methods. The chief recommendations are as follows:

1. That at least three periods a week be devoted to English in the four years of the high school. This gives a total of 480 periods.

2. That the prescribed books be regarded as a basis for such wider courses of English study as the schools may arrange for themselves; and that these courses should be identical for pupils who expect to go to college and for pupils who do not expect to go.

3. That in connection with the reading and study of the required books, parallel or subsidiary reading be encouraged; and that a considerable amount of English poetry be committed to memory.

4. That the leading facts in those periods of English literary history to which the prescribed books belong, be taught; and that the essentials of English Grammar be not neglected.

5. That instruction be given in the fundamental principles of Rhetoric: in the choice of words, in the structure of sentences and of paragraphs, and in the simple forms of narration, description, exposition, and argument; such instruction to begin early in the high school course.

6. That systematic training in writing and speaking English be given throughout the course and that in the high school the subjects for compositions be taken partly from the prescribed books and partly from the student's own thought and experience.

7. That clear and idiomatic English be insisted upon in all examinations, note-books, translations from other languages, and in whatever the pupil writes or speaks on any subject of the school course.

8. That alternatives be allowed for the prescribed books by colleges admitting on certificate.

It should be added that the conference of 1899 published a long list of books

as an aid in guiding the home reading of boys and girls. An open list of books, graded for the four years of the high school and containing all that the conferences have recommended for general reading and for careful study as well as many others, is embodied in the report to the National Educational Association already mentioned. This report also contains an outline of a high school course in English covering four years, and is a valuable document for the English teacher to read and ponder.

In judging of entrance requirements the most important question to ask is not, Are they theoretically the best? but, Are they in line with what the schools are doing and with what the schools in considerable numbers can readily accomplish? In Ohio as in other states a few schools never needed the stimulus of these requirements at all. They were doing and continue to do all that the requirements call for and more. Ten years ago, however, there were many of our high schools that were doing much less; and there are still too many in which the English work consists of nothing but Grammar in the first year, a term of Rhetoric in the next year with compositions occasionally, and a text book of English literature, with more Grammar, in the last year. In many schools the study of the English classics is still wholly a matter of outside reading; in others it is part of a general exercise once a week in which but few pupils can participate and for which the few alone make any preparation. Nevertheless there is reason for encouragement in the fact that the number of schools that meet the requirements in English classics has increased by twenty-eight in the last four years, as shown by reports on file at but one institution, the state university.

The total increase must be considerably larger than this. The conference

recommends (though this is not a requirement) that a total of 480 periods be devoted to English in the high schools. In 116 representative Ohio schools, large and small, reporting to the Ohio State University in 1898 with sufficient completeness to enable figures to be made, the average of the total periods devoted to English is 430. This average is raised by the fact that the list includes all of the fully-equipped high schools of the cities and larger towns of the state, but, in spite of that, the showing is certainly good.

In the distribution of the time among the branches of English, these 116 schools are not on the average in harmony with the recommendations of the conferences. While calling for some attention to Grammar, Rhetoric, and literary history, the recommendations still leave the emphasis on the study of the English classics and on composition, as in the original requirements, and there is no doubt that the best thought of the time favors courses in the English classics and courses in composition-practice as deserving of the greatest share of the time alloted to English in any high school. The Committee of ten recommended that six-tenths of the total time devoted to English be assigned to the English classics, three-tenths to composition, and onetwentieth each to Grammar and Rhetoric if separated from the composition courses. In the 116 high schools which are giving on the average 430 periods to English, the average number of periods assigned to the study of English classics is only 100 and the average number of periods devoted to composition is only 55. That is, less than onehalf of the time which these schools spend in English study is devoted to the two branches which the conferences insist upon as the most important. The

average is lowered from the fact that 36 of these schools give no school-time whatever to English classics, although some of these prescribe outside reading for their pupils, and 39 report no classes in composition, though some of these require a monthly or a term essay. The average for literary history is 110, or 10 more than the average for the classics themselves. The average for Grammar is 90, only 10 less than the average for the classics and nearly twice the average for composition. Rhetoric fares better than composition in schools which make separate courses of these two subjects.

