discussed in a manner that will produce the best results, and I hope that the Catholic high school is going to constitute and be the real link between the parish school and our colleges, and above all our university at Washington.

REV. FRANCIS CASSILLY, S. J., St. Xavier College, Cincinnati, Ohio: All educators must certainly favor education of every grade, elementary, secondary and higher, provided of course it is of standard efficiency. But it is just possible that education, like many other good things of this earth, may be pushed to excess, especially along certain lines. For instance, it is evident at once that not every grade school can or should be developed into a high school, just as it is evident that every high school cannot grow into a college, nor every college into a university. There are then certain limits within which high schools can increase in number, without being weakened in efficiency, and beyond which they cannot go without so diminishing at each school the attendance, the supply of capable teachers and the necessary financial support, as to become worthless.

For practical purposes, we can first consider the high school question in towns and then in the large cities. In towns which have six, eight or ten parish schools of the grammar grade, and no facilities for higher Catholic education, it would look reasonable to provide Catholic high schools, one for the boys and one for the girls. In most places the schools could be financed by the Catholics of the locality. But in such towns the boys should have a school separate from the girls, and they should have male teachers. To mingle boys and girls of the impressionable high school age in the same classroom, and then give them female teachers, Sisters or seculars, is to lower all educational ideals, and arrest the development of manly character in the boys. Coeducation and female teaching in boys' high schools are radically wrong from a pedagogical, a civil and a religious standpoint. Exceptions there may be, but the general effect of such unsexed education is to feminize the boys. Far better would it be for themselves and their country and their Church, in my opinion, were such boys and young men spending their time at a mechanic's bench, which would at least make men of them. The Church has clearly shown what it thinks of coeducation in the Instructio de Scholis Publicis ad Episcopos Americae Septentrionalis Foederatae, quoted in the Acts and Decrees of the Third Baltimore Council. And what it thinks of Sisterhoods teaching boys or young men from fourteen to nineteen years of age can be gathered from the rules of the various Sisterhoods, which are nearly all adverse to it.

In regard to large cities where abundant provisions already exist, it is at least questionable whether new diocesan high schools will not do more harm than good. In this connection we must keep before our minds that every convent school or academy is a high school, and that every boys' college has a high school department. In fact without such high school department to feed its collegiate classes, almost every Catholic male col

lege in the country to-day would have to close its doors. Is there a crying need for new high schools in most of our large cities? There may be room in some cities for further expansion, but in many there would seem to be almost too many high schools for the number of available pupils. In a city for instance which has only three or four public high schools, why should there be six or eight convent academies and four or five Catholic high schools for boys? And yet this proportion is found in not a few places, with the result that the Catholic schools are all struggling, finding it difficult to secure a sufficient attendance of pupils and a proper income. The non-Catholics believe in concentration of effort, and in building up a few schools of standing and reputation; whereas we Catholics seem bent on further and further division of effort far below the point of efficiency.

If we continue this clamor for high schools, and the policy be unfortunately followed without discrimination, the result will be a large number of second or third rate high schools and a corresponding number of poorly educated Catholics, whose inefficiency will reflect disastrously on all Catholic education, and injure the good reputation we have thus far acquired. Moreover when the local pastors shall endeavor to direct their own parochial school graduates into the newly founded high schools, where will the Catholic colleges get the students for their own high school departments? When the colleges with their own pay high schools will have to struggle against the new free high schools, it does not take a prophet to tell what will become of our old time college high school departments. Push this new idea of the free diocesan high school to excess if you will, but remember that by doing so, you are nailing the doors of the old colleges and female academies, which will soon have cobwebs growing over them.

The principal if not the only argument of this high school propagandism is, that some deserving poor pupils of the parochial schools cannot afford to pay the tuition in our present high schools and academies. Is that a sound reason for breaking up our present colleges, high schools and academies? It would seem much more reasonable to help some of these poor pupils to pay their own way, by establishing burses and scholarships in the high schools we already have. It would be cheaper than to erect and conduct new high schools, it would improve the standard and reputation of Catholic education, and it would have the advantage of saving our renowned old time colleges and convent academies from the auctioneer's block.

REV. FRANCIS W. HOWARD, Columbus, Ohio: I do not rise for the purpose of offering adverse criticism on the admirable study of the problem of the high school which has been made with so much patient and devoted labor by Dr. Burns, but I feel that I ought, as a member of the Committee which had this work in charge, to state that I believe I look at this subject from a different point of view.

Back of this study of the actual conditions are the fundamental inquiries: What is a high school, and what do we mean by secondary education? When should secondary education begin, and, when should it end? What should be the character of this high school education, and should all, or only a part of our children, be invited to partake of it? Should it be the same for our boys as for our girls? How shall we relate the elementary school to the high school, and how shall we articulate the high school with the college?

So far as I have been able to find out I believe no complete and satisfactory answer to these prior questions has been proposed; at least, none has met with general acceptance. I would like to emphasize this point therefore, and it seems to me that its importance should be set in strong relief, that we need a thoroughgoing study of these aspects of the problem, so that we may be reasonably certain that our educational development is not proceeding at haphazard, and so that proper direction may be suggested for the high school movement, which, as Dr. Burns' analysis of the actual situation shows, has already gathered such momentum.

