At any rate the discussion, to be of any practical value, must be handled with some degree of equipoise and moderation.

Any well educated man or woman who ever attended the district school will recall that much of his best inspiration came from what may be called individual contact with some noble, if humble, teacher. To many a college-bred man the highest mental awakening in philosophy, in psychology, in political economy, in what you will, has come from such contact with some really great instructor, outside the classroom. We have all known grand teachers in college whose influence on the mental and moral development of students was undoubtedly greater outside of the recitation exercise or lecture than it was inside. Herein, by the way, lies the advantage which the student of the smaller college sometimes (though not necessarily always) has over the student of the large college.

The fact is, the idea of the value of individual instruction is as old as the time of the great Teacher and of Socrates and Plato and older. It is an essential part of the true science of pedagogy, though it is only a part. The doctrine of child study is based squarely on it. Gen. Garfield at one end of the log and Mark Hopkins at the other is its very epitome. Private schools have been quick to ply their advantage in this respect, and in a measure the advantage was real, because the theory of personal attention is based on a fundamental principle of human nature and is therefore truly pedagogic.

What, then, is the present need of laying emphasis on individual instruction, and where is emphasis most needed? The answer clearly involves the public graded school system. I wish to say at once that I believe in this system. The American graded public school was the greatest educational invention of the last century. In the evolution of the American plan of educating the masses, specially in our large towns and cities, it was inevitable. And it has been a magnificent success, in spite of attending evils. The American boy that has had no training in the public school has missed a good thing. Let us not be pessi

mistic about our public schools because only a portion of the pupils ever reach the high school, and only a very small percentage of them ever complete the high school course. It does not follow that the education of those who stop short of this is an entire failure. Many such, whose training has been limited, yet thorough, achieve a greater success in business and even in the professions than some college graduates do.

But the very necessities of the graded system have induced evils, and there has been a strong tendency to drift away from the idea of individual attention. In its application the system has too often falsely assumed a uniformity of attitude, of temperament and environment on the part of pupils, and has failed to provide for their individual needs and difficulties. The stress and monotony of continued recitations with large classes engender discouragement in the pupil and irritability, with consequent impotency, on the part of the teacher. The system presumes the survival of the fittest, but do the fittest always survive? Do we not all know that the less brilliant pupil in recitation is very often less superficial; that the slow pupil will often achieve the most solid success if he gets the proper attention and encouragement? If we lose those children in the early stages of their development, if we arrest their progress and perhaps embitter them against education itself, our system is to that extent a conspicuous failure.

Most of us know of the experiment that has been made in Batavia by Sup't Kennedy and of the gratifying, not to say remarkable, results that are claimed for it. I have no intention to weary you with details with which you are doubtless conversant. Dr Kennedy's arguments and claims certainly demand the closest attention of all teachers in graded schools. To him belongs the credit, which I hope may prove great, of emphasiz ing in a new way the need of individual instruction and of organ izing it so as not to interfere with the graded system in the slightest degree.

I may say that in Ogdensburg we have introduced the system gradually with apparently excellent results. The plan is ex

ceedingly simple. Formal recitations are had only on alternate days. On other days the period is devoted to quiet study, while the teacher addresses herself to the individual pupil's needs. It is asserted, and it is true, that the pupil thus acquires greater interest and facility in the class recitation, when it comes. His teacher's personal attention and sympathy give him greater confidence and quicken all his intellectual powers. It is claimed, and it is true, that, by reason of her increased sympathy and of her more intimate knowledge of her pupils' difficulties, she soon acquires "greater power in class instruction" and accomplishes more in the limited time given to the recitation.

Whether the time is thus most wisely divided is a question that will be settled by the test of experience. Whatever experiments are made must be made with due wisdom and caution. Let us not be like the Chinaman who stole a missionary's watch and returned the next day to find out how to wind it.

If the system of organized individual instruction, ingrafted on our public school system, shall succeed in bringing increas ing multitudes to undertake an education and triumphantly to accomplish it, its promoters will be entitled to the highest gratitude. It is to be hoped that we shall adhere steadfastly to all that is best in the stimulus and emulation of class instruction. Let the elements of both methods of instruction be mixed in such wise proportions that all the world may say, this is the real education which secures the greatest good of the greatest number. Prin. James Winne In the phrase, "The school is life," is recorded the general belief that the life which the adult leads was largely determined by the school which the child attended. And this would be literally true, were we to mean by "the school" all the influences which cooperate to determine character.

The school is the institution for instructing and training young people for the duties of adults-for life. Naturally, its patrons are disappointed when the school fails to perform this function. But the duties of life are so many, so varied, so vast,

that the school, in and of itself, is inadequate to the task. Hence the many and earnest efforts to enrich its curricula, to modify its programs, to liberalize its teachers, to supply material equipment of the most approved character. Studied efforts are made to anticipate the problems of life; and these efforts in the secondary schools are anticipated in the elementary schools by carefully planned courses of study that shall produce symmetric development of the whole child. Truly, we are recognizing that the school is more than a preparation for living, it is life. And all the agencies that can be utilized to induce right living and generous serving are being commended. Just here we note a tendency to make the school rather than the home the center of interest. Let no teacher assign duties in quantity or character that shall alienate the child from his home. The school should supplement, not sup plant, the home.

As the college found itself greatly embarrassed because its students were deficient in preparation for the work which the college attempted, so the secondary school has found its pupils immature for the work which it would do, specially in its effort to prepare for colleges, work which would elicit the cordial approbation of those dignified schools of learning. In the effort to prepare its pupils for living-its legitimate function-adverse criticism has been much more general but less pointed. However, the schools have felt the criticisms, acknowledged the justice of them so far as appreciated, and have sought to remedy defects. In turn, they have inquired of elementary schools the cause for weakness of children sent them, and the elementary schools have pointed to the parents! And the patrons have retaliated, in many instances wisely. The results ensuing from the reaction and interaction of vigorous inves tigations have been salutary to all grades of schools. The vital truth of mutual dependence of all grades of schools, however it may have been recognized in the past, has been acknowledged only in recent years by friendly conferences and subsequent cordiality and cooperation.

Investigation reveals the fact that the preparatory school was a peculiar institution whose function sustained no immediate relation to the preparation of its pupils for the duties of life. The secondary school, growing in favor with the public, has yielded to a worthy ambition and has assumed, as a part of its function, the preparation of its pupils for college. This effort has met with a gratifying measure of success, and has afforded an excellent opportunity for comparing the effect of various courses of study. The comparison is so favorable to the modern courses of study that the secondary school is warranted in asking that the secondary graduate who has pursued a balanced course of study shall be accepted by the college and thus afforded the opportunity to realize most fully all that his talent makes possible. The college is more than justified in demanding that the work in science which is offered as preparatory for college shall articulate with the college work. We trust that the conferences of college professors and secondary principals will secure the desired articulation.

But the patrons of the secondary school are abundantly warranted in demanding that the boys and the girls who do not go to college (and who the more need the very best) shall have opportunities equal to those whom circumstances have more favored. Hence the earnest and persistent efforts to make the curricula so liberal that each shall have opportunities suited to his peculiar needs. It is here that we find the most active and most general effort in secondary schools-to enrich the curricula. Less effort is made to fit the child to the system and much greater effort to adjust the system to the child. The course of study is, perhaps, the most perplexing problem that we are trying to solve. We discover a reaction to counteract

results.

1 The demand that graduates from the secondary school shall be" able to do something" is causing the introduction of manual training. Very few question its value for city children, but many seem to doubt its value and practicability in the smaller secondary schools. I consider manual training very important in