of the instruction 
 and all of the recitations in all subjects and in all grades 
 of work. The rural schools are at least reasonably free 
 from the overcrowding, the overdoing, and the over-ex- 
 ploitation for all manner of ends that are so common in the 
 cities. The teaching is by young women of an average 
 
294 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 competency which is now remarkably high. If there could 
 be a uniform system of supervision by superintendents, 
 who hold or can earn teachers' certificates, in districts that 
 are small enough to make actual supervision possible; if 
 such a system of supervision could be free from all partisan- 
 ship ; and if the supervisory districts could be arranged so 
 as to have the village high schools at the centres, and re- 
 late all of the elementary schools to them in a way, there 
 might be a universal system of schools for teaching elemen- 
 tary English branches in the country, quite as well adapted 
 to the general needs of the country as those in the cities 
 are adapted to the needs of the cities. And all this might 
 very easily be. 
 
 But while the schools of both elementary and secondary 
 grade in the country are serving, or may without difiiculty 
 be made to serve, the needs of the country in the ordinary 
 branches of an English education, they are doing nothing 
 to train specially for the vocation of farming. The impera- 
 tive need of training for the industrial vocations in the 
 cities is evident. Training for the professional vocations 
 has been firmly established. There is quite as much basis 
 of reason and right in popular education for the vocation 
 of farming as for mechanical, constructive, commercial, 
 and professional businesses. 
 
 The agricultural situation is absolutely distinct from any 
 other industrial situation, and if it is ever met efficiently it 
 will have to be met in a very distinct way. It will never be 
 met by making agricultural schools of the country primary 
 schools. The children in the elementary schools are too 
 young to want much agriculture ; they want English, and 
 mathematics, and the elementary sciences. The primary 
 children in the cities stand more in need of agriculture 
 than do the primary children in the country. The primary 
 schools in both city and country are all-round schools. 
 
THE FARM AND THE SCHOOL 295 
 
 Some of the city children will go to the country ; some of the 
 country children will go to the city. The education of the 
 country child is not to be narrowed down to things rural. 
 His books are not to exclude illustrations from, and all 
 other recognition of, rural life; but neither are they to 
 exclude all else. His primary school is to be able to train 
 him in the fundamentals of an all-around man, who will be 
 free from all exclusiveness, and able to study and do to the 
 best advantage anything that his qualities and his tastes 
 may dispose him to study and to do when the time comes. 
 All schools require balanced work until the time for 
 specialization comes. Balanced work requires elements 
 that relate to the country as well as those that relate to the 
 cities, and vice versa. There are higher laws and funda- 
 mental principles concerning education, and they bear alike 
 upon all parts of the country and upon all manner of 
 people. If these laws are violated, or these principles broken, 
 the people soon come to realize it, and trouble is let loose 
 as it ought to be. 
 
 Much is heard about nature study. Its value is recog- 
 nized. It is good. But it is equally good for all children, 
 as cutting paper, and weaving mats, and moulding clay and 
 the like, are good for all children. All of these things make 
 for all-round culture, for all-round outlook, and for all- 
 round love for work and for facility in doing. Nature 
 study is quite likely to appeal less to the country child than 
 to the city child, for obvious reasons, and while it is to be 
 encouraged in the country as in the city, it apparently has 
 about the same relation to real agriculture that sloyd has 
 to laying out an electric plant for a city, or laying down 
 the keel for a battleship. In other words, it is a good thing, 
 — a good thing everywhere, because it helps mould the 
 character of boys and girls, and keeps the way open for 
 what may come after, but calling it agricultural instruction 
 
296 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 will not increase its importance so much as it will confuse 
 some minds and subject us to the criticism that we are not 
 doing what we proclaim. 
 
 Enthusiasts want the teaching of agriculture encouraged 
 in the elementary schools. It is difficult to determine, how- 
 ever, what are the phases of real agriculture which are 
 adaptable to the primary schools or how to install them 
 in ways that will dispose children to become interested in 
 them. The children of farmers are likely to find interest 
 in many things which look to quickening and dignifying 
 the different agricultural industries, which are not incom- 
 patible with the plan and purpose of the elementary 
 schools, and these things should be introduced into the 
 course of study ; but there is no more reason in teaching real 
 agriculture in the elementary schools, than there is in teach- 
 ing engineering or medicine. Agriculture is not an ele- 
 mentary subject. 
 
 In some quarters the normal schools are asked to train 
 teachers of agriculture for the elementary and secondary 
 schools. Some of the normal school teachers know some- 
 thing about some of the sciences that are fundamental to 
 agriculture, and some of them know something about 
 some of the practical methods of farming. The fact is, 
 however, that nine tenths of the students in the normal 
 schools who will ever teach at all are girls. Doubtless it 
 will continue to be so. Ambitious men who go beyond the 
 high schools are going to the colleges. And the gods of the 
 Greeks, mean and sordid as they were, would laugh at the 
 spectacle of girl teachers training farmers' boys in the in- 
 tricacies of real agriculture. Generations will come and go 
 before there is any substantial result to agriculture through 
 the girls in the normal schools. 
 
 No educational system capable of adequately supporting 
 the agriculture of a state will be complete without an agri- 
 
THE FARM AND THE SCHOOL 297 
 
 cultural college. One with experience in developing an 
 agricultural college worthy of the name will know that 
 there will not be many of these institutions in the same 
 state, no matter how great the state may be. In such a col- 
 lege the best scientific training and the deepest scientific 
 research are imperative. If they are not of the best and the 
 deepest they will be of no avail, and they can hardly be 
 such apart from the teachers, the investigators, and the 
 laboratories to be found at a real university. At a real 
 agricultural college the most exact and reliable experiments 
 and demonstrations are also imperative, and there are both 
 educational and financial reasons in abundance why these 
 will not be much duplicated or often realized apart from 
 a university. In all phases of higher education what is 
 good is not cheap, and what is cheap is not good. It is no 
 less true — doubtless it is more true — in the higher study 
 of agriculture than in any other phase of advanced educa- 
 tion. And the higher learning is quite as vital to agriculture 
 as to any other interest of the people. A real agricultural 
 college, associated with a true university, is the true policy 
 in every state. Such a college may be expected to vitalize 
 whatever is done in connection with agriculture in the high 
 schools, and whatever has a bearing upon agriculture 
 in the elementary schools, and it may also be expected to 
 incite and uplift profitable agricultural operations among 
 the people. 
 
 There are things to be done in the interest of agriculture, 
 outside of the schools. There need be no squeamishness 
 about doing them. There need be no hesitation about 
 asking the state to do them when only the state can do 
 them. It is clearly within the scope of the political power 
 of the people to promote an overwhelming common interest 
 by combined action, when it cannot be done individually. 
 It is unmistakably so when the people acting together 
 
298 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 really do so much to enlighten the political and profes- 
 sional life and culture of the state, and so much to support 
 the commercial interests of the people. After all that has 
 been done in many other directions, agriculture need not 
 hesitate ; and others need not sneer when agriculture ven- 
 tures to ask. 
 
 For example, a competent and complete agricultural 
 survey ought to be made of all of the farming lands of every 
 state. The farmers should be told rather minutely of the gen- 
 eral attributes of the soil of the different counties and of its 
 chemical elements as well. They should be told, in a gen- 
 eral way but with some particularity and definiteness, how 
 it may be used to the best advantage. One may say that 
 they do know. Certainly they know much about it, but if 
 the subject were to be intensively inquired into they would 
 themselves be surprised at the number of things which have 
 not yet occurred to them. Quite as certainly there are some 
 things which common usage shows that many of them do 
 not realize. They should be told of the additions which 
 are needed to restore what has been taken out, or to adapt 
 it to the demands of new situations. They should not have 
 to learn this from commercial corporations that are sell- 
 ing fertilizers. They should not go on putting on stuff 
 that contains nitrogen and no phosphorus, when what the 
 ground needs is phosphorus and not nitrogen. They 
 should not go on selling products containing constituents 
 that the soil requires, when they are worth more to keep 
 than to sell. The common belief among farmers, that mere 
 rotation of crops rests and recuperates the soil, is doubtless 
 fallacious beyond the fact that some crops do not deplete 
 soil as rapidly as others. What has been taken out, what 
 needs to be restored, should be declared by competent 
 authority acting for and responsible to the farming inter- 
 ests. What may be profitably grown, having in view the 
 
THE FARM AND THE SCHOOL 299 
 
 factors in the soil, and the faciUties for changing those 
 factors, and the new facilities for transportation, and the 
 new demands of the markets, ought to be asserted by 
 undoubted authority. For example, again, if four fifths of 
 all farm animals were to be destroyed by some noxious 
 disease, it would seem a great hardship, but if the pest 
 would discriminate in the one fifth which it spared the 
 plague would in the end be a real gain. The propagation 
 of great herds of mongrel animals which are commonly 
 less serviceable than those which might be bred, and which 
 often are not worth their keep, should not be continued. 
 Every farm ought to have at least one new colt every 
 spring. He should have a pedigree that he could be as 
 proud of as a Son of the Revolution, or a member of the 
 Mayflower Society. He should not be expected to trot a 
 mile in less than three minutes, but by the time he is four 
 years old he should be worth at least three hundred dollars 
 and create a sort of savings bank account for his owner. 
 There is much to learn about milch cows and scientific 
 dairying before this can be the first dairy country in the 
 world. Of course, there are many fine dairy herds, and of 
 course there are some up-to-date dairymen, but there are 
 hundreds of thousands of dairy cattle which are too mean 
 to keep. Ample knowledge upon the subject is available, 
 and the real prosperity and pleasure of dairying, as well as 
 the common safety of the people, depend upon observing 
 it. A state might well propagate the most desirable and 
 profitable animals of the farm, and actually aid farmers in 
 propagating such for themselves. There are a half dozen 
 German states which have more money invested in build- 
 ings and grounds for a veterinary college alone, than the 
 state of New York or its people have invested in veterinary 
 science since the Mohawk began to pour into the Hudson. 
 The Imperial Government of Japan in recently study- 
 
300 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 ing the matter of hens, with its customary habit of taking 
 care, sent two trusted representatives to England to select 
 the finest specimens of two breeds which it had decided 
 were best adapted of any in the world to the needs of 
 Japan. Why did they not take American hens ? Doubt- 
 less because they found that all chickens look much alike 
 to most Americans. There is as much difference in the 
 individuality, and the productivity, and the respectability, 
 and the value, of hens, as there is in horses, or cattle, or 
 sheep, or swine. Other peoples make them the subject of 
 governmental care. 
 
 Then there are the large matters of small fruits, and 
 vegetables, and flowers for the markets. Here and there 
 one gets rich through the discriminating propagation of 
 one or the other, but a great many people seem blindly 
 to suppose that they are wholly dependent upon their own 
 spontaneity, and that there is nothing to do but to leave 
 them to nature and to chance. Yet there are states and 
 nations which see that it is worth much more than it costs 
 to make each of them the subject of the investigations and 
 the teachings of a distinct department of a university. 
 There is the vital subject of horticulture in its larger aspects, 
 with its infinite claims and its unlimited possibilities. 
 The apples, pears, grapes, and nuts ; the forests, the shade 
 trees ; all phases of landscape architecture and gardening, 
 demand the oversight and the leadership and the aid of the 
 state on both the scientific and practical sides. Yet again, 
 there is the still larger subject of the home-making, with its 
 architecture and sanitation, the matter of decorations, the 
 comforts and conveniences, with the adaptation of foods 
 to the family needs, and the thousand things which, with 
 attention, will make the life of the mother an easier one, and 
 the possibilities of the children different and greater than 
 they otherwise would be. And right here is the overwhelm- 
 
THE FARM AND THE SCHOOL 301 
 
 ing consideration to which all others must be contributory, 
 and before which every other pales into insignificance, and 
 that is the public need of knowing that boys and girls are 
 the first concern of a state; the public obligation to do 
 the material things which will dispose every farm boy and 
 farm girl to look upon farming more for their own sake 
 than for that of the farms, to look upon it not as repel- 
 lent drudgery, but as the high grade business that it is. 
 
 All these things are outside of the schools, but they have 
 to proceed from the prevalent system of education, and 
 they all relate back to the schools. In a word, from which 
 there can hardly be any dissent, the prosperity and the 
 pleasure of a great industry depend upon the complete- 
 ness, the symmetry, and the cooperative efficiency of the 
 parts of the educational system which enter into its details 
 and give rationale and character to it as a whole. And 
 in another word, the states which lay the most emphasis 
 upon those phases of learning which bear directly upon 
 the mechanical and agricultural industries, and which 
 carry them right to the homes of the people, will enjoy 
 the largest commercial prosperity and will have the hap- 
 piest and the strongest populations. 
 
 It would be a mistake to leave this subject without a 
 word as to the special training of the women who live in 
 the country, and as to the education which enters di- 
 rectly into the making of the farmer's home. To accom- 
 plish any large results men and women must not only 
 work together, but they must have equal advantages; 
 they must be equally enthusiastic and aggressive, and the 
 work of each must be equally regarded and respected by 
 the other. There is a lack of such equality of outlook 
 and opportunity in the greater part of American territory 
 and in American education. The women have less chance ; 
 not so much special training either in or out of the schools. 
 
302 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 not so many social contacts, not so many implements to 
 do with, and not so much to stimulate and liberalize their 
 work either within their own homes or in comparisons 
 between different homes. There are notable exceptions, 
 but we have necessarily to deal with generalities. Of course, 
 no reflection is intended upon a class of women who are 
 as justly entitled to the highest respect for doing all that 
 they do under circumstances that are often discouraging, 
 as they are entitled to an open educational chance with 
 the men, which very commonly they do not get. If the 
 women could be put in charge of the farm, the operations 
 would doubtless go quite as well as they do now; but if 
 the men were to be put in charge of the house, the greater 
 number of them would either lie down under the burden, 
 or there would be so many changes and so many new 
 conveniences and fixings and implements that the treasury 
 would be bankrupted. Not all of the fault is with the men, 
 although a good share of it belongs to some men. Two 
 farmers' wives once watched an admirable cooking dem- 
 onstration at a county " domestic science" association, and 
 at the conclusion one said to the other, "I suppose this 
 thing is all right for these city and university women, but 
 I can cook without any of their help." Doubtless she could, 
 and quite as doubtless she belonged to a class who have 
 much to learn about the most desirable and economical 
 food supplies, and questions of nutrition, and the manner 
 of preparation, and the time for use, and the manner of 
 serving. And that is far from all there is of it. It reaches 
 to the making, the sanitation, and the decoration of the 
 house, to the furnishings and conveniences of the home, 
 to the deep subject of home economics and household 
 management, and to all that most effectually brings the 
 vital support of the home to the support of the work upon 
 the farm. It may make the life of the family something to 
 
THE FARM AND THE SCHOOL 303 
 
 which ambitious boys and girls will cling ; even something 
 to which, being added to the rational and cordial welcome 
 of their fathers and mothers, they will be proud to invite 
 their friends. 
 
 In a word, in considering the educational needs of agri- 
 culture, the education — the liberal and special education 
 — of women claims quite as much as that of men. There 
 is quite as much necessity of specialization for girls as for 
 boys, when the time for specialization comes. The courses 
 in the secondary schools, whatever form the school is to 
 take, are bound to regard the work of girls as well as that 
 of boys, and there will be no complete or symmetrical 
 college of agriculture unless there is associated with it a 
 department of household economy, with the many offer- 
 ings which go to the bottom of all the problems of the 
 household upon the farm. Nor will there be sufficient 
 result until the need of it is recognized among the people. 
 And it may as well be added that, when such courses are 
 provided, there will not be much result unless girls can 
 go and take them with just as much independence, and 
 security, and common respect as any boy upon the grounds. 
 If this cannot be until boys are taught some lessons, the 
 date of entering upon that process should not be long post- 
 poned. 
 
 It is time for this country to enter upon a great system 
 of agricultural extension. The schools, from highest to 
 lowest, should act in accord, not only in training students 
 and in scientific research, but in carrying knowledge to 
 the very doors of the farmers. Evangelistic work in agri- 
 culture should go everywhere. Seed specials should be 
 run over the railroads. The blood of the best farm animals 
 should be distributed throughout the country. Object les- 
 sons of special interest to both men and women should be 
 carried in all directions. The applications should be espe- 
 
304 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 cially adapted to every section, and the fullest attention 
 should be given to the less favored rather than to the more 
 favored counties of every state. 
 
 A state might well send a commission of practical farm- 
 ers and trained scientists, or, perhaps better, a commis- 
 sioner who is experienced in farming, informed in econom- 
 ics, and trained scientifically, to any country in the world 
 that seems able to send us anything in the way of farm 
 products or domestic animals that will be of advantage to 
 us, with authority to buy, and directions to learn, whatever 
 would be of advantage to our agriculture. New Jersey has 
 recently imported fourteen Percheron and Clydesdale 
 horses to extend the breeding of these magnificent draught 
 horses among her people. Another state has sent one man 
 to Germany to study veterinary colleges, another to Den- 
 mark to study dairying, and a third to Argentina to inves- 
 tigate beef cattle. There are scores of similar subjects 
 which individuals cannot exploit because they do not know 
 what to do, or are without the money or the inclination to 
 engage in large undertakings. In such circumstances it is 
 clearly within the functions of the state to act. There is no 
 smack of paternalism or socialism about it. All good gov- 
 ernments do it in order to aid the industries of the people. 
 It involves no large amount of money, in view of the sums 
 to which states are accustomed. But it cannot be done by 
 agents who know little about it, or who are more con- 
 cerned about themselves than about the enduring inter- 
 ests of a great state. If honestly and capably done, the 
 sentiment of the state would cordially sustain it because 
 there would be sufficient assurance that whatever was 
 undertaken would be scientifically initiated and well and 
 wisely carried out. 
 
 There are perhaps three great fundamental factors in the 
 distributive wealth of a state; namely, natural resources. 
 