The composition work, in fact, is still the weakest feature of our English courses in Ohio, as in other states. Lack of instruction, lack of practice, and lack of time for manuscript work are largely responsible for this, wherever the weakness exists. The high schools are few in which so much as an hour a week is set apart for the instruction and practice in writing English. Even in schools which justly pride themselves upon their excellent work in the English classics, it is not unusual to find that composition receives little attention. The time will come when superintendents and principals will make due allowance for the extra time and labor involved in teaching composition properly, by reducing the class hours of the teachers having charge of the composition classes.

I may be permitted, in conclusion, to encroach upon the territory of Supt. Kinnison's paper to the extent of saying that in many, perhaps most of the schools, the real problem is not how to find more time for English, but how best to utilize the time now assigned to English, — how to distribute it among the various lines of English work so as to produce the best results.

There has been assigned me, in this paper, the work of telling how to secure the "College Entrance Requirements in English," in our High Schools.

Usually the how to accomplish anything implies a method, but. Col. Parker tells us that "a pedagogic method is the way an artist teacher reaches an ideal," and that, therefore, method is entirely personal and cannot be successfully copied.

If this be true, the personality of my method will lack essential qualities, for I claim to be neither artistic nor idealistic, touching this subject of college requirements in English.

The thoughts I bring you are commonplace, and yet the theme is one having my hearty and sympathetic approval. The study of our mother tongue, whether made manifest by lip or pen, is worthy of a place in all our school work, and demands for its proper presentation to classes the best talent in our teaching force. Col. Parker again tells us that "Educational ideas are by far the slowest to change, that Noah Webster is mightier than Johnathan Edwards, and technical grammar than predestination," and that "human progress is measured by the time it takes for a good idea to get into life." I am glad to have lived long enough since my college days to see one good educational idea germinate, with radicle and plumule so enlarged and developed as to give promise of even greater fruitfulness than it has already brought forth, and that is a rational way of teaching English lit

erature.

Twenty or twenty-five years ago English literature in the average Ohio college class-room was about as invigorating and zestful in its presentation and reception as would now be the preparation for the press of a mummy catalogue and the proof reading of the same. We studied literary mummies, bedecked with dynastic labels of birth, death and date of embalmment, with no hint of a resurrection, inside or outside the class-room.

The living, eloquent, animating authors of our splendid English classics were strangers to us, save in name, and only those of literary taste ever broke through the mummy case of teacher and text to see and to feel the power of the man with the pen. But now all that is largely changed. Even our public schools know a better way and walk therein.

The "how to secure the college requirements" has a preparatory phase which I think is too much overlooked, and which is my first suggestion in the discussion of my subject. I refer to the supplementary reading below the High School.

One of the first innovations of Col. Parker in the Quincy schools was the expenditure of $500 in the purchase of supplementary literature for the various grades. This really meant a circulating library in the schools, suited to the age and advancement of the pupils. What was thus tried as an experiment has become, in many of our schools, a part of the graded course, and pupils now enter our High Schools with a taste for good books.

By this preparatory reading in grades below the High School I do not refer to the supplementary readers, but to the simpler masterpieces of our language, suited to the age and training of the pupils.

This work should not be so conducted as to encroach too much upon the time of the pupils in school hours, but should be a part of their home reading. Let six such books as Carpenter's Asia, Grimm's Fairy Tales, Great Americans for Little Americans, Aesop's Fables, Old Greek Stories, Franklin's Autobiography, the Alhambra and Lady of the Lake, be furnished the various grades, and let them be taken home for fireside reading, with father and mother as listeners.

When thus read, let them be returned for another relay of readers, with the understanding that they are to give proof to the teacher, orally or otherwise, that the books have been intelligently read.

