VALEDICTORY ADDRESS L. H. JONES SUPERINTENDENT OF INSTRUCTION CLEVELAND PUBLIC SCHOOLS DELIVERED Saturday, September 6, 1902, GRAYS' ARMORY, CLEVELAND, O. PUBLISHED BY THE BOARD OF EDUCATION. VALEDICTORY ADDRESS L. H. JONES SUPERINTENDENT OF INSTRUCTION CLEVELAND PUBLIC SCHOOLS DELIVERED Saturday, September 6, 1902, GRAYS' ARMORY, CLEVELAND, O. PUBLISHED BY THE BOARD or EDUCATION. DEDICATED TO The Teachers of Cleveland, who have so loyally and intelligently striven, sometimes under ad- verse circumstances, to realise in practice the suggestions I have made during our pleasant comradeship in the Public Schools of this City. THE AUTHOR. 2065653 VALEDICTORY ADDRESS In assuming the office of Superintendent of Instruction in the public schools of Cleveland, which I did eight years ago, I felt an overwhelming sense of responsibility. I have always had an in- tense passion for teaching; and in my earlier experience I found my complete satisfaction in immediate contact with children in the teach- ing process. As the years went by my duties called me into the work of supervision, with wider opportunities to observe the work of others and greater necessity to think upon the principles which un- derlie the art of teaching. As I have seen myself change from the thoughtless, reckless expenditure of effort into the more skillful and efficient teacher, I 'have tried to keep in mind the causes which helped me, that I might at some time assist others in the more complete mas- tery of their own powers. During the eighteen years of my experi- ence as Superintendent of city schools, I have tried to gather these helpful ideas into a theory or ideal of Education that should be reas- onable, sane, hopeful, possible and inspiring. In the years I have been wi-fli you I have given free expression to this ideal of education, by piecemeal, of course, as circumstances made it possible for me to do so, and together you and I have worked in happy comradeship to- ward its realization. It has always been a glad privilege for mo to turn away from the selfseekcr, who pressed his private claims on the ground that he was a taxpayer and controlled the votes of his ward, and to come among you, whose only motto is "I serve," and with whom I could actually converse upon those phases of human motive and action that lift us above the common herd and give dignity ana reason and hope to human life. In laying down the burdens of my office I feel keenly the sever- ing of my companionship with you; and the sense of relief which came at first with my decision to go away was quickly followed by the pangs of coming separation from you who have bravely and loy- ally answered every call and responded to every demand upon your time and strength in the attempt to realize the ideals of school work which I 'have brokenly and somewhat imperfectly placed before you. But some things are secure because they are settled forever. Where- ever I may go and whatever happens to me after today, it always will be a proud memory to me that I have lived with you for eight years in such close contact of mind and heart that you have known my inner- most motives and purposes, and that in the end you have not de- serted me nor disowned me. This occasion has seemed an opportune time for me in closing my official connection with the schools of Cleveland to re-affirm and re-impress some of the vital elements of the doctrine and practice of education which I have tried to outline since I have been with you. In so doing I must select a few points only, and by treating these, im- ply (somewhat the spirit, at least, in which all else connected with school work should be considered. It has been my purpose ever since I came among you to teach a theory of education based on a belief in the essential nobleness and pos- sible worthiness of every human being born into the world. It is not the unworthy actual but the noble possible that has inspiration in it. The unworthy actual may furnish reasons for reform, but it is the contem- plation of the noble possible that gives to the reformer his enthusiasm. The misery of degradation may drive us to seek remedies ; but it is the glory of what we may be, shining like a halo about us, that gives us light and guidance. For 'these reasons I have tried, without disguis- ing the facts, which are oftimes discouraging enough, to teach a theory of education that is hopeful and helpful, rather than to put in my time bewailing the present situation, as many do, without suggest- ing any possible changes for the better. You sometimes hear people say they have no use for ideals or theories they wish only the prac- tical which in most cases with them means the power to reproduce the actual. "Consider for a moment what would be the situation of the world if all the people were suddenly bereft of the power to conceive of things as different from what they now are. If one could not con- ceive of anything different how could one make effort to realize any- thing different? An ideal of some sort, i.e., a conception of some- thing different from what now is, is an absolute necessity for the di- rection of effort. Otherwise, so far as human effort is concerned it would be the chance world over again. I firmly believe that God has so framed the world and the Universe ethically that even without the help of man the final trend of things is for the better. But He has also made the mind of man capable of helping Him with the world's work, not because God needs help, but because man needs to be permitted to help. It is this sense of co-operation with God in His work that reveals to man that he really is created in the image of God and may become worthy of the companionship of the Divine Being. To do this worthily he must conceive the great