THE FARM AND THE SCHOOL 305 
 
 commercial situation, and the intelligence which puts 
 them to the very best use. The largest factor in natural 
 resources is doubtless the tillable soil. The things in the 
 life of a people which are of utmost and enduring worth 
 invariably come from Mother Earth. Manufactures are 
 dependent. Importations are uncertain. Toll may not 
 always be taken of the commerce that comes through both 
 our eastern and our western doors and is carried over our 
 highways. Mother Earth will never forsake and she will 
 never deceive us. Neither will she permit us to trifle with 
 her. One who cannot afford to lose, cannot afford to 
 speculate in uncertain and demoralizing crops any more 
 than in uncertain and demoralizing securities. Nor can he 
 afford to go on in the way which did well enough when we 
 were wholly an agricultural people, when children were 
 seasoned through doing their share of the work, when 
 books were few, and when the simple district school joined 
 with the work of the farm to support a simple, but none the 
 less noble, civilization. 
 
 And we shall be a witless, as well as a misguided people, 
 if we do not combine to ascertain from the reports of the 
 markets and the work of the laboratories what may be 
 done without much risk, and if we do not adjust ourselves 
 to the more complex, the more intelligent, and the better 
 life of our day in a way which will enable our properties 
 to get our share out of it. The farmhouse will have to have 
 the essential conveniences and connections of the city 
 house. The boys and girls will have to have the things 
 which they know other boys and girls have. The young 
 men and maidens will have to have a good time and be 
 able to find the ways for meeting their reasonable ambi- 
 tions. The shorter working day and all the better condi- 
 tions of labor will have to be reckoned with. The comfort, 
 and the enlightenment, and the moral betterment of all in 
 
306 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 the household will have to be sedulously studied and gener- 
 ously provided for. 
 
 Of course the social, and educational, and industrial 
 combination will give help to such as accord with it and are 
 capable of making use of its advantages, but the personal 
 equation will have to settle things upon each farm, and the 
 personal attributes of the individual farmer will have to 
 prevail. But while, no matter what the general level of 
 intelligence and sagacity, some will fail and complain, and 
 some will prosper and be happy, yet, there is no doubt 
 about the public attitude and the common undertakings 
 of a people being often vital to the progress of individual 
 men and women who deserve to prosper. 
 
Ill 
 
 PHYSICAL TRAINING AND ATHLETICS 
 
 The belief that physical training is entitled to only a sub- 
 ordinate place in omr scheme of popular education is cer- 
 tainly persistent, but assuredly that is not because of any 
 indifference to physical symmetry, strength, and skill, or 
 any doubt about the value of legitimate sport in rounding 
 out the characters of men and women. Nor is it associated 
 with any misgivings about the advantages which must flow 
 from the new and gratifying tendency to bring, so far as 
 there is any real call for it, field sports and the training of 
 the body, into some definite relations with the commonly 
 accepted work of the schools. 
 
 We know full well how a perfect body gives effectiveness 
 to moral impulses, and how a handsome man adds the 
 highest charms to a manly one. And we know, also, how 
 strength and suppleness balance minds, enlarge the re- 
 sources of the home, and steady the course of the state. 
 But we know, too, that the interdependence of the physical, 
 mental, and moral attributes is not even. We recognize the 
 attractiveness and the forcefulness of one in whom they are 
 balanced, but we ought not to fail to see that the intellectual 
 and moral faculties are not as helpless without the physical, 
 as the physical is repugnant without the intellectual and 
 the moral. A mere pugilist, even with the skill of his sense- 
 less art, is an offense to balanced men and women, while 
 some of the finest gifts which minds and hearts have 
 brought to the world have come from men and women who 
 had no charm of physique with which to sustain them. 
 
308 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 and no physical strength with which to bear them to the 
 unbeHeving. 
 
 Society need not do everything for its members, and it is 
 not bound to do all things in equal measure. Much must 
 be left to individuals, and on the whole, and in the long run, 
 the more that is left to individuals which they can do well, 
 the better. The strength of the American nation has per- 
 haps come from these two principles more than from all 
 else together ; namely, that we have assured to every child 
 the fundamentals of an education, and then put upon him 
 the burden of freedom, — a chance to make the best of 
 himself, or the responsibility of gravitating to the under- 
 side. 
 
 We may well invoke the doctrine of the simple official 
 and the simple administrative, as well as of the simple per- 
 sonal life. Officialism, the tendency to make more pub- 
 lic work and spend more public money, particularly in 
 view of the aggressive public spirit and of the abundant 
 prosperity and ample resources of this country, may well 
 be attended with some thought if not with some apprehen- 
 sion. Surely this is not an unreasonable suggestion in view 
 of the quite apparent enlargement of the demand for added 
 support from the state and the no less manifest willingness 
 to concede this by powerful and influential factors in the 
 state. Without assuming a too confident attitude upon all 
 the phases of a great political philosophy concerning which 
 the more advanced thinkers are but just feeling their way, 
 it cannot be too much to say that — in view of the enor- 
 mous cost of the public school system and the greater ex- 
 penditures that must surely follow — the men and women 
 of the schools had better not anticipate public opinion, 
 and the definite authority of the people, in adding any fea- 
 tures that are not clearly essential to a programme of work 
 which is already overloaded, to an administrative respon- 
 
PHYSICAL TRAINING AND ATHLETICS 309 
 
 sibility which is already overweighted, and to an expense 
 account which is already very long. 
 
 The schools are not lacking in essentials, and they are 
 likely to find more of them. A school may have some non- 
 essentials, but it should not unless the community is abun- 
 dantly able, and the people understand the matter thor- 
 oughly. If more things are to be added to the work of the 
 common schools, they should not be added by teachers, 
 or by ambitious superintendents, without ample discussion 
 and free approval by the people. Private schools may do 
 whatever their patrons will support. But the free and 
 state-enforced schools of the masses must assure to every 
 child such rudiments of knowledge as are necessary to his 
 free participation in free government and to his fair oppor- 
 tunity in the world. In all towns of any size in this country, 
 high schools form a consistent part of the public school 
 system. But the elementary schools will not be so good, 
 or the high schools so good or so universal, if in either 
 ease they are weighted beyond the means or the desires of 
 the community with burdens not integral to their generally 
 accepted plan. All beyond that must wait upon special 
 circumstances and the willing support of the people. 
 Happily, our American educational system is unique in the 
 flexibility and adaptiveness which afford opportunity to 
 special conditions and carry the schools along with the 
 intellectual advance. 
 
 Physical training is not one of the fundamental things 
 which the schools must everywhere provide. It is not as 
 needful to the making of the perfect man as either mental 
 or moral training. It is desirable, but one may do without 
 it better than without one of the others. The state leaves 
 the moral training, except so far as it is inevitably and inci- 
 dentally associated with the training of the mind, to the 
 home and the church, because the different denomina- 
 
310 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 tions of Christians do not agree upon how much or what 
 distinctly moral or religious training may be carried on by 
 the common schools. There is no such exception taken to 
 physical training. There is no objection to it on principle, 
 and therefore it is permissible and desirable in communi- 
 ties where public sentiment will sustain it. But it is not so 
 urgent anywhere as either the training of the mind or the 
 training of the conscience, because youth naturally helps 
 and promotes its physical self more than its mental or its 
 moral self. Very often its physical properties get on very 
 well indeed if left rather largely to themselves. 
 
 No form of indoor training can take the place of open- 
 air play in the elementary schools. Calisthenics are unob- 
 jectionable, but with little people they are no substitute for 
 natural play. Playgrounds may cost more, but they are 
 worth more. No matter what they cost, it is the business 
 of the public to provide them. Happy is the town which 
 provides them early when it can do it adequately. 
 
 If the buildings are hygienically pure, if there is sufficient 
 air space and sunlight, if the mechanical appliances and the 
 possibility of their refusing to work are kept at a minimum, 
 if the grounds are ample and dry, and if teachers are sane 
 about the relation of work and of freedom for children, 
 there need be no fear of lack of physical training in the 
 elementary schools. 
 
 This is not saying that special teachers who will quickly 
 see the special needs of multitudes of children in the city 
 schools and who will aid the class teachers to see the need 
 of artificial exercise, which must often be substituted for 
 real work or natural play, are not desirable in large sys- 
 tems of schools; but the special circumstances ought to 
 govern. 
 
 It is not necessary to discuss the advantages or disadvan- 
 tages of different systems of physical exercise. All have 
 
PHYSICAL TRAINING AND ATHLETICS 811 
 
 advantages and are practically beyond criticism. Adapta- 
 tion to conditions is the paramount and not very serious 
 question. Enthusiasts will not agree; it is their mission in 
 life to stand up for their own, and they generally do it well. 
 If we let them do that and give them their chance, they 
 ought to be content without expecting that we shall. let any 
 "system" own the schools. 
 
 Passing from the elementary up to the secondary schools, 
 we come upon a different situation, both as to the schools 
 and the pupils. The schools are likely to be almost exclu- 
 sively in congested districts. The pupils have outgrown 
 the kind of play that is best for them. They have become 
 more constrained and a trifle more conventional. They 
 resent leading strings, — and they know much that is not 
 so. They are at a critical stage in their bodily development. 
 They need less care but a little more guidance, sympa- 
 thetically and unostentatiously given. If the population is 
 not dense there is little trouble, for they get about all the 
 help they require in this connection in their ordinary work 
 and natural play, but in the centres of the cities this is hardly 
 true. In these centre gymnasiums are a necessity. There 
 is no doubt whatever of the advantage of regular work in 
 a gymnasium, both for young men and young women. If 
 they do not commence it at the high school age, they are 
 not likely to commence at all. 
 
 Whether the public high school should supply this de- 
 sirable addition to the opportunities of youth is not so 
 much a question of educational necessity as of neighbor- 
 hood feeling and expediency. Often there is no local need 
 for one, and no local appreciation of the uses of one. Often, 
 private enterprise or associated enthusiasm, like the Chris- 
 tian associations, the Turner societies, or the athletic clubs, 
 provides them. While the high schools are not bound to 
 provide them, still, if the deliberate sentiment of their con- 
 
312 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 stituencies will sustain them in doing so, it may be done 
 without invading any sound principle of the educational 
 system. The difficulty is that when one school does it the 
 others think they must, in order to be up to the times, and 
 they undertake it upon a basis which cannot succeed. A 
 gymnasium is worthless unless thoroughly equipped and 
 made inviting, and unless managed by specialists who are 
 themselves not only able to use the apparatus in attractive 
 ways, but are also sympathetic and inspiring teachers. 
 Gymnasium work will be without result unless very regular 
 and very persistent. With all these it will afford splendid 
 results. Without a ready and popular support and a clear 
 understanding of all the conditions which alone can assure 
 results worth the while, it is safe to say that the establish- 
 ment of a gymnasium in a secondary school is a move not 
 to be encouraged. It must at all times be had in mind that 
 so long as pupils live at home there are some things con- 
 cerning them which may well be left to the homes to see to. 
 
 When we come to the colleges and universities the condi- 
 tions are again different. The students are away from 
 home, with all that implies. Much closer mental applica- 
 tion is exacted. The need of regular exercise is much 
 ignored. Youngsters dare fate senselessly when they are 
 free to do so, and in college they are likely to come into a 
 larger freedom for the first time. The need of a complete 
 gymnasium with ample instruction and required attend- 
 ance, at least in the freshman or the freshman and sopho- 
 more years, is manifest enough. Here gymnasiums are 
 both necessary and practicable. Ready and sensible medi- 
 cal supervision of all the students and of all the affairs of the 
 institution is also very desirable. 
 
 The physical training of a whole body of students evenly 
 is better than the training of a few elaborately. But inevit- 
 ably some will excel, and such will have special ambitions, 
 
PHYSICAL TRAINING AND ATHLETICS 313 
 
 and they will gain special attention. Good rivalries will 
 ensue, not only between individuals in the same institution, 
 but between experts in different institutions. Then, of 
 course, there will be the utmost effort and the most exact 
 and complete preparation. 
 
 Reference is not now made to sports or games or to 
 "team work" at all, but to the strength, endurance, and 
 skill of the individual man and to competitions where they 
 are put to their highest tests. They are wholesome and 
 quickening in every way, — nothing short of a spur to the 
 schoolboys and an inspiration to the educated manhood 
 of the country. Even if the notable contests are narrowed 
 down to a few men in any one year, the opportunities are 
 open to all, and very large numbers get the uplift which 
 goes with them. The conditions of the competition are well 
 settled, the management is exact, and the opportunities for 
 frauds are very slight and the temptations hardly percep- 
 tible. The boys manage these contests themselves, and 
 beyond all doubt they manage them upon a plane so high 
 that it ennobles the managers, pleases the contestants, and 
 satisfies all. The uncertainties do not invite betting. The 
 disappointments are not deep. All honor the victor, and 
 none more than his closest competitors, for none know the 
 cost of the triumph so well as they. If the achievement 
 is noteworthy, it is at once known in every part of the 
 country. 
 
 The English say that we strive especially for the records 
 rather than to gain them from normal work ; that we concen- 
 trate supreme effort on a few, instead of getting the benefits 
 of the work for all ; and that we almost lose the point of 
 physical training altogether. They must say something, 
 and it must be admitted that there is something in what 
 they say. But our way is the American way and theirs the 
 English way, and we are both getting on very well, — and 
 
314 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 we are all glad that we are getting on so well together. 
 We are each likely to tell the other much that it is very 
 desirable to know. 
 
 The intense application and the long and exact special 
 training incident to these sharp contests seem to require 
 caution against " overtraining," or the development of some 
 part or function of the body at the expense of some other. 
 There is danger enough of this to claim educated and expe- 
 rienced oversight. Aside from the possibility of this there 
 seems to be nothing hurtful to the participants or demoral- 
 izing to the student body from this high grade physical 
 work, or from the ensuing contests. 
 
 The distinction between physical training and " ath- 
 letics" seems to lie between indoor and outdoor work; 
 between what institutions do for students and what stu- 
 dents do for themselves ; between work performed to keep 
 health and promote strength, and sport for the excitement 
 and fun that are in it; and between the work of an indi- 
 vidual and that of a "team." 
 
 Any criticism brought against physical work in the 
 schools is stirred by these team contests. No matter how 
 many it takes to make a team, it takes thousands and more 
 to make a game. The crowds of fervid partisans on either 
 side; the banners and streamers and songs and horns and 
 calls and yells and yell-captains; the officials and coaches 
 and trainers and doctors and rubbers and bottle bearers 
 and scrubs and athletic statesmen, must all supplement 
 the teams which struggle for the mastery and for the pres- 
 tige of their universities, in order to have a game. There 
 are some who dislike all this. If you are out for fun it is 
 quite as well to have it. The men who know little about it 
 are able to find enough to criticise. Old men, who never 
 thumped one another when boys, are apt to be against it. 
 Boys who do embroidery work while their mothers read 
 
PHYSICAL TRAINING AND ATHLETICS 315 
 
 poetry to them, men who want a fire engine or a lifeboat 
 to slow down for fear something might break, without 
 seeing that something must break if it does slow down, and 
 men who hug the constitutional negatives after the council 
 is over and the bugles have sounded the advance which 
 must enforce the constitutional commands or save the 
 constitution itself, are hardly likely to be in love with 
 games which turn upon strength, force, nerve, sense, and 
 skill. 
 
 But the American crowd likes them. Training has to be 
 sustained, perhaps required. The strenuous games attract 
 the multitude, perhaps in a measure which has some perils 
 in it. The fact that the crowd likes them is not against 
 them. The common feelings are not necessarily all wrong. 
 The crucifixion of the flesh, the breaking of the spirit, have 
 no part in modern ethics and no share in twentieth-cen- 
 tury teaching. The fair questions are: Are these great 
 games fraught with unpreventable evils which outweigh 
 any good they may have ? Are they on the whole good, or 
 bad, for the youth of the country? And, what ought to 
 be the attitude of the college concerning them ? 
 
 We would meet these questions squarely. To do that we 
 must face the exact criticism and focus the discussion. 
 Baseball is a natural college game. It is open, and all may 
 see all that occurs. It is not so technical that people who 
 follow ordinary pursuits cannot understand it. It is rela- 
 tively free from dangers, and while it attracts the throng it 
 is not encompassed by many temptations. It comes in the 
 spring when there must naturally have been almost a year 
 of residence in college. Rowing has many good features 
 and not many bad ones. It seems to encourage gambling in 
 some measure, but otherwise is mostly beyond criticism. 
 Tennis is ideal, but many young men want heavier work. 
 Golf is hardly a college game ; it has been said that it is a 
 
816 AlVIERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 state of the social mind. The game which holds the centre 
 of the stage in the fall and draws all the criticism is football. 
 It has more ins with more outs than any other college game 
 invented. The troubles with it are not in the high schools, 
 unless it is in the influence of the college game upon them. 
 If there is trouble, it is in the college game itself, in the con- 
 sequences to college boys, and the general bearing of the 
 game upon the thought and feeling of the country. 
 Pointedly, these are the criticisms on football : — 
 
 (1) That the game is dangerous and exhausting. 
 
 (2) That the 'varsity teams do not represent the bodies 
 for which they stand. 
 
 (3) That the game makes heroes of men who have no 
 right to the commendation of a democracy of learning. 
 
 (4) That men who give the time and energy required 
 in successful football cannot maintain positions as good 
 students. 
 
 (5) That the coaching system is vicious, training men to 
 evade the rules when that will aid success. 
 
 (6) That the greater part of the game cannot be seen 
 by spectators, and that this aids the evasion of the rules, 
 and worse; that it encourages real battle rather than 
 open manliness and a chivalrous spirit on the part of the 
 players. 
 
 (7) That it induces connivance on the part of students 
 and graduates, on the part of the sporting element in the 
 community in larger measure, and on the part of college 
 authorities in some measure, to get men who can play a 
 strong game by paying them for it in one way or another, 
 and without reference to their standing in college or their 
 right to admission at all. 
 
