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 Stubiee 
 
 in 
 
 Hmerican UEbucation 
 
 BY 
 
 ALBERT BUSHNELL HART, PH.D. 
 
 OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
 
 Author of '" Introduction to the Study of Federal Government" 
 
 "Practical Essays on American Government" "Guide 
 
 to the Study of American History" etc. 
 
 I 4 2. / / 
 
 flew l^orfc 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO, 
 
 AND LONDON 
 1898 
 
 i i
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1895, BY 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 FIRST EDITION, MARCH, 1895 
 REPRINTED, SEPTEMBER, 1898
 
 Education 
 Library 
 
 Ipreface. 
 
 THE six essays which make up this volume 
 have been prepared at various times and deal 
 with a variety of subjects. Nevertheless there 
 is between them a thread of connection and re- 
 lation. They all are based upon two funda- 
 mental ideas: that education is substantially 
 one from beginning to end, so that the same or 
 similar methods may be applied throughout; 
 and that teachers of every grade and subject 
 have a common interest and may learn from 
 each other. They are the outcome of a desire 
 to make some small contribution to the great 
 common fund of experience. 
 
 That so many of these essays deal with the 
 problems of the primary and secondary schools 
 needs no apology. Every American must feel 
 an interest in the systems which reach the great- 
 est number of pupils, and lay the foundations 
 for later study. A short service in the Cam- 
 bridge School Committee has taught some- 
 thing of the aims and practical difficulties of 
 primary and secondary education. 
 
 By the courtesy of the editors of the Acad- 
 (v)
 
 vi preface. 
 
 cmy (Syracuse), Atlantic, Chautauquan, Educa- 
 tional Review, and School Review, articles are 
 here reprinted which first appeared in those 
 journals ; but the opportunity of revision has 
 not been neglected, and, so far as possible, 
 each essay has been brought down to date. 
 
 ALBERT BUSHNELL HART. 
 CAMBRIDGE. MASS., January 15, 1895.
 
 of Contents* 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 I. HAS THE TEACHER A PROFESSION? i 
 
 School Review, January, 1893. 
 
 II. REFORM IN THE GRAMMAR SCHOOLS 22 
 
 Educational Review, October, 1892. 
 
 III. UNIVERSITY PARTICIPATION A SUBSTITUTE FOR 
 
 UNIVERSITY EXTENSION 49 
 
 Educational Review, June, 1893. 
 
 IV. How TO STUDY HISTORY 75 
 
 Chautauquan, October, 1893. 
 
 V. How TO TEACH HISTORY IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS. 91 
 Academy (Syracuse), September, October, 1887. 
 
 VI. THE STATUS OF ATHLETICS IN AMERICAN COL- 
 LEGES 122 
 
 Atlantic Monthly, July, 1890. 
 
 INDEX 147 
 
 (Vii)
 
 I. 
 
 Das tbe Ueacber a profession? 
 
 NEARLY fifty years ago an eminent professor 
 in New England, then occupying a chair of 
 History, got into a controversy over a depre- 
 ciatory article which he had written about Kos- 
 suth, the popular hero of the day; though his 
 criticism was probably just, the feeling aroused 
 was so strong that it was deemed expedient to 
 transfer him to the chair of " Natural Religion 
 and Moral Philosophy." A squib expressed the 
 popular disapproval as follows : " Professor B. 
 was made a Professor of History because he 
 did not know history ; but is now a Professor 
 of Morals because he cannot tell the truth." 
 
 The anecdote illustrates the lack of confi- 
 dence of Americans in professional teachers ; 
 but the same feeling exists toward many other 
 professions. For instance, when it became nec- 
 essary to erect a capitol for the nation in 1800 
 it was designed, says Henry Adams, " by Dr. 
 William Thornton, an English physician, who 
 in the course of two weeks' study at the Phila- 
 
 (0
 
 fteacber's profession. 
 
 delphia Library gained enough knowledge of 
 architecture to draw an exterior elevation. But 
 when Thornton was forced to look for some 
 one to help him over his difficulty, Jefferson 
 could find no competent native American, and 
 sent for Latrobe. Jefferson considered himself 
 a better architect than either of them, and had 
 he been a professor of materia medica at Co- 
 lumbia College, the public would have accepted 
 his claim as reasonable." Wherever we turn 
 we find the same notion, that even in techni- 
 cal matters one man is as good as another ; 
 house-painters design buildings, surveyors build 
 bridges, and war correspondents write history. 
 Even when we touch the most delicate and com- 
 plicated of all human devices, the machinery of 
 government, we find deeply embedded in the 
 popular mind the principle of rotation in office ; 
 that is, Americans hold not only the belief that 
 the inexperienced man is as good as the expert, 
 but also the conviction .that he is a great deal 
 better. 
 