ends of life and be able to seem to see conditions of life far above the actual. It is this power to idealize life and to see forces and agencies at work transforming the world, that marks the difference between the great teacher and the one who is satisfied with the actual, and settles down to go through the routine form of preserving the present order of things. The latter is a mechanical teacher, while the former projects into his teaching a tonic effect that strengthens and ennobles every act of his school work. Our ideals thus become our profoundest belief; until, at last, we cease to talk glibly about them and are willing to risk deliberate action upon them. Then they become working ideals. I have tried to make you believe so strongly in these ideals of the nobility of human nature that you would be willing to leave the safe anchorage of the sheltered nooks of inactive routine, and sail out into the great ocean of human endeavor, assured that you have on board a correct chart of the waters and a compass that will not deceive you; and that you may at any time determine your own bearings and direct your own course with- out hailing every passing ship for doubtful information. I have never tried to impose my ideal upon you, but rather to show you the ele- ments of truth out of which each of you, guided by your own experi- ence, and from your own point of view may construct your own ideal, which will in its turn become a perennial force within you enabling you to press forward toward its realization. I have tried to make you so enamored of some of these elements of truth that you would not omit them from your ideals. Had I simply put forward my own be- lief, without engaging your interest, and then demanded that you realize my ideal, I should merely have laid down the law by command, rather than have given inspiration and help. So I have "tried never to say, "Go and do this or that," but rather, "Come, let us do this to- gether in joyous companionship." Whenever a teacher imposes his ideal upon a pupil as law, without explanation, without comradeship of any kind, without emotion or sympathy, he treats the child as dead matter rather than as a living soul. Only when the teacher implants within the child the germ of an ideal, that it may develop with the child's development, grow with his growth, become a part of his own character, and remain in him and with him as motive to action long after the teacher has disappeared, does he recognize the nature of the child as a human being or understand the nature of ideals as motive and inspiration. Just so sure as thought and feeling are the springs of action, our ideals of education, whether they be meager and restrict- ing, or broad and genet ous, direct and determine our teaching; and if our ideal of human possibility is low our efforts are directed on a low level, but if our ideal of human possibility includes the human being so morally noble that he may be a helpful comrade to his fellows and a fit companion for divinity our efforts will be directed correspond- ingly high. The Kingdom of Heaven must be within us before we can by divine contagion start it in another's mind. But a true ideal of ed- ucation has not only this element of worthiness as its final aim in per- fected manhood or womanhood, but it must contain a true conception of child nature and the steps by which the child with possibilities be- comes the perfected character of mature development. I cannot take lime to treat this at length, shall in fact be obliged to treat it with a passing reference only. But this one thing I have tried to teach that the child is essential activity embodied self-activity on the way to self-direction and that whatever processes of education are employed should be in harmony with this inherent element of child nature. This whole line of education, leading the child who is essential self-activity without inner-guidance, on to the matured being perfectly and nobly self-directed, should 'be seen clearly by every one who teaches a child at any intermediate stage. About one-fourth of a teacher's study of his profession should be given to his particular work, and about three- fourths of it to getting this wider outlook which enables him the bet- ter to interpret his special work. If this were done the teacher would soon see clearly how futile it is to pursue a course of education for a child unfitted for his nature, i. e., to his inherent, permanent nature. If, therefore, one sees that the end of education is spiritual or moral, the method of teaching him even the smallest thing, like the letters of the alphabet, or spelling, must accord with this end and aim of educa- tion as well as with the very essential nature of the child itself. God Himself is limited in this respect by the nature He has implanted in man, and by the end which He has set up for his education, by the pos- sibilities He has put into His nature. The infinite Creaitor Himself can not educate a self-active being without securing some response from that individual some willing co-operation of the person being taught. So in His great scheme for the education of races and nations, He places motives and ends, and suggests achievements, so that the will of a great people is enlisted in national and racial enterprises. And so the world at large moves forward in enlightenment through self-activity of a blind kind to self-activity directed by purposes, hopes and ideals. Why teachers can believe - that they can drive children through unintelligent and uninteresting pro- cesses and have them as a result be self-controlling, law-abiding, or- der-loving citizens, is beyond my comprehension. What a school needs is that some strong minded, generous hearted man or woman shall come