It is very plain to those who study the educational conditions which now exist in this country, that we are confronted with a situation of extraordinary confusion. If one wishes to have a description of some of the problems of secular educators, he may read the Fifth Annual Report of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, to which reference has been made. There is a conflict between the American public high school and the American secular college in ideals, aims, methods and studies, that seems to offer no hope of compromise or adjustment.

Now, I believe that the greatest difficulty with which we have had to cope is the fact that, in endeavoring to organize and to systematize our educational work, we have been influenced by conditions prevailing in secular education. In a measure we have been compelled to adapt our work to these conditions, and the difficulties we have in adjusting our parish schools to high schools, and our high schools to colleges, come more from this source than from any other. I might dwell on the ways in which we are consciously and unconsciously influenced even by the ideals, the standards and methods of secular education, but this does not pertain to my present purpose, and the members of the Committee recognize and deplore this influence. The high schools described in the report presented to-day, have grown out of our parish schools. In my opinion, they imitate largely the public high school and are to some extent amenable to the same general criticisms. The average Catholic high school which has grown out of a parish school or schools is an adaptation to suit local needs and conditions; it has not been organized as a part of any general plan nor is it a part of a system.

If we are to bring order out of chaos we must begin with the elementary school. There lies the crux of the problem. The elementary curriculum must be simplified, and the foundations of education must be laid in an

elementary training that shall be thorough, simple, accurate and not unduly prolonged. The purpose of elementary training is to train the child to habits of industry and attention, to give him the rudiments of knowledge and, before all, to implant in his heart a love of virtue and religion. If he has learned to reverence God, to respect authority and to apply his mind to study, he has learned much.

The tradition of our Catholic teaching orders is to begin the secondary education of those who desire a liberal education or are destined for the professions at the age of eleven or twelve. This education is carried on through preparatory school and college to about the age of nineteen or twenty when the young man may take up the special training for his profession or his work in life.

The average American boy is sent to the public high school with no definite purpose in view. He wants more education, but he does not know just what he wants nor does he know how long he is going to stay. The number of those who are graduated from the fourth grade of the high school is very small in comparison with the number of those who enter the first year. The high school is the chosen field of educational experiment. American educators of standing have declared that the high school as at present constituted, is a failure. The American educational plan of eight years elementary, four years high school, four years college and four years professional is not based on human nature; it has never been a success, and candid educators admit that it has broken down; and yet, it must be acknowledged that we have been conforming much of our work, in all departments, to this Procrustean plan. With such a condition confronting us, is it not imperative for us to consider whether we are building on a secure and solid foundation? Should we not study our traditions and our time-tried principles; and may we not, perhaps, be able to afford some assistance to the American secular educator in his sore perplexity?

I need scarcely say that my discussion is not a criticism of the paper which you have heard with so much profit, but it is rather an appeal to this Association to continue the study of this most important subject and to go to the bottom of it. We have discussed many things, but for the most part we have been sailing the educational seas without chart or compass, and we need to do something to plan out our course. We shall proceed with more security when we shall have made, with the combined wisdom of the eminent educators who are brought together in these annual conferences, a broad, historical, philosophic and Catholic study of the whole subject of the curriculum.

I hope that this convention will signalize itself in the history of this educational movement by taking steps to organize this study in a systematic manner, and at the proper time I shall propose the formation of a suitable committee of the Association to study the problem of the curriculum and the general educational situation, and give to Catholic educators the results of its labors.

THE HIGH SCHOOL-ITS RELATION TO THE ELE

MENTARY SCHOOL AND TO THE COLLEGE

REV. JAMES J. DEAN, O. S. A., VILLANOVA COLLEGE, VILLANOVA, PA.

At a recent meeting of the Executive Board of this Association one of our foremost Catholic educators declared that the most prominent characteristic of Catholic education in the United States at the present time is its utter lack of system. That such a statement could be made without eliciting any comment or bringing forth any expression of dissenting opinion is strong presumptive evidence of its truth; that so unfortunate a condition should long continue to exist would prove a severe arraignment of the honesty of purpose of this Catholic Educational Association.

That our parish schools are doing remarkable work, and this in spite of serious difficulties, cannot be denied; unfortunately, their field is limited and their work, because of its elementary character, can hardly be said to constitute an educational system. That our colleges are accomplishing much, and this in the face of almost insurmountable obstacles, is equally true. Between the two, however, there is a wide field, the tilling of which seems to have received scant consideration. Candidly we are forced to admit that there is no such thing as a comprehensive Catholic system of secondary education. The parish schools have made some effort to supply the need with varying success, generally without proper equipment and without an efficient teaching staff. The Catholic colleges, on the other hand, have been practically compelled by circumstances to establish so-called preparatory or high school departments, to the serious detriment of their collegiate work. The inevitable result has been a lowering of the Catholic college standard, in accord with the general law that the weak borrows from the strong until both are reduced to the same level of mediocrity. Commercial courses, too, have been