precedented situation, which is likely to be complicated still further by the materialism of post-bellum necessities.

"Take the instant way;

For emulation hath a thousand sons
That one by one pursue; if you give way,
Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,
Like to an enter'd tide, they all rush by

And leave you hindmost."

Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, iii, 3. Read over again here the practical advice of efficient Ulysses to self-centred and self-satisfied Achilles, and refresh your mind once more with the original meaning of his main clause* in the following passage:

"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin
That all, with one consent, praise new-born gawds,
Though they are made and moulded of things past,
And give to dust that is a little gilt,

More laud than gilt o'er-dusted.”—ib.

The Classics, though often o'er-dusted, are still gilt. In all essentials, from age to age, they do not change. Their old, old message is ever new. But how we are to adapt our languageteaching to these new and unprecedented conditions and get that message over to learners whose mother-tongue, for the first time in the history of Classical teaching, is a most economical and efficient uninflected language that is the problem. We can solve it by abandoning medieval text-books and methods which were of economical and efficient service only to learners whose mothertongue was also a highly inflected language. Furthermore, these increasing distractions are here to stay, most of them, and we must meet them here and now!

"Only live fish can swim upstream in the present-day educational current." While these pages were in the hands of the printer, I

*Not a sentence, as it is familiarly quoted-"touch" here = tache, fault, weakness, foible.

received from a "Modern School" the following version of what I have mentioned above as the new obligation on us all, old and young, to learn to make the right "choice not only in our diversions but also in our duties." Though not written for publication, it is appended (with permission) for its timely and suggestive similarity from another point of view:

"It seems that one of the great problems of education today is the problem of seeing things in proportion. A hundred years ago there were so few facts concerned in the experiences of the average man that it was possible for him to acquire facts enough to carry him through, and to cover in general the range of experiences of men he would associate with. During the last hundred years the amount of classified knowledge available to students has increased many scores of times, and the opportunity to have interesting experiences also has increased tremendously. Even in our little town, the occasions "which no intelligent man can afford to miss" are so numerous that, if a man should try to keep up with them, his entire time would be occupied, and he would have no time for getting things done.

As a result of this tremendous increase of classified knowledge, it seems to me that our entire educational problem has changed. I think the educational policy of the future must be to see things in the large, in proportion, to master principles and policies, to see the fundamental course of events, and to master that part of the technic of ordinary affairs that it is necessary for every man to have. We must learn to have a sense of proportion in the use of our time and in the expenditure of our energy.

Our confusion at present is due to the fact that we are trying to apply to modern life the same standards and the same methods that we applied to a much simpler existence. The savage who cannot construct, depends for his well-being on gathering up the things that lie about him that he might find use for in the future. My little boy is now in this acquisitive stage and has a passionate desire to gather everything he comes in contact with. His hope of progress lies not in an increased capacity for gathering, but in his developing a sense of proportion and of a judgment of what is more or less valuable. Similarly, I think that educational progress must be not in the direction of increasing our capacities for acquiring information, but in developing an ability to select, so that one is no more disturbed by the multiplicity of events and impressions of today than a grown man is disturbed by the side of innumerable pieces of string, broken jack-knives, etc. which would be of supreme interest to a small boy."

The Headmaster of this "Modern School" had previously written

me:

"Our school has begun with no a priori notions about subject matter except that all subject matter which can serve any boy or girl has a place in a curriculum. We believe that subject matter is a tool-a medium-to teach the mastery of the "human occupations."

All this does not supplant books, mark me. All this does make pointed use of what our books tell us. In our program are classes in Latin, French, English Classics, German, Ancient History, and all the rest. But we are trying to tie all these up to today's problems. We want to drink

at the book fountain, but we don't want merely to bathe in information. The process of education should be not primarily the acquirement of information, but should be training first in knowing how to get the necessary knowledge when it is needed, and second in the use of knowledge as the indispensable tool in carrying on the occupations of life. Mastery of the ocupations in life is the end and aim of education; subject matter furnishes the tools needed, in contact with the world and in acquiring this matter; "projects" furnish the occasion, the interest, and the incentive for effort in acquiring subject matter and in gaining mastery of the occupations of life. Drill and drudgery and routine work cannot be eliminated from any good school; but such drill should be motivated, related to a "project," and have value in the pupil's estimation. Boys do not so much object to routine work because it is routine work; they object rather to routine which is dead and which has no obvious relation to what is valuable in a boy's life. (They may be credited with at least a small amount of that same common sense which inclines mature people to refuse to be interested in that which they believe in no way concerns them).. When a pupil becomes proficient in any subject, he need not put any more time on it. There should be a reward for proficiency," such as release of time to be free for the proficient's own pleasures, or for other work he likes; "so can even the residuum of drudgery be made lighter, and the keenness of life maintained."