into it bringing sunshine and hope and courage, and that this teacher and these children shall begin to have a comradeship in 10 learning, that together they shall set up aims, invent methods for solu- tion of problems, together enjoy the enthusiasm of triumph in which each has taken a voluntary part. Thus will grow daily in each child a love of learning, a love of comradeship in worthy work, a sense of power to do things, an enthusiasm for achievement, a distinction be- tween the noble and the ignoble and a power to control his own ac- tions in view of a social aim or some general good which will remain in him long after his teacher has departed, and will help to make of him a good citizen. Besides, he will remember school time as part of his great and growing life, and when he in turn becomes the taxpayer he will insist that "schools and the means of education be forever en- couraged." He himself will see education as a process by which he was brought from unconscious self-activity to conscious, satisfying self-activity, till he became intelligent enough to set up his own stand- ard and safe to be trusted in self-control and self-direction. When he has seen the highest ends he will consciously strive to reach them and having seen the advantages of co-operation with other minds, having enjoyed the pleasure of comradeship, he will join the forces that work for progress; and soon the power of self-direction moves him above expediency to the abiding sense of the worth of morality. Seeing him- self a self-active being raised by education to the level of a self-directed being, he easily thinks self-activity infinite, self-consciousness without limitation, and self-direction without possible interference; and, lo! he has conceived a personal God, to whom he willingly gives his heart in happy obedience. Think you the police will need to follow him to keep him from a career of crime ? Thus you will see I have tried to teach to you a rational theory of human life and destiny as a foundation for our school work. This gives dignity to the work of the teacher, lays foundation for natural methods of procedure in education, makes the position of pupil hope- ful and sets up an end of education that commands the respect of all. Given a practical working belief in the possible nobility of human kind, a belief in the presence in the Universe of a personal God, interested in humanity, a belief that the finite human being is really made in the 11 image of God i. e., like Him, -except finiteness, God's great ideal the law of progress, and a science of education is possible that will regulate #he practices of teaching in the interest of pupils in even the smallest details of daily work. It is this sort of view of life and human possibil- ity that makes me have a real passion for teaching a passion so pow- erful, so all-engrossing as to crowd out of sight and out of thought every selfish interest, and to hold me to my chosen work against all the discouragements of the clashing of self-interests and the scheming of small minds. People who are evil in their lives are so cm'efly be- cause of ignorance a kind of ignorance i. e., they do not really know about the worth and beauty of righteousness. If any one really likes evil associates or evil actions it is because he has never really seen heaven. To exemplify the Kingdom of Heaven that is within you, or ought to be within you, is your chief duty as teacher. But some one is already saying, "How does all this harmonize with the routine and commonplace work of the daily program of re- quired exercises ?'" And some are, no doubt, already thinking that it is good theory, but that it will not work in practice, etc. Allow me to say that a good theory will always work out well in practice. There is no possible conflict between good theory and practice. The best prac- tice is simply a realization of the best theory. If a theory will not work out in practice k is because the theory is wrong or no intelligent effort is made to embody it in practice. It often happens that ideals contain elements that cannot at once be wrought out MI practice, and 'hence realization may be delayed, but it is no fault of the theory or ideal, nor is it always the fault of those who control the practice. But even then the ideal still stands as the possible, and urges on us the conditions of its fulfillment. A high ideal does not discourage one who holds it. I distinguish between an idealist and a fanatic. Fanaticism is only an- other name for insanity. But the true idealist is one who sees the bet- ter possible things so clearly and appreciates their beauty so keenly that he determines that they shall be realized. He invents ways and means and no one is more practical than he. He has such a concep- tion of infinite worth that he is possessed with a serene greatness and 12 patience of mind Which he does not allow to degenerate into laziness or weak resignation. He is perennially hopeful, and alert to find new and better means of realizing the better possible things and is never therefore at leisure to grumble about present bad conditions. During the eight years I have been with you I have neither scolded nor grumbled. Do you suppose it has been because I have seen nothing in our schools that needed correction ? Do you suppose that judged by the standard set up in this paper and that your prac- tices have always corresponded to the ideal? Nay; I could have dis- couraged you many times by showing how far you fell short of satisfy- ing my standard of excellence. But I thought best to work otherwise. For instance, when I found few pictures or poor pictures in your ischooi rooms, I did not scold about it nor worry you with my lamen- tations about it. I began talking to you about good