of the desk in the primary and secondary schools. All good things are desired and made possible in our big colleges; yet if a man, by dint of a decent mental endowment and a fair memory, is able to "pass," to get behind him, out of his system, a certain number of courses, he may become a Bachelor of Arts, and if he cares to take the trouble, a Ph.D. By that time he will be fit to teach, and “no mistake." But what we set out to do was not primarily to pronounce our present system of education a total failure; nor was it to lament the fate of the pupil. Over that young person everybody is prepared to yearn. It is in the name of the teacher that I am calling attention to the discrepancy between our theory and our practice: surely a melancholy fact for him that after a few centuries' talk about education being a "drawing-out," and what not, his real business should have turned out to be a mere filling-up. Did you ever have a class grin at you, or scowl at you, for babbling about subjects that were not to "count" on examination? How can such treatment help affecting a teacher of any sensitiveness, which is to say, of any potential effectiveness? He must resign himself to beat the air, or resign himself to be a drudge. He must express the best of him through some avocation, or express it not at all. This, then, is the effect of his pursuit the pursuit to which, for one reason or another, he is committed for life -upon the character and human usefulness of the ordinary teacher. How far does it fit him to deal with the larger world in which, outside school hours, he must take his place? Doesn't it evidently unfit him? Isn't it clear that his calling, far from constituting a point of contact, obtrudes a considerable obstacle in the way of a normal relation to other men, and a normal attitude towards life? Parsons are inclined to a similar disability; but individually they have their chance. The authority they exercise need not be a petty one; it is hardly the fault of the task if their remoteness be not a remoteness of superiority. Certainly this cannot be said of teachers. Small authority over inferiors is their portion, their duty; and comes to be, in how many cases, their joy and their undoing. To take pleasure in lording it over undeveloped minds, and to shuffle in the presence of those who should be met on terms of equality: these are the two concluding scenes in the experience of how many men, who in other callings would, at least, have remained human. Their only hope of salvation is to do something outside of the classroom influence; something that brings them into association, and, if possible, competition with other men; and to do it well. Is this easy? If one's straw is all used for fuel, how is one to make up his tale of bricks? So much time occupied, so much crude energy put forth towards the attainment of a dubious end, and what are most of us good for? There will always exist a happy minority who cannot be downed, will not be baulked of efficiency, will find their way into waters upon which their bread may be scattered with some possibility of salutary return. We, it is more than probable, are of the luckless majority; we succumb to long hours, hard labour, and, it may be, the cynicism of the half-hearted drudge. We end by losing faith in ourselves, and becoming mere gerund-grinders, or, at worst, parasites, safe among our kind in the contemptuous toleration of a busy community; day nurses, true pedagogues, sure of our pay, if we do not thump our charges with actionable zeal. We bear a visible brand: anybody can "spot" us on the street or in company. The clergyman or the physician has his recognisable earmarks, but they are less naturally considered a stigma. Why? Because the successful clergyman is seldom merely a clergyman, or the physician merely a physician. He has a better chance than the teacher of continuing to be, or getting to be, something more than a special functionary. He is brought in contact with men; his work itself gives play to his best powers. He is, more often than not, pleasant to meet in a casual way, a delightful companion at close quarters, able to hold his own in any genial contingency. To be a "fine teacher," on the other hand, is not at all to qualify oneself for such a part. It is not the dull teacher, the unsympathetic teacher, the pedantic teacher, who falls a victim to small authority. Consider the mean expedients of alleviation to which the teacher of naturally strong parts is reduced by his disgust of routine. How should they fit a man for converse with his equals this cheap sarcasm hurled at some defenceless one who has said something stupid, or something original; that small jest, à propos of some particular "passage," of which school tradition has informed the class days in advance, and to which only a few bold spirits dare pay the deserved tribute of a sneer. Being up in pedagogical theory does not prevent this kind of damning indulgence. It represents, we suppose, only the instinctive revolt of human nature against the admission that it is a machine. No doubt, the London cabby and the Billingsgate fish-wife are obeying the same impulse in their pursuit of a forcible rhetoric. Well, as we have intimated, the fit result of this habit of petty authority, coupled with a sense of actual futility, is a stiff and surprised sheepishness in the presence of one's fellow-man. There one does not find himself to be a person of recognised authority and wit; does not feel himself to be a person of easy and acceptable presence, a man among men. Yet he is, according to the official tests, a perfectly successful teacher: do not his pupils invariably pass their examinations? Discipline and drill have been demanded of him, and he has supplied those commodities to the complete satisfaction of all concerned of the