 For this state of things there are two principal 
 causes. In the development of a new country 
 the settlers have had to be masters of many 
 trades; and the man who could clear land, 
 break oxen, build a wagon, shoe a horse, repair 
 a roof, keep a tavern, and settle a dispute, not 
 unnaturally felt that he could also invent cotton 
 machinery, make laws, and teach school. Even
 
 Distrust of Bjperts. 
 
 the division and subdivision of labor has not as 
 yet been effectual in breaking up this idea that 
 any man can do anything. The other cause is 
 one which tends rather to grow than to dimin- 
 ish ; it is hard for Americans to understand that 
 it is possible for men to be politically equal 
 white intellectually unequal. The " practical 
 man " considers himself an unteachable master 
 in his own field, and at the same time a better 
 judge of professional matters than the expert 
 who has spent his life in acquiring technical 
 knowledge. On the other hand, the " practical 
 man " has the utmost contempt for any applica- 
 tion to his pursuits of those generalities found- 
 ed on long experience which he calls " theory." 
 A few years ago, in the enlightened city of Bos- 
 ton, the trustees of the Public Library applied 
 their business common-sense to the construc- 
 tion of a new building, and declined to consult 
 any experienced librarian as to the suitability 
 of their plans. These practical men have pro- 
 duced a magnificent monument, with insuffi- 
 cient windows, and were able to come within 
 almost a million dollars of their own estimate. 
 
 That the mass of Americans do not appre- 
 ciate expert knowledge is shown in part by the 
 common use of the word " technical " as nearly 
 synonymous with impracticable ; and still more 
 by the status of the recognized " learned pro- 
 fessions." The ministry is the oldest of them,
 
 Gbe Geacber's jprofesefon. 
 
 and long the most respected ; yet laymen con- 
 sider their knowledge of biblical history and 
 philology so adequate that they try for heresy 
 learned scholars who disagree with them. The 
 profession of law was looked on with suspicion! 
 and dislike in colonial times, and owes its pres- 
 ent standing chiefly to its great influence over 
 legislation, and to the selection of judges from 
 its ranks. No established profession meets with 
 less real consideration than the medical ; a few 
 years ago, in the populous city of Cleveland, the 
 physician with the largest practice was an ig- 
 norant German, who never could be induced 
 to show any diploma, and who diagnosed dis- 
 eases by examining the palms of his patients' 
 hands. The regular officers of the army and 
 navy were suspected of " book-learning " at the 
 beginning of the Civil War, and it was only the 
 absolute necessity of the case which allowed 
 them to come forward and vindicate their status 
 as superior to the untrained volunteers. Along 
 with them, engineers and scientific men are 
 somewhat grudgingly admitted to possess a 
 distinct professional status. 
 
 What is the teacher's place ? How far does 
 the public recognize him as one entitled to con- 
 fidence and consultation, because learned in a 
 calling of great benefit to the community ? 
 Three illustrations drawn from personal experi- 
 ence may suffice to show how the teachers are
 
 JLovo .Estimate of Xearning. 5 
 
 regarded, though by far the largest body of 
 educated men and women in the country. A 
 person, a foreigner, who had for some months 
 rendered practical services in the writer's 
 kitchen, one day asked the lady of the house 
 whether her husband " had any real profes- 
 sion." The wife of another member of the 
 teaching staff in Cambridge, one day remarked 
 that " she never could see what President Eliot 
 could find to do." A young friend, who had 
 been a " professor " in an immature college 
 in the Southwest, recently gave out that he 
 thought of "going into the education busi- 
 ness." It appeared that his plan was to start a 
 school, and then personally to " drum " whole 
 cities for patrons or, perhaps one might say, 
 for " customers." 
 