pictures and in- venting ways and means of getting them, and now more than $20,000 worth of good pictures hang on the walls of the schools of this city. The poor pictures have nearly all gone out of the rooms, and yet I never asked for their removal. As to the relation of high ideals to the common-place or routine duties of daily teaching, allow me to say that there is no commonplace teaching except that done >by a commonplace teacher. If one has nothing to do but teach that "twice two are four," he ought to do it in such way that the eternal verities are revealed to the pupils. They ought to see that this truth, twice two are four and not five, or any other number, is akin to the laws by which the planets move in their orbits, and morning succeeds night; and they ought to see or fee! that this truth may not be violated without moral and physical anarchy. They ought to see or feel as a result of this teaching how much better it is to live in a world in which light and darkness are always distin- guishable, good and evil always in contrast, and where order is heav- en's first law; and they -anil feel all this if only their teacher is inspired with these ideals and exemplifies them in teaching. We sometimes talk about putting the whole child to school. I should like to see the whole teacher put into the school. 13 Hear a few sentences from my inaugural address of eight years ago: "The most hopeless waste in the world is the waste of honest ef- fort. The competitive struggle almost everywhere visible in the do- main of nature as well as in the domain of man, doubtless has its value, resulting in a rude, blind way, in the final survival of the fittest; but co-operation is a still higher principle, resulting in making more things fit to survive. And when we rise from mere nature into the domain of spirit 'the highest ends of life are to be reached only under friendly co- operation. This will be found to be eminently true in the organization and workings of a school system, growing more and more so as the system grows larger and more cumbrous. The competitive struggle cannot be entirely removed from among us; but it can be held in check, and made to be subservient to a lofty enthusiasm and a noble school patriotism. It is part of the business of a superintendent to .cultivate this school patriotism, to kindle this lofty enthusiasm, and to unify and thus multiply effort among the teachers of his school sys- tem. i But if this unity of action is to be of the best kind it must result from intelligent choice by the individual members of the teaching force, rather than from arbitrary dictation by the superintendent. The work of teaching is of such delicate nature, involves so much of the spiritual, that it is rarely well done by one who works under arbitrary direction It is the teacher whose soul is in it, other things being equal, that .succeeds best. The teacher must feel that she is allowed to do lu-r work in such way as to preserve her self-respect. To this end! each, teacher must have her interest enlisted, her intelligence respected and cultivated, her reason convinced; and then last, but not least, she must be held to do the best she can, employing her best self, using her highest capabilities and exercising her highest measure of common sense. The golden rule of improvement is to work up to the limit of present capability. The capability itself will then grow at a marvelous- ly rapid rate. It is the used talent that increases tenfold. No superin- tendent can afford, in the interest of his schools, to lay out a set of 14 rules so definite that it reduces his teachers to machines, without inter- est or responsibility. You need to remember every hour tliat you are employed as thinking, reasoning, intelligent men and women, en- trusted with the dearest interests of the citizens -of this great city; and that you are responsible for answering to this great trust in a gener- ous, magnanimous, self-respecting, enthusiastic devotion to your pro- fession. It is not your intellect alone that is employed; it is the heart and will as well the whole man or the whole woman. To give less is to defraud the children. The teacher who could do much, but persists in doing little, is less valuable than one who can do but little, but in do- ing little, does the best she can. The quality of her work is better be- cause she does the best she can. This is not an excuse for dull teach- ers. Dull teachers should be discharged and capable ones employed in their places; but it is an attempt to show the wonderful power of de- votion to transform even poor work into good. While not the true philosopher's stone, it possesses alchemic power to transform all that it touches into truth and beauty. The first condition, then, for the uni- fication and improvement of our work lies in the fact that each of us is an individual person, pledged to use his whole best self for the better- ment of our work. Each of us comes into this organization, pledged to enthusiastic and harmonious co-operation in the work to which we have consecrated ourselves. ****** With the teacher thus intelligently devoted to her work, individu- ally responsible for conscientious effort, we are ready to talk about the organization into which sihe comes when she engages to teach in a sys- tem of city schools. A school is not a school-house; it is not a house at all, in the sense in which I am using the term. It is a spiritual kind of thing; a kind of organic thing. An organic thing must have organs. The school has two organs. These are the teacher on the one hand and the pupil on the other. The true life of an organism is the flow of influence, mutually, between or among its organs. The real life of a school is the play and interplay of