 (8) That it is too expensive for sport, and gathers more 
 money than ought to be under the control of students, and 
 that the game turns on factors which money brings into it. 
 
PHYSICAL TRAINING AND ATHLETICS 317 
 
 and therefore that it does not afford a fair basis for inter- 
 collegiate contests. 
 
 (9) That it breeds a good deal of loafing, gaming, and 
 drinking, and does not make for educational effectiveness 
 and sound living. 
 
 (10) That success is such a factor in college prestige and 
 university preeminence, that the popularity of the game is 
 so general, the pleasures of university triumphs so delight- 
 ful, the meaning to youngsters who are yet to go to college 
 so significant, that the authorities fall short in courage to 
 deal with the evils of it, and that these are degrading to the 
 student life of the whole country. 
 
 Some will deny the facts or the reasonableness of the 
 objections, but the facts are not overstated, nor is much of 
 this criticism without reason. It may well be surmised that 
 the game cannot endure as a college sport unless such seri- 
 ous evils as common knowledge associates with it are ad- 
 mitted and corrected. If that is done, it must be by the 
 men who manage or are responsible for it. 
 
 Some evidences have reached the public of unmistakable 
 fraud in getting and keeping men on the teams who are in 
 college for nothing else. These evidences cannot be pre- 
 sented here, but they may be indicated. One of the leading 
 universities in the country is called upon to defend itself 
 against the charge, brought upon it through the course of 
 its athletic managers, that it has on its team a bruiser who 
 has made the round of three or four universities to play 
 in the game ; another, that it has a player who is a profes- 
 sional pugilist ; and a third, that its football team is largely 
 sustained through political and other jobs which thinly dis- 
 guise bribe money given to the players in order to keep 
 them in the university. That the atmosphere of the game 
 as now managed predisposes to gambling can hardly be 
 doubted by any one with his eyes open. 
 
318 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 The advantages of the game are undeniable. It makes 
 for pluck, nerve, endurance, self-control, and alertness in 
 emergencies. Fair students who are successful football 
 players are not only among the very best men in college, but 
 their promise of marked success in life is exceptionally 
 high. The game brings to many boys their first real ambi- 
 tion to do something better than others can do. It smells 
 of the ground and that is healthful, — physically and men- 
 tally healthful. Its influence upon the thought and life 
 of the players is quickening and steadying. It makes for 
 generalship and for organized effectiveness. American 
 football had something to do with the new method of fight- 
 ing and the new measure of energy and resourcefulness 
 shown by American boys at El Caney and San Juan, at 
 Manila and Santiago. Moreover, it is exhilarating and in- 
 vigorating, and it binds men together and develops class 
 feeling and college spirit through splendid cooperative 
 effort. It brings colleges to the fore in the thought of the 
 masses. And it takes the conceit out of boys, and in many 
 ways makes for genuineness in living. On the whole, it 
 goes as far as anything else in the universities to make their 
 thought square with the affairs of life, and to lead educated 
 men to the places of the most decisive consequence in the 
 concerns of a great people. 
 
 It is all this which makes the game so well worth fighting 
 for. But in the end it must be said that if these things are 
 to be gained at the expense of fifteen lives and many hun- 
 dred serious injuries in a season, or, worse yet, at the cost 
 of a widening spirit of lawlessness, the cost is too great, and 
 all these advantages will have to be foregone or gained in 
 some other way. 
 
 All true and pure sport capable of use for college contests 
 must be fought for. The better the sport the truer this is. 
 As it becomes exhilarating and popular, the larger and 
 
PHYSICAL TRAINING AND ATHLETICS 319 
 
 meaner are the barnacles which fasten upon it. But the 
 more quickening the struggle and the more uplifting the 
 spectacle, the more it is worth contending for. To the 
 young men and women who are in our universities, who 
 know not much of physical effort and practically nothing 
 of physical danger, there is more legitimate leaven which 
 makes for lives that can do things, in the rush and struggle, 
 the strategic assault and defense of a 'varsity football team 
 on a fall afternoon, than is brewed in a good percentage of 
 the college classrooms of the world in a semester. Then the 
 game is worth purging and saving. 
 
 The evils may be put out of it by authority. Students 
 may be expected to go as far in their excitement as the 
 authorities who are charged with the duty of regulating 
 their strenuosity and enthusiasm will allow. They will have 
 no difficulty in finding excuse for excesses which faculties 
 should see — but refuse to see. And with boys who have 
 the stuff in them the outlook is clear or cloudy, and moral 
 fibre becomes firm or flabby, as those to whom they look for 
 commendation or remonstrance or punishment give, or fail 
 to give, them what is their due. 
 
 Until all possibility of it disappears, the moral sense of 
 America should rebel against any view of college govern- 
 ment which leaves college boys to go to the bad without 
 much hindrance. The theory that all a professor has to 
 do is to be intellectually, or even unmorally scientific, may 
 prevail in some countries, but it should never be ac- 
 cepted here. Fathers and mothers who give their sons and 
 daughters over to any such intellectual leadership as that 
 deserve the distress which unrealized hopes are likely to 
 inflict upon them. It is not a question of college freedom. 
 Freedom is not license anywhere. Freedom is stainless. 
 There is no such thing as freedom to do wrong, in college 
 any more than in the state. The point of sport and of col- 
 
320 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 lege contests is lost if college faculties manage them. 
 Endow American sport or American college athletics and 
 you doubtless expel the soul and spirit from them. But 
 students must distinctly know that their management must 
 keep in step with good morals and in key with all the bene- 
 ficent ends for which colleges and universities exist. More 
 than the point of sport is lost if this is not so. 
 
 If in any case students run amuck, or get to running the 
 faculty amuck, the board would well install a new faculty, 
 and if they should be too much for faculty and board 
 together, parents would well withdraw their sons, bene- 
 factors would well withhold their gifts, affections would 
 well be placed somewhere else, and what is left would well 
 go down into the depths together. The right to have free 
 contests and exhilarating sports and the right to gain the 
 benefit of managing these for themselves is not to be con- 
 founded with the right to carry the college into unseemly 
 places, or to gamble under the name and colors and lights 
 of a university. Boys are to have freedom to manage col- 
 lege sports only when they realize that they are managing 
 for all, and when they manage in ways that hold out wel- 
 come to every honest man and bring no blush to any fair 
 and modest cheek. 
 
 But let it be repeated that where the wrongs come in, it 
 is less likely that they spring from student inclinations than 
 from official inefficiency. Students sustain a government 
 which governs. All they want to know is that it is strong 
 enough to govern, and that it is sane and sympathetic 
 enough to govern well. Whether or not tariffs are to be 
 regulated by their friends, it is surely true that boys are. 
 No man is much of a friend of boys who has forgotten 
 about being a boy, who cannot see things from the outlook 
 of the boy, or who cannot sympathize with the activities 
 in which every real boy must engage. 
 
PHYSICAL TRAINING AND ATHLETICS 321 
 
 A university president should not only have part in the 
 athletics because of his own interest, but he should use the 
 sports to make management easy. He should go to the 
 hurrah meetings as often as the crowd will welcome him, 
 and they will welcome him as often as he is genuine about 
 it. He should go down into the gymnasium pretty often, 
 and leave his shell in the sanctum. When the university 
 lines up for an issue, he should be with it. He should pay 
 his dollar and get into the crowd and yell for the flag, and 
 earn the right to have his word welcome at the athletic end 
 of the establishment. He should stand up for a student 
 management that is square and decent and right. But 
 he should hold the right against the time when it is needed 
 to bar out the vicious and temper the excesses; against 
 the time when it will bind all the parts together and keep 
 the whole upon the earth and rather near the middle of the 
 road. On suitable occasions he should try to speak the 
 word in the crowd which will marshal sentiment, set up 
 standards, and fix the pace. He should draw upon the 
 moral sense which is never lacking in a college throng, to 
 brace up the weak and cool off the heads that get unduly 
 heated. If, after that, the bad persist, he should join the 
 issue so squarely that in a little time the air will be clearer 
 and the outlook more encouraging, — or else the demon- 
 stration will be absolute that a new administration will be 
 a good thing to have. 
 
 There ought to be no difficulty about the university 
 managing the boys who manage the athletics, or settling 
 the tone and character of the athletic work. The authority 
 is as absolute as the responsibility is immediate. It is the 
 common law of the schools that their authority covers 
 everything that may aid their usefulness or stain their good 
 name. None can use the name or fly the flag of an institu- 
 tion without submitting to its direction, or else being posted 
 
322 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 as a fraud. Only a sincere and authoritative word to any 
 student should be sufficient. If students ever band together 
 to resist the deliberate word of college authority, it is not 
 altogether certain that they are wrong, but there is no pos- 
 sibility of doubt about the fact that they need a walloping 
 that will last a student generation and be handed down to 
 student generations which come after; or that the college 
 needs a government that can govern. But happily be it 
 said that such cases are so unusual as to be hardly in the 
 reckoning at all. 
 
 It is to be hoped that the great universities will serve the 
 good cause of physical prowess and strenuous sport in all 
 the schools by saving the game of football. If they request, 
 the rules will be changed so as to make the game more open 
 and attractive, less hazardous and unseemly, and so as to 
 make the maiming of an opponent under the pile impos- 
 sible. A university direction that none shall represent it in 
 an inter-university contest but a matriculated student who 
 has been in residence a year, would very nearly settle mat- 
 ters. The factors of a game are bound to square with the 
 honor of the university, and the management of the univer- 
 sity is bound to see that they do. The insistence that the 
 gate fees which are senselessly high, having amounted to 
 $60,000 at a single game, shall be at a rate which does not 
 discriminate against great numbers who love the sport and 
 want to follow the flag, would be a good preventive medi- 
 cine against a malady that is becoming too common and 
 serious in university life. If, beyond this, it might become 
 distinctly understood that there is nothing in common 
 between a university and a saloon, and that it is a crime in 
 the university, as it is in the state, for a boy to gamble on 
 university contests, about all the grounds for the criticism 
 would be removed. 
 
 If it be said that these measures would take the life and 
 
PHYSICAL TRAINING AND ATHLETICS 323 
 
 the interest out of the game, then the game ought to go. Any 
 game which is not consistent with full college work on the 
 part of the players ; any game which does not beget moral 
 character and true manliness on the part of the truest lovers 
 of sport ; any game which must be handed over completely 
 to professional coaches who use up boys to vindicate sys- 
 tems of coaching and who are strangers to the main and 
 enduring purposes of college life, will have to go. If the 
 enthusiasts are not on their guard, they will prove more 
 than they would wish. 
 
 College athletics comprehends the whole matter in all 
 the schools. Children imitate their seniors; the schools 
 below imitate the schools above. And they are more aggres- 
 sive in imitating the vices than the virtues. The high 
 schools and the little boys in the primary schools and the 
 kindergartens imitate the play and the sports of the col- 
 leges, and they copy the worst phases without appreciating 
 the best. With college athletics upon a sound footing mat- 
 ters are made easy for all the teachers and all the parents 
 of the country. The responsibility of college authorities 
 concerning the purity and influence of all play and sport, 
 of all games and contests, is obvious and weighty. The 
 better sentiment of the country should enforce the respon- 
 sibility. The colleges and universities will willingly re- 
 spond, but they need the support of insistent public sen- 
 timent. 
 
 All of the responsibility is not upon the colleges. The 
 extent to which students in the high schools are often 
 encouraged to seize upon a freedom which is only permis- 
 sible with older students, and to use it in dangerous ways, 
 is absurd. It seems to be going from athletics to organiza- 
 tions and activities of every kind. The responsibility of 
 boards of education and faculties is immediate and the 
 authority is absolute. It is needless to say that whatever 
 
324 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 involves the good name of the school, that whatever con- 
 cerns the moral sentiment of boys and girls, is to be dealt 
 with. 
 
 The following physical training and athletic creed may 
 be drawn from what has been indicated. But this, like all 
 creeds, will perhaps need rewriting now and then : — 
 
 (1) Work and play are vital to the growth of physical 
 symmetry, strength and skill, and the rounding out of the 
 perfect man. 
 
 (2) The more real the work and the more natural the 
 play, the better. 
 
 (3) Where these are lacking it is desirable to create 
 artificial means for supplying them. 
 
 (4) Mind, heart, and body are dependent upon one 
 another, but not equally dependent. 
 
 (5) Physical training is not to be counted among the 
 fundamentals or the essentials of the common school sys- 
 tem; it is not incompatible with that system: special cir- 
 cumstances are to determine whether the schools should 
 assume it. There is little call for it in the rural districts 
 and small towns, but more where the population is con- 
 gested and resources are ample. There is not much call for 
 it in the primary schools, but more in the advanced schools. 
 
 (6) The main business of the common elementary 
 schools is to initiate the correct use and expression of the 
 intellectual faculties, with such reference to moral sensi- 
 bilities as the regime of the system may impose and the 
 opportunities of teachers, with correct moral perspective, 
 will afford, and with such regard for health and balanced 
 physical development as sanitary schoolhouses and sane 
 teachers, with a little general assistance by special teachers, 
 in the cities, make practicable. 
 
 (7) In the secondary schools special facilities for physical 
 training, such as gymnasiums, are quite permissible, but 
 
PHYSICAL TRAINING AND ATHLETICS 325 
 
 here too the conditions of population and the neighborhood 
 feehng should govern, and nothing should be undertaken 
 without a good understanding of all that is involved, or 
 without carrying out all that is attempted in good form and 
 completely. 
 
 (8) In the advanced institutions physical training is 
 practicable, should be provided for, and, generally speak- 
 ing, may well be required. 
 
 (9) Contests of strength, endurance, and skill between 
 indi\'iduals are desirable. 
 
 (10) The lowering of records is a distinctly laudable 
 ambition, because of the bearing of individual accomplish- 
 ment upon all concerned, but the highest consideration is 
 the growth of physical proficiency in the multitude. 
 
 (11) Team contests have a more distinctly invigorating 
 influence upon students and upon the common thought of 
 the country than individual contests, but are encompassed 
 with corrupting tendencies which demand the alert over- 
 sight and more decisive protection of competent authority. 
 
 (12) Students are to manage student contests, but only 
 when the management is thoroughly compatible with the 
 ideals of the institutions represented. There is no school 
 freedom not consistent with the ends for which schools 
 stand. 
 
 (13) An institution dishonors itself when it permits one 
 not a regular and genuine student to represent it. 
 
 (14) Any physical work or contest incompatible with 
 regular student work bears heavily upon a few and dis- 
 credits all the serious work of an institution. 
 
 (15) A system of coaching which cares nothing for the 
 man who is a factor in a game, which stops at no method, 
 which cares only for success and for the prestige of a pro- 
 fessional coach, and which is not representative of the 
 honor of an institution, is vicious and intolerable. 
 
S26 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 (16) A contest between educational institutions must be 
 free from features which make for profligacy or corruption. 
 
 (17) The use of athletics to advertise an institution is 
 reprehensible. 
 
 (18) No sport can stand for an institution which, by 
 reason of the large gate fees, bars out (or ought to) a large 
 percentage of the constituency of the institution who want 
 to be present at its contests. 
 
 (19) The friends of college sport will have to fight for its 
 integrity, and the more inspiring it is the more the barnacles 
 of society will seize upon it and the more true manliness 
 ought to contend for it. 
 
 (20) Physical exercise and open-air play are very great 
 factors in the development of men and in the evolution of 
 the social health of a people. Educational administration 
 should make use of them, and should be held responsible 
 for keeping them clean and making the most of them. In 
 the athletics of the school system as in everything else 
 associated with the schools, the government of the schools 
 is bound to govern. 
 
IV 
 
 PUBLIC MORALS AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS 
 
 It is being asserted, with some persistence, that in recent 
 years there has been a letting down of the moral plane 
 among the people of the United States. It is being bruited 
 about that our moral sense in later years is less acute than 
 in the earlier years of our country, and that the moral 
 standards of America are less exact than those of other 
 countries. 
 
 Those who say this are quick to attribute the cause to 
 the absence of religious instruction in the common or tax- 
 supported schools. The charge has been given new point 
 since the state universities have grown so great. 
 
 It is a serious charge from a quarter which, of course, 
 has our entire respect. If the moral sensibilities of our peo- 
 ple are less pervasive and acute than those of other peoples 
 are, or than those of our fathers were, our religious teach- 
 ers and others would be derelict if they did not protest. 
 If they also think that this is because of the non-sectarian 
 character of the schools, they ought to say so. But be- 
 fore saying that, they ought to realize that they will be 
 discredited in that public opinion of the country which 
 is above every sect, if their belief in the decadence of 
 morals is not justified. And they ought not to fail to 
 see that if there is such moral depression as they think 
 they see, and if it is due to the cause they assert it is, it 
 proves nothing short of the break down of the political 
 philosophy and institutions of the Republic. 
 
 The thing goes to the very foundations of the splendid 
 and costly temple in which the people of the United States 
 
328 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 live, and which they have erected in the behef that it would 
 not only give them shelter and security, but also oppor- 
 tunity to develop the purest and highest type of Christian 
 civilization ever conceived by the heart and mind of man. 
 There is the possibility that all the people who have 
 had part in the building of this house may have been in 
 error, that the lives which have been lost and the sorrows 
 which have been endured in the making of it have been 
 in vain; but an educated man, who must be assumed 
 to know something of political and religious history, who 
 may be expected to put a just valuation upon political 
 equality and religious freedom, is bound to feel the re- 
 sponsibility, and the solemnity, and the vital necessity 
 of such a charge, before asserting that the schools are re- 
 sponsible for our present moral standards, and that those 
 standards are lower than they used to be. If a teacher, 
 or a leader of religious teachers, is free to make it, leaders 
 of lesser weight will be free to follow, and many of the peo- 
 ple may be free to believe it. Doubtless all this has been 
 considered. 
 
