more useful and lucrative career, inasmuch as superior taste commands higher wages in the finishing of all goods.

Natural science claims a place in the elementary school not so much as a disciplinary study side by side with grammar, arithmetic, and history, as a training in habits of observation and in the use of the technique by which such sciences are expounded. With a knowledge of the techical terms and some training in the methods of original investigation employed in the sciences, the pupil broadens his views of the world and greatly increases his capacity to acquire new knowledge; for the pupil who is unacquainted with the technique of science has to pass without mental profit the numerous scientific allusions and items of information which more and more abound in all our literature, whether of an ephemeral or a permanent character. In an age whose prondest boast is the progress of science in all domains, there should be in the elementary school, from the first, a course in the elements of sciences. And this is quite possible, for each science possesses some phases that lie very near to the child's life. These familiar topics furnish the doors through which the child enters the various special departments. Science, it is claimed, is nothing if not systematic. Indeed, science itself may be defined as the interpretation of each fact through all other facts of a kindred nature. Admitting that this is so, it is no less true that pedagogie method begins with the fragmentary knowledge possessed by the pupil and proceeds to organize it and build it out systematically in all directions. Hence any science may be taken up best on the side nearest the experience of the pupil and the investigation continued until the other parts are reached. Thus the pedagogical order is not always the logical or scientific order. In this respect it agrees with the order of discovery, which is usually something quite different from the logical order, for that is the last thing discovered. The natural sciences have two general divisions, one relating to inorganic matter, as physies and chemistry, and one relating to organie, as botany and zoology. There should be a spiral course in natural science, commencing each branch with the most interesting phases to the child. A first course should be given in botany, zoology, and physics, so as to treat of the structure and uses of familar plants and animals, and the explanation of physical phenomena as seen in the child's playthings, domestics machines, etc. A second course cov ering the same subjects, but laying more stress on classification and functions, will build on to the knowledge already acquired from the former lessons and from his recently acquired experience. A third course of weekly lessons, conducted by the teacher as before in a conversational style, with experiments and with a comparison of the facts of observation already in the possession of the children, will go far to helping them to an acquisition of the results of natural science. Those of the children specially gifted for observation in some one or more departments of nature will be stimulated and encouraged to make the most of their gifts.

In the opinion of your committee, there should be set apart a full hour each week for drawing and the same amount for oral lessons in natural science.

The oral lessons in history have already been mentioned. The spiral course, found useful in natural science because of the rapid change in capacity of comprehension by the pupil from his sixth to his fourteenth year, will also be best for the history course, which will begin with biographical adventures of interest to the child and possessing an important historical bearing. These will proceed from the native land first to England, the parent country, and then to the classic civilizations (Greece and Rome being, so to speak, the grandparent countries of the American Colonies). These successive courses of oral lessons adapted respectively to the child's capacity will do much to make the child well informed on this topic. Oral lessons should never be mere lectures, but more like Socratic dialogues, building up a systematic knowledge partly from what is already known, partly by new investigations, and partly by comparison of authorities.

The best argument in favor of weekly oral lessons in natural science and general history is the actual experiences of teachers who have for some time used the plan. It has been found that the lessons in botany, zoology, and physics give the pupil much aid in learning his geography and other lessons relating to nature, while the history lessons assist very much his comprehension of literature and add interest to geography.

It is understood by your committee that the lessons in physiology and hygiene (with special reference to the effects of stimulants and narcotics) required by State laws should be included in this oral course. in natural science. Manual training, so far as the theory and use of the tools for working in wood and iron are concerned, has just claims on the elementary school for a reason similar to that which admits natural science. From science have proceeded useful inventions for the aid of all manner of manufactures and transportation. The child of to-day lives in a world where machinery is constantly at his hand. A course of training in wood and iron work, together with experimental knowledge of physics or natural philosophy, makes it easy for him to learn the management of such machines. Sewing and cookery have not the same but stronger claims for a place in school. in each week for one-half a year each in the seventh and eighth grades will suffice for manual training, the sewing and cookery being studied by the girls and the wood and iron work by the boys. It should be mentioned, however, that the advocates of manual training in iron and wood work recommend these branches for secondary schools, because of the greater maturity of body and the less likelihood to acquire wrong habits of manipulation in the third period of four years of school.

One-half day

Vocal music has long since obtained a well-established place in all elementery schools. The labors of two generations of special teachers

have reduced the steps of instruction to such simplicity that whole classes may make as regular progress in reading music as in reading literature.

In regard to physical culture your committee is agreed that there should be some form of special daily exercises amounting in the aggregate to one hour each week, the same to include the main features of calisthenics and German, Swedish, or American systems of physical training, but not to be regarded as a substitute for the old-fashioned recess established to permit the free exercise of the pupils in the open air. Systematic physical training has for its object rather the will training than recreation, and this must not be forgotten. To go from a hard lesson to a series of calisthenic exercises is to go from one kind of will training to another. Exhaustion of the will should be followed by the caprice and wild freedom of the recess. But systematic physical exercise has its sufficient reason in its aid to a graceful use of the limbs, its development of muscles that are left unused or rudimentary unless called forth by special training, and for the help it gives to the teacher in the way of school discipline.

