had excommunicated herself from the society of nations; that she was a nation of deceivers and of pirates; that an end should be put to her existence; that England had been generous and forbearing too long, and should not become the dupe of Portugal, etc., etc. This was the same

refrain which they sang later when Major Marchand of France took the liberty of occupying Fashoda before John Bull. The Cabinet of Lisbon offered, as did the South African Republic a few years ago, to submit the matter to arbitration. England haughtily refused, considering herself the sole arbitrator in everything.

On January 12, 1900, Lord Salisbury sent the Portuguese Government a most humiliating ultimatum; dictating word for word the order which he required the Portuguese Government to issue. He wrote:

"The British Government desires and insists that the following instructions should be sent at once by cable to the Governor of Mozambique: Recall immediately all Portuguese troops at present on the Shiré, as well as those in the country of the Makololos and of the Mashonas. The British Government is of the opinion that without this action the assurances given by the Government of Portugal are insufficient. Mr. Petre [the British Minister at Lisbon] will find himself obliged, according to his instructions, to leave Lisbon immediately, with all the members of the Legation, unless he receives a satisfactory answer this afternoon."

What a stinging blow for a proud people—a people whose intrepid sailor sons, such as Alphonso d'Albuquerque and Vasco da Gama, had once discovered and conquered half the world. What was Portugal to do? It was "might against right," the iron pot against the earthen pot. There was nothing left for her but to submit and obey. That same day Mr. Petre received the following reply from the Portuguese Minister of Foreign Affairs:

"Foreseeing the danger of a rupture with Great Britain and the consequences incident thereto, the Government of Portugal resigns itself to the conditions formulated in the last note of the British Government. While reserving the rights of the Portuguese Crown in the above-mentioned territories of Africa, as well as the right under article 12 of the Convention of Berlin, to have recourse to arbitration for the solution of differences, the Government of the King has despatched to the Governor of Mozambique the orders demanded by Great Britain."1

In Portugal this insult provoked a violent emotion which almost developed into a revolution. A crowd gathered in front of the British Legation, tore down the escutcheon, and dragged the flag in the mud. The effigy of Serpa-Pinto was crowned with flowers and carried in triumph through the streets of Lisbon. A public subscription was opened to buy or build war-vessels, and within a couple of days a large sum was sub

The British ultimatum and the Portuguese reply are both taken from a French translation.

scribed. At first Parliament refused to ratify what it called the capitulation of the Government, and the Ministry was overthrown. The King himself sent back to Queen Victoria the insignia of the Bath and of the Garter.

Enough of this! Are these the friendly relations in which the King of Portugal takes such pride? Or is the King's memory so short?

The English press, with its usual facility for inventing things which have not happened, reported that the Boers had invaded Portuguese territory and destroyed the railway. This was only a ballon d'essai to find out whether the Portuguese Government and people could be induced to meddle in the war by giving England the military assistance which she needed. But the Portuguese did not bite at the apple, and the English Jingo papers were obliged to confess that the attack had not taken place on Portuguese territory, but only near it.

Another effort to keep the favor and help of Portugal was made after Queen Victoria's funeral. The King of Portugal was invited by his ally and friend to remain in England a long time, and received the high compliment of an honorary colonelcy of a British regiment.

In the "Fortnightly Review" for June, 1901, Mr. E. B. Iwan-Müller says:

"For many years to come the Transvaal will necessarily be the chief source of the wealth of the Dominion. The Transvaal, however, is an enclave. Of the three lines of communication with the sea, the most direct lies through Portuguese territory to Delagoa Bay, which sooner or later must come under the sole and immediate sovereignty of Great Britain."

Why ask the question? We

Must come? By right or by might? live in the twentieth century. By might, of course the only English

right.

DEN BEER POORTUGAEL.

THE IDEAL SCHOOL AS BASED ON CHILD STUDY.

I SHALL try in this paper to break away from all current practices, traditions, methods, and philosophies, for a brief moment, and ask what education would be if based solely upon a fresh and comprehensive view of the nature and needs of childhood. Hitherto the data for such a construction of the ideal school have been insufficient, and soon they will be too manifold for any one mind to make the attempt; so the moment is opportune. What follows is based almost solely, point by point, upon the study of the stages of child development, and might, perhaps, without presumption be called a first attempt to formulate a practical programme of this great movement. In my limited space I can do little more than barely state the conclusions that affect the practical work of teachers.

The school I shail describe exists nowhere, but its methods, unless I err, are valid everywhere. Although many of its features exist already, and could be pieced together in a mosaic from many lands and ages, it is essentially the school invisible, not made with hands. But, as there is nothing so practical as the truly ideal, although my school to-day exists nowhere, it might be organized anywhere to-morrow; and I hope that the most and the least conservative will agree that it is the true goal of all endeavor, and will not differ except as to whether it may be realized at once or only at the end of a long period of labor. I confess that something like this has from the first animated all my own feeble educational endeavors, and that without it I should be without hope and without goal in the world of pedagogy.

