And in concluding the review of the second volume, let us read together this quotation from the poem entitled " "Some mild eve when woods grew sappy, And the early moths had sprung To life from many a trembling sheath, What soon should be actual song And young gnats, by tens and twelves That crowd around, and carry aloft Waring:" The sound they have nursed, so sweet and pure Out of a myriad noises soft, Into a tune that can endure Amid the noise of a July noon, When all God's creatures crave their boon, All at once, and all in tune." PREPARATORY DEPARTMENTS IN CONNECTION IT WITH COLLEGES. PRES. CHAS. W. SUPER, ATHENS, OHIO. T is well known that many, perhaps most, Western colleges and titular universities have preparatory departments connected with them. These preparatory departments are feeders for the college classes, and in them students who have been "graduated from the country and village schools pass from one to three years before they are ready for freshmen. While it may be true that they detract somewhat from the dignity of the institutions with which they are connected, it is equally true that the circumstances which called them into being fully justify their existence even now. They supply a need that can be met in no other way, at least not nearly so well. They are the means of bringing into the colleges a large number of young people who, but for them would be debarred from the advantages of the higher education. They make felt the need and show the advantages of a collegiate education in a way that no other institution can. It is not many years since there were in existence a good many "old-fashioned " academies and seminaries in which boys and sometimes girls were prepared for college. A few of these still live and fewer still are in a flourishing condition. Whether the provisions made for students in the elementary branches by the colleges themselves has taken away their raison d'être, or whether the broadening of the required. work for entering college has rendered necessary more extensive "plants" than could well be provided for by private means, certain it is that there is no longer much need of them. The preparatory work can in most cases be more rapidly and more thoroughly done than under the former regime. The teachers are usually more experienced, for even where some of the instruction is given by tutors they are under the supervision of older men, a fact that is reasonably certain to insure a pretty high grade of work. The academy was often taught by a student just from college who had the ministry or some other profession in view, and only engaged in this temporary employment to replenish a thin purse. This is now not often the case. But again young people thus placed are early brought in contact with the higher work of the college and with students who know much more than themselves. In this way a desire is often aroused to pursue the work of education to the end, and in a majority of cases experience proves, "where there's a will, there's a way." Then too, our term "High School" is about as elastic as our term "University." We have high schools that prepare students for the Freshman class of any college, and we have "universities" that do the same. Many a village, and occasionally a country district, has its high school and its commencement with all the attendant ceremonies of graduation, the graduates of which have only a meager English education and nothing more. Other high schools have in their course nearly all the subjects of the full college curriculum, except Greek. Their students finish in two or three months a branch upon which a college student would probably spend two or three terms. What need have these graduates of further "schooling!" A large majority of Western high schools arranged their course of study with a view to making them represent a complete education. I am inclined to think that only a minority of these schools are constructed with a view to their graduates attending any institution of learning after completing it. Further, a large per cent. of the young people found in the colleges of the West are from the country and the smaller villages. They cannot prepare for college at, or near home, and are inclined to think that if they go away for the purpose of completing their education they may as well locate themselves once for all until they are "through." In many cases where students have made the best preparation for college at home that circumstances will permit it is usually very irregular, that is, some subjects have been fairly mastered while others, generally the languages have been almost or quite neglected. If, therefore, in the further pursuit of their studies they are allowed to push ahead in those already begun, and bring up their "requisitions" as they have opportunity, they are able to save considerable time. It sometimes happens that a student has finished all his preparatory work except Greek. It would be clearly a loss of time, which few can afford, if he were compelled to spend a year or two on this alone. But if admitted to college he can push ahead in the other required branches as fast as possible, and still learn enough Greek to earn the Bachelor of Arts degree in the usual four years. If there were a general concensus among educators as to what constitutes the necessary or, at least, most natural sequence of studies, and this concensus demanded that languages should precede the sciences and mathematics, any other order would be open to serious objections. But so long as this is not the case, there can be no serious objections to a student's taking the subjects in such an order as is most convenient for him, provided he has made that preparation which will enable him to pursue with advantage whatever he elects. Experience has proved that languages may be begun and pursued with profit after some progress has been made in studies