pupil, the parents, the school authorities, the college examiners, the committee on degrees. Incidentally, to be sure, he may have stultified himself morally and intellectually, may have disqualified himself for life. H. W. Boynton. REVIEWS THE PRESENT TEACHING OF ENG LISH LITERATURE* Thirteen years ago the English Conference appointed by the Committee of Ten recommended to that body a plan for the study of English which has formed a basis for what may be called the official thinking on the subject. Its tenor agrees with the general college requirements for admission, with the Uniform Board examinations and so forth. It offered a sort of ideal towards which teachers of English might strive if they liked. That report recommended the discontinuance of the study of English literature in a special text book, offering in place of it a series of masterpieces from Chaucer to Tennyson and Lowell, and presenting the idea that the history of English literature was best known in the form of a number of great works of literature. That was a dozen years ago: during the past few years there have been published a considerable number of text books on the history of English literature and American literature, SO that now almost no educational publishing house is without some recent work of the character. The effort of the Committee of Ten, or its English Conference, to turn the study of English literature into new channels has, therefore, not been entirely successful. *English Literature by Alphonso Gerald Newcomer. Scott, Foresman and Company, Chicago. A First View of English Literature by William Vaugn Moody and Robert Morse Lovett. Charles Scribner's Sons New York. These books have been of a various character. The books published ten years or so ago, like the first books of Mr. Pancoast, tried to join to the study of masterpieces a consideration of the history of literature or vice versa. Mr Pancoast's book was published in 1892. It tried "to answer the needs of those who are beginning to teach according to the new methods." In accordance with that idea the book contained a great number of complete works of important authors. The Nonne Prestes Tale, The Merchant of Venice, L'Allegro Il Penseroso, The Rape of the Lock, The Ancient Mariner were given practically complete. Since that book there have been a number more of somewhat the same character. Of these one of the latest is Gwynne's Masters of English Literature published a year or so ago. This book is planned not as a regular history of English literature but as an account of the more important authors. It has chapters on Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson and Herrick, Bacon etc. But the true character of the book is not indicated by the chapter headings: the chapter on Spenser, for instance, contains almost as much on Marlowe (and that as a dramatist) as it does on its especial topic; the chapter on Bacon is more than half on Bacon's immediate successors, especially Sir Thomas Browne and Jeremy Taylor. The book shows an effort of the different masterpiece idea to get the advantages of a history of literature. But is is all a question of selection: Mr. Gwynne names in the titles of his twenty chap ters some twenty-seven authors but he actually treats in some detail of as many more, while his index shows mention of about a hundred and fifty. That is not so large a number as are dealt with by the writer of a regular history of literature for the school, but every one must omit a good deal in a school text book: Mr. Gwynne merely omits more than most of the writers of out-and-out histories. Of these latter we note especially two_that have come to our immediate notice. Prof. Newcomer's book was published early in the year: Messrs. Moody and Lovett's appeared in the fall. They are excellent books: each would provide quite a satisfactory textbook for the high school or indeed lower college classes. We shall not offer much of a comparison of them, if only that we have put one of them to a much more rigourous test than the other. In the general plan of typography the former appears superior; in the actual printing and especially in the pictures, the latter undoubtedly is so. The two books do not differ very strikingly in their arrangement of material: Prof. Newcomer treats of Old and Middle English a little more fully but not notably so; he gives some consideration to later Victorian authors whom Messrs. Moody and Lovett omit. But in general the two books cover much the same ground, and they cover it in much the same way: each has a well written narrative embodying exposition and criticism, each has aids such as tables, questions for review, bibliography and guide for further reading; Prof. Newcomer gives rather more in the way of short illustrative extracts. As to the soundness or the illuminating quality of the criticism, we like them both, with some reservations, and cannot say that either appears markedly superior. They are excellent books of their kind and there have been a number of other good ones within the last few years. What is to be said of such books, recommending as they do a kind of study of English literature very different from that to be gathered from the official statements of the institutions in which their authors hold professorial chairs? This is certainly not the place to discuss at length such different modes of teaching. We shall merely note along with our mention of such books a matter of which the general reader may be un aware. About a year ago a Conference in Uniform Entrance Requirements in English was held in which were represented the Associations of New England, the Middle States and Maryland, the North Central States and the Southern States. That Conference substituted for the previous requirement of nine or ten masterpieces to be studied, a list of about