of the judgment of intelligent readers and critical scholars upon each successive portion; and I was earnestly and anxiously asked how I was to treat of the complicated problems involved—such as the rise of churches, newspapers, schools, charities, and all the other institutions which go to make up a great metropolis, with correct pen pictures of public characters, manners, customs, social life, and political disturbances in the various eras—in a clear and comprehensive style that should be well balanced throughout. It was apparent that no theme must be given more space than its relative importance deserved, and that I was expected to infuse life and color into every paragraph, and to hit the happy medium between the dull repetition of details and the indulgence of fancy. I had undertaken to introduce biographical sketches and family history into the narrative of public affairs, which no American historian had hitherto attempted, and my material was to be drawn from innumerable unknown sources. I was pledged to unravel the tangled and obscure threads of New York's early history while it was yet a little Dutch town; to present, step by step, its growth, its early boundaries, its material aspects; and to show clearly the gradual development of the enormous commercial interests which have changed the whole face of a continent. I was also deftly to reveal the relations that existed between this country and England, France, Holland, and Spain during our entire history. "Even if you are able," was the pressing inquiry, “to carry out your ideas of minute research, how will you acquire the art of exact discrimination?" The question was one that could be answered by deeds much better than by words. If I had acquired the gift to accomplish what was desired and expected of me, it was certainly due in a large measure to that preparatory training unwittingly inaugurated in my infancy. The subtile power that regulated my sense of proportion, enabling me to distinguish the essential from the non-essential in the grave problems with which I had to deal, and which definitely contributed to my habits of concentrated attention, was easily discoverable in the principles of mathematics, which by many in my school days was considered a most useless acquisition.

It must be borne in mind, however, that when we look for

formative influences, no one can properly be considered alone. It is the union of many that produces satisfactory results. But for my acquaintance with European history, obtained when my mind was in a receptive condition, mathematical science would hardly have influenced or promoted any practical achievement, for I should never have sufficiently understood and appreciated the peculiar character of my own country to have ventured into its history. Then, again, my varied reading, especially my study of the poets, brought me into intimate relations with the growth. and expansion of American literature, and acted an influential part in shaping my literary and historical tastes. It brought me into contact with the great facts of life as revealed in human experience, and furnished the mental exercises requisite for healthful and symmetrical development. It would be impossible to state which of all these several formative influences exerted to the greatest degree the secret power that held me devoted to my chosen field of research for fifteen well-rounded years, without variableness or shadow of turning. There was an irresistible charm somewhere, for I had not foreseen the magnitude of the work that I was to perform. The structure became a matter of growth instead of architecture. And the educational influences behind me seemed to increase in magnetism and vitality as I drilled the raw material into order.

I ought, perhaps, to speak of the special influence for good that has come to me through the discipline of the work itself, although I am aware that the outlook toward the far past is the chief concern of the present series of papers. The formative influences of my life were realized in the volumes to which reference has been made, but they have reached into my subsequent work as an editor and an author with even greater force and significance. Together with the education which practical experience provides, they have helped me into a loving friendship for our whole vast and beautiful country; they have widened my views, enabled me to look upon all sides of a subject, and inspired me to keep my mind ever open to fresh discoveries and enlarged possibilities in the direction of historic truth.

MARTHA J. LAMB.

A NEW POLICY FOR THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

SOCIAL problems are raised as frequently by insensible and unobserved changes in existing conditions, as by a clear forecast of the principles involved in them. An example in point is public instruction in the United States at the present moment. Our public schools are apparently prosperous, and command the same popular interest as in previous periods. There has been some stir in the popular mind concerning them during the last year, but hardly an apprehension of coming disaster. Yet the facts in the case should lead us to anticipate the need of a change of policy in the somewhat near future. A very considerable number of private schools in the several States have always been engaged in primary work. These have more or less weakened and disparaged public schools. In some States intermediate instruction and collegiate instruction have been largely in the hands of religious bodies. The feeling has prevailed in many churches that each denomination should provide for itself higher institutions of learning suited to its own sense of fitness. Yet the limits of this private effort have been narrow. The public system has not been seriously embarrassed by it, and has had no occasion to expect determined or extended attacks.

