building of cities, villages, and farm houses; secondly, he transforms it for the purpose of intercommunication by making roads, bridges, tunnels, viaducts, railways, and canals; and, thirdly, he transforms land by adapting it to crops, by fencing, by draining, by cultivation, by irrigation, and by connecting it with the world market by internal and foreign commerce. In other words, school geography deals not only with the geographical features in which natural conditions are seen to affect "the physical character of man," but also with the transformations which man makes upon nature with his cities, railways, canals, and agriculture.

By reason of this difference in definitions, the school geography is likely to be hindered if it adopts the literature of the geographical society without some modification. The region of the North Pole is of as much interest geographically as the region about New York, or London, or Paris, or any great centre of civilization. But the child in the school ought to be interested chiefly in the geographical centres of population. The centres that are connected with the history of great events are also, other things being equal, of more importance than the territory that has not yet been made the theatre of civilization.

The emphasis which school geography lays upon the connection of places with human history suggests an educational heresy that infects to some extent the pedagogy of this branch of study. The votaries of geography sometimes become so much interested in the physical process of action and reaction in earth, air, fire, and water, that they turn away in disgust from the transformation which man has made upon the earth's surface, and especially from that part of geography which relates to the lines and boundaries of political divisions. They get so much respect for the inanimate forces of nature that to them the rational forces of man seem arbitrary and unworthy of serious attention. This gives rise to the literature of geography for geography's sake that reminds one of those writings that are said to belong to poetry for poetry's sake.

Moreover, there is a tendency on the part even of those who have given most attention to the physical elements and forces to overrate their influence upon civilization. They seek to explain, as did Mr. Buckle, the development of the institutions of society by climate, fertility of soil, picturesque scenery, earthquakes, and such matters which are thought to have a controlling effect in determining the character of the populations of countries.

This view makes geography in some sense a substitute for history. If historic development is an effect of geographic conditions and forces, it is, of course, a mistake to consider history an evolution proceeding

through a growing sense of the ideal of freedom, and its realization in theory and practice. The great German, who said that the world-history is the progress of man into consciousness of freedom, must have been mistaken. The evolution of national ideas, beginning with Eastern Asia, where the state is everything and the individual next to nothing, moving westward to the nations of Europe and America, where the state is great in proportion to the greatness of its individuals — this progress certainly must be an illusion because it cannot be explained from geography. This bouleversement of ideas on the part of enthusiasts in the study of physical processes is enough to prove that geography is not a good substitute for history.

History shows the inward development of social and political ideas and their realization in institutions. The geographical conditions furnish no more than the mode of manifestation. Man reacts against nature and transforms it into an instrument of expression and a means of realizing his rational self. Geography does not deal with the evolution of human freedom, except in so far as it shows the results of that freedom in the modifications which man has made to adapt nature to his purposes. The cold freezes the water into snow, but it does not make the Eskimo's snow hut. The river divides the populations of a country, but it does not make the bridge, the ferry, and the tunnel that unite them.

Specialization in science leads to the division of aggregates of knowledge into narrow fields for closer observation. This is all right. But in the course of study for the common school it is proper and necessary that the human interest should always be kept somewhat in advance of the physical. W. T. HARRIS.

PROBLEMS OF OUR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM.

EDUCATION aims to fit one for three things: (1) to earn his living by the exercise of his trained powers; (2) to support the institutions of society by intelligent appreciation of their worth; and (3) to enjoy the products of art and civilization through the cultivation of imagination and taste. The mind is not a thing apart from heart and will. Knowledge blends with will, and flows over into feeling. Its worth, therefore, is measured by what it helps a man to give to the world in the service of his calling and in social support, and what it brings back to him in personal fellowship and æsthetic satisfaction.

-

The first requirement that this threefold standard makes of the elementary school is that it shall preserve the children in vigorous health, untouched by needless fret and worry, and unconscious of either heads or nerves. No school can create health. a free gift of Nature - but a school can at least preserve it unimpaired. Fresh air in the school, ample playgrounds outside, tests which call for quiet work rather than feverish cram, and an atmosphere of ordered freedom are some of the helps an elementary school can give to the health of the children. The school which, by bad ventilation, crowded curriculum, vexatious examinations, or anxiety about details of rank, breaks down health is guilty of the greatest crime it is possible to commit against a child.