 What is the reason of this attitude toward 
 knowledge ? Savages despise experts because 
 they have no conception of any knowledge or 
 power except what they themselves possess ; so 
 the barbarian Gaul plucked the Roman senator 
 by the beard, because to him he was only a weak 
 old man. The Romans themselves cared little 
 for learning, because they could not see the 
 value of knowledge which was not directly in- 
 tended to advance the material power and 
 wealth of the nation. Americans are rather 
 Romans than barbarians; we value some 
 kinds of experts ; we allowed forty acres at the
 
 tTeacbcr's profcs0ion. 
 
 Columbian Exposition for the display of the 
 cattle-breeders' art and two acres for a dis- 
 play of education. 
 
 Perhaps, after all, these are extreme illustra- 
 tions of the relative proportions of material and 
 intellectual interests. Perhaps we may find 
 the status of teachers more important than we 
 imagine. Let us proceed to consider three 
 points in regard to it : First, how far teachers 
 practise a profession ; second, how far they are 
 recognized as experts ; and, third, what may be 
 done to improve the profession. 
 
 Among the principal marks of a profes- 
 sion are : that it should be a permanent call- 
 ing taken up as a life-work ; that it should 
 require special and intellectual training ; and 
 that there should be among its members a feel- 
 ing of common interest and some organization. 
 When we attempt to apply these criteria to the 
 teachers there is certainly some doubt whether 
 we form a profession or no. The teacher's call- 
 ing is well known to be less permanent than 
 that of others. For more than a century teach- 
 ing has been considered in this country, what 
 it could hardly be in any other land, a make- 
 shift for young men who expect to enter law 
 or medicine. Undoubtedly this system of com- 
 bining self -education with the education of 
 others has made it possible for many young 
 men to climb the difficult lower stairs of recog-
 
 peculiarities of tbe Calling. 
 
 nized professions. Two presidents of the Unit- 
 ed States John Adams and James A. Garfield 
 began their career in this fashion. The con- 
 ditions are now changing. The colleges used 
 to have a system of vacations which permitted 
 students to teach a part of every year. Per- 
 haps that was as good a way of earning money 
 as waiting at summer hotels or acting as guide 
 at a World's Fair ; but the colleges no longer 
 suffer the interruption. More and more young 
 men enter upon teaching with the expectation 
 that they will follow it steadily ; and so far 
 forth the profession gains ground. On the 
 other hand, there are in America large bodies 
 of women teachers ; and to them no profession 
 has the same permanence as to a man ; the "epi- 
 demic of matrimony " may make inroads on the 
 teaching force in every grade. A few months 
 ago the President of the oldest and one of the 
 best women's colleges in America was in a com- 
 ical state of mingled wrath and amusement be- 
 cause one of his professors had resigned her 
 place, without any previous notice, and only a 
 few days before the beginning of the college 
 year, in order to be married. As the sage Bil- 
 lings observed, " Calico of all kinds is the child 
 of circumstances." 
 
 When we come to technical training the 
 teachers stand below other professions. Only 
 very recently have there been opportunities in
 
 8 ube Seacber's profession. 
 
 America for a course corresponding to that of 
 the law, medical, or theological student, or of 
 the West Point cadet. We must not leave out 
 of account the system of normal schools which 
 has done so much to disabuse Americans of the 
 idea that any fairly intelligent person is suit- 
 able as a teacher. It seems, however, that 
 those schools at present occupy the same posi- 
 tion as the old medical schools, which gave 
 diplomas after attendance on two courses of 
 lectures. The normal schools have tried to do 
 two things at once, and have done neither of 
 them with complete success ; they find it neces- 
 sary to offer a general course because of the 
 imperfect preliminary education of many stu- 
 dents who come to them ; and at the same time 
 they have tried to give a technical training : the 
 general course has been on too narrow a basis, 
 and the practical part has been taught too 
 much by lecture and demonstration, and too 
 little by actual practice. Nor do the college 
 courses in pedagogy entirely fill the require- 
 ment of higher professional training ; they can 
 test the general acquirements of students ; they 
 can point out the development of the human 
 mind and suggest the best ways of participat- 
 ing in that development ; they can give a wide 
 outlook over previous experiments in educa- 
 tion ; their great danger is of running into what 
 the Germans call " Methodologie." Practical
 
 professional (Training. 
 