These highly commendable principles are already in practice, at least in part, in many schools which, if not "modern," are at least not medieval; most of them can be introduced without radical change in organization and equipment, but not without hearty and efficient cooperation from the home. Obviously, however, if the school, as Mr. Morgan urges in the Atlantic, "must furnish the inspiration and occasion for each child to undertake adventures in which he is or can be interested, and by, means of which he will acquire some of the necessary habits, skill, knowledge, and initiative which will enable him to live"; and if, as Dr. Eliot urges, because parents cannot cooperate, "the public school must give each individual child or youth an interest in some work which is so strong that the child or youth will win concentration and power of mental application through work on the subject which interests him,”— obviously, to give practical opportunities like these to a polyglot constituency, largely of foreign birth, without intellectual environment, and with no cultural background or inheritance, must compel a radical and expensive change in organization and equipment.

The children of many well-to-do homes of fine cultural inheritance but of dwindling intellectual environment, need such opportunities still more; for such homes are too often only places where the children sleep and feed and draw pocket-money-they assume no responsibilities; from one week's end to another they do no

creative, cooperative act; they do not "give and take," they only take; wherever they drink, they do not drink at the "book fountain"; they bathe in amusement and self-indulgence.

The "project" of every pupil in a school like ours is "preparing for college." If this project is chosen by the pupil himself, the New Plan of examination provides a reasonable "motivation for drudgery" and reasonable opportunity for "contact with the world" (except, perhaps, in industry and agriculture, the requirements being as they are). Parents' reports, in answer to our questions, last month, with one exception, were all more favorable than we probably deserved; but there is a comfortable satisfaction among these parents with things as they are under our conditions.

Our difficulties are with the small proportion of pupils who did not themselves choose this "project" of preparing for college. Before they came to us, they had long passed the age when drill and drudgery were easy to motivate. How can they be made to react to all of these studies, when every neurone and muscle in their bodies, in spite of themselves, is reacting to pigeons or motorboats or wireless or what not? The "modern school" answer is obvious, and a good one; but is the responsibility on the school or on the parent?

"A low self-love in the parent," says Emerson, "desires that his child should repeat his character and fortune; an expectation which the child, if justice is done him, will nobly disappoint. You are trying to make that man another you. One's enough.'

Does the parent "respect the child," to choose this "project" for him and then let him dissipate his energies without judgement on a multiplicity of profitless outside things until he has no will or concentration to work it out to anybody's satisfaction? The "modern school" utilization of these "opportunities to have interesting experiences" is most commendable if it takes advantage of them with judgement, and early enough in life; but if the excessive and untimely indulgence in them is tolerated by parents until the child gets to the high school age and after, "distractions" is the right name for them, and the inordinate indulgence in them is disastrous, whatever the school in which the victim spends five of his fifteen waking hours.

M

IV

Address of Paul H. Hanus

HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

ANY of us have been trying to study education scien-· tifically for some years-which means that we have been trying to get a basis of recorded and organized facts for our educational opinions.

I welcome the Lincoln School because it is an endeavor to secure facts in support of the educational hypothesis on which the experiment, which is the Lincoln School, rests. The purpose of that school is clearly defined, and the methods of adapting means to ends in its organization, administration, and activities have also been clearly defined. It is the purpose to study carefully all these activities and to record objectively the results achieved. We have, accordingly, every reason to expect that the contribution which the Lincoln School will make to our real knowledge of the efficacy of certain means for the achievement of educational ends will be important and convincing. The aim of the school evidently is both to develop intelligence and efficiency in its pupils, to give them an understanding and appreciation of the resources and the problems of contemporary life, and at the same time to develop in them the power to deal appreciatively and effectively with those resources and problems.

To assert that the Lincoln School is not a valid educational experiment because it does not offer instruction in Latin-as has been asserted more than once to-day-is as trivial as to say that the raising, under certain conditions, of oranges instead of lemons in order to see what the outcome of such an endeavor, under the conditions, will be is not an agricultural experiment. Such an assertion need not be considered seriously.

As to the study of Latin, it seems to me important to point out that it is not an effective means for developing intelligence and effi