fifty works from which ten were to be selected under certain restrictions. The principle of this action (if there were any principle beyond that of compromise) would seem to be a more vigorous re-affirmation of the idea that the study of independent masterpieces is the true line of work. The former requirements offered a number of authors that were supposed, theoretically at least, to cover in a representative way, the field of English literature. From the present list one could select the following as a course of study, in addition to two plays of Shakespeare. The Sir Roger de Coverley Papers. The Sketch Book. The Lady of the Lake. The Lays of Ancient Rome. Such a choice would be, to our minds, as good as the following, which is equally possible. The Pilgrim's Progress. The Faerie Queen. The House of Seven Gables. Silas Marner. Heroes and Hero Worship. Neither list would be a good one so far as a knowledge of English literature is concerned. Neither is absurd but each is practically limited to a single rather narrow view of literature, and, further, each is such a selection as might naturally result from a special leaning or interest on the part of a teacher. A student who has rightly pursued any such course will have a certain appreciation of literature but very slight knowledge of the literature of England and America. We have therefore a certain sympathy with books like those which we have particularly noticed. They have their drawbacks, especially in the hands of a poor teacher. But they offer the opportunity of an acquaintance with our literature that we conceive to be very useful. Edward E. Hale, Jr. PSYCHOLOGY.* It is safe to say that Professor Titchener's Experimental Psychology is much the most important general work on the subject yet published by an English writer. The first volume, Qualitative Experiments, has been issued several years, and is now familiarly known. The second volume, Quantitative Experments, is but just produced-a welcome completion of the author's plan. Like Volume I., it comprises, as separately bound parts, an Instructor's and a Student's Manual, supplementing one another. The primary aim of the whole 'work is denoted by its subtitle, A Manual of Laboratory Practice, but the book (and especially Vol. II.) should not be narrowed to this connotation; for the manuals comprise *Experimental Psychology: A Manual of Laboratory Practice. Volume II. Quantitative Experiments. By Edward Bradford Titchener. Macmillan Co., 1905. an amount of critical and original material that clearly belongs to the constructive rather than to the pedagogical aspect of the science. One is led to suspect an over-devotion to immediate utilities in this mingling of pure science and pedagogy, but there can be no serious quarrel with a theory which has led to so valuable a result. In the contents of the volume at hand are chapters on Preliminary Experiments, comprising experiments in tone and pressure discrimination, leading up to demonstrations of Weber's Law; on the Metric Methods-historical notes accompanying the experiments; on the Reaction Experiment, the Psychology of Time and the Range of Quantitative Psychology. The Instructor's Manual contains, in addition, appendices giving examination questions, bibliographies and a list of important instruments for psychophysical research with prices and names of makers. It is noteworthy that more than half the space devoted to experiments is given up to the chapter on Metric Methods. Taken in connection with the introduction (Instructor's Manual) of over a hundred and fifty pages treating the Rise and Progress of Quantitative Psychology, this treatment of method gives the book decided distinction as an original and timely contribution. Experimental Psychology has reached a stage where it may fairly be expected to begin to take stock of its progress. If it has not achieved all that was expected of it a generation ago, it has at least attained self-confidence and a coolness of judgment due to the surety and value of its established facts. It has ceased to be propaganda; it has become a science; but it is a science yet too immature for vainglory. Its pressing problems are still those of methodology, and its need is much more self-criticism than aggressive zeal. In his careful history and cautious analysis of psychophysical method Professor Titchener shows himself keenly alive to the true perspective and present need of his science. The amount of material brought together, the fairness of his comparisons, and the acumen of his criticisms make his work an invaluable summing up of the all-important present issue of quantitative psychology. As The author's general thesis is that the whole range of mental phenomena may be brought within the range of experiment, either qualitative or quantitative. Whether the qualitative range may eventually be reduced to quantitative treatment he is not ready to say, but he points to the advances in that direction. to the interpretation of quantitative method, he accepts a reconstructed Fechnerism, taking as cardinal points of the theory of mental measurement "(1) the bracketing of the two limens as facts of friction in the mental machine, and (2) the substitution of sense distance for absolute sense magnitude. limens thus become irrelevant to Weber's Law, excepting in so far as the DL [difference limen] is an instrument of analysis at large; and Weber's Law itself becomes a law not of sensation intensity, but of our estimation of sense separateness within the intensive continuum." The It should be noted that Professor Titchener himself recognises the element of idiosyncrasy which any individual selection of experiments for laboratory courses must entail, and he plainly intends that his manual shall be freely supplemented by judicious choice from other sources. This, of