 training in teaching seems like that in anoth- 
 er science which makes the colleges known 
 throughout the Union the science of football. 
 The good teacher needs strength and quickness 
 of mind ; he needs an acquaintance with the 
 rules of his road ; above all he needs personal 
 contact with the problems of his calling. It is 
 impossible to educate a teacher without asso 
 ciating him in some way with those who are to 
 be taught, just as it is impossible to make a 
 good football eleven by studying the rules of 
 the game and looking on from the edge of the 
 crowd of spectators. A normal school or a col- 
 lege course without actual classes of children 
 is like football practice with a dummy in a 
 gymnasium. 
 
 The third element of professional training, 
 permanent organization and association, has 
 made great advances in the last few years. 
 Teachers of similar grades have gathered in 
 clubs and meetings ; those of various grades 
 have met in joint conferences and associations ; 
 the whole body of teachers, through their or- 
 ganization in the National Educational Associa- 
 tion, have sought to study and to solve their 
 common problems. 
 
 Such, then, seems to be the opinion which we 
 teachers hold of our calling ; it is not always 
 permanent ; we are not always well trained ; 
 but we have a strong and growing feeling of
 
 TO abe Ceacber's profession. 
 
 esprit de corps. What does the community 
 think of us? In one respect at least teachers 
 are looked up to as professional experts ; they 
 are generally considered men of learning. 
 There is a much greater respect throughout 
 the country for educated men than they them- 
 selves observe. Not long ago a young lawyer 
 in New York City was designated as an agent 
 of a municipal reform association at one of the 
 polling-places in the lower part of the city. On 
 appearing he found his rivals disposed to hustle 
 and maltreat him ; presently " Paddy Divver," 
 the renowned police justice, appeared as chief- 
 tain of the opposite host ; on learning who the 
 young stranger was, and finding that he was 
 an educated man and withal an agreeable fel- 
 low Paddy magnanimously took him under 
 his wing ; issued strict orders that he should 
 not be molested ; gave him an excellent Tam- 
 many lunch; and parted with an assurance of 
 his personal friendship. Yet he had nothing to 
 gain by his hospitality except the good-will of 
 the man whose advantages he respected. From 
 the district school where "teacher says so" 
 is a decisive argument in domestic affairs, to 
 the gentleman who has discovered an infallible 
 means of predicting the weather and asks the 
 Board of Overseers of Harvard College to test 
 it and certify to his fame, there is a disposition 
 to look upon educators as more learned than
 
 IRespect for ZTeacbera, n 
 
 other professional men. This privilege, how- 
 ever, applies only to literary subjects, treated 
 in a general manner ; we are allowed to state 
 the height of the Washington Monument; but 
 to apply the character of Washington as a cri- 
 terion for modern statesmen is a " descent into 
 politics." 
 
 What we desire is not that people should 
 look upon us as encyclopaedias of learning, but 
 that they should ask and take our advice upon 
 strictly professional matters, such as school or- 
 ganization, courses of study, and school meth- 
 ods. The real difficulty here is the close 
 connection between the public schools and the 
 State. The teachers are not considered mem- 
 bers of an independent profession, asserting 
 their own standards, but as employees of the 
 Government ; they are not retained like lawyers, 
 but hired like letter-carriers. Furthermore, 
 since education is a public matter, it is often 
 considered the gift of the State, to be divided 
 per capita among the children in such a manner 
 that the bright and dull shall get the same 
 amount, in the same time, under the same sys- 
 tem. This pernicious notion goes very deep. 
 Congress looks upon the scientific men in the 
 Smithsonian and instructors in government 
 schools as persons to take orders and not to 
 make suggestions. Teachers throughout the 
 country have little influence over the organiza-
 
 12 cbe tfeacber'0 profession. 
 
 tion of their own schools, and still less over the 
 selection of their own associates. 
 