Beginning with the deep philosophy often embedded in words, "school," or "schole," means leisure, exemption from work, the perpetuation of the primeval paradise created before the struggle for existence began. It stands for the prolongation of human infancy, and the no whit less important prolongation of adolescence. It is sacred to health, growth, and heredity, a pound of which is worth a ton of instruction. The guardians of the young should strive first of all to keep out of nature's way, and to prevent harm, and should merit the proud title of de

fenders of the happiness and rights of children. They should feel profoundly that childhood, as it comes fresh from the hand of God, is not corrupt, but illustrates the survival of the most consummate thing in the world; they should be convinced that there is nothing else so worthy of love, reverence, and service as the body and soul of the growing child.

Practically, this means that every invasion of this leisure, the provision of a right measure of which is our first duty to youth, has a certain presumption against it, and must justify itself by conclusive reasons. Before we let the pedagogue loose upon childhood, not only must each topic in his curriculum give an account of itself, but his inroads must be justified in the case of each child. We must overcome the fetichism of the alphabet, of the multiplication table, of grammars, of scales, and of bibliolatry, and must reflect that but a few generations ago the ancestors of all of us were illiterate; that the invention of Cadmus seemed the sowing of veritable dragon's teeth in the brain; that Charlemagne and many other great men of the world could not read or write; that scholars have argued that Cornelia, Ophelia, Beatrice, and even the blessed mother of our Lord knew nothing of letters. The knights, the élite leaders of the Middle Ages, deemed writing a mere clerk's trick beneath the attention of all those who scorned to muddle their wits with others' ideas, feeling that their own were good enough for them.

Nay more there are many who ought not to be educated, and who would be better in mind, body, and morals if they knew no school. What shall it profit a child to gain the world of knowledge and lose his own health? Cramming and over-schooling have impaired many a feeble mind, for which, as the proverb says, nothing is so dangerous as ideas too large for it. We are coming to understand the vanity of mere scholarship and erudition, and to know that even ignorance may be a wholesome poultice for weakly souls; while scribes, sophists, scholastics, and pedants suggest how much of the learning of the past is now seen to be vanity, and how incompetent pedagogues have been as guardians of the sacred things of culture. Thus, while I would abate no whit from the praise of learning and education for all who are fit for them, I would bring discrimination down to the very basis of our educational pyramid. I. The kindergarten age is from two or three to six or seven. Here, before the ideal school can be inaugurated, we need some work of rescue from the symbolists. Now the body needs most attention, and the soul least. The child needs more mother, and less teacher; more of the educated nurse, and less of the metaphysician. We must largely eliminate, and partly reconstruct, the mother-plays, while transforming and vastly

enlarging the repertory of the gifts and occupations. We must develop the ideal nursery, playgrounds, and rooms, where light, air, and water are at their best. The influences of the new hygiene have been felt least here, where they are needed most. The neglect of these basal principles suggests that we have still among us those whose practice implies a belief that any old place is good enough to hatch out beautiful souls, provided only Froebelian orthodoxy of doctrine and method is steadfastly maintained. In place of a magic mongering with them, the cubes, spheres, cylinder, and also the top, soap-bubble, doll, dances, marches, circus, and scores of other free plays and games; and in place of two or three fish, insects, animals, plants, several score must be provided, and a museum and catalogue raisonné of toys must be at hand. Eating bread, milk, fruit, with some simple table manners, and using paper napkins, sometimes do wonders for these human larvæ. Feeding brightens the mind and saves the disposition; a full stomach opens the mouth, and good courses of lessons could be derived from the viands themselves.

The kindergarten should fill more of the day, and should strive to kill time. In the Berlin Institute children sleep at noon in a darkened room, with music, crackers, or even bottles, and thus resist man's enemy, fatigue, and restore paradise for themselves. Part of the cult here should be idleness and the intermediate state of reverie. We should have a good excuse to break into these, and at this age children should be carefully shielded from all suspicion of any symbolic sense. Thus in play and in play only, life is made to seem real. Imitation should have a far larger scope. Children should hear far more English and better, and in the later years the ear should be trained for French or German. Color should never be taught as such. The children of the rich, generally prematurely individualized or over-individualized, especially when they are only children, must be disciplined and subordinated; while the children of the poor, usually under-individualized, should be indulged. We should lose no syllable of the precious positive philosophy of Froebel, the deepest of all modern educational thinkers; but we must profoundly reconstruct every practical expression that he attempted of his ideas, and must strive to induce at least a few college-trained men and women to turn their attention to the kindergarten, thus making the training schools feel, what they have hitherto known so little of, the real spirit and influence of modern science. Teachers should study every child, not necessarily by any of the current technical methods. They should learn far more than they can teach, and in place of the shallow mannikin child of books they should see, know, and love only the real thing. After this metempsy