 We must either ignore this charge, or examine it rather 
 critically. It does not comport with our regard for the 
 good intentions, and the piety of those who make it, to 
 ignore it. It may be examined without anger, and it ought 
 to be discussed without giving offense. A government 
 which makes for irreligion is a mistake. We make here 
 no fine distinctions between religion and morals. No 
 matter what incidental advantages there may be in such 
 a government, they cannot be sufiiciently compensatory. 
 But the founders of this government did not imagine that 
 they were setting up such a government as that. They 
 were religionists of the severest type. They had fled from 
 other lands that they might be free from governments 
 which governed in the name of religion, but yet took 
 
PUBLIC MORALS AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS 329 
 
 away all religious freedom. The governments they had 
 left behind them made them know that there must be a 
 new plan before there could be more freedom. 
 
 The men who framed the national and the state consti- 
 tutions of this country saw, and the results enable us to see 
 it even more clearly than they, that the vitality of a state 
 depends upon moral freedom, and that moral freedom 
 depends upon opportunity without interference by the 
 state. But they saw also that the self-interests of men, 
 the urgency of theorists, the ambitions of human organ- 
 ization assuming to move in the name of God, are men- 
 acing to the freedom of a state. Therefore, when they 
 framed the first constitutions that had ever been re- 
 duced to written form for a people, they wrote it large 
 and plain that religion should be encouraged, that prefer- 
 ment in or exclusion from the state should depend upon 
 no particular rehgious belief, that there should be com- 
 plete separation between church and state, and that all the 
 people should have equality of right and opportunity under 
 the law. They thought they were laying foundations which 
 could sustain all manner of civic institutions for enlarging 
 the opportunities of men, and that they were opening the 
 way for a larger and freer stream of that human feeling 
 which is the sum and substance of moral character and 
 religious life. 
 
 Religion is inherent in men and women. Freedom of 
 thought and of the expression of it is a vital factor in it. 
 Where the attempt has been made to suppress it, or control 
 the form in which it should be expressed, there has been 
 sharp resistance. Wherever the attempt has been im- 
 posed upon men of Caucasian blood it has failed. For this 
 reason all governments for or over educated people which 
 have not had a large measure of democracy have failed. It 
 has been not so much because men wanted to govern, as be- 
 
330 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 cause faith would not be bound. Of course, there are mo- 
 narchial governments that have not failed. But there is no 
 government that has not permitted an advance in educa- 
 tional opportunity and religious freedom, that has not re- 
 cognized the rights of men and bent to the political power of 
 the plain people, which is not breaking down. Our gov- 
 ernment has succeeded so strongly because it was the first 
 to see all this. It was not only all provided for in the con- 
 stitutions, but it was amply provided that nothing could 
 come in to interfere with it. In working out these provi- 
 sions we have rapidly grown to be a mighty people ; but 
 that is of no avail if we have grown to be an unmoral 
 people. 
 
 The founders of the Republic had reason enough to 
 fear a state buttressed by the deep religious feeling of a 
 church, and a church which could call to its aid the political 
 and military power of a state. They knew full well that 
 the worst blots upon the great page of human history were 
 there by reason of things done falsely in the name of re- 
 ligion, but with the sanction of a church. Our Dutch 
 forefathers had had part in the world's first and greatest 
 war for religious and political freedom in the Netherlands. 
 Our English forefathers had been hunted out of Britain 
 for refusing to let the combined state and church bind 
 their thinking and fix their ways of worship. And the 
 builders of this nation had come from every people under 
 the sun for nothing but to escape the political and religious 
 limitations of old systems, and to enter into the larger 
 liberty of the land where the state may govern without 
 cant, and religion go forward unhampered by the self- 
 interest of any leaders of the state. 
 
 We have not only inherited religious feeling, but we have 
 inherited Christianity. We have not only inherited Chris- 
 tianity, but under the plan of government which our fathers 
 
PUBLIC MORALS AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS 331 
 
 set up, we have enlarged it. We are neither going back 
 to Confucianism, nor are we searching for a new reUgion. 
 Christianity has always made for human progress above 
 all the forces which have come into human life. It is not 
 the only religion. It is not the only one permitted here. 
 But it is overwhelmingly the religion of the United States. 
 It is in our feeling and in our thinking. We set apart one 
 day of the week in recognition of it. It is in almost every 
 verse of our poetry. We proclaim it in our sorrow and in 
 our thanksgiving. It is diffused in all our institutions. It is 
 invoked on all public occasions. Democracy is the best 
 and the greatest expression of the Golden Rule, and the 
 Golden Rule is the gist and essence of kinship with God. 
 This thing is the warp and woof of our laws. It is recog- 
 nized in all of our great state papers. Magna Charta, the 
 Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confedera- 
 tion, the federal Constitution, the constitutions of all the 
 states, proclaim it. Washington avowed it in his Farewell 
 Address, and Lincoln departed from his manuscript at 
 Gettysburg to introduce the words "under God" into 
 the prayer "that this nation, under God, shall have a new 
 birth of free/lorn, and that government of the people, by 
 the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." 
 When the words "In God we trust" were removed from 
 our coins, the protest of the people restored them. 
 
 Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just, 
 And this be our motto: "In God is our trust." 
 
 In the constitutional convention of our little ward, the 
 island of Cuba, the most violent discussion of the entire 
 convention was provoked by the motion to strike out the 
 provision concerning God and the freedom of religion, 
 and the most overwhelming vote cast in the convention 
 retained it. We had transmitted a lesson. No representa- 
 
332 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 tive man or assemblage sitting under the flag of the United 
 States has ever had the hardihood to dispute or even ignore 
 this fundamental basis of our social and legal systems. 
 
 Our scheme of popular education is the logical and 
 necessary accompaniment of a plan of political govern- 
 ment based upon freedom of feeling, and thinking, and 
 acting. If religion enters into the making and the mainte- 
 nance of the American nation and the several states, it 
 enters into the schools of the country. The schools are 
 the creations of the states. They came into being by the 
 exercise of the sovereign political power of taxation. They 
 could come in no other way, for they rest upon precisely 
 the same basis as the state. If the state were to be over- 
 thrown, the schools would fall. They are not only the 
 opportunity of the citizen, they are the safety of the state. 
 If the schools were to cease, the state would come to an 
 end. If all of the training were to be in sectarian schools, 
 the differences in the state might be expected to be as sharp 
 as the differences among the sects. Differences among 
 the sects are not very serious when a sect carries no sword, 
 but such differences in the state might once again become 
 very dangerous. And so, if the sects cannot be recognized 
 in the state, they cannot be in the schools. 
 
 But religion and sectarianism are very different things, 
 and religion may enter into an American state and its 
 schools, when a church or a sect may not. If the perfervid 
 denominationalists do not see that, all the other people do. 
 And the other people are vastly in the majority. Religion 
 is the outflowing of the soul to a Supreme Being, with all 
 that this implies. A church is a human creation to pro- 
 mote religious ends. Denominationalism rests upon one 
 or another system of philosophy; that is, of human reason- 
 ing, concerning religion. Of course, these philosophies 
 are entitled to great regard, for they have come from great 
 
PUBLIC MORALS AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS 333 
 
 minds, have stood hard tests, have gathered many disciples, 
 and accompUshed large results. They have been the vehi- 
 cles for carrying religion to the millions. But because it has 
 become clear enough that it is bad, both for the state and 
 the church, for a state to be mixed up with a church, — 
 even a good church, — it is not in the possibilities that a 
 democratic state can be without, or can fail to sustain, 
 religious culture. God goes where He will. 
 
 Religion is not barred from the schools, except when 
 the leaders of the sects refuse to put religion above sec- 
 tarianism, and refuse to go where they cannot propagate 
 the particular tenets of their denomination, or except as 
 denominationalists object to any expression of religion in 
 the schools unless it be their own. The state does not 
 object to the reading of the Bible in the schools. The 
 legislative charter of the greatest city of the country even 
 provides that it shall be done. The reading of the Bible 
 was formerly very common in all the schools, and there 
 is reason to think that it is more common now than many 
 suppose. Doubtless this is the practice in all our state 
 universities, and in nearly all the high schools. If it is less 
 common than formerly, it is because religious people have 
 objected to its being read by any but themselves, because 
 of their fear that it would be done in ways or accompanied 
 by expressions which would be inimical to their particular 
 sectarian doctrines and interests. But while religion in the 
 school might be helped by formal religious exercises, it is 
 not suppressed by the omission of them. Religious feeling 
 and culture are as inherent in the school as in the state, 
 and if one form of expression is barred there will be others. 
 
 There have been others. We have not suppressed or 
 lessened the religion or the Christianity we have inher- 
 ited; we have expanded and enriched it. We have done 
 it by distinguishing it from sectarianism. We have done 
 
334 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 it by putting it above sects, above a human organization 
 called a clLurch, above an intellectual philosophy called 
 theology, and above a platform grown old called a creed. 
 Religious expression may even be freer and richer in unde- 
 nominational than in denominational institutions of higher 
 learning, because discussion will be rife and free under 
 the roof of a university, because there can be no sectarian 
 limitation upon freedom of feeling and opinion, and be- 
 cause there can be no formalism and no venerated doctrine 
 in the way of the pervasive and progressive power of God. 
 
 Parenthetically, let it be said that this does not imply 
 any disparagement of or disbelief in denominationalism. 
 Sectarianism is important, but not of the highest impor- 
 tance. It is itself the product of freedom, and it has en- 
 larged freedom. It has kept and is keeping the beacon 
 fires burning. It is to be sustained, but not taken too seri- 
 ously. It is a means, not the end. It was the logical result 
 of religious persecution, but it is not a thing to die for 
 when there is no persecution. Perhaps one of the divine 
 ends of the denominational system is toleration, that reli- 
 gious toleration which is the groundwork of our American 
 civilization. Possibly that may make us the most mutually 
 helpful and the most genuinely religious people in the 
 world. 
 
 And let no word here be construed into adverse com- 
 ment upon such manifestations of sectarianism as parochial 
 schools or Christian colleges. There were reasons enough 
 for them, and the fruits which they have borne claim the 
 greatest respect. Their work often claims the highest 
 commendation. There will always be enough for them to 
 do. No one opposes their continuance, and all wish them 
 well. In many cases they preceded the ample provision 
 for education made by the state or its sub-divisions; often 
 they fill a place which would otherwise be vacant; com- 
 
PUBLIC MORALS AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS 335 
 
 monly the state owes them a debt which can never be paid. 
 It is to be regretted that we cannot come to agreement 
 upon some basis of popular education and reUgious culture 
 which would be repugnant to none, and which would 
 relieve the denominations and the churches from the effort 
 and expense for instruction that the most forceful of them 
 feel bound to make. And we should stand always ready 
 to take any step not inconsistent with our fundamental 
 plan which will contribute to that end. 
 
 Allowance should be made for the differing points of 
 view. Any scarcity of candidates for the Christian min- 
 istry is not due to "godless state universities," which in 
 the nature of things cannot be godless. The democratic 
 university was destined to come in any event, and is one 
 of the logical products and instruments of a great civiliza- 
 tion; and the civilization which has brought it forth is 
 one of the most remarkable in all human history. All 
 should join in making the non-sectarian schools just as 
 religious as possible, believing that the prosperity of every 
 higher institution of learning will add to the prosperity 
 of every other which tries unselfishly to promote the com- 
 mon good of men. 
 
 But now to the question which has been too long de- 
 layed. Have we been retrograding in morals ? We have 
 been progressing in every other way. All manner of people 
 keep coming to us in ever increasing numbers. We have 
 always feared that they might make self - government 
 unsafe. But they have not ; we have assimilated them. De- 
 mocracy is stronger than it ever was. We have been mak- 
 ing intellectual progress. The United States is accumulat- 
 ing a fine literature, and is now carrying on the greatest 
 publishing business in the world. We have forged ahead 
 industrially, and we are beginning to conserve resources 
 and apply science to our industries. And we have been 
 
336 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 making political progress too. The understanding of pub- 
 lic questions grows clearer and more universal, and the 
 voting of the people more intelligent. The moral right was 
 never more splendidly asserted in public life, and the issue 
 of political contests was never to be relied upon more con- 
 fidently than now. While all this has been going on, have 
 we been growing morally obtuse and degenerate? There 
 is nothing to signify it. One who is frightened about 
 that has hardly read the literature of the times with a 
 student's care. We are surely none too good, but that 
 there has been any general breaking down of moral sense, 
 any increase in the ratio of crimes or of little meannesses 
 out of proportion to the increase of population, appears 
 to be without evidence and against the evidence. 
 
 Of course, we have more people to govern. Certainly, 
 they are not as homogeneous as the people used to be. 
 This throng not only has to be governed, but the governing 
 must be done by and through themselves. It is harder for 
 ninety millions than for nine millions to govern them- 
 selves. We have more crimes of every kind because there 
 are more people, just as we have more accidents because 
 there are more railroads. It is hard to keep our criminal 
 laws and our judicial procedure up to the needs of such 
 a rapidly growing population and of a civilization that 
 quickly becomes more and more complex. 
 
 While the people have increased twenty-fold, the oppor- 
 tunities and the temptations for wrong have increased a 
 hundred-fold. We have more banks and more embezzle- 
 ments than we used to have, but every banker in the land 
 knows that the measure of integrity among the officers and 
 employees of banks has steadily advanced; and all the 
 world ought to know that the moral fibre of the men whose 
 business it is to handle money is infinitely stronger than 
 that of those whose energies are directed into other fields. 
 
PUBLIC MORALS AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS 337 
 
 Undoubtedly our vast mining, and manufacturing, and 
 transportation industries have produced some very artistic 
 scoundrelism, and the influence upon the plain people, 
 and certainly upon the very poor, is bad; but it looks as 
 though the excrescences incident to new and great under- 
 takings were being brought to the level of right and to the 
 bar of the law. 
 
 The standards which ought to be applied to new situa- 
 tions are becoming more clearly understood and more 
 firmly established, and the demand for their enforcement 
 is one which no public officer dare trifle with. And on the 
 whole, munificence outruns meanness, and the purpose 
 to be a decent citizen and of some real use in the world 
 was never stronger or more pointed than it is now being 
 made in this country by the leveling and inspiring influence 
 of American public opinion. 
 
 We ought not to forget either that we know more, at 
 least we read more, of the badness than of the goodness 
 that is among us, because the newspapers find it more 
 profitable to publish it, and the newspapers are in every 
 hand. But every one knows that there is infinitely more 
 goodness than badness in the crowd, and it is by no means 
 certain that the laying bare of what is wrong does not 
 develop the purpose to punish it, rather than the disposi- 
 tion to participate in it. 
 
 Men and women are the creatures of environment and 
 of work, and the character of a whole people is marvel- 
 ously influenced by the institutions under which they live 
 and the privileges which they become accustomed to ex- 
 ercise. No one can fail to know that this is the land of 
 opportunity, and few can fail to see that people are up- 
 lifted by doing things; and the percentage of those who 
 degenerate or amount to nothing is smaller than it would 
 be without the freedom of opportunity and the prizes and 
 
338 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 responsibilities which accompany results. This is a poor 
 country for one who believes that people must be kept 
 from the activities and temptations of life to build character 
 aright. It is a good country for those who have confidence 
 in the qualities which God has implanted in human nature, 
 and are not apprehensive about the evolution of those 
 qualities to their logical possibilities. 
 
 With tolerance as the groundwork of our American life, 
 our judgment of personal conduct has become less severe. 
 There is reason enough to believe that it has become more 
 just. We have come to admit the good, as well as the bad, 
 in men whose lives do not move in the same grooves as 
 our own, and of whose habits we are often bound to dis- 
 approve. 
 
 Our standards change, but the change does not imperil 
 the moral situation. Surely we see some things a little more 
 clearly than our good fathers did, and let us not forget 
 that we see them more clearly because the progress of our 
 country has clarified the atmosphere through which we 
 have to look. 
 
 It must be admitted that the police power is not exer- 
 cised in this country as in the older countries which main- 
 tain large armies, have many great cities, and are thor- 
 oughly accustomed to the constant and harsh rule of the 
 military and the police. We are fretted by the delays in 
 the execution of laws which can hardly keep pace with 
 advances in population and the multiplying complexities 
 of our civilization; but we want no standing army except 
 to meet necessities for protection against insurrection, and 
 no police system which is not keyed to the spirit of the 
 country. The popular confidence in democratic govern- 
 ment is absolute, and wherever there is any real exigency 
 the resources of the country prove equal to it. 
 
 The liberalizing which has been going on generally has 
 
PUBLIC MORALS AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS 339 
 
 of course extended to the children and to the schools. 
 There is less control in the schools. A liberalized phi- 
 losophy of education may have gone to extremes. It is to 
 be feared that children are less respectful and obedient 
 than was once the case. They, too, partake of what goes 
 on about them, but of the good as well as of the bad ; and 
 as they advance in years the most of them get more of 
 the good than the bad. On the whole, however, children 
 live more rational lives; the influences of intellectual cul- 
 ture have marvelously augmented ; there is a wider range 
 of healthful sports; there are less whining and sniveling; 
 the value of work is taught. Every influence of the school is 
 distinctly moral, and children are made to know, just as 
 well as they can know, what are the conditions of success 
 and of gaining respect in the world. Even though the 
 superficial faults are more manifest, are not the funda- 
 mental virtues more sure ? 
 
 And, whether or not morals are better or worse than 
 they used to be, when was it determined that the homes 
 and the churches might shift to the schools the responsi- 
 bility for a distinct moral and religious training ? There is 
 some reason for believing that, in general, parents are more 
 derelict than teachers about the conduct of children ; and 
 if there is any reason to fear that the work of some of the 
 churches is less vitalizing and controlling than it might be, 
 it is desirable that a frank and searching analysis of the 
 reasons should be made by those who are in a situation 
 to make it. 
 