spiritual forces between teacher and pupils. These spiritual forces are the powers of the mind in the teacher 15 and the pupils; and the business of school supervision is the harmoniz- ing of these spiritual forces to the end of the greatest efficiency. The teacher can think, and feel, and choose, and do. The pupils can think, and feel, and do. It is the business of the teacher to so think, and feel, and do, that she will incite the pupils to think, and feel, and do rightly. This is true teaching. The teacher's thinking, and feeling, and doing must be so carried on as to teach; that of the pupils, so that they learn. It is the business of a teacher to teach. It is the business of a pupil to learn. What is sometimes called discipline or government is merely a form of teaching if it is well done. Indeed, if the teaching be well done it will result in right conduct as a necessary outcome. The school ex- ists for the pupil and not for the teacher. The teacher teaches that the pupil may learn. The first outcome of learning is scholarship, but the highest is conduct. No pupil has really learned his lesson till it has touched his intellect and his feelings and his will, and has been trans- formed by training into habitual tendency toward right conduct. The money paid to the teacher is partially squandered if it does not result in a higher and more self-respecting grade of citizenship in the pupils. The great question, then, with all of us is to learn how to teach for the best results. Teaching is a matter of degrees. Good teaching can be improved and made better by study and practice; but the ideal best teaching is so far in advance that if we put forth even' "effort we can never hope to reach it. The ideal always keeps in front and above. We need to turn ourselves into a great school and study how to improve our teaching. There is no danger that we shall learn to do it too well." This is the high ideal that I set up before you eight years ago and that I have tried ever since to help you realize. An ideal like this dig- nifies our calling. It is common in some quarters to sneer at high ideals in our profession and to claim that there is no Science of Educa- tion, and instance the fact of the wide variation of views of noted edu- cators on simple problems of Education. But just here is the mistake. There are no simple problems in Education. The human soul is of such infinite worth and complexity of organization, that any attempt to un- 16 derstand it well enough to direct its development requires the highest efforts of the most gifted minds. The problem of the artisan is simple. The beam is precisely 15 feet, 6| inches in length and can be measured again and again, and its strength of resistance under given conditions can be determined with mathematical exactness. But this complex of will and intellect and emotion this moving panorama of passion of love and hate and fear and joy and purpose and plan, which consti- tutes the soul in action this is never simple. It is the glory of our profession that its themes and its problems employ the highest order of human thinking and planning and the highest art in execution. It is because of the infinite worth of human life in its cultivated aspects that education is worth while. It is only on the high ground of a pro- found working belief in the eternal verities a belief in the existence of a personal God and the immortality of the individual human soul that any Science of Education worthy of our attention is possible. It is this profound belief in the goodness and greatness of humanity, its capability for immortality, that makes me have a passion for teaching. This it is that makes me feel that it is a privilege to be allowed to try to develop in the young the possibilities that God has put into them. In view then of the fact that the child, who starts life as ignorant and irresponsible self-activity has for his destiny intelligent self-control and self-direction, the teacher should see and know how these great principles of education affect her work in daily details. Through the yeaYs I have tried to show many applications. I have tried to show that the real interest of pupils should be engaged in their lessons, both in the recitation and in study. I ; have tried to show that an idea mas- tered (by a child gets most of its value from the associations which have attached themselves to the idea during its mastery. In one of our standard Geographies occurs this sentence: "The port of New York is one of the greatest commercial centers of the world and includes the cities of New York, Brooklyn, Jersey City and Hoboken." Let us observe the result of two kinds of teaching. Both teachers have assigned the lesson including this sentence. The first teacher 17 calls upon a child to recite, and because at first he does not recite it readily she reproves him, and in order to emphasize her displeasure asks him suddenly what a port is. The boy readily acknowledges that he does not know and if he is again reprimanded for not knowing, de- spite the fact that the teacher herself has a very hazy idea of what a port is. The the traffic, while the different kinds of goods being unloaded from different ships and the different flags floating from the different mastheads show the different countries involved in the (traffic, while a mere query as to what those vessels may carry on their return trip calls up to mind the immense re- sources of our own country. The great cost of the ships, the many men needed to manage them, the countless thousands of people en- gaged everywhere in manufacturing these articles so they may become articles of merchandise all these things receive passing notice, etc., etc. All these things impress in a semi-conscious way the mind of