 On this point our position is more difficult 
 than that of other professions ; lawyers have a 
 bar examination, which they themselves admin- 
 ister; physicians, in the older States, have a high 
 professional standard of education, and will 
 eventually insist upon a State examination for 
 neophytes. We are betrayed by our own higher 
 institutions ; one may count almost on one hand 
 the colleges, and even universities, in which 
 the faculties are the main-spring of the system. 
 In Cornell, Columbia, Yale, and Harvard the 
 faculty does decide on its own methods ; and at 
 Yale and Cornell on its own members. The 
 success of those great universities is in part due 
 to the independence of their teachers. Even 
 the Overseers of Harvard University, though 
 enlightened and public-spirited men, chosen by 
 the suffrage of the graduates, have very little 
 control over that university. Had they more 
 power, it is perhaps doubtful whether they 
 would make the institution better; but they cer- 
 tainly would make it different. A few of the 
 endowed schools have a faculty with power ; 
 but in public schools there is almost always an 
 administrative system separate from the teach- 
 ers. If the principal of the grammar-school 
 never asks the opinion of his teachers; if the 
 head - master of a high - school never takes
 
 Geacbers not Consulted 13 
 
 counsel with his subordinates, why should 
 principals and masters expect to be consulted 
 by school boards ? Our idea of school organ- 
 ization is paternal; it suggests the Presbyte- 
 rian's elaborate description of his own church 
 government : " And thus you see," said he, 
 " our General Assembly, our Synods, our Pres- 
 byteries form a system of wheels, working with- 
 in wheels." "Yes," says a good Methodist 
 brother, " and all these wheels to grind the peo- 
 ple with." 
 
 It is true that the taxpayers raise the money, 
 and that it is necessary for the public interest 
 that they should have a voice in its expen- 
 diture ; it is true that we need the criticism of 
 the intelligent laymen. But our schools, and 
 particularly the public schools, would be much 
 better administered if the Boards of Education 
 were content with supervising the Superin- 
 tendent, and would give the teachers more 
 voice in their own system ; if Superintendents 
 were content with superintending methods and 
 would leave details to the masters ; and if the 
 masters would call their teachers into consul- 
 tation. 
 
 In any case it is reasonable to ask that the 
 opinions of the teachers may have weight in 
 the details of the schools, and especially in the 
 selection of studies. Here, if anywhere, ex- 
 perience and observation ought to tell, and
 
 ! 4 tTbe tTeacber'8 profession. 
 
 here we teachers are in part responsible for the 
 defects of the present system. To be sure 
 many of us are caught in the meshes of a sys- 
 tem which we did not make, and against which 
 we struggle. Nevertheless, teachers have been 
 slow to show the evidence of life usual in other 
 professions eagerness on the part of the mem- 
 bers to adopt improved methods and to extend 
 them. The author of a legal treatise on a new 
 system at once acquires reputation in the pro- 
 fession ; the leading physician is usually the 
 man who is most ready to test new discoveries; 
 the more conservative profession of the minis- 
 try blossoms out with suggestions of institu- 
 tional churches and other novel devices for 
 extending its work. Teachers are too apt to 
 look upon another teacher who points out flaws 
 as a spy in the camp. We ought to be con- 
 stantly suggesting improvements in our own 
 work, and we ought to accept outside criticisms 
 as an evidence of public interest. Woe to the 
 schools in which teachers or administrators 
 consider any part of the system " perfect ! " 
 
 Nor is content with imperfection the only 
 danger of the schools; a fixed and artificial 
 system of education not only benumbs the 
 teachers, it also creates a distrust in the minds 
 of the public. Some very excellent and sin- 
 cere educators have worked out elaborate 
 theories in which the schools are fitted to-
 
 ffmprovement Slow. 15 
 
 gether like the trusses of a bridge; the pri- 
 mary schools, they tell us, are to teach a knowl- 
 edge of things ; the grammar-schools a knowl- 
 edge of relations ; the high-schools, applications 
 of knowledge ; and the work in each grade is 
 to be arranged accordingly. Such wire-drawn 
 formalism brings the school into discredit. 
 The human mind develops on all sides at once; 
 astronomy may be a suitable study for kinder- 
 gartens, and word-building a useful exercise in 
 graduate schools. 
 