 The schools do not dictate our policies ; they follow them. 
 They do not determine our civilization ; they respond to it. 
 The public schools are certainly secular. They must avoid 
 sectarian contentions, and church distinctions, and the 
 mere theology about which religious scholars often indulge 
 in combat for their intellectual health. But the schools 
 
340 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 cannot avoid the enforcement of moral conduct, the ex- 
 empHfication of the basis of correct hving, and the exploi- 
 tation of religious principles. They will go as far in this 
 as they are allowed to go. And they ought to be able to 
 go a long way without invading the exclusive domain of 
 the religious denominations. 
 
 Let the Bible be read in the schools and let songs of 
 praise be sung, until some external authority forbids. Let 
 the schools be a little more forceful in control, and a little 
 more specific in commanding obedience and respect. Let 
 them seek with new earnestness to create motive in the 
 mind of the child. Let them accentuate the vital need of 
 work which rests upon men and women ; and the vital im- 
 portance of their lending a hand to others and giving ser- 
 vice to the village and the city, the state and the nation. Let 
 them never forget that there can be no real strength, either 
 moral or physical, without the opportunity to do, and 
 without both doing what is rational and right and resisting 
 what is senseless or wrong. And let them realize, more 
 and more keenly, that the way to put all this into the 
 hearts and heads of children is by the teachers thinking it, 
 and by the schools acting upon it themselves. Above all, 
 let it be remembered that character must go with intelli- 
 gence, and that character is not a mere matter of form, but 
 a drawing out of the spirit into helpful relations with the 
 world. 
 
 All are but parts of one stupendous whole 
 Whose body nature is, and God the soul. 
 
 And whatever the schools do, let them do it with a pur- 
 pose to give no offense to any whose thought and outlook 
 are not exactly like their own. 
 
 All manner of schools, of every kind and under all aus- 
 pices, constitute the educational system of America. That 
 system is the freest and the most flexible and adaptable 
 
PUBLIC MORALS AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS 341 
 
 of the educational systems of the world. It is developing 
 broad and strong scholarship. Its doors swing to every 
 one. It is showing what a people can do for their own 
 advancement, and what it has already done is the best 
 proof of what it yet can do. 
 
 There is no ground for apprehension. We have a sense 
 of humor and the courage of our convictions. We are devel- 
 oping institutions to promote our every thought. There is 
 overwhelming good, unmeasured progress, and little that 
 is bad, in our laws and institutions. We inherited much 
 from the mother country, and we have gathered much from 
 all countries; but we have done more for ourselves than 
 any other land ever did for us. And, "We, the people," 
 have done it. No monarch, no sect, no professional or 
 other class, has either been asked to permit or allowed to 
 limit us in doing it. The Declaration of Independence 
 and the Articles of Confederation declared in the name 
 of the states; but in the Constitution "we, the people," 
 established the more perfect Union. And the laws of the 
 Union and the constitutions and laws of all the states 
 declare so plainly that they come from the same great 
 source, that no representative or officer of any standing can 
 be so blind as to fail to see it, or so stupid as to obstruct 
 the opinion of the country. There is no fiction about it; 
 it is a serious, pervasive, continuing fact. And the people 
 could not exercise all of this freedom, and bear all of this 
 burden, without the mixing and the training of common 
 schools, reaching from the kindergarten to the university. 
 
 This is a poor country for one who lives wholly in him- 
 self. It is a good country for all who trust in God and have 
 confidence in men and women. There is no better religious 
 teacher in America than Henry Van Dyke, and we are 
 glad to join in the refrain of the song he wrote upon his 
 return from a voyage to Europe : — 
 
342 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 Oh, it's home again, and home again, America for me, 
 My heart is turning home again to God's countrie. 
 To the land of youth and freedom, beyond the ocean bars 
 Where the air is full of sunshine and the flag is full of stars. 
 
 So it's home again and home again, America for me. 
 
 My heart is turning home again to God's countrie. 
 
 To the blessed land of Room Enough, beyond the ocean bars 
 
 Where the air is full of sunshine and the flag is full of stars. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF THE TEACHER 
 
 We are accustomed to say that the teacher makes the 
 school, and we say it rightly. Then the spirit of the teacher 
 makes the spirit of the school. We are wont to dwell upon 
 the competency of the teacher and to multiply and empha- 
 size the instrumentalities which enhance it. When we 
 speak of the qualifications of the teacher, the practical 
 mind goes to intellectual strength, to knowledge of affairs, 
 and to scholarly attainments; and the professional mind 
 thinks of these and also of psychological investigations 
 and of pedagogical training and experience. No teacher 
 can be proficient whose scholarship is not broader and 
 deeper than the mere routine of her grade. One who has 
 no understanding of the history of education, of the pro- 
 cesses of mind growth, of the methods which experience 
 has shown to produce desirable results, and whose mind is 
 not strong enough to stand alone, move forward by its own 
 motion and think out things on its own account, is only a 
 plodder and no teacher at all. But even this is not all. There 
 is another element in the essential equipment of a good 
 teacher. If more difficult to describe, if more troublesome 
 to cultivate, it is even more indispensable to the happiness 
 of the individual, to her influence upon others, and to the 
 effectiveness and f ruitfulness of her work. It is the power 
 which moves the machinery of life, the motive which in- 
 spires action, and the quality of the faith which character- 
 izes works. The heart as well as the mind is involved in the 
 vocation of the teacher. The emotional as well as intel- 
 , lectual elements of human nature necessarily play impor- 
 
344 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 tant parts in the work of training others. By the spirit is 
 meant the emotional nature held and guided by reason; 
 the intellectual nature propelled and determined by the 
 nobler emotions. It is not the physical nature. The body 
 without the spirit is dead. The spirit is the life-principle, 
 the immortal part, the power-producing part, the energy, 
 the vivacity, the ardor, the attachments, the courage, which 
 determines what shall be undertaken, and then puts its hand 
 to the accomplishment of that end with a power which 
 makes achievement inevitable. Spirit sees opportunities; 
 it recognizes occasions ; it acts with spontaneity when the 
 time comes. It manifests itself according to circumstances 
 and necessities. The spirit of the teacher is vital to the 
 public school system of the country. It must be effective 
 in its consequences and accomplishments. It must be pure, 
 fine, strong, spontaneous, versatile, the ever present sup- 
 port of the school, and the never failing inspiration of the 
 noblest aspirations of the human family, for whose promo- 
 tion the school system exists. 
 
 Certain characteristic qualities mark the spirit of the 
 teacher and the spirit of the schools. 
 
 First, the spirit of the teacher should be characterized 
 by culture. The teacher has had some early educational 
 advantages, surely. The foundations have been at least 
 fairly well laid. There is something to build upon. The 
 powers of the mind have, at least, been set in operation. 
 Opportunities have been frequent and constant. Habits of 
 inquiry and investigation have been acquired. Surround- 
 ings have been favorable; there have been some results. 
 Taste has been aroused and it has grown. Then, the 
 work of the teacher has been for others. She has endeav- 
 ored to open the minds of her pupils and arouse their 
 powers. She has become interested in them. She has wit- 
 nessed the development of the human powers; she has 
 
THE SPIRIT OF THE TEACHER 345 
 
 seen minds open and souls grow. This start in life, this 
 environment, and this experience must have had a re- 
 fining influence upon her own mind and her own soul. 
 With all the tribulations and annoyances, if the true 
 teacher has developed, the immortal part of her nature will 
 show purity, strength, breadth of information, variety of 
 accomplishment, power of discrimination, delicacy of feel- 
 ing and nobility of bearing, which will be recognized in 
 all intellectual and cultivated centres. The gross and the 
 coarse, common to all human nature, will be eliminated 
 gradually ; the language, the manners, the style will change ; 
 the life will be keyed to the music of the humanities ; the 
 soul will aspire to the heights of the sublime. 
 
 The child is not an inanimate, unfeeling thing. He is 
 a live, active, sensitive being. If he possesses the elements 
 of future growth, he is a willful, perverse, troublesome 
 being. He may be lovable, he may be repellent. He may 
 be defective in physical or mental organization; he may be 
 unfortunate in home surroundings. Whatever the condi- 
 tions, he is in the hands of the teacher to be developed and 
 trained. He is not alone; the same teacher has fifty other 
 similar charges. The parental feeling is absent. Yet the 
 child is altogether subject to her. Within her sphere she 
 is an autocrat. She may manage wisely, kindly, and justly, 
 and commonly she does. She may rule with rank injustice, 
 and frequently she does. She may act with kindly purpose, 
 and yet injustice may result. She may be taxed to the limit 
 of strength and endurance. She may be inexperienced. 
 She may have wandered into a state of chronic severity 
 and fretfulness. She may have dyspepsia and mistake it 
 for principle. But no matter what the circumstances, her 
 power is unlimited. The continuous exercise of power 
 over inferior or younger minds is unmistakably dwarfing. 
 The tendency to favoritism is natural. The teacher is in 
 
846 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 this regard at least not so very different from other people. 
 Government in the school-room is so absolute that the 
 danger is apparent. A word, a mark, a look may be the 
 effective instrument of injustice, and injustice inflicts a 
 deep wound upon the temperament of the child. He has 
 keener perception and deeper feeling than is commonly 
 supposed. The child's troubles seem trivial to adults, but 
 they are real to him ; his suffering is acute. Yet he has no 
 appeal; he is without redress; if he has been the subject 
 of mistakes or mistreatment it is thought to be a mistake to 
 tell him of it. It is not a question of whether there might 
 be, for there is injustice in the schools. 
 
 That there is no more is owing to the large element of 
 kindness which is developed in the spirit of the true teacher. 
 There is no danger of too much of it. There is no possi- 
 bility of erring on the right side. There can be none too 
 much justice meted out to childhood. But kindness means 
 more than justice. Equal and exact justice is the right of 
 every child in the schools and he knows it. It is not a mere 
 question of rights, however. Contact and association with 
 pupils should not be prevented. They are entitled to a time 
 when they may make explanations and prefer requests out- 
 side of the class hour and in a familiar and confidential way. 
 Matters will go more smoothly if it is allowed. It means 
 everything to the pupil ; it may mean much to the teacher. 
 Children should be helped up to manhood and woman- 
 hood and good citizenship. Kindness will unlock the heart 
 of the child and uplift his soul. It will gain his allegiance 
 and draw out the best that is in him. It should be ever 
 present. The stream should never fail. It should increase 
 in volume and in power. It will make the school-room 
 attractive to the teacher and to the pupil ; it will render 
 the teacher's name a fragrant memory in the pupil's later 
 years, and when life's lengthened shadows encompass 
 
THE SPIRIT OF THE TEACHER 347 
 
 her, it will light her pathway up to the Invisible and the 
 Unknown. 
 
 Kindness in the school means courtesy to the public. It 
 is not always easy to render it. Teachers are brought in 
 contact with all manner of people, the ignorant and rude 
 as well as the cultured. They meet people most commonly 
 upon a subject concerning which they are much interested 
 and most sensitive, and about which there is danger of 
 misinterpretation, for their own children are the inform- 
 ants. The circumstances are frequently trying. However, 
 there is but one course to pursue. Patience should never 
 fail. If the treatment of the child has been kindly, if the 
 teacher's duty has been fully discharged, disagreeable in- 
 terviews will not be numerous, and when one occurs there 
 will be no occasion to fear. In any event, and upon all 
 occasions, the person who stands as the representative of 
 the public school system should treat every one with whom 
 her work brings her in contact, and especially the parents 
 of her pupils, with considerate attention and courtesy. It 
 is not for her to assume an attitude of antagonism or of 
 disagreeable superiority; she is neither to be nor to ap- 
 pear indifferent ; she is not to say things which will wound 
 the parent concerning his child, when unnecessary, even 
 though they are true. She is to smooth out troubles, she 
 is to help the parent and the child, and she is to show that 
 she is anxious to help them. She is to do it because it is 
 the right thing to do, and because it is in her heart to do 
 it. She is to do it with real and true diplomacy. Her spirit 
 in this regard and ability in these directions will be a very 
 excellent measure of her strength and fitness as a teacher. 
 If she fails here she will weaken her position beyond 
 recovery, and ought to. But a spirit which radiates kind- 
 ness to the pupil and courtesy to the public will make her 
 secure. 
 
348 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 If there is any one spirit which should be uppermost in 
 the work of the schools, it is the spirit of truth. 
 
 There is nothing so kingly as kindness, 
 There is nothing so royal as truth. 
 
 Truth is the foundation of character. The other virtues 
 rest upon it. If the principle of truth is established, the 
 other elements of an honorable career will be likely to fol- 
 low along in their own good time. Therefore, the spirit of 
 the teacher must be the spirit of truth ; the truth must be 
 held up to the admiration of the school ; and all things must 
 be done to give it an abiding-place in the lives of all. 
 
 There is no unpardonable sin in childhood, and therefore 
 falsehood is not an unpardonable sin with children. It is a 
 very common one ; it is a very trying and reprehensible one. 
 It should be made the sin of sins among children, and the 
 power of the schools should be centred upon the correction 
 of the evil. If the public schools could bestow even the 
 elements of an education upon every American child, and 
 could make a sound regard for the truth an element in his 
 character, American citizenship would be safe, and the 
 Republic would stand as long as governments continue 
 upon the earth. 
 
 The teacher should not fail to act the truth. She should 
 not pretend to know things she does not know. She should 
 not insist upon things about which she is uncertain. Even 
 a child does not expect a teacher to be the embodiment of 
 all wisdom. If she claims it, he knows she is masquerading ; 
 if she admits a doubt, he knows she is acting truly ; he sees 
 that he and his teacher have some things in common ; she 
 has a stronger hold upon him. 
 
 A boy handed up his written spelling lesson for correc- 
 tion. The teacher marked a word as incorrect, which he 
 thought was spelled correctly. He gathered up his courage 
 
THE SPIRIT OF THE TEACHER 349 
 
 and told her he thought she had made a mistake. She 
 brushed him aside with an indignant remark, about doubt- 
 ing her ability to spell. In ten minutes he saw her engaged 
 in profound communion with the dictionary. He gained 
 coniBdence. She said nothing, but seemed dejected. He 
 put his paper in his pocket and went home, and consulted 
 his dictionary. He had spelled the word correctly. She had 
 lost his good opinion forever. It was a serious loss, but 
 who shall say that she did not pay the proper penalty for 
 her act. She had made a mistake. It was not serious at the 
 outset. It was a comparatively small matter that she had 
 an erroneous impression about the spelling of the word. 
 But persistence after she knew better was acting an untruth. 
 It was utterly inexcusable. It was impolitic too. Suppose 
 she had given him only what was his due and said, " My 
 boy, I was hasty and wrong about that ; you were right ; I 
 will have to be more careful next time." He would have 
 been exultant, but that would not have humiliated her. 
 She would have gained his respect and his friendship as 
 well. 
 
 There is mathematical accuracy about the truth. It 
 always fits together. There is no safe compromise ground. 
 The danger signal is upon the border line. Truth or un- 
 truth may be acted as well as spoken. It is not necessary at 
 all times to tell all that is true. But whatever is said and 
 whatever is done in the schools, is to be open and straight- 
 forward, wholly within the bounds of truth. 
 
 In nothing more than in this matter does the spirit of the 
 teacher make the tone of the school. A premium should be 
 put upon the truth. A child's word should never be 
 doubted lightly or for insufficient reason. It is better to 
 expect and assume that he will tell the truth. If he is 
 trusted, it will help him. If he is forgiven for his short- 
 comings and rewarded with the teacher's entire confidence. 
 
350 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 he will tell tlie exact truth. Then the spirit of truth will 
 flourish in the school and character will grow under the 
 roof. 
 
 In the plan of the old education the school was a place 
 of detention, the work was only routine, and the teacher 
 was the embodiment of force. In the plan of the new educa- 
 tion the school is a workshop ; the teacher is a helper ; all 
 are to do original work together. The new plan is infinitely 
 better than the old. The teacher will be a learner; the 
 teacher must be a learner. Upon no other principle can 
 the work proceed. The stream will dry up unless it be 
 continually augmented. The power will give out unless it 
 is constantly reinforced. 
 
 The teacher should be herself; she should be natural. 
 She should not be over-serious. Children are children. 
 Nature should be let in, — human nature, and animal na- 
 ture, and vegetable nature. How it will bring interest to the 
 work of the schools ! How it will open the minds of the 
 children, give them affection for animal life, and send them 
 hunting in the fields and the woods for the products of na- 
 ture ! The spirit of the school may well copy the spirit of a 
 well-ordered home, where all interests are the same, where 
 all the members have common rights, where the weak or 
 the unfortunate are given the most help, where natural 
 characteristics find ready expression, and all work plea- 
 surably and happily together for the common good. 
 
 One of the most unmistakable tendencies of school work 
 is to warp the temperament of the teacher. A life which is 
 devoted to teaching must be upon its guard. If not, it is 
 likely to drift into a petulant and ascetic state, and then 
 its power for usefulness is almost destroyed. If it avoids 
 the danger, it will grow richer and stronger, happier and 
 more potent for good, with the accumulating years. 
 