that can be carried on through the medium of English. Literature, for example, has been brought down much nearer the age of childhood than it was in any course of study a few years ago, and it is universally admitted that the transfer has been in the interest of sound pedagogy. There is good reason, too, for believing that the student ought also to have some acquaintance with mental philosophy and the principles of civil government early in his course. These facts, together with others that might be cited, tend to show that the preparatory departments as now carried on in connection with many Western colleges are doing no detriment to the cause of education. On the contrary(they bring a college diploma within the reach of a considerable number of young persons who but for them would not think of seeking this honor. But another fact is that there have been until recently compara tively few universities, even among those institutions that have a recognized claim to this title, wholly with preparatory departments. The assumption that a student with the merest smattering of an English education, and without any systematic habits of study, is not a "Prep" if he happens to be enrolled in a professional school is wholly gratuitous. Yet this is just the condition of a large proportion, perhaps of a considerable majority, of the students in law and medicine in many of the higher institutions west of the Alleghanies, or if it is not now it has been until quite recently. One does not need to go so far West to find such things. President Jordan recently wrote, "Taking the country over, of all classes of students, those in medicine are as a rule (and such a rule admits of many individual exceptions) the most reckless in their mode of life, and the most careless of the laws of hygiene, and of decencies in general of any class of students whatsoever." These are all characteristics of the average "Prep," resulting primarily from the lack of self-directive power and willtraining which it is the object of a properly constructed educational curriculum to implant in the student. Yet these lawless boys and young men have, at least until recently, been admitted. to most of our universities that have a medical department, and probably looked down with lofty disdain upon the preparatory student in the average college, as if he belonged to an inferior class of beings. It would have been a good thing for the individual and the community as well as for the credit of the medical profession, if such persons could have been placed in a well conducted preparatory school where they would have been under proper surveillance, no matter whether they were fifteen, twentyfive, or forty-five years of age. The moral condition of the average medical student is easily explained when we remember that the medical profession contains a smaller proportion of college graduates than either law or theology. Those of our schools of law and medicine that continue to admit persons who have not even a respectable common school education should be strongly urged for the honor of the profession to establish preparatory departments in connection with the professional schools where candidates may get some training in the English branches and be under some sort of moral restraint while preparing for their prospective profession. Latin and history might also be added with. advantage, and there is no reasonable doubt that a large propor tion of candidates for the professions would be willing to avail themselves of these opportunities for acquiring some general cul ture. These seem to be sound pedagogical reasons why, in some subjects at least, the instructor who has charge of the advance portions should also keep in touch with the beginner. In this country the higher work is usually in the hands of the more experienced teachers, while the elements are relegated to tutors either in fact or name. Yet a professor of language and literature cannot lose sight of the grammar, even if he would do so. When the language is a foreign one to the student the grammar is a very important part of the subject. The Greeks called literature Yрáμμaтa, the Romans Litterae, a terminology that shows how closely the highest expression of thought was always associated with the alphabet, in the minds of the foremost nations of antiquity. An adumbration of the ancient concept still rests upon the terms used in all modern civilized languages to designate the expression of thought in artistic form. The celebrated Roman rhetorician, Quintilian, would begin the instruction of the future orator with the simplest elements of speech, and insist that all of it from the lowest to the highest shall be of equal excellence. What is true of language and literature is also true of several other subjects; in fact all the historical studies are closely akin in this respect that it is difficult to designate some parts as elementary and others as advanced. Generally speaking, the more thoroughly a teacher understands his subject the more efficient will be his teaching. This being the case it is evident that if he has more than one class they will be better served if they occupy successive stages of advancement than when they are on the same plane. There will, of course, be exceptions, but the statement is true in general. The teacher who has a comprehensive grasp of his subject, and a thorough knowledge of the human mind, its powers and limitations, will also be best able to adapt his instruction to the needs of his pupils. I have known not a few solitary students who had gained a good knowledge of mathematics, of history and literature merely as knowledge, and who wrote English as well as some German professors write their vernacular, but who had no knowledge of any foreign language. They likewise manifested a sort of angularity in knowledge and conduct which is so generally characteristic of |