For some time past, however, some churches, more particularly the Roman Catholic and Lutheran, have been occupied with a systematic and extended effort to place the children of their households, as far as practicable, under instruction of their own providing. It has been stated in the FORUM that the parochial schools of the Roman Catholic Church now include more than 600,000 children, while those of the Lutheran Church, in Wisconsin alone, embrace 20,394. So widely-sustained a method of private training, by which the public schools are displaced, promises to bring far more serious embarrassment to our public method than any which it has hitherto encountered.

*December, 1889, p. 380.

Several events have recently occurred which indicate the nearness and the character of the coming strife. Some time since, certain Roman Catholics in Edgerton, Wis., brought a complaint against a district board for allowing the reading of the Scriptures in a public school. public school. By the first adjudication the board was sustained. The case was then carried to the Supreme Court. That court decided that the use of the Bible in the public schools of Wisconsin is inconsistent with that clause of the State Constitution which forbids "sectarian" instruction. A somewhat similar question is now before the courts of Illinois in connection with the opening religious exercises in the State university at Champaign. The decision of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin has drawn out sharp criticism, and will serve to widen the division between public and private schools. It will tend to modify the instruction in the former somewhat unfavorably, and will be thought to affect it far more unfavorably than it actually will. The weakness of public instruction is in its want of moral vigor, and this decision will seem to many to enhance that deficiency. It will be difficult, if not impossible, to separate vigorous moral influences from the spiritual inspirations with which they are associated in the community, and to employ them effectively in this mutilated form. The Roman Catholic and Lutheran Churches will be greatly strengthened in their assertion of the irreligious character of public schools, and other denominations, already sharing the feeling in reference to collegiate work, will be led to extend it to the lower grades of instruction. This decision will tend to enhance the very evil which gives rise to it, and to make our public schools increasingly secular. Thus a real weakness may readily grow out of an imaginary one.

A second more significant event in Wisconsin has followed this first discussion. At the last session of the Legislature a law was passed, without opposition and with no division of political parties, renewing the requirement that each child between the ages of seven and fourteen years shall attend school not less than twelve weeks in each year, and declaring as follows:

"No school shall be regarded as a school, under this act, unless there shall be taught therein, as part of the elementary education, reading, writing, arithmetic, and United States history, in the English language."

This ground had been covered by previous legislation, but the laws had not been enforced. The conditions are somewhat peculiar in Wisconsin, though they are shared by most of the northwestern States. Not only is there a large percentage of Germans, Scandinavians, and other foreigners in the population, but considerable sections are occupied by them almost exclusively. Customs, institutions, and methods of thought have thus been bodily transferred to the new State, and no opportunity has been given to modify or to soften them by an interfusion of native citizens and American sentiments. The Lutherans in Wisconsin, like the Puritans of old, have built their churches on the hills, and by virtue of extent and solidity of immigration they dominate the surrounding regions. These conditions in some communities give little or no room for public schools; in other communities they greatly reduce the attendance on them, or impart to them something of the character of parochial schools.

The Lutheran parochial schools in Wisconsin number 396 and contain 20,394 scholars. To these are to be added 264 schools and 36,271 scholars under the direction of the Roman Catholic Church. The language used in the Lutheran schools is very frequently German, often German and English, and only in a minority of cases English alone. Direct instruction is given in the English language in a portion of these schools, the time occupied by it varying from two to twenty hours each week. In 145 of them no instruction in English is given, though a larger or smaller proportion of the scholars attend the public schools a part of the time. In a few schools not only is German used exclusively, but no instruction is given in English and none of the pupils attend the public schools. These statements are made on the authority of a pamphlet by Christopher Koerner, of Milwaukee. It opposed the Bennett law, and its statistics were taken from the reports of the Lutheran Church.

It is not surprising that, attention being drawn to this state of facts, considerable interest and solicitude were excited in the minds of a few. The result of this feeling was the Bennett law, which, however, in no way interested the public mind during its passage. The vigorous opposition that it soon received from the Roman Catholic and Lutheran Churches was unexpected. Gov