 Cheerfulness of spirit is the product of a kind heart and 
 
THE SPIRIT OF THE TEACHER 351 
 
 a wise head. It is an invaluable product. It is as vital to 
 the healthful development of child nature as water and 
 sunshine are to the healthful growth of plants. The school- 
 room where good cheer does not reign is a desolate place, 
 and the children who occupy it are objects of sympathy. 
 Child-life is impressionable. It needs help. It responds 
 quickly. Deny it the light and warmth and it will be 
 stunted and dwarfed; it may be utterly ruined. Nourish it 
 and it will be the noblest work of the Almighty. Like begets 
 like. A solemn, funereal, and complaining teacher develops 
 peevish, fretful, and disagreeable children. Fretfulness is 
 ill-mannered; it is no less ill-mannered in a teacher than in 
 any other person; it is even more so, for it reproduces 
 itself; it makes ill-mannered children. Cheerfulness is 
 contagious also. It extends, reproduces, and perpetuates 
 itself. It will make the desert blossom as the rose. As chil- 
 dren need it, so they love it. They drink it in, brighten up, 
 look heavenward, and. begin to grow. It calls out the best 
 that is in them. The better and nobler tendencies gain 
 strength and exert their influence upon others. One cannot 
 be too thankful for a sunny and buoyant temperament. It 
 may be acquired. It is an acquisition even more imperative 
 to a teacher's work than a knowledge of English or mathe- 
 matics. It will bring her happiness and give her power. 
 The character of the teacher must be steady. There must 
 be self-control. The spirit must be courageous. It must 
 understand the ground it occupies and maintain it. It 
 must know the course it is to pursue and hold to it. It need 
 not be unduly elated, and certainly it must not be unduly 
 cast down by the daily incidents of the school. It must 
 remember that there have been other days and that there 
 will be other days. It must not fret or worry over common- 
 place matters. It must meet its responsibilities squarely, 
 promptly. It must keep moving ahead. Even if a duty of 
 
352 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 unusual import falls upon the teacher she need not go into 
 a decline over it. There is no occasion even then for specu- 
 lating upon the unfathomable or reaching after the unat- 
 tainable. She is to meet it without reflecting more than a 
 week upon it, without discussing it until undue mystery 
 and trouble seem to encompass it. She is to act deliberately, 
 with the best sense she has and in the best way she can. 
 No one expects more. Ninety-nine times in a hundred, it 
 will be all right. In the hundredth time some one will 
 help her make it all right. She must have her wits about 
 her, and rise to meet any unusual occasion. She must be 
 strong and steady enough to be counted upon; she must 
 have the reliability which is the foundation of confidence. 
 All this is somewhat a matter of character, somewhat a 
 matter of experience. If the purposes are sound there is 
 nothing to fear. Mistakes are comparatively few and of 
 small consequence if the head is clear and the heart all 
 right. He who never makes mistakes never accomplishes 
 things. The teacher who pushes on steadily, hopefully, 
 doing things as they may come to her hand, thinking of 
 things which ought to be done, will gather strength and 
 confidence, will gain standing and influence, and will 
 steady the whole system and support the entire work. 
 
 The spirit of patriotism must pervade the schools. It 
 has come into them with new strength and meaning in 
 recent years. It is to be encouraged by every proper 
 instrumentality. The instrumentality more potent than 
 any other is the soul and spirit of the teacher. Emerson 
 said it made not so much difference what one studied as 
 with whom he studied. Flags are of small moment except 
 as they are suggestive and emblematical. All the bullet- 
 riddled battle flags which the gallant soldiers of the Union 
 armies carried so proudly up the great avenue of the Cap- 
 ital City on the famous review at the close of the Rebel- 
 
THE SPIRIT OF THE TEACHER 353 
 
 lion may be displayed in the schools and the effect will be 
 lost unless the teacher knows American history, unless she 
 can recall the cost and understands the value of our distin- 
 guishing American institutions, unless she sees at a glance 
 what the flag means, unless her spirit is attuned and her 
 feet keep step to the music of the Union. But if she does 
 know, and if she does see, and if she does feel, there will 
 indeed be patriotism in the school, flag or no flag. 
 
 Other nations understand this and act upon it. In 
 Germany the teacher is, in law, an officer of the state, is 
 sworn to support the government, obey its laws, and pro- 
 mote its interests in all conceivable ways. The arrange- 
 ment of the room, the books that are used, the songs that 
 are sung, all the words spoken and all the things done, are 
 made to give significance to the three-colored flag and con- 
 tribute to the greatness of the Fatherland. In France no 
 person can enter the service of the schools who is not a na- 
 tive Frenchman. Every precaution is observed to have the 
 heart of the teacher pulsate in harmony with the heart of 
 the state, and every means is taken to bring the help of 
 the teacher to the support of the state. 
 
 The public school system has come to be the main hope 
 of our nation. It is the national stomach bound to digest all 
 kinds of national food and make pure blood. It is to assimi- 
 late all kinds of people and convert them into good citizens. 
 In this American system of schools the predominant char- 
 acteristics of our future American citizenship are being, and 
 must continue to be, developed. 
 
 The responsibility is appalling, but the public school can 
 meet it. There is ground for the belief. The spirit of the 
 teacher must throb with the spirit of this work. She must 
 enter into the purposes of the state. She must know the 
 proud story of the national life ; she must be familiar with 
 its literature ; she must be able to tell the achievements of 
 
S54 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 its great men who have borne the burdens of its councils 
 or offered their Hves for its life; she must understand the 
 plan and framework of the government ; she must value our 
 distinguishing institutions and sympathize with the true 
 spirit and the aspirations of the American Republic, like 
 which there is none other in the world ; she must discern 
 the danger points; she must make every child under her 
 influence so proud of the American name that he will hold 
 it in jealous keeping, and so loyal to the flag that if need 
 be, he will carry it through the blaze of battle. 
 
VI 
 
 THE TEACHER AND THE POSITION 
 
 People are coming to realize that no school can be good, 
 can do what it ought for their children or for the common 
 good, can prepare for the rivalries of life, satisfy civic pride, 
 or connect with the schools to which it is tributary, unless 
 it is constantly on the lookout for the best teachers; and 
 that the great systems of schools in the cities must measur- 
 ably fail and be discredited unless the management is hon- 
 est, intelligent, alert, and persistent in purging and reen- 
 forcing and toning up the teaching service. Nothing in our 
 national life is more gratifying or encouraging than the 
 steadily increasing demand for the best teaching. Perhaps 
 the discouragements enlarge and multiply in places, but 
 discriminating judgment upon the work of the schools, with 
 an unqualified insistence upon more scientific methods, is 
 plainly outrunning the difficulties, and the search for the 
 best teachers in all grades of educational work is sharp in 
 all parts of the country. ' 
 
 On the other hand, teachers are not and should not be 
 indifferent to more dignified positions, to larger opportuni- 
 ties, and to higher pay. 
 
 The quest for the best teachers and the desire for the best 
 places bring into the matter some third parties who for a 
 consideration are willing to give their services to help 
 things along. It also leads to some overreaching on the part 
 of officers of institutions, to some indirection on the part of 
 teachers, and perhaps to not a little healthful annoyance 
 and embarrassment all around. 
 
 There is the teachers' agency. Its business may be and 
 
356 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 frequently is perfectly legitimate, high-minded, and helpful 
 to the different interests concerned ; it may and frequently 
 does resort to flattery, to influence, and to coercion to secure 
 a place for a client for what there is in it for him and for it. 
 It keeps a list of teachers with a statement of the leading 
 points in the personal and professional career of each, with 
 letters of commendation from the previous teachers, pas- 
 tors, friends, and employers of each, and when a desirable 
 vacancy, or the possibility of one, comes in sight it has, 
 dependent upon its peculiar methods, the material with 
 which to aid an institution, a good cause, and a good 
 teacher, or the ammunition with which to make a strategic 
 assault for the plunder there is in it. Some agencies fre- 
 quently recommend to institutions before they ask and 
 sometimes recommend teachers who have not become their 
 clients at all. At times the most abhorrent methods are 
 employed, and bills are presented which are based upon no 
 real service. No sweeping allegation is made against these 
 agencies. There is a legitimate work for them. Educated, 
 keen, conservative, and honorable men are in charge of 
 some of them, but the business is peculiarly beset with 
 temptations, and it is difficult for a man to pursue it a long 
 time and deal justly by the different interests he undertakes 
 to serve. 
 
 There are many so-called teachers who are everlastingly 
 manoeuvring for larger pay. They play a game of petty 
 politics and ordinarily lose at it. They have "calls" with 
 very slight foundations for them. They are the coquettes 
 of the profession, and before long they bring up in the same 
 place relatively where the social flirt in time finds herself. 
 To be sure, a teacher may properly desire better opportu- 
 nities and larger pay. The true teacher cannot help it, 
 because of what these things may do for him. But it may 
 be safely said that the teacher is to demonstrate his worth 
 
THE TEACHER AND THE POSITION 357 
 
 by quiet and fruitful work, and is to permit himself to be 
 sought for rather than to be seeking a better place. A true 
 woman seeking a wealthy husband would be no less anoma- 
 lous than a true teacher hunting for a better place. 
 
 The quantity and quality of recommendations given to 
 candidates for places by people of some prominence in 
 community life or in educational work are amusing if not 
 appalling. They are given to the candidate to carry in his 
 pocket or file with a teachers' agency. They provide him 
 with a " character." They are practically alike. The one 
 from the local pastor or school trustee is not very different 
 f ro^ the one from a normal principal or a college professor. 
 They certify the commonplaces which no one doubts, but 
 pass by the real points one of intelligence wants to know. 
 The pastor and trustee do not know the defects, and the 
 principals and professors are generous in the way of silence. 
 So the credentials are strong on generalities and weak on 
 particularities. They make much of the passive virtues, 
 and say little or nothing about the shortcomings or the 
 faults. Perhaps they are generally harmless; possibly, no 
 one pays serious attention to them. Still it should be re- 
 membered that they are deceiving unless in experienced 
 hands, and the likelihood of getting into inexperienced 
 hands is considerable. And they discredit the writers. It 
 may be surmised, also, that they really weaken the candi- 
 dates by giving them false estimates of themselves and 
 leading them to depend upon credentials rather than upon 
 their work. If the rule were generally adopted that letters 
 of recommendation would not be given to the candidates 
 themselves, but that all inquiries from other parties inter- 
 ested would be patiently and completely and flatly an- 
 swered, it would likely be better for all the parties con- 
 cerned. 
 
 There is another interest that is now pushing itself force- 
 
358 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 fully into the field, and that comes from the desire of the 
 leading universities to place their graduates in schools, not 
 only to aid the graduates, but to extend the university influ- 
 ence and gain wider support. This tendency is legitimate 
 and commendable if methods are within bounds ; but the 
 temptations are very great and the flesh is sometimes weak. 
 The value of college or university agents in schools that are 
 naturally, or may be made, tributary gives an unwonted 
 unction to the fervor of the letters that are written by 
 officials and professors in behalf of fledgling graduates. 
 Doubtless this thing reaches its most uncomfortable pro- 
 portions as between the eastern universities and the ad- 
 vanced institutions of the West. The western schoolmen 
 are well informed as to educational conditions in the East. 
 Many of them formerly lived in or were educated in the 
 East. They travel eastward frequently, and they read 
 eastern educational literature constantly. But the igno- 
 rance of eastern schoolmen touching the conditions in and 
 the demands of the western schools is capable of great 
 things in the way of efforts to aid their intellectual children, 
 when incited to deeds of daring by the hope that ample 
 rewards will come back to them after some days. 
 
 Because the western schools are hunting every corner of 
 the United States and offering good wages for the very 
 best teachers, it seems to be assumed in the East that any 
 sprig with a printed thesis and a degree from an institution 
 upon the Atlantic slope will suffice to fill any western place. 
 Youngsters who go out to try it too often find to their 
 humiliation that some one has overreached or blundered. 
 Instead of making conquests because the conditions are 
 low and movements slow, they find themselves in a glowing 
 atmosphere, among a vigorous and unconventional people 
 whose ways and thoughts and aspirations they have diffi- 
 culty in comprehending. If we could show the letters writ- 
 
THE TEACHER AND THE POSITION 359 
 
 ten to help graduates in one column, and could parallel 
 this with another showing the results, the comparison 
 would be salutary in more ways than one. Surely, if all 
 interested could mentally grasp all that is going on in this 
 line, there would be much enlightenment and entertain- 
 ment, if not inspiration, for a multitude of people. 
 
 There is nothing very surprising about all this. As the na- 
 tions are looking and some of them jBghting for commerce, 
 so the universities are looking and some of them fighting 
 for students. There is no doubt that the higher learning 
 will be centralized in great institutions. Modern methods 
 of instruction and the opportunities which the discrimi- 
 nating educational public demands make this inevitable. 
 Some smaller institutions will survive on their merits; it 
 will be because they do not try to do everything, but under- 
 take a few specific lines of work and carry those as effi- 
 ciently at least as the leading universities can hope to do. 
 The universities which get the lead now will be likely to 
 hold it. Large attendance, as well as multiplicity and excel- 
 lence of work, will give them the lead. Agents on the 
 ground from which students go are serviceable and perhaps 
 necessary in getting students. There are no university 
 agents so effective as graduates in other universities and in 
 the colleges and high schools. Universities understand this, 
 and their faculties work industriously to place these agents. 
 It is not too much to say that one's standing in a university 
 faculty is helped in considerable measure by his success in 
 placing his graduates as teachers. There is nothing repre- 
 hensible about this. On the contrary, it shows the foresight 
 and energy and alertness of the times. But under pressure 
 and for lack of systematic policy, because of presidential or 
 professional rather than institutional action in the premises, 
 and particularly because there has been no inter-institu- 
 tional discussion of the principles which should control, 
 
360 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 there have been much confusion, many misfits, and in- 
 numerable complaints. 
 
 Harvard University is entitled to the credit of having 
 initiated a genuine effort to systematize her work in this 
 connection. Her great place in American education sub- 
 jects her to many calls for information concerning teachers 
 wanted by other institutions : she has the advantage of posi- 
 tion gained by a broad policy followed for a long time and 
 followed vigorously, and no one would ever suspect that the 
 administration of Harvard would not know, or would be 
 slow in acting upon, what would be to her advantage. Jn 
 answering these calls, and in pushing her children into 
 places, it must be said that she has usually spoken with 
 marked and commendable caution. It is much to say that 
 in speaking of their own educational offspring the officers 
 and teachers of a university are able to come somewhere 
 near the truth. It cannot be said of all universities. Har- 
 vard ordinarily does this, and she has gone further and 
 undertaken doubly to guard what shall be said of her 
 graduates by any of her people, by putting the whole 
 matter in the hands of a committee of the faculty and thus 
 making the commendations of students official, represen- 
 tative of the university, and so impersonal and conserva- 
 tive. 
 
 It would not be surprising, however, if a faculty com- 
 mittee breaking out new roads should get upon some trails 
 from which it might better turn back. This committee 
 " gets places for young men just going out from the univer- 
 sity, and it also endeavors to serve graduates of some years' 
 standing who, being already in positions which answer 
 their purpose, are nevertheless competent for higher work 
 at higher pay." It is this second function, or the method of 
 discharging it, to which exception is taken. The method 
 has been to write the heads of institutions employing 
 
THE TEACHER AND THE POSITION 361 
 
 Harvard men, without any special moving cause, and with- 
 out disclosing any specific purpose, asking in a general 
 way how her men are doing, and then use the replies to 
 help the men referred to to higher places at higher pay. 
 It does not seem that it is sufiicient justification for this 
 proceeding to say that it is in the interests of education 
 that able men shall advance as rapidly as possible from 
 lower to higher places, and that it is the business of edu- 
 cational institutions, who are obliged to husband their 
 resources, to be generous. 
 
 Even if both these propositions were conceded, it might 
 be pertinently asked with whom is the right of initiative in 
 moving a teacher from a lower position to a higher. Is it 
 not with the people charged with the duty of filling the 
 higher position ? They may properly solicit him, and if 
 they do and their position is really one of larger opportuni- 
 ties for him and for education, and it becomes apparent 
 that he is adapted to it, then he might well be disposed to 
 go, and the institution with which he has been associated 
 should take obstacles out of his path and send him higher 
 with hearty congratulations and good will. But is he to be 
 encouraged to fiirt with opportunities ? Steadiness and con- 
 tentment are as important to education as moving a teacher 
 from a lower to a higher position. A sense of obligation 
 to surrounding conditions, a knowledge of and a keen 
 appreciation of the binding efl^ect of legal obligations, a 
 matter-of-course purpose to fulfill moral obligations com- 
 pletely, is no less essential to educational progress than 
 the advancement of teachers from one position to another. 
 Certainly, educational institutions are to be generous, but 
 with whose effects besides their own "? Educational insti- 
 tutions are to be just to the particular interests for which 
 they stand as well as generous to the general interests of 
 education. And who is to be the judge of the depth of the 
 
362 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 resources, or the measure and direction of educational 
 generosity, but the people who are to give? 
 
 Educational maternalism is as undesirable as govern- 
 mental paternalism. The time comes for college students 
 to be put out of the nest and told that unless they can dig 
 their own worms they will be in danger of going without 
 their breakfasts. It may be all right for their school mother 
 to tell them where the worms are and show them how to 
 scratch, and even to dig out the first worm for them, but 
 certainly after all that they should be allowed to do things 
 all by themselves, or take the consequences. There will 
 be stronger men and women, more contentment and sta- 
 bility, broader work, and greater satisfaction in the schools, 
 if that is done. 
 
 There are some fundamental principles which may well 
 govern institutions and teachers and third parties in their 
 dealings concerning teachers' positions. 
 
 An agreement between a board or an institution and a 
 teacher is a legal contract. Both the institution and the 
 teacher are bound to its fulfillment in honor and in law. 
 An institution which would dismiss a teacher in the midst 
 of a term of employment, unless for immorality, pro- 
 nounced incompetency, or manifest inability to perform 
 his part of the agreement, would act very reprehensibly and 
 unlawfully. And a teacher who would insist upon vacating 
 a position in the midst of a term of employment because 
 of an opportunity to get another position with better advan- 
 tages or larger pay would act no less reprehensibly and 
 unlawfully. 
 
