THE FUTURE OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL.

BY DR. R. B. GLASGOW.

For those who are not practical educators, the study of the development of our public schools of the future will prove a most delightful one. The history of development is evolution, in fact. Manifestly, then, what lies before us is a study of the evolution of educational systems-the ideal public school. Before entering into a discussion of the subject it may be germane to remark that half a century hence the public schools of this country may be so admirably conducted that the wealthiest parents will send their children to no other, and the competition of private schools will be hopeless. The factors to be considered in the evolution of the ideal public school are the parents, the pupils, the taxpayers, the trustees, and the teachers.

In an address before a scientific body in Paris, recently, M. Berthelot, the well-known French scientist, said: "Millions of francs are wasted every year in pouring learning into sieves." If this be true of France, it may also be true of America. For this willful waste of the taxpayers' money, if it exists, the persons most directly responsible are those parents who, when questions as to government, etc., arise between the teachers and the pupils, almost invariably range themselves against the teacher. These parents, who evidently are very ancient in their understandings, may have been in the mind of that Sanskrit writer who said: "That mother is an enemy, and that father a foe, by whom, not having been instructed, their son shineth not in the Assembly, but appeareth there like a booby."

These misguided parents are not only enemies to their offspring, but are also enemies to the State. Three hundred years ago John Amos Comenius, a pious Moravian Bishop, wrote: "Parents must praise learning and learned men; must show the children beautiful books, etc., and must treat the teachers with the greatest respect."

One hundred years ago Pestilozzi said, "What is demanded of mothers is a thinking love."

Probably no other combination of circumstances would so promptly and surely revolutionize our educational system as the universal adoption of these ideas of the fathers of education, and the parents who lead the way in this grand movement will certainly be ideals. The relation of the child, not only to the life which now is, but also that which is to come, was rendered eternally unique by Jesus of Nazareth when he said: "Of such is the kingdom of heaven."

Because children are but reproductions of their parents, we suspect the nearest possible approach to an ideal pupil would be one of those referred to by Oliver Wendell Holmes, whose education, he said, was begun about one hundred years before their birth. A good second to these pupils would surely be those of the ideal parents just referred to, who had observed Comenius's advice. Disorderly, obscene, profane, rude and vulgar children are objects of pity, because these conditions, as pointed out by Plato 3000 years ago, are due to their organization and environment. Their parents and not they should be subject to correction.

For our own convenience we will class taxpayers thus: they are either capitalists or wealth producers. If both these parties knew that the first thing education does for men is to create a demand for luxuries, the production of which affords profitable employment for both capital and labor, they would not regard the cost of schooling as a grievous burden and schoolmasters as mere drones. If the wealth producers the workingmen, whose only capital is their time -only knew that "we live by our knowledge and die by our ignorance," they would not only hasten to increase their own knowledge, but would make the education of the children their first

care.

The ideal taxpayer knows these things, is interested in the work of the schools, is pleased at the progress of the pupils and contributes his share of the school money with feelings akin to those of the husbandman who sows seed in the morning and withholds not his hand at evening.

That veracious story-teller, Mark Twain, declares that "In the

first place God made idiots; this was for practice. Then he made school boards." You can believe this or not, but in times past certain school trustees have been haunted with the idea that they had to do with wild animals, criminals, lunatics, or devils, and as a consequence main strength and awkwardness and ugliness was the working rule of these "underpaid and overworked public servants."

School interests would be best conserved by studying them in two ways, viz. from a neducational, and from a property standpoint; and the idea is boldly advanced, that in the fullness of time the statutes will divide school trustees into two classes to cope with the problems above referred to. This is a day of special qualification for special work, and it is reasonable to expect this idea will prevail to a greater extent as time passes. It is results that are demanded to-day, and it is manifest no other one thing will bring educational results more certainly and speedily than the arrangement here outlined. The ideal school trustee, then, on the one hand, is he who is in sympathy with child life, and is more or less well informed on the philosophy of education. On the other hand, it is he who can look well to the property interests of the district, ever mindful of the idea that the schoolhouse should be a thing of beauty and consequently a joy forever.