 The most technical part of the teacher's 
 work is his method of teaching ; here again 
 the profession suffers from itself. The general 
 public feels that we use a lot of professional 
 cant ; that certain stock phrases are used to 
 cover a plentiful lack of wit. The spirit of a 
 profession may fairly be gauged by its period- 
 icals ; the lawyers, the doctors, the ministers 
 discuss the technicalities of their professions in 
 sober, dignified, and literary fashion. It must 
 be confessed that many of the educational 
 periodicals suggest inferior education ; they 
 abound in small gossip, in laudatory book no- 
 tices, in free-and-easy conversational editorials. 
 It would be unfair to hold the publishers 
 wholly responsible for this sort of journals, be- 
 cause they adapt their wares to the markets. 
 It must be the teachers who subscribe for, and 
 support, what might not inappropriately be
 
 1 6 abe tleacber's fcrofesston. 
 
 called the " trade journals of education." One 
 of our present encouragements is the estab- 
 lishment in the United States of several educa- 
 tional periodicals of the highest order, suitable 
 exchanges for the best journals of other coun- 
 tries. 
 
 In what way may the professional status of 
 the teacher be improved ? That it is rising is 
 shown in many ways, especially in the better 
 provision for thorough training. The Normal 
 Schools are improving; a scientific study of 
 pedagogy is slowly gaining recognition as a 
 part of university instruction ; and now a third 
 method is starting up, of which a special advan- 
 tage is that it may be applied to teachers who 
 have already begun their work. This is the 
 system of training courses established for teach- 
 ers by colleges and technical schools, and de- 
 scribed in the essay in this volume, on " Uni- 
 versity Participation." The probable effect in 
 bringing about a feeling of harmony and mutual 
 interest between the colleges and schools is too 
 evident to require discussion. 
 
 In some one of the three ways, by normal 
 schools, courses in pedagogy, or practical 
 training courses, greater professional advan- 
 tages are obtainable ; more than that, they are 
 obtained. The planting of Johns Hopkins Uni- 
 versity, twenty years ago, has given a different 
 trend to the preparation of teachers, especially
 
 /Beans of ITmprovement. 17 
 
 for the more advanced institutions. There is 
 hardly a good college in the United States at 
 present which will give any man a permanent 
 appointment unless he has had special training 
 in American or foreign universities, after fin- 
 ishing his college course. The principle is ex- 
 tending into secondary schools; and the time 
 is not far different when a mastership in any 
 good secondary school in New England can be 
 had only by a person specially fitted for the 
 work which he proposes to do. The influence 
 is likely to spread still further, and we shall 
 surely have a body of highly educated and 
 trained teachers below the high - school. At 
 this moment there are in the Cambridge gram- 
 mar-schools several women who hold the de- 
 gree of A.B. from a good college ; and the 
 number of such thoroughly educated teachers 
 is certain to increase. 
 
 Our standing before the community may 
 also be much improved by a less self-satisfied 
 tone. We are engaged in an excellent and 
 honorable calling; we have chosen it because 
 we think it for us the best and the most useful ; 
 but teachers are entirely too apt to congratu- 
 late each other on the grandeur of their oppor- 
 tunities and the greatness of their sacrifices. 
 We are not highly paid in comparison with 
 our friends and class-mates who began the race 
 with us ; we are subject to vexatious uncer- 
 
 2
 
 1 8 abe tTeacber'8 profession. 
 
 tainties as to tenure and promotion. But we 
 have three months' vacation in the year ; we 
 have fixed salaries instead of fees or donation 
 parties ; and we are able to arrange much of 
 our own time. We look, and are, a contented 
 body of men and women; let us admit our 
 content. 
 