 Whether an agreement once entered into shall be abro- 
 gated before it is fulfilled is to be left to the free discretion 
 of the parties. Practically the only time when this question 
 is raised is when a teacher may go to a larger place. It is 
 strange how many teachers who would think it a great out- 
 
THE TEACHER AND THE POSITION 363 
 
 rage for a board to dismiss them in the middle of a term, 
 also think it a great wrong if a board is unwilling to allow 
 them to break their agreements when they jQnd it advan- 
 tageous to do so. As a teacher's efficiency is so much 
 dependent upon his spirit and contentment, institutions are 
 accustomed to say that "if he has made up his mind he 
 wants to go he might as well be allowed to do so, and we 
 will supply the vacancy as best we can." It is tantamount 
 to saying that "the teacher is hardly expected to be gov- 
 erned by the ordinary rules of law and business-dealing 
 which apply to other grown persons with capacity to con- 
 tract, so we will have to overlook the matter and let him 
 go." It may be true that boards of education and heads 
 of institutions should be interested in the advancement of 
 all true teachers, but it is not true that this is sufficient to 
 overthrow all agreements; and the true interests of the 
 teaching profession would be seriously injured if it were to 
 be so. Teachers are not to be included with minors, and 
 lunatics, and feeble-minded folk, and other mental non- 
 competents who are excused from the performance of con- 
 tracts. It is to be remembered that the rescission of an 
 agreement is not a matter of right, that it is hardly a matter 
 which one may ask, that it is a matter which addresses 
 itself to the free discretion and generous impulses of the 
 employing power, and if it is not readily granted the agree- 
 ment is to be fulfilled as cheerfully and as completely as if 
 the occasion for thinking about its abrogation had not 
 arisen at all. 
 
 If the employment of a teacher is not by its terms to end 
 at a specific time ; if by rule or usage it continues from term 
 to term, or year to year, and if either party desires to ter- 
 minate it, there is an honorable mutual obligation to 
 advise the other at a considerable time in advance of such 
 termination, or as soon as it is decided upon. It is well to 
 
364 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 remember that it is something of an accomplishment to 
 get out of an old position creditably, and so that the old 
 place always has a welcome for you. It is an accomplish- 
 ment which many do not possess, and it is one which is 
 very suggestive of character. 
 
 The first desire of a true teacher must be to advance his 
 work and enhance his usefulness. He cannot be indifferent 
 to enlarged opportunities with improved facilities. Nor can 
 he be indifferent to greater compensation, for that of itself 
 means enlarged opportunities. But the certain way to ad- 
 vance is to prove one's worth in the place where he is. 
 Then he will be known in the region round about and per- 
 haps in the whole land if he is strongly successful. He can- 
 not be strongly successful unless he is contented, and enthu- 
 siastic, and studious, and steady. He must grow, and he 
 must be sure and reliable enough to be counted upon. He 
 must assimilate with the conditions in which he works. 
 One who has his ear to the ground all the while, in the hope 
 of hearing a "call," is a nuisance and no teacher at all. 
 One who makes use of a call, or an inference, or a wink, 
 or something less substantial, to increase his present salary, 
 comes little short of being a fraud. Contentment, enthu- 
 siasm, loyalty, efficiency, these are the chief elements of a 
 teacher's capital. They soon insure recognition, and they 
 readily and inevitably command an educational market. 
 Then a better place — one of greater opportunities and 
 larger pay — will open, and when it does it may well be 
 taken. 
 
 The doctrine that the interests of education will be pro- 
 moted by the best teachers getting into places of largest 
 opportunity will hardly be challenged anywhere. And the 
 places of largest opportunity have the right to seek the 
 largest men and women. It is the business of any place to 
 seek the best material within its reach. There need be no 
 
THE TEACHER AND THE POSITION 365 
 
 apology for doing it, and there is no occasion for sneaking 
 about it. It may well be done with directness and with the 
 knowledge of the head or other officers of the institution 
 whose interests and serenity may be affected thereby. 
 Every facility for obtaining information should be afforded - 
 Then the invaders should decide whether they really want 
 to lay suit or not, and if they conclude that they do they 
 must determine what they can do to make their suit suc- 
 cessful. 
 
 There is undoubtedly a perfectly legitimate field of opera- 
 tions for teachers' agencies in aiding officers who are in 
 quest of teachers and in aiding teachers who are in search of 
 places; but, as already suggested, the business is peculiarly 
 liable to invite bad methods and lay itself open to criticism. 
 Perhaps the agencies sometimes get censure that does not 
 belong to them. If an officer allows the belief to grow that 
 his favor can be gained only through a certain agency, that 
 is his fault more than the fault of the agency. If an institu- 
 tion does not sufficiently discount the roseate statements of 
 an agency as to the qualities of a candidate the institution 
 is as much too slow as the agency is too fast. In the absence 
 of intentional fraud such matters afford little real ground 
 for complaint; they are incident to all business and in time 
 regulate themselves. But the temptation to deliberate 
 fraud is great. If an agency assumes to represent one of 
 the parties without being authorized, if it intentionally mis- 
 states facts, if it makes a claim for pay without rendering 
 any service, if it pretends to an influence which it does not 
 possess, if it flatters and cajoles and coerces and resorts to 
 circuitous and dishonest methods to accomplish its ends, 
 it is guilty of fraud. Of course such an agency should be 
 shunned. If institutions and teachers would recognize no 
 agencies, and tell the fledglings to have nothing to do with 
 agencies which are not in the hands of educated men who 
 
366 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 know the needs of a position and can discern the qualities 
 and particularly the adaptiveness of a candidate, and who 
 have honesty enough to tell the truth, there would not be 
 so many illegitimate concerns to condemn. In a word, 
 when agencies try to serve true teachers and intelligently 
 and genuinely undertake to meet the needs of the schools 
 in the best ways, they are to be encouraged, for they may 
 be of real assistance to both interests. 
 
 After all, it is well to remember that the place in which 
 a teacher has gained a good reputation is more than likely 
 to be the best place for him. Real teachers make positions 
 by the work which they do. Few who make a position and 
 gain reputation improve the one or enhance the other by 
 transfer to a new place. Teaching power, accompanied by 
 steadiness and contentment, is certain to bring a teacher 
 most precious remuneration which cannot be measured in 
 gold. 
 
VII 
 
 THE SCHOOLS AND INTERNATIONAL PEACE 
 
 The question of what the schools may do to promote the 
 peace of the world involves an understanding of the basis 
 of world peace. It is a subject about which there is not a 
 little mystery and not a little divergent philosophy. 
 
 Never, since the angels first proclaimed " On earth peace ; 
 good will toward men," has the hope of universal peace and 
 good will seemed so assuring. It is because of the outwork- 
 ing of the new Power which the angels then heralded in the 
 affairs of men. But the peace and good will were not to be 
 without heavy conflict. Christ said, "I came not to send 
 peace, but a sword." The sword was to be the necessary 
 forerunner of peace. Repeatedly, He foretold the horrors 
 which were to follow the unfolding of the new gospel. 
 Prophecy has been realized in fact. A new King came into 
 human life. True, He was a heavenly King. He regarded 
 not the kings of the earth, but they had to regard Him. 
 He gained followers at once, and together they propagated 
 a philosophy and pursued a course which defied monarchs. 
 The monarchs resisted and harassed them, but they 
 gained great numbers and became a great force. They 
 stirred the thinking as well as the feelings of great peoples. 
 All peoples lived in subjection to kings. The power of the 
 kings was in the unthinking obedience of their subjects. 
 The only argument was brute force. But conviction and 
 faith could not be abashed by physical force. The new 
 religion was as intellectual as spiritual. Nations were 
 actually set in motion. It widened knowledge and sharp- 
 ened mentality. Men and women had to think for them- 
 
368 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 selves, and then their thinking was unlike. Creeds began 
 to be framed, and the drawing and the defense of them 
 made for logical thinking and trained intellectuality. With 
 added numbers and hardening creeds and deepening faith, 
 and with all this opposed by nothing but brute force, ag- 
 gression was natural and conflict inevitable. Armies broke 
 out the road over which freedom and the truth could 
 advance to the making of a new order of things. 
 
 The crusades did something for the central European 
 nations in the early centuries, as modern invention and 
 travel have been doing in our century. The compounding 
 of a new nation in Britain a thousand years ago did some- 
 thing more. The discovery of America, the consequent 
 Spanish dreams of world empire, and the expulsion of Spain 
 from the Netherlands did even more, and the German, and 
 English, and American, and French revolutions — all se- 
 quential — did yet more. And the compounding of yet 
 another nation in America, which has practically demon- 
 strated the possibility of secure and aggressive popular 
 government, with the sense of moral right and the politi- 
 cal prescience which could locate the point of equipoise 
 between liberty and security, has stridden toward the 
 climax of universal peace more decisively than all before. 
 It has all been associated with intellectual strength and 
 moral advances. Schools and universities and literatures 
 and philosophies and systems of laws and professional 
 spirit and learning, and endless devices and conveniences 
 which are the product of the fact that individualism is hav- 
 ing its chance in the world, — all this is the logical unfold- 
 ing of a mighty plan which was beyond the ordering of men. 
 
 It has all been marked by force, — the rational and regu- 
 lated force of the mass controlling the greedy, impulsive, 
 vicious power of the chieftain or the clan. It was impossible 
 without physical force, and the force of the Christian peo- 
 
SCHOOLS AND INTERNATIONAL PEACE 369 
 
 pies was as righteous as the thinking which called it into 
 operation. Gustavus Adolphus and William of Nassau are 
 as much entitled to the regard of a peace conference as 
 is Luther. Cromwell may be as justly honored there as 
 Stratford and Sir Harry Vane. Washington's army was 
 as great a moral force as the Continental Congress, whose 
 Declaration of Independence it made good. Lincoln's 
 armies were as righteous as the Constitution which required 
 Lincoln to gather such forces as were necessary to execute 
 the laws in all parts of the land. The heroic doings of the 
 men and women who made our free democracy possible 
 and proved its power to govern, and therefore its right to be, 
 are moral assets of the nation and moral stimulants in the 
 schools. The obligation of this generation to impress all 
 this upon the next generation is as binding as the eternal 
 truth itself, and as sacred as a soldier's grave. 
 
 Constitutionalism is the corner stone of the peace of the 
 nations, and it will have to be of the peace of the world. 
 It has been expanded through armed resistance to brutal 
 aggression. It has not yet gone so far as to do away com- 
 pletely with the further necessity of force ; it has not made 
 the struggles which were the conditions of its birth seem 
 wicked ; it has not put a ban upon present and future ag- 
 gressiveness. What it has done has been to define and 
 assure natural rights by subordinating force to law. It has 
 established courts to determine disputes upon principles 
 which have sprung out of the wisdom of the ages, and it has 
 created officers and forces who, in a systematic and authori- 
 tative way, bring the physical strength of all good citizens 
 when need be to protect the rights of good and bad. 
 
 Some men and some nations want anything but law, and 
 anything but the lawful exercise of the common authority 
 against them. Such men in a political society have to be 
 controlled ; such nations have to be enlightened. It remains 
 
370 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 to be seen whether the principle that the constitutional na- 
 tions are to exercise control over lawless ones is to prevail 
 throughout the world, and if so, in what cases ? 
 
 An American dissents from any doctrine which would 
 make men insipid. If a felon breaks into a man's house, the 
 law expects the householder to resist, and even approves 
 the killing of the intruder should safety seem to demand it. 
 That is not only because a man's house is his castle, but to 
 the end that other felons may know what to expect. He is 
 a weak character and a worthless citizen who sees a brutal 
 and irresponsible scoundrel strike a woman and does not 
 employ whatever strength he may have to protect her. 
 The law would shield her, and it not only expects all good 
 citizens to aid it but, in the absence of its authorized 
 officers, to execute it as best they can. It required thou- 
 sands of years to establish in the law the principle that all 
 decent people must stand for the security and the oppor- 
 tunity of each, and each for the good of all. It has now 
 become firmly established in all well-ordered countries. It 
 will be no small matter to make it a virile and accepted 
 principle governing the conduct and the relations of nations. 
 It was left for democracy to give it its opportunity. The 
 rescue of Cuba from Spain by the United States, not for 
 gain, much against our interest, and only because it was 
 right, has supplied the object lesson which good inter- 
 national teaching needs, and it has exemplified a principle 
 which is vital to world progress. 
 
 It is perhaps too much to expect that nations will bind 
 themselves in advance to accept the determinations of an 
 international tribunal. That may be parting with sover- 
 eignty, the one thing that nations cannot do. But the 
 very fact of participation in setting up an international 
 tribunal establishes the purpose to respect it. The fact 
 that a case is submitted to it proves the expectation to 
 
SCHOOLS AND INTERNATIONAL PEACE 371 
 
 abide by its determination. Nations which take these sol- 
 emn steps and then repudiate them, without assigning a 
 reason which commends itself to the sense of the world, will 
 forfeit the international respect which is alike vital to the 
 standing and the strength of nations, and without which 
 they are little to be feared. 
 
 The nations have come to live so closely together, the 
 news of the world is so widely and quickly known, the 
 mind of the world is so enlightened, the moral sense so 
 strong, the principles of justice so widely and firmly estab- 
 lished, and, withal, war has become so mechanical and 
 abhorrent, that it does seem as though there should be 
 sufficient agreement among the more progressive nations 
 to establish some substantial form of constitutional proced- 
 ure among as well as within the nations. It at least ought 
 to go so far as to prevent aggressive warfare without just 
 cause, or, even with just cause without imperative need. 
 All warfare perhaps cannot be avoided. The deliberate 
 thought of an enlightened people upon a vital principle 
 surely ought to have its way after every other alternative 
 has failed. But the educative influence of the endless 
 accretion of idle armament and unusable forces is bad ; the 
 surplusage of it is exactly opposed to the only legitimate 
 purpose of it. 
 
 It would seem that any general and efficient scheme 
 for settling international controversies must depend upon : 
 (a) ripening public sentiment, (6) a permanent court of 
 such exalted character that no people with a just cause 
 would fear its determinations, and (c) a written and steadily 
 augmenting code of legal principles which ought to govern 
 international conduct, both in peace and war. 
 
 The sentiment is crystallizing; the forerunner of the 
 court is already in being, and the permanent court seems 
 likely ; the code has augmented slowly while its only oppor- 
 
372 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 tunity was through agreements in treaties or precedents, 
 but it will be more rapidly expanded when there is a place 
 to submit issues and when determinations are more fre- 
 quent. 
 
 This is what the schools may promote. The number of 
 teachers in the world is surprising. There are 150,000 in 
 Austria-Hungary; as many more in France; 232,000 in 
 Germany; 275,000 in the British Isles; 97,000 in Italy; 
 30,000 in the Netherlands; 180,000 in Russia; 18,000 in 
 Sweden; 13,000 in Switzerland ; a full half million in India ; 
 120,000 in Japan ; 30,000 in Canada, and 580,000 in the 
 United States. All the other countries, civilized or semi- 
 civilized, have their fair proportions. There are clearly 
 more than 3,500,000 in all. 
 
 It is a great guild. There is no other such widely dis- 
 tributed fraternity in the world. Of course there are all 
 kinds in it, but they have much in common. It is their 
 business to differ and their delight to discuss, but their 
 work brings them into accord upon the essentials of right 
 living and of international comity and brotherhood. The 
 predisposition of the overwhelming number is not to be 
 doubted, and if in some way they could be quickened to 
 use their quiet, steady, and indirect influences to substi- 
 tute rational determinations for the arbitrament of the 
 sword in settling international disputes, it would have a 
 telling effect upon the sentiment of the world. It would 
 seem as though, with a little governmental favor, official 
 records and our free communication, there might be a 
 somewhat systematic and potential canvass of the teachers 
 of the world in the interest of universal good will and of 
 the common regard for definable moral standards, which 
 ought to be inviolable in both individual and international 
 conduct. 
 
 For example, let it be understood that one nation will not 
 
SCHOOLS AND INTERNATIONAL PEACE 373 
 
 be allowed to despoil another for the sake of empire or other 
 greed, because it is immoral, and the ordinary motive 
 of aggressive warfarewill have disappeared. Again, if it 
 could be realized that all men and all governments are 
 responsible to one another for the security of each and 
 the opportunity of all ; that all government is* necessarily 
 a burden, and that each must carry his part of the burden 
 according to his strength, then the feeling of comradeship 
 in effort would become an impenetrable barrier to unholy 
 war. The teachers of the world might, through an organ- 
 ized movement, become a very great force in doing all 
 this. More thoroughly educated concerning it themselves, 
 they would, at least by the indirect influence, which is often 
 more telling than the direct, propagate it in all parts of 
 the earth. 
 
 The universities may well be counted upon to give point, 
 form, and expression to the better sentiment of all countries 
 in this behalf. It has a proper place in their offerings ; it is 
 attractive to their advanced students, and their teaching is 
 bound to give opportunity and impetus to this good move- 
 ment. Their research and their publications may well be 
 expected to illumine and soundly expand the law of the 
 state, and the manifest and growing comity between the 
 universities of the more enlightened and powerful nations 
 ought to open the way for the extension of constitutional- 
 ism to the vital issues which are inevitable in international 
 relations. It is particularly so since the better schools of law 
 are in organic association with universities, and more par- 
 ticularly still it is so since the experts in the universities are 
 coming to be the best equipped advisers of nations upon 
 technical points in serious international disputes. 
 
 The work of the colleges, and in some mieasure that of 
 the secondary schools, may well anticipate that of the pro- 
 fessional schools and the universities in this as in other 
 
374 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 matters. The phases of it which may properly form a part 
 of the work of the elementary schools are not obvious. It 
 must be said frequently that it is high time that we stopped 
 clogging the curricula of the lower schools with so much 
 that pupils may learn in one tenth of the time when the 
 place for it is reached, — if, indeed, there is any place for it 
 at all. If we teach the elements of knowledge and exem- 
 plify the elements of good morals in the primary schools, we 
 shall not be censured if we omit constitutional law, politi- 
 cal history, and international arbitration. 
 
