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that more careful statistical records be kept regarding the course of conduct of each " citizen," in order that other institutions with similar purposes may get the benefit of the experience of this most interesting and valuable experiment.

One must not overlook, too, the fact that the really great success of this experiment is largely due to the personality of its founder and manager, Mr. George. While the boys make and enforce the laws, his ever-present counsel and sympathy, as well as his wisdom. in helping the boys to see clearly and to realize fully the valuable lessons which their experience teaches them, are of course most prominent factors in producing the good results attained. His visits to boys in jail, and his companionship on the ball ground, are both invaluable. It is his originality, his sympathy, and his remarkable skill in dealing with them that have made this Republic one of the most helpful means of training and reclaiming children whose lives have been started on the downward path.

NOTE. It may be added, on the authority of Mr. F. B. Sanborn, that the idea of intrusting boys with a currency and the government of a miniature town was earlier adopted than by Mr. George at the old Farm School in Boston Bay, when C. W. Bradley, a Vermont man, who was in charge ten years, allowed his ninety-five boys to build cottages and a City Hall, sell lots, have a zoölogical museum, etc., the whole experiment dating back some three or four years, and not open to objections raised against the Freeville community.

I DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION.

1. A SKETCH OF RECENT MOVEMENTS IN THE EDUCATIONAL DOMAIN.

BY REV. DR. JOSEPH ANDERSON, OF WATERBURY, CONN., CHAIRMAN OF THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND ART.

[Read Tuesday morning, August 31.]

On the 31st of August, 1837 (sixty years ago to-day), took place what Lowell has characterized as "an event without former parallel in our literary annals." On that day, before a remarkable audience, Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered his address on "The American Scholar." President Thwing, of the Western Reserve University, in the last number of the Forum, has made this event and Emerson's address the theme of an interesting essay, comparing the scholarship of sixty years ago and the scholarship of to-day in regard to the influences affecting them and the duties lying before them. As for the quality of that earlier scholarship as compared with the present type, President Thwing has little to say; but comparisons in this respect are easily ventured upon, and this, it seems to me, is quite obvious: that the scholar who stands on a pedestal, symmetrical and conspicuous, is not as frequent a figure as he was sixty years ago, but that scholarship, or at least educated intelligence, is much more widely spread. The school and the college probably enter more largely into the common life of the people to-day; and, besides these positive educational factors, there are various others which, half a century ago, had hardly begun to operate.

As for the place of the school in our modern life, the latest statistics of the National Bureau of Education bring the matter before us in a very matter-of-fact but very impressive way. It appears from Commissioner Harris's last report that the enrolment in the schools and colleges of the United States is nearly

16,000,000 pupils, and in special schools (such as business. colleges, conservatories of music, Indian schools, reform schools, and the like) 418,000 more, making a total of 16,415,197 pupils. As these numbers unfold themselves before us, we cannot help exclaiming, "What a vast multitude undergoing the process of education!" This multitude consists, for the most part, of children and youth, who undergo the process for only a limited period, - that is, while connected with the organized school or college; and therefore it is that the condition of our schools and colleges, as regards effectiveness, must always be a serious, in fact, a momentous question. The time is short, the opportunity is transient. The wise man says, "Make the most of it."

All true educators and philanthropists are perpetually asking how we can do this, how we can improve our schools and colleges so as to bring them to the point of highest efficiency. The reformer finds here an open field. He is less hampered by traditions, or, at any rate, less apt to run up against an inconvenient conscience, than in the ecclesiastical realm, and so finds it easier to secure calm consideration for the innovations he proposes. President Adams, of Wisconsin University, speaking of our public schools, says: "I believe they are not half cared for. They are often poorly administered, they often have inefficient teachers; they often do not do one-half what they should for the best good of their pupils; and, when they have done their work, they leave a large percentage of the people above ten years of age who can neither write nor read. By all means improve the common schools in every way possible." The improvement of the schools is a work that enlists the attention and energies of very many, and the lines of effort are chiefly two: first, in regard to subjects to be studied; second, in regard to methods. How shall we adapt our teaching to the times and to the actual needs of men? and how shall we secure the greatest efficiency therein?