course, does not impair the value of a guide from a laboratory chief of his experience. If there is anything to regret in the work it is nothing more serious than the sometime bizarre minglings with the English of French and German. But the book is meant as a manual, not as an essay. to the regular laboratory and field work. The modifications in the text are due in large part to the many suggestions which have been received from secondary teachers, and thus the value of the matter to high-school pupils will be assured. The treatment is in restricted parts rather less illuminating than it might well have been. Thus the interesting observations on the peculiarities of sexual reproduction in Mucor and its congeners should, we think, have been included. The illustrations are good, many are excellent, and a number are new. We regret that some of those in the latter part of the book should have been taken at second hand from the work of Schimper, for the reason that there are so many better ones available nearer home. They have, moreover, lost pungency of detail in the reproduction. CIVICS Civics, by S. E. * Foreman, Ph.D., is an advanced text for high schools and colleges, which aims to impress the spirit of our institutions upon the student as well as to give him an idea of their form. Hence the real workings of all important political institutions is discussed as well as their legal structure. The conception of the subject held by the authorthe only true conception to adopt for college and high-school students-is that the ultimate purpose of the study is to develop political and civic morality. For this purpose a knowledge of our political institutions is necessary, but even more so a knowledge of how they work and of the responsibility of the citizen for their functioning. ENGLISH: AIDS TO TEACHING. The inductive or laboratory method of teaching presents no more remarkable instance of its value and of its conquest over other methods than in the study of the vernacular. Almost innumerable texts have appeared to assist in making the study of English practical and to give to the student both appreciation of literary products and power to use.language effectively. Three such volumes have recently been added to the long list already issued by the publishers. Professor George R. Carpenter's Model English Proset is designed for students in the upper classes in high school, who have already had an elementary course in composition and rhetoric. The purpose of the selection is to furnish models for analysis and for imitations. The selections are rather more complex than those frequently included in such volumes. The types represented are ample: types of the narrative include autobiography, biography, history, travel and fiction. The section on "Style,' including examples from Bacon, Milton, Bunyan, Newman, Ruskin and others, is especially noteworthy. Specimens of Discourse, by Dr. Arthur L. Andrews of Cornell, is a similar aid for college students beginning the study of English. More The Century Company, New York. specifically it presents types of discourse relating to the environment and the activities of every day life through the study of which the student may acquire some skill in expressing his own ideas or experiences rather than merely summarizing ideas expressed by others. In a lengthy introduction the author gives a variety of themes, analyses them, and gives specific advice for the elaboration of the various types of description, narration, exposition, etc. English Essays,* by Professor W. C. Bronson of Yale, has a more limited purpose-that of presenting selections that will cultivate in the student a liking for good English prose, of the essay type. Since the selections are determined by the intrinsic interest of thought and style, a more attractive volume than the former ones results, but at the same time one more of the traditional character. The chief exponents of English style from Bacon to Pater and Stevenson find representation. An appendix adds examples of early English style from the eleventh to the sixteenth century. Brief biographical and critical notes are also apWhile the volume is in no way pended. designed as a text in the history of English literature, it would prove a most excellent companion piece to such a course. ENGLISH CLASSICS Longman's Series of Classics include the recommendations for preparation for the college entrance examinations from 1906 to 1911. To this series have been added Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, edited by Professor Baldwin of Yale, Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome, edited by Doctor Flint of the University of Chicago, and Webster's Bunker Hill Orations, and Washington's Farewell Address, edited by Professor Scott of the University of Michigan. The entire series is a most attractive one and the three volumes mentioned conform to the general plan. A distinctive feature of the plan is that the volumes are not overloaded with comments, notes and introductions. The suggestions for teachers also included in each volume are excellent; while the introduction emphasizes for the student the important points in life and character of the author as well as the type value of the selections to be studied. The notes are good and not of the obtrusive and extreme pedantic type. ESSAYS IN EDUCATION. Great Pedagogical Essays from Plato to Spencer,t by Professor F. V. N. Painter, consists of selections from the most noted educational treatises of all ages. Necessarily in a work of four hundred pages the selections must be brief, and the writers represented comparatively few. Seven selections represent the classical age, four the middle ages, six the renaissance and reformation period, and nine the more recent centuries. The chief objec *Henry Holt and Company, New York. |