 Of course, there should be nothing in the schools to dis- 
 tort the understanding or obscure the outlook of children. 
 it has often been said in peace conferences that the text- 
 books in the schools emphasize the triumphs .of strife 
 rather than the struggles and accomplishments of peace. 
 We cannot expect the textbooks to be prepared without 
 reference to human interest. The news and magazine 
 writers ought not to criticise them for that. The readers 
 and histories and geographies, in the texts and the illus- 
 trations, exemplify very fairly the struggles and progress 
 of all the interests of peace in all parts of the world. The 
 literature used by the schools is the best in the world, in- 
 finitely more choice than ever before. It is not the literature 
 of strife so much as of peace, work, and culture. One who 
 is advocating a particular thing is hardly likely to be an 
 unbiased judge when his special enthusiasm is involved. 
 In recent years there is distinctly discernible in school liter- 
 ature a new purpose to magnify accomplishments in the 
 arts and sciences, rather than the triumphs of armies. But 
 history must be written truly. The boys who have ginger in 
 them will have to know what has happened ; they will have 
 their opportunity; they will draw conclusions for them- 
 selves. The work of the schools makes for independent and 
 virile thinking within the limits which hard facts impose, 
 
SCHOOLS AND INTERNATIONAL PEACE 375 
 
 and therefore for balanced manliness and womanliness, 
 more than ever before in human history. 
 
 The mind and heart of the world cherish good will and 
 abhor war. But natural rights are cherished more than 
 peace, and they will be maintained even though conflicts 
 ensue. In well ordered life rights are ordinarily maintained 
 and conflicts are avoided by the submission of good citizens 
 to the rule of law, by submitting disputes to the decisions 
 of courts, and by using the common power to punish the 
 undesirable citizens. States which are sane enough and 
 strong enough for this, naturally come into agreeable rela- 
 tions with other states of like character. Commonly that is 
 enough. But there are men and nations who prefer to be 
 outlaws ; and there are men and nations with no inclina- 
 tions towards outlawry who have differences that cannot 
 be settled by discussion and agreement. Moreover, men 
 and women do not separate into nations upon moral lines. 
 Without much reference to causes, some in all nations would 
 have conflict for the mere sake of conflict, or for a mere 
 show of strength and the power to bully ; some would avoid 
 conflict at any cost; and some believe that force is never 
 necessary to the maintenance of just principles. We have to 
 deal with common opinion and with prevalent conditions. 
 Differences between men will continue to arise, and they 
 will be settled by conciliation, by arbitration, by judicial 
 determination, or by force. The more serious differences 
 between nations, as well as between men, will have to be 
 settled in one of these ways. Many of the differences be- 
 tween nations are settled by discussion, and we hear little 
 of them. Some are settled by arbitration, to the avoidance 
 of many wars. But international arbitration of aggravated 
 disputes is not much to be relied upon except between the 
 most enlightened nations having predominant moral sense. 
 Settlement by law will be the surer, but it depends upon 
 
376 AMERICAN EDUCATION 
 
 common sentiment, upon some kind of continuing agree- 
 ment, upon principles being reduced to form, upon an 
 established and satisfying tribunal, upon recognized prac- 
 tice for joining issues and proceeding to determinations, 
 and upon the extent of the understanding that the nations 
 will submit to it themselves and support its judgments in 
 all parts of the world. 
 
 This is international constitutionalism. It is constitu- 
 tionalism in its fullest flower. Arbitration may avoid war ; 
 constitutionalism is a system reasonably certain to avoid 
 war. Even more, it is forehanded, it is the object lesson, it 
 is educative, it quickens initiative, and it opens opportunity 
 to the best impulses of all people in all the nations. The 
 schools, particularly the schools of the masses out of whose 
 freedom constitutionalism has always sprung, can ill afford 
 to have no part in helping it on. But it must be a part which 
 is neither sporadic nor spasmodic, neither memorized nor 
 mechanical. It must spring out of that impulse and grasp 
 which provide the background of all substantial accom- 
 plishment ; it must proceed from impulse to result with due 
 regard to the basis upon which the schools rest and to all 
 of the other interests which centre in them. And that must 
 come through the thinking of the teachers rather than 
 through the mechanism of the schools. 
 
INDEX 
 
INDEX 
 
 A. B. DEGREE, shortening of course 
 leading to, 166-167. 
 
 Academic freedom, limits of, 236- 
 255. 
 
 Academies, early history of, 34, 150, 
 152-154 ; differentiated from high 
 schools, 153-154 ; not democratic 
 institutions, 151. 
 
 Accrediting high schools in the 
 West, 196, 221. 
 
 Agricultural college, 296-297. 
 
 Agricultural industries, provision 
 for, in school system, 291-306. 
 
 Agriculture, department of, educa- 
 tional activities, 110-111. 
 
 Alaska schools, 110. 
 
 American university, 187-199. 
 
 Architecture, promotion and aid by 
 state, 46. 
 
 Athletics, 307-326. 
 
 Attendance, compulsory, and illit- 
 eracy, 61-73; proposition to re- 
 duce age of attendance, 288. 
 
 B. A. DEGREE, shortening of course 
 leading to, 166-167. 
 
 Boards of education, members not 
 city officers but agents of the 
 state, 53; advantages and dis- 
 advantages of management by, 
 125 ; powers and duties of, 23-27, 
 83. 
 
 Boston Latin School, 150. 
 
 Church and schools, during colo- 
 nial period, 149 ; relations of, 127, 
 332; religious instruction in 
 schools, 327-342. 
 
 Cities, educational systems of, 22 ; 
 high school teachers in, 162-163. 
 
 Co-education, 256-271. 
 
 Colleges, 185-271 ; shortening of 
 course leading to A. B. degree, 
 166-167; denominational, in 
 
 western states, 218; first estab- 
 lished, 35; outlook for, 197; phy- 
 sical training and athletics, 312- 
 326 ; relations to common schools, 
 129; results of college training, 
 97; state support, 132; limit of 
 academic freedom of teachers in, 
 236-255 ; preparation of teachers 
 for secondary schools, 155, 178; 
 need of college education for high 
 school teachers, 156, 160; teach- 
 ing in, statistics, 236; university 
 competition, 167; give uplift to 
 all schools, 203 ; use of title, 46. 
 
 Colonial grammar school, 147. 
 
 Commissioner of education in New 
 York, powers and duties, 30. 
 
 Common schools and universities, 
 165-183. See also Schools. 
 
 Compulsory attendance age, pro- 
 position to reduce, 288. 
 
 Compulsory attendance and illit- 
 eracy, 61-73. 
 
 Constitution, education not re- 
 ferred to in, 4; court decisions 
 construing Civil Rights Clause, 
 51. 
 
 Constitutional Convention, no dis- 
 cussion of education in, 107. 
 
 Constitutions, state, educational 
 references, 5. 
 
 Corporal punishment, right of 
 school authorities to inflict, 57; 
 of past generation, 142. 
 
 County system of school adminis- 
 tration, 21. 
 
 Courts, determination of, fixing sta- 
 tus of public schools, 50. 
 
 Crucial test of the pubHc schools, 
 74-86. 
 
 Cuba, educational system. 111. 
 
 Declaration of Independence, 
 education not referred to in, 4. 
 
S80 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Defective children, school attend- 
 ance of, 68. 
 
 Degrees, conferment should be re- 
 stricted, 46. 
 
 Demands upon the schools, 119- 
 136. 
 
 Denominational colleges in western 
 states, 218. 
 
 Development of school system, 
 17-38. 
 
 Discipline, rights of school authori- 
 ties, 57; of past generation, 142. 
 
 District of Columbia, management 
 of schools in, 109. 
 
 District system, 18-19. 
 
 Domestic science, instruction in, 
 301-303. 
 
 Donors, rights of, 253. 
 
 Dutch, first to set up free elemen- 
 tary school, 148. 
 
 Education, American, trend in, 
 200-215 ; not referred to in Con- 
 stitution, 4; need of a federal 
 plan, 107-116; first educational 
 declaration in American law, 6; 
 higher education included in 
 nation's purpose, 9 ; nation's pur- 
 pose, 3-16; private and proprie- 
 tary institutions deserving of aid, 
 10; private benefactions, 11 ; pur- 
 pose of America distinguished 
 from that of other lands, 13 ; rela- 
 tion of democratic to educational 
 advance, 149; slight references to 
 in state constitutions, 4 ; no ten- 
 dencies toward socialism, 7 ; sub- 
 stantial uplift in system must 
 come from above, 204; system 
 growing in unity, 129; universal 
 right of every individual, 8. See 
 also Schools. 
 
 Education, boards of. See Boards of 
 education. 
 
 Education for eflBciency, 275-290. 
 
 Educational activities outside of the 
 schools, 212. 
 
 Elementary schools, 117-183; at- 
 tendance in, 168; character de- 
 termined by high schools, 42; 
 proposed shortening of course, 
 
 168, 288; proposed changes in 
 seventh and eighth grades, 288- 
 289; three classes of schools fol- 
 lowing, 288; criticisms of, 100, 
 278-284, 290; Dutch first to es- 
 tablish, 148; industrial training 
 in, 101, 278-290; science in, 137- 
 146; physical training in, 310, 
 324; work of, 129. 
 
 England, educational purpose, 13. 
 
 Examinations, statistics of results 
 in cities and villages, 159-160. 
 
 Faem and the school, 291-306. 
 Federal plan, need of, 107-116. 
 Football, criticisms, 316-323. 
 France, educational purpose, 14. 
 Free school, use of term, 148. 
 Functions of the state, 39-48. 
 
 Gekmant, educational purpose, 14. 
 
 Gifts, donors' rights, 253; of the 
 United States for school pur- 
 poses, 32. See also Land grants. 
 
 Grammar school, colonial, 147. 
 
 High schools, differentiated from 
 academies, 153-154; distinctly 
 an American creation, 158; pro- 
 posed extension of course, 167, 
 169; first decisive manifestations, 
 154; part of free school system, 
 131; growth, 154; physical train- 
 ing in, 311, 324; rise of, 147-156; 
 teaching in, 157-164; dependent 
 upon universities, 170; relations 
 to state universities, 221; in vil- 
 lages and cities compared, 158; 
 teachers: 155, 157-164; clas- 
 sified, 162; need of college educa- 
 tion for, 156, 160; preparation of, 
 155, 178; salaries, 162-163. 
 
 Higher education, included in na- 
 tion's purpose, 9. 
 
 Illiteracy, and compulsory attend- 
 ance, 61-73 ; effective attendance 
 laws reduce, 66 ; among children 
 decreasing, 68; proportion of 
 illiterates decreasing, 67; in for- 
 eign countries, 62, 66 ; proportion 
 
INDEX 
 
 381 
 
 of native and foreign born illit- 
 erates, 65 ; percentage of illiterate 
 voters in states having compul- 
 sory attendance laws, 66; per- 
 centage of illiterate voters in 
 states without compulsory attend- 
 ance laws, 67; percentage in 
 cities and country compared, 68; 
 prevention of, 70-72; in United 
 States, 62; reasons for greater 
 illiteracy in this country, 69; 
 more among women than men, 
 68. 
 
 Indian schools, 110. 
 
 Industrial pursuits, relation of uni- 
 versities to, 177. 
 
 Industrial training, need of, 275- 
 290; in elementary schools, 101, 
 211, 278-290; details of plan of, 
 285-286; purpose of schools for, 
 285; articulation of schools for, 
 with public school system, 288. 
 
 International peace, promotion by 
 schools, 367-376. 
 
 Land grants, 6, 32, 33, 191. 
 
 Latin grammar school, 147. 
 
 Legal basis of the schools, 49-60. 
 
 Legislature, eligibility of school 
 officers to membership, 53. 
 
 Libraries, state aid and encourage- 
 ment, 46, 212. 
 
 Limits of academic freedom, 236- 
 255. 
 
 Manual training, not urged against 
 intellectual labor, 277; differen- 
 tiated from industrial training, 
 285. 
 
 Military academies, 110. 
 
 Moral character, influence of 
 schools in promoting, 58, 327- 
 342; influence of other agencies 
 than schools in determining, 103. 
 
 Moral influence of universities upon 
 educational system, 179-183. 
 
 Museums, state aid and encourage- 
 ment, 212. 
 
 National Educational Association, 
 on school administration, 25. 
 
 Nation's purpose, 3-16. 
 
 Nature study, 295-296. 
 
 Naval academies. 110. 
 
 Need of a federal plan, 107-116. 
 
 New York, state supervision of 
 schools, 29. 
 
 Northwest Territory, educational 
 declaration in ordinance organiz- 
 ing, 6, 32. 
 
 Parish schools, 334. 
 
 Peace, international, promotion by 
 
 schools. 367-376. 
 Philippine Islands, educational 
 
 matters. 111. 
 Physical training and athletics, 
 
 307-326. 
 Political influence, immunity of 
 
 school organization from, 37, 84; 
 
 state universities free from, 222. 
 Porto Rico, public instruction. 111. 
 Presidents, university. 223-235. 
 Private academies, 34. 
 Private institutions, deserving of 
 
 aid, 10, 128. 
 Professional schools, alliance with 
 
 universities, 210. 
 Professions, preparation for, 194, 
 
 209. 
 Public morals and public schools, 
 
 327-342. 
 Public schools, use of term, 49. See 
 
 also Schools. 
 
 Religious instruction in schools, 
 
 102, 327-342. 
 Rise of high schools, 147-156. 
 Rural school problem, 91, 293-294. 
 
 School district, 18; size in farming 
 regions, 92. 
 
 School lands, 6, 32, 33, 191. 
 
 Schools, one great aim of public 
 school system, 86 ; American and 
 foreign policy, 95; authority and 
 responsibility of school system. 
 55; independent autonomy de- 
 manded from state, 43; central- 
 ized administration, 18; tendency 
 towards greater centralization, 
 31; compulsory attendance, 61- 
 
382 
 
 INDEX 
 
 73 ; crucial test, 74-86 ; demands 
 upon, 119-136; development of 
 system, 17-38; discrimination in 
 supporting new'propositions, 130 ; 
 distribution of money to different 
 grades, 89 ; governmental vs. sec- 
 tarian control, 59; hygiene and 
 sanitation. 139; legal basis, 49- 
 60 ; local administration, 52 ; local 
 and state control, 87; promotion 
 of moral development, 58, 327- 
 342; officers not local but state 
 officers, 55; legal liability of offi- 
 cers, 57 ; should have no connec- 
 tion with pohtics, 37, 84; state 
 institutions, 53 ; state supervision, 
 28, 52 ; support, 88 ; system needs 
 freedom, 133; unsettled ques- 
 tions, 87-106. See also Boards of 
 
 . education; Colleges; Education; 
 Elementary schools ; Secondary 
 schools; Teachers; Universities. 
 
 Schools and international peace, 
 367-376. 
 
 Science in the elementary grades, 
 137-146. 
 
 Secondary schools, 117-183; at- 
 tendance in, 168; proposed 
 lengthening of course of ,167, 169 ; 
 physical training in, 311, 324. 
 See also Academies; High 
 schools. 
 
 Sectarian vs. governmental schools, 
 59. 
 
 Seminaries, 34. 
 
 Special aspects and problems, 273- 
 376. 
 
 Spirit of the teacher, 343-354. 
 
 State, functions of, 39-48; supervi- 
 sion of schools, 28, 52. 
 
 State universities, 216-222; rela- 
 tions to high schools, 221. 
 
 Superintendents, legal and authori- 
 tative prerogatives, 25, 36, 84, 91 ; 
 office an American creation, 90. 
 
 Taxation, power vested in state 
 government, 40. 
 
 Teachers, colleges do not provide 
 professional training for,155 ; how 
 can teaching force be improved, 
 
 89; questions concerning efficient 
 teaching service, 94; number in 
 the world, 372; professional su- 
 pervision, 36, 80, 90; scientific 
 training, 140 ; spirit of the teach- 
 er, 343-354 ; the teacher and the 
 position, 355-366; 
 
 high school: 155, 157-164; 
 classified, 162-163; need of col- 
 lege education for, 156, 160; 
 preparation of , 155,178; salaries 
 of, 162-163. 
 
 Teachers' agencies, 355-356, 365- 
 366. 
 
 Teaching, in advanced schools, 
 freedom of, 236-255 ; in the high 
 schools, 157-164. 
 
 Territories, superintendents of pub- 
 lic instruction, 109. 
 
 Township system, 20. 
 
 Trades schools. See Industrial 
 training. 
 
 Trend in American education, 
 200-215. 
 
 Truancy, illiteracy and compulsory 
 attendance, 61-73. 
 
 United States Bureau of Educa- 
 tion, work of, 33; need of reor- 
 ganization, 107-116. 
 
 Universities, 185-271; American, 
 187-199 ; contrast between Amer- 
 ican and foreign, 195, 238-239; 
 relations to common schools, 129, 
 165-183; educational ideals of 
 other countries not to be followed, 
 192; placing graduates as teach- 
 ers, 357-361 ; relation to indus- 
 trial pursuits, 177; general influ- 
 ences, 180; influence on lower 
 schools, 204; moral influence 
 upon educational system, 179; 
 physical training and athletics, 
 312-326; presidency, 223-235; 
 attitude of president toward ath- 
 letics, 321 ; alliance with profes- 
 sional schools, 210 ; spiritual life, 
 180; state, 216-222; state, rela- 
 tions to high schools, 221; state 
 support, 132; government of stu- 
 dents, 181 ; use of title, 46 ; duties 
 
INDEX 
 
 383 
 
 of trustees and faculty, 223-226; 
 in the West, 189, 205, 216-222; 
 western, part of common school 
 system, 207 ; work of, other than 
 professional training, 210; 
 
 teaching staff: 225-226, 228- 
 229; limit of academic freedom, 
 236-255 ; preparation of teachers 
 for secondary schools, 178; sta- 
 tistics, 236. 
 Unsettled questions, 87-106. 
 
 Villages, high school teachers in, 
 162-163. 
 
 Western universities, 189, 205, 
 216-222; part of common school 
 system, 207. 
 
 W omen, education of, 256-271 ; in- 
 struction in home economics, 
 301-303; right of suffrage, 260- 
 261. 
 
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