It is noticeable that a good deal of attention has recently been given to the economy of time in the educational process. A few years ago President Eliot, of Harvard, contributed a noteworthy paper to the Atlantic Monthly on the possibility of shortening the college curriculum by improving the methods alike of the professor and the student; and this was entirely in keeping with the general drift of things.

One cannot help recognizing in this connection the importance of the movement inaugurated at Chautauqua some years ago, which

has developed into that interesting but somewhat uncertain institution known through all the land as the summer school. Our country is full of summer schools, some of them comprehensive, like Chautauqua and Greenacre-on-the-Piscataqua, others devoted to a specialty, such as music, languages, or the comparative study of religions.* Whatever the merits or defects of the system, one cannot but approve the effort it represents at economizing time, and especially at saving something from that wreck of days and hours which is so apt to take place during the months of July and August. It is a cause of congratulation that our colleges and universities, instead of antagonizing this wide-spread movement, are falling into line with it. The other day, on University Heights, in the city of New York, Chancellor MacCracken, of the New York University, stated the case in this way:

One of the striking educational features of this last decade of the century is the taking up of instruction in the summer time by leading universities. A few years ago summer teaching was almost wholly a matter of a few popular lectures and conferences at some attractive rural resort. Besides these, were certain private enterprises, some of which were carried on in college towns and college buildings. The feature of to-day is a number of universities officially announcing summer instruction. The foremost of all in the amount of work attempted is that youthful giant, the Chicago University. Chicago makes its summer term of three months equal in importance to any of the other three terms of the year. . . . The result is significant. More than one thousand students were in actual attendance in the summer term of 1896, and the number will perhaps be increased to twelve hundred the present summer. Chicago is accordingly making herself felt in every quarter. More than two hundred college and university faculties had one or more of their professors or instructors attending Chicago University in the summer of 1896. In New England and the Middle States four universities have established summer work; namely, Harvard and Clark in Massachusetts, and New York and Cornell in the State of New York. These four schools together have about a thousand students, of whom two-thirds belong to Harvard.

"Can we doubt," asked Chancellor MacCracken in this same address, "that universities should attempt summer work? A university gathers a faculty of specialists. Ought not their acquirements to be given the widest possible use?" It is doubtless such

*Those who are especially interested in the proper disposal of the World's Fair Building which was transported two years ago from Chicago to the Connecticut shore, propose to make that the headquarters of a summer school of American history,-a purpose which its antecedents very naturally suggest.

considerations as this, coupled with the obvious needs of the poorer class in our cities, that have led to a still further development of the economical idea in the opening of "vacation schools." I do not know how widely this experiment has been tried, but I find in the public prints interesting accounts of vacation schools that have been conducted this summer in Hartford and in New York. The number of children applying for admission in Hartford was over 700; the number registered was 145; the average attendance 101,- a percentage of over 90, which is very high. The ages of the pupils ranged from seven to fourteen years. The experiment in New York was conducted under the auspices of the Society for Improving the Condition of the Poor. Ten schools were opened in public school buildings, and the attendance was very large. Over a thousand were registered in one school. It is to be hoped that vacation schools will become established in all our cities; for in all our cities there are school buildings and school apparatus standing idle all the summer through, which might better be used, if a legitimate use can be found for them, and out of the multitude of teachers a sufficient corps could readily be secured to do the necessary work for a reasonable compensation. The New York schools were supported by voluntary contributions.

By the measures thus far referred to, the number of those who may be considered as attendants at school or college must be very considerably increased. In these cases the school, however informal, has a tangible existence, has an organization, a local habitation and a name. But, to appreciate the breadth of the movement I am describing (I do not say the depth), we must take account of what has been done and is doing in the line of "university extension." Dr. Frederick Paulsen, of Berlin, in his elaborate paper on the "Evolution of the Educational Ideal" touches upon this subject as follows: "In countries where the English language is spoken, the universities (since 1870) have endeavored to make education accessible to those who, desiring self-improvement, are prevented by reason of their daily vocations from taking a regular scientific course. In Germany, also, the universities are about to follow this example, and I do not believe that the bugaboo of 'superficial education,' which is occasionally raised in the newspapers by the representatives of thoroughness,' will intimidate them from carrying out their design." I have the impression that in this country the scheme is not likely to be as great a success as

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* See the Forum for August, 1897.

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