the pupil till it dawns on him how it is that co-operation of immense num- bers enables each of us to secure for himself more comforts in life than the millions of Rockefeller could command for him without the help of his fellows. Not only has this fundamental principle of co-operation been thus forcefully borne in upon him, but other associations have also attached themselves to this idea. The boy has had pass through his mind the thought of what a pleasant companion his teacher would be on an excursion he has begun to see the vital relation of Geogra- phy to daily living, thinks he would like to read about the countries from which all these things come, and wonders if he cannot get some books of travel from the public library ; and he has already determined 19 that when he is a man he will see all these countries whose ships enter our harbors, and when at last ithe teacher requires him to recite the sentence even many times, so that it may be uttered trippingly on the tongue, every repetition comes with meaning in it, till at the close of the recitation the boy is a new being, anxious for another glimpse in the Geography to see what comes next. * One of these boys has this day moved a long step on his way to- ward the street, indifference, neglect of duty, truancy, the workhouse, and the penitentiary. The other has taken a long stride toward a hap- py and useful citizenship interested in human affairs, having broader sympathies, being more sane in judgment, more cordial in friendship, more industrious in school, more agreeable in the home. This differ- ence of trend has taken place in two boys because of the differ- ence of treatment in regard to the same sentence in Geography be- cause one teacher took the trouble first to understand boy nature and then to prepare to teach the boy in accordance with his nature and des- tiny. It all occurred in less than ten minutes, but the effects are per- manent and the difference increasingly magnifies itself as the years go on all on account of the difference between two teachers. I have not exaggerated this case. I have only stated one of its highest degrees. I have seen it occur in many intermediate de- grees. So it is throughout whatever in school is done in accordance with the nature and destiny of the child is done well and tends toward life; whatever is done in violation of the nature and destiny of the child is done poorly and tends toward death. In every lesson and every hour of the day the guiding ideas are just two First, what is the na- ture of the child as he is now, and second, what ought he to become when he grows to maturity. Surely the question of how to make every item of knowledge which we teach him tend to develop him into what he ought to become surely the study of this is worthy of the most earnest efforts of the most gifted minds. I might give countless illustrations, but all would tend to the same end. When I came here our unclassified schools were thought of as places of detention for incorrigible boys. I have tried to have them be- 20 come places where boys are transformed where new hopes are crea- ted, where boys are shown how much they lose by having gotten out of harmony with the school society from which they have been ex- pelled a place where boys shall be made to feel this loss and wish to get back into their community, that they may receive the benefit of so- cial co-operation. I have tried to have teachers receive back these boys in this spirit, glad that there has now been developed in them a gleam of appreciation of the advantage of the regular school. And yet I have known a teacher to walk across the hall to another teacher's room on the first day of the return of such boy to warn the other teacher what a particularly bad boy he was last year. Why not let the boy have a fair chance ? He will be bad enough anyway. He will prob- ably fall again, and may be sent back to the unclassified school a time or two; but if every time he comes back with even a temporary change for the better, something has been gained. But I am drawing this out to a great length. A very few more points and I must close. All this focalizes itself at two points shows its worth by success in two things in the results of teaching by the teacher and in the results of study by the pupils. It is a great thing to comprehend what it really is to teach. The inter-play of forces be- tween teacher and child, involving comradeship of thought, the blend- ing of feeling and the contest of wills those of the teacher always so much clearer in thought, nobler in feeling and stronger in will that the child is transformed by the contrast this is teaching. It is of two kinds individual teaching, when the mind of the teacher explains or encourages or dominates the mind of one pupil and organic when the mind of the teacher causes such a blending of thought and feeling and volition among the members of the class that each mind receives an inflow of power from the contagious influence of comradeship with other minds of like age and condition. The teacher should be engaged all the school day in one or the other of these exercises 'teaching some one child clearing up some confusion or correcting some error or encouraging some effort; or she should be engaged in organic teaching, i. e., teaching several minds, blending them into organic 21 action. The better the organic teaching- is done the less individual teaching will be needed. In general 'the individual teaching as well as the organic should be done with the section that is reciting. The time of the other section should be sacred to study. The child should study during his study hour without expectation of help from anybody. He is to try to master his lesson difficulties and all himself. The teacher