Secondly, this standard calls for power of hand and eye, to appreciate and make beautiful and useful objects. Kindergarten methods employed until the age of six or seven, followed by drawing and manual training, give to the future artisan a discipline which will increase the efficiency of his work, and to those who enter other callings a lifelong respect for the dignity of manual labor.

The English taught in the elementary schools should impart not only mechanical ability to read, but the habit of reading, the love of good books, the power to entertain small groups of friends by oral reading, and the gift of writing an interesting letter or account of one's experience. The same principle which leads us to make more of English than formerly leads us to make much less of arithmetic. How much

arithmetic will help one to be a useful workman, a reliable citizen, a happy human being? This is the question which determines its place in the modern curriculum. The answer is obvious. Facility and accuracy in the four fundamental operations with integers, vulgar and decimal fractions, proportion, percentage, interest, discount, compound quantities, and concrete mensuration - beyond these things it is a waste of time to go. The time saved at this point may be given to elementary algebra and concrete geometry. Geography likewise helps the workman, the citizen, and the man, when it is based on the observation and interpretation of natural and political features, and leads the mind to feel at home in the world of which it is a part.

History serves us best when it begins with myths and biographies, and then passes to narratives of the way nations grew, institutions were built up, and liberties were won. As a backbone for the story, a minimum of never-to-be-forgotten names, facts, and dates must be learned by heart. As its life-blood, the pupil may well commit to memory passages of great literary power, setting forth significant men and events. Within this accurately marked enclosure memory should reign supreme and absolute; beyond this well-defined area mere memory should hold an incidental and subordinate place. The power to tell a connected story of significant movements and events, to picture characteristic scenes, to estimate the worth and services of leading men, to trace the sequence of cause and effect, to see the relation of each part to the whole this should be the chief aim of the recitation and the principal matter for examination. History thus taught serves our threefold purpose; but it is hard to see how one could do a better piece of work, or cast a wiser vote, or lead a happier life in consequence of having had a lot of disconnected kings, battles, dates, and statistics once imprinted on his memory.

Science in the elementary school should be primarily training in observation, with reasoning based on facts observed. This, too, serves our threefold purpose; making the workman more observant, giving the different classes of society more common subjects to talk about, and incidentally laying the foundation of truthful character. People whose training has been chiefly or exclusively in books, whether literary, metaphysical, or even theological, can hardly help being liars if they try; for they have not been trained to discern the sharp difference between things as they would like to have them and things as they actually are, to "draw the thing as he sees it, for the God of things as they are."

The injection of dogmatic scientific instruction into the public schools for moral or other purposes is a device of doubtful moral efficiency, and injurious to the true scientific spirit. In the elementary school promotion should be frequent, and bright scholars should be advised and systematically helped to shorten the time spent in the lower grades. Time saved elsewhere may be utilized for a beginning in algebra or geometry and a modern language. Examination in the elementary schools should be a test of power rather than of mere acquisition. There are a few things, such as rules in grammar, tables in arithmetic, arbitrary facts in spelling, a limited number of dates and events in history, certain immutable facts in geography, and, above all, carefully selected passages from good literature, which should be learned by heart, and may be properly called for on an examination paper. But the chief stress in the examination should be laid on what the pupil can do, rather than on what he can remember. We know a great deal more than we consciously remember.

For instance, while engaged in writing this article on the typewriter, I did not miss in a single instance a letter I wished to strike; but if you should ask me now where k, f, n, or v is on the key-board, which I have been using for the past ten years, for the life of me I could not tell you. My fingers know unerringly that is enough. Must I be conditioned in typewriting because my memory cannot answer the formal question off-hand? Is not the power to write the real test? The examination which calls for a lot of unrelated facts, chosen at random out of all that has been taught in the term, to be dumped out of the memory, leads to hasty, feverish cram. Examinations which test power to do quiet work will diminish by one-half the fret and strain, and will more than double the peace and joy of the more sensitive and nervous children in our public schools.

Discipline in these schools should be ethical, resting on freedom rather than force, and proceeding on the assumption, not always justified, to be sure, that the child means on the whole to do right. The one rule of the school should be: "No one shall do anything that interferes with anybody else." The children should be shown that quiet, order, and the like are essential conditions of carrying on the work for which each scholar comes to school; and that noise, needless communication, and the like, are interferences with others, and therefore sins against the interest of the school rather than against the arbitrary will of the teacher. The teacher should know the parents and children in their homes. It takes time to make thirty or forty calls; but if one really aims at a dis