Your committee would mention in this connection instruction in morals and manners, which ought to be given in a brief series of lessons each year with a view to build up in the mind a theory of the conventionalities of polite and pure minded society. If these lessons are made too long or too numerous they are apt to become offensive to the child's mind. It is of course understood by your committee that the substantial moral training of the school is performed by the discipline rather than by the instruction in ethical theory. The child is trained to be regular and punctual, and to restrain his desire to talk and whisper-in these things gaining self-control day by day. The essence of moral behavior is self-control. The school teaches good behavior. The intercourse of a pupil with his fellows without evil words or violent actions is insisted on and secured. The higher moral qualities of truth telling and sincerity are taught in every class exercise that lays stress on accuracy of statement.

Your committee has already discussed the importance of teaching something of algebraic processes in the seventh and eighth grades, with the view to obtaining better methods of solving problems in advanced arithmetic. A majority of your committee are of the opinion that formal English grammar should be discontinued in the eighth year and the study of some foreign language, preferably that of Latin, substituted. The educational effect on an English-speaking pupil of taking up a language which, like Latin, uses inflections instead of prepositions, and which further differs from English by the order in which its words are arranged in the sentence, is quite marked, and a year of Latin places a pupil by a wide interval out of the range of the pupil who has continued English grammar without taking up Latin. But the effect of the year's study of Latin increases the youth's power of

apperception in very many directions by reason of the fact that so much of the English vocabulary used in technical vocabularies, like those of geography, grammar, history, and literature, is from a Latin source, and besides there are so many traces in the form and substance of human learning of the hundreds of years when Latin was the only tongue in which observation and reflection could be expressed.

Your committee refers to the programme given later in this report for the details of coordinating these several branches already recommended.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY STUDIES.

In recommending the introduction of algebraic processes in the seventh and eighth years, as well as in the recommendation just now made to introduce Latin in the eighth year of the elementary course, your committee has come face to face with the question of the intrinsic difference between elementary and secondary studies.

Custom has placed algebra, geometry, the history of English literature, and Latin in the rank of secondary studies; also general history, physical geography, and the elements of physics and chemistry. In a secondary course of four years trigonometry may be added to the mathematics; some of the sciences whose elements are used in physical geography may be taken up separately in special treatises, as geology, botany, and physiology. There may be also a study of whole works of English authors, as Shakespeare, Milton, and Scott. Greek is also begun in the second or third year of the secondary course. This is the custom in most public high schools; but in private secondary schools Latin is begun earlier, and so, too, Greek, algebra, and geometry. Sometimes geometry is taken up before algebra, as is the custom in German schools. These arrangements are based partly on tradition, partly on the requirements of higher institutions for admission, and partly on the ground that the intrinsic difficulties in these studies have fixed their places in the course of study. Of those who claim that there is au intrinsic reason for the selection and order of these studies some base their conclusions on experience in conducting pupils through them, others on psychological grounds. The latter contend, for example, that algebra deals with general forms of calculation, while arithmetic deals with the particular instances of calculation. Whatever deals with the particular instance is relatively elementary; whatever deals with the general form is relatively secondary. In the expression a + b = c algebra indicates the form of all addition. This arithmetic can not do, except in the form of a verbal rule describing the steps of the operation; its examples are all special instances falling under the general form given in algebra. If, therefore, arithmetic is an elementary branch, algebra is relatively to it a secondary branch. So, too, geometry, though not directly based on arithmetic, has to presuppose an acquaint ance with it when it reduces spatial functions into numerical forms, as. ED 94- -33

for example, in the measurement of surfaces and solids and in ascertaining the ratio of the circumference to the radius and of the hypote nuse to the two other sides of the right-angled triangle. Geometry, moreover, deals with necessary relations. Its demonstrations reach universal and necessary conclusions, holding good not merely in such material shapes as we have met with in actual experience, but with all examples possible, past, present, or future. Such knowledge transcending experience is intrinsically secondary as compared with the first acquaintance with geometric shapes in concrete examples.

In the case of geometry it is claimed by some that what is called "inventional geometry" may be properly introduced into the elementary grades. By this some mean the practice with blocks in the shape of geometric solids and the construction of different figures from the same; others mean the rediscovery by the pupil for himself of the necessary relations demonstrated by Euclid. The former-exercises of construction with blocks--are well enough in the kindergarten, where they assist in learning number, as well as in the analysis of material forms. But its educational value is small for pupils advanced into the use of books. The original discovery of Euclid's demonstrations, on the other hand, belongs more properly to higher education than to elementary. In the geometrical text-books recently introduced into secondary schools there is so much of original demonstration required that the teacher is greatly embarrassed on account of the differences in native capacity for mathematics that develop among the pupils of the same class in solving the problems of invention. A few gifted pupils delight in the inventions, and develop rapidly in power, while the majority of the class use too much time over them, and thus rob the other branches of the course of study, or else fall into the bad practice of getting help from others in the preparation of their lessons. A few in every class fall hopelessly behind and are discouraged. The result is an attempt on the part of the teacher to correct the evil by requiring a more thorough training in the mathematical studies preceding, and the consequent delay of secondary pupils in the lower grades of the course in order to bring up their "inventional geometry." Many, discouraged, fail to go on; many more fail to reach higher studies because unable to get over the barrier unnecessarily placed before them by teachers who desire that no pupils except natural geometricians shall enter into higher studies.

Physical geography in its scientific form is very properly made a part of the secondary course of study. The pupil in his ninth year of work can profitably acquire the scientific technique of geology, botany, zoology, meteorology, and ethnology, and in the following years take up those sciences separately and push them further, using the method of actual investigation. The subject-matter of physical geography is of very high interest to the pupil who has studied geography in the elementary grades after an approved method. It takes up the proxi