The last and chiefest factor to be considered in the evolution of the ideal school is the teacher. In the long and broad evolution of humanity the school teacher is the omnipotent factor. This idea occupied the mind of Lord Brougham, seventy-five years ago, and doubtless inspired his remark, that "he would trust the schoolmaster, armed with his primer, against the soldier in full military array."

Were we to search the pages of history for an account of the typical teacher of "ye olden time," Ichabod Crane, of Sleepy Hollow fame, would instantly stand out in bold relief. His adventures as described in Irving's Sketch Book are good reading. Were we looking for an up-to-date teacher, we would have in mind one who is as free as possible from "the mistakes implanted by education," and who knows something of everything, and everything of something. The ideal teacher, we are free to conclude, is one who is sustained with

the idea that knowledge is pleasure, and who teaches passionately and lovingly, as the artist paints, as the prima donna sings, as the orator speaks, or as the fond mother nurses her babe.

For our own purposes we consider life has two phases, viz: school life and world life, and that men are as ciphers and figures, and teachers as artists, or artisans. The aim of school life is to achieve harmonious development of all the human faculties. The boy is to become a complete man, so as to be capable of fulfilling all the ends of life. To achieve this the school ought not to be an artificial center, where there is no communication with life, except through books; it ought to be a small world, real and practical, where the child may find himself in close proximity to nature and reality. Theory is not enough; there must be practice as well. Those two elements should be present in the school, as they are around us. Otherwise the young man is condemned when he leaves the school world to enter a great world entirely new to him, where he loses all his bearings. Of course, this does not apply to the men who are doomed to be ciphers. For them, any school, or no school at all, will do as well. At the first sight the expression "artist" and "artisan" as applied to teachers may not seem happy, but on reflection it will appear quite unique. The foundation of an artist's work is a thought. His real work is turning thoughts into pictures, and education really is mental photography, making pictures on the brain, that most wonderful, sensitive and durable of photographic plates.

Artisans are indispensable to the community. They make many things hats, coats, houses, wagons, etc., after patterns, and artisan teachers do what some others have done, and there stop. Such teachers use the profession as a makeshift in preparing for something else, or while waiting for someone to come along to bear the burden of support. When the ideal public school shall have been evolved, the calling of the artisan teacher will be gone, and the wooden trustee will no longer be needed. Indeed, in that day every phase of educational work will have been changed.

Here the question most apropos would seem to be: When shall these things be, and what shall be the sign of their coming? The

circumstances under which this question has been propounded render it necessary that the answer thereto be at once comprehensive, rational and intelligent.

This emergency cannot be met better than by quoting Charles Fourier, a French philosopher and scholar, whose career closed about three-quarters of a century ago. Fourier took the position that our race was still in its infancy, as demonstrated by the fact "that nothing that is really true interests, or can be taught to it. That its chief quality of character is its preference of the fantastic over the useful or beautiful, of the amusing and deceptive over the true, and of the teacher who pretends to know what he does not, over the teacher who admits how little he knows. That it is amused with fables and promotes the teachers of myths into crowns and salaries because they feed it taffy." Fourier believed and said, that " 10,000 years hence the world will have become a university. Then the government will have been changed from a club into a course of instruction, the reign of force will have passed away before a reign of knowledge and reason, and the education and nurture of the young will be committed to those to whom it brings the most passionate ecstasy, and not to the mercenary, the despotic and the heartless."

The teachers of our country belong to the grandest army ever marshaled under the dome of heaven. When weary of well doing, they should look to the hills, whence cometh their help, and remember that the summit of their labor is in heaven.

R. B. GLASGOW, M. D.

For as far as the beatific vision of blessed souls in heaven is concerned, it is quite compatible with the functions of their glorified bodies, which will always remain organic in their manner.-Leibnitz.

Nor am I able to agree with those who have begun to affirm that the soul dies with the body, and that all things are destroyed by death. I am now inclined to be of the opinion of those among the ancients who used to maintain that the souls of men are divine and when they leave the body they return to heaven, and those who are the most virtuous and upright have the most speedy entrance.-Cicero.