 Another way to improve our position is to 
 recognize the problem of education which lies 
 before us. An esteemed correspondent from 
 another State recently wrote : " I think we have 
 touched the bottom of inequality and are now 
 well on our way toward another grand equality. 
 . . . One object of free public education 
 should be to make men equal and not unequal." 
 That proposition is in the wrong spirit. It is 
 no part of our profession to reorganize the uni- 
 verse. We are put here, like the physicians, to 
 take people as we find them, and to make the 
 best that we can out of every one. A good 
 practitioner treats a weak and sickly child as 
 one requiring special attention ; he thinks he is 
 doing well if he brings him to the point where, 
 by taking care of himself, he may thenceforth 
 live, however simply and quietly. The stronger 
 and more vigorous boy may be a subject for 
 the sharper discipline of rough and hearty 
 boyish sports. But if we wish to produce a 
 transcendent character such as the stroke oar 
 of a victorious crew, we must catch him early
 
 Equalisation an& Xicensfng. 19 
 
 and train him hard. There is no other profes- 
 sion that does not seek out the best young minds 
 and give them the best opportunities that the 
 country affords. We shall never be a profes- 
 sion if we do not take each child as we find 
 him, and give him all the training that his 
 mental powers allow, up to the point reached 
 by our schools. 
 
 The status of teachers would be much im- 
 proved if we could adopt the foreign system of 
 a rigorous state examination, which could not 
 be passed without special training, and without 
 which no person could be appointed as teacher 
 in any advanced school. Such a result is very 
 difficult to accomplish : the bar has gained it ; 
 the medical men may reach it ; the teachers, at 
 least in some States, might bring it about if 
 they themselves would clamor for it. Our 
 system of schools conducted exclusively by 
 local boards, with little suggestion and no con- 
 trol from the State, has great advantages; it 
 promotes healthy rivalries, allows for peculiar 
 circumstances and cultivates lively public inter- 
 est. None of these advantages would be lost 
 by a system of State examinations ; the local 
 boards and committee would still draw the 
 plans and put up the structure of education, 
 but they would be obliged to build with well- 
 shaped materials. 
 
 The members of the profession are already
 
 2O Gbe Ceacber's profession. 
 
 doing all that can be expected in the way of 
 organization and association ; the knowledge 
 of improved methods spreads rapidly through 
 teachers' associations, and through the better 
 journals, from town to town and from State to 
 State. What is now needed is to apply the 
 principle of association so as to bring nearer 
 together the teachers who are already nearest 
 together; the teachers in one building, or in 
 one city. This does not mean simply the out- 
 ward contact of teachers' meetings, but the 
 establishment of some kind of joint and several 
 responsibility, some faculty system. The dif- 
 ficulties in the way of such a system are very 
 serious. The adoption of departmental instruc- 
 tion in grammar-schools, though, perhaps, it 
 would bring about new difficulties, would cer- 
 tainly help out this reform ; but the real trouble 
 is not so much a lack of organization as of en- 
 lightened public sentiment. Perhaps the prob- 
 lem may be solved by establishing in every city 
 or county system of schools a Teachers' Coun- 
 cil, chosen by the teachers themselves, and 
 consulted by school boards on questions of or- 
 ganization and methods. 
 
 o 
 
 At present we are in the hands of that near- 
 sighted giant, the Public ; he moves us about 
 like chessmen on a board ; he is responsible 
 for most of the evils which we have discussed. 
 We feel toward him as the White Queen felt
 
 association. 21 
 
 when she was suddenly transported to the 
 mantel-piece, and with her we cry out to our 
 colleagues: "Mind the volcano!" But he is 
 a good-natured and well-meaning giant, sus- 
 ceptible to good advice ; he likes to see his 
 creatures doing something, and is willing that 
 they should improve. Good Public, give us 
 elbow-room ! Do not insist on uniformity, the 
 great bane of American education ! Do not 
 make a solar system of our schools, with super- 
 intendents as force -giving suns, masters as 
 light -reflecting planets, and teachers as auto- 
 matic satellites or asteroids ! Give us an oppor- 
 tunity to think, to suggest and to criticise, with- 
 out our heads rolling off ! We will repay you 
 by preparing for our profession, practising it 
 modestly, and constantly raising our own stand- 
 ards of efficiency. You give us your children 
 to educate ; give us more freedom, so as to edu- 
 cate them well !
 
 II. 
 