Four or five years of such reading, under the wise direction of good teachers, will make an excellent preparation for the college requirements in the High School. The how to secure such required literary work will be partially solved by the time pupils have done this Grammar grade reading. This directed reading will make better readers of our High School pupils, many of whom fail because they cannot intelligently read their text-books, much less master them. They lack the literary or reading sense. The printed page is dim of meaning to them, or is flat and perspectiveless to them, and no binocular apparatus the teacher can devise is able to bring out its solid, vital meaning. The reading sense is awakened and developed by reading, by suitable, well directed reading, all along the line of school work. In speaking of the college requirements in English, in amount about 720 hours'

work, or one-fourth of the High School course, as prescribed by the Committee of Ten, one would naturally think more stress would be laid upon the required reading, by college examiners, than upon the composition work required, and that, too, upon the mechanical part of it, such as spelling, punctuation, capitalization and paragraphing. But from investigation such is not the

case.

Out of twelve or fifteen examination lists submitted by leading colleges and universities, as entrance tests in English, some eight or ten were devoted almost wholly to spelling, punctuation, capitalization, technical Grammar and clear, concise sentence building. This introduces my second suggestion, and that is that our Grammar and High Schools should pay more attention and continued attention, to these practical elements of Rhetoric and to technical English Grammar. For these entrance tests indicate that the colleges lay much emphasis on the study of these branches. We think the emphasis well placed. It shows that the spirit of Lindley Murry is still a power in the educational world, despite the fact that of late years it has been too much relegated to the shades of forgotten lore.

Not alone by college professors is the study of technical grammar demanded, but many of the best teachers of Latin in our High Schools see the necessity of such work before pupils can intelligently take up the study of Latin.

But this demand implies that a more thorough study of English Grammar is needed in the seventh and eighth years of the Grammar grades, and along with it, continued and thorough work in spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and composition work. How such work is to be done must be left to the tactfulness and skill of the individual teacher,

each one devising his own plan and working it out in his own way.

This kind of Grammar school work, supplemented by the literature in such grades, successfully leads up to the college requirements in the High School. Pupils thus trained are ready to begin the study of the prescribed English classics. It is a rare charm, and one which all great men do not possess, that makes greatness approachable and therefore the better understood. It is a rare privilege for a teacher to open up a great drama or poem to a class of boys and girls, to introduce them to the author in such a way as to put them at their ease in the presence of literary greatness. Let there be but few preliminaries to the introduction and let the author tell his story to the class as soon as possible. By this I mean that the pupils should be permitted to read the classic with as little interruption as possible in the way of frequent reference to marginal notes, archaic forms, idiomatic expressions, or side lights of any kind. Like Desdemona, let them sit at the author's feet and listen to the plain, unvarnished tale, till the charm is upon them. I would call this the first reading, and in it, the story, the poem or the drama should take precedence of the teacher. When once this first and most pleasurable reading of the book has been given, there will then be time for didactic work. Obscure passages may be mastered, the style of the author may be more carefully studied, and the purpose of the book made clear, all of which make demands upon the teacher. Carlyle says we have not read an author till we have seen his object, whatever it may be, as he saw it.

But this standard of reading implies mature mind and keen insight, conditions not possible in High School pupils.

The teacher's work, then, in literature, is to introduce the class to the author and then, as the need may be, become the author's interpreter. To be able to do this and yet with it lead the pupils to become independent and original readers, is rare teaching.

Touching on this same phase of classroom work in literature, Prof. Hudson says "the thing is to have the pupils, with the teacher's help and guidance, commune with the author while in class and quietly drink in the sense and spirit of his workmanship."

This help and guidance more properly belongs to what I call the second reading of a production. This second reading, or rather study of the classic in hand, affords the teacher opportunity to marshal all his literary helps for the benefit of the class.

Study of style, of plot, of diction, of historical allusions, archaic forms, or idioms, in fact the study of everything pertaining to an intelligent and helpful criticism of an author, here finds its place.

This last, critical and painstaking reading is the real school-room work in literature. It is needful and helpful and will be entered into all the more heartily by the class after their freedom and consequent enjoyment of the first reading.

That this is the rational and more enjoyable method of taking up the school work in literature has proof in our own experience as readers. We are best able to pass judgment on books in a critical way, if we have first given ourselves the pleasure of an unbroken reading of them.

When thus read, we can all the better take a studious and intelligent retrospect of the volume. The real power of the teacher is shown in this second reading of a book.