should be busy teaching the other section. If the teacher is intelligent and inspiring the study will eventually become efficient. Do not forget that the study of books is an acquired power. Even some of us have not yet acquired it in high degree. Children should be shown how to get sentences and phrases separated from one another, and how to settle the thought successively upon them repeating many times. Then the teaching done by the teacher upon this same matter should confirm the results of the study and prepare the way lor further study thus we alternately study and recite each supplement- ing the other in happy succession. At each recitation the teacher sees the new power that has come into the mental life of the child since the last recitation the new sense of achievement the greater confidence and readiness to take up new problems and conquer new obstacles. And thus the miracle goes on, the transforming of the ignorant, in- nocent, immature, volatile child into an intelligent, moral, steady, thoughtful, serene, mature person. How can you think of these things without having born in you a holy enthusiasm for your profession and a real passion for teaching! But I have preached too long already. A few words of explana- tion and parting and I am done. When I was invited to take the office of Superintendent of Instruction in Cleveland the federal plan school law was still quite new. It had been in operation but two years, and the question still remained unsettled whether it would in the end realize the hopes of its friends. I felt that a crisis had come in the his- tory of education in this country. The law was so radical that many of us had fears that the change was too great to be backed up by public sentiment. That the trend was in the right direction none of UP doubted. But should it prove that after trial teachers should prefer to 22 have their work judged by the old time school board, and would rather trust their interests to the care of the old time school board rather than to an educational expert, then I believed a great blow to sound progress would have been struck. If it should turn out that the tre- mendous concentration of power in the hands of one man should be- come obnoxious to the general public, no more legislation of its kind could be had even in more moderate form. On the other hand should the administration of this law be temperate and therefore satisfactory to teachers and the public, then other cities would follow with like leg- islation, embodying the best elements of our law in their school codes. While I did not believe myself the best person in the country to do this, I did happen to be the one that was invited to do it; and I knew that no one would bring to the work any greater d'evotion than I, or be more willing than I to make personal sacrifices in its interest. I finally concluded to try, and so I came to Cleveland to accomplish two ends, all minor hopes and plans and purposes being included in these, viz., (1) To administer this radical school law which gave to the Su- perintendent of Instruction the unheard-of power to appoint, promote and discharge teachers without interference from anyone, in such a spirit of moderation that at the end of a series of years the teachers of the city would say that their interests, and therefore the interests of the schools, had been better conserved than had previously been the case under the old itime form of school board; and (2) To see if I could in this way so carry on the schools, exercising this autocratic power with sufficient tact and wisdom so that at the end of a series of years the general public would support the administration. The test has been made and the record is in. The teachers as a body have stood loyally by the administration, and have shown a trust and confidence that have been astonishing and gratifying. They have shown thait they would rather 'have their work judged professionally than politically. The patrons of the schools have approved the man- agement. The active enemies of the schools those who would have exploited the schools and the teachers for private profit have been relegated to oblivion. Many other cities have modified their school 23 laws, taking from ours many of its best and most advanced ideas and incorporating them in theirs. It is recognized everywhere that the law is substantial progress over anything that had preceded k in this or any other country. I felt that the time had come to make up the record, balance ac- count and make absolutely sure of this new chapter in educational history. I regardjt as a great achievement for civilization. It is world history. You ought to be proud that you have been a part of it and largely responsible for its success. I felt .that the way to make it absolutely sure was for me to sever my connection with the schools at this fortunate moment, so that whatever happened to me could not in any way connect kself with this experiment or lessen in any way its significance. Nor could then, anything that might happen to the schools thereafter tarnish in any way this decisive chapter of educa- tional history. At the -time I had reached this conclusion, the sky was clear and the sailing was fine. Clouds 'have since come over the sky and a storm may break upon the ship, but there is now every evidence that the blow will be light. Let us hope that the Ohio Legislature will incorporate the best elements of the federal plan school law of Clveland into a State School Code. But whatever may happen (temporarily, the real advance 'has been made ; and the good people of Cleveland do not intend that any permanent retrograde movement shall be allowed to set in. As for myself, I shall feel the separation keenly. Your comrade- ship has been dear