 IRefocm In tbc <Bvammar*Scboote, 
 
 UNTHINKING persons who look upon educa- 
 tion in the United States perhaps suppose that, 
 if the profession of teaching be unlike other pro- 
 fessions, if it be not possible to set certain stand- 
 ards, or to maintain a definite professional spirit 
 by the body of teachers, at least the methods 
 of teaching and the choice of subjects are in gen- 
 eral determined by the teachers. A brief ex- 
 perience in school administration has convinced 
 the writer that this is a mistaken view. 
 
 Teachers have little influence in either of the 
 two parts of the educational machinery that 
 which relates to the selection of teachers, or 
 that which controls the subject-matter of educa- 
 tion, such as the choice of studies and of text- 
 books, the preparation of courses of study, and 
 the fixing of tests of proficiency. Except in a 
 very few professional schools, particularly those 
 of medicine, teachers usually have no voice in 
 the selection of their fellows ; the standards for 
 admission into the profession are set and ad- 
 
 (22)
 
 Cbe powers of fteacbers. 23 
 
 ministered by persons who have often never 
 been teachers, and sometimes know very little 
 of the art. The school boards and the trus- 
 tees of secondary schools and colleges hold the 
 keys to the gates which open to the pedagogue's 
 career. It might be supposed that at least in 
 the technical matters of curriculum and division 
 of the time of pupils the teachers would have 
 sway. So it is in many of the institutions of 
 higher learning ; college faculties and the teach- 
 ing force of endowed schools settle their own 
 problems. This is certainly not the case with 
 the public schools. 
 
 If an analysis be made of the distribution of 
 powers in the educational commonwealth, the 
 most influential persons are the school superin- 
 tendents ; they are not always secure of their 
 tenure, but they can usually introduce, im- 
 mediately or gradually, any scheme of reform 
 which does not involve the expenditure of more 
 money, and which can be carried out with the 
 teachers whom they are allowed to employ. 
 Hence, perhaps the most encouraging thing in 
 the recent movements for the improvement of 
 grammar-school education is the interest taken 
 by the best and most active superintendents 
 throughout the country. 
 
 Next in point of power come the school 
 boards. In some of the large cities these are 
 political machines ; in Cleveland the board be-
 
 24 <5rammar*Scbool "Reform. 
 
 came so bad that by State enactment a new 
 organization has been brought about in which 
 the superintendent is made almost autocratic. 
 Still, in many large cities, and in most smaller 
 places, the school board is controlled by well- 
 meaning and intelligent men ; and in every 
 board, good or bad, are some members well 
 acquainted with the schools and eager to im- 
 prove them. It is in the power of the school 
 boards to force reforms upon unwilling superin- 
 tendents ; but they never can carry out great 
 changes without the aid of the teachers. 
 
 The third moving force in the public schools 
 is the " educators." These are sometimes men 
 who have spent their lives in public-school 
 work, sometimes private individuals, sometimes 
 the principals of great secondary schools, or the 
 presidents of colleges. They have better op- 
 portunities than most superintendents and mem- 
 bers of boards of education to observe the work- 
 ings of American education in all parts of the 
 country and to compare them with foreign 
 schools of the same grade. It is their mission 
 to arouse the public to the need of reform. 
 
 The fourth source of educational energy is in 
 the public at large. In the Northern and West- 
 ern States there is little difficulty in raising 
 money for good schools, and everywhere peo- 
 ple are sincerely disappointed if they find their 
 children going on year after year with little
 
 ^Educational 3force0. 25 
 
 progress. If the public can once be convinced 
 that the expenditure of time and money on the 
 public schools ought to produce a greater re- 
 sult, then reform can be brought about ; but the 
 details will always be settled primarily by the 
 superintendents, and, in a less degree, by the 
 school boards. 
 
 Fifth, and last, come the teachers, who are in 
 the unfortunate position of exercising great re- 
 sponsibility without much opportunity to make 
 their preferences felt. So far from constituting 
 the moving force of the schools, they are help- 
 less links in an endless educational chain, pick- 
 ing up one batch of children after another and 
 carrying them in a direction which often they 
 do not approve. So far from the teachers form- 
 ing a profession, they are more like the em- 
 ployees of a great railroad. They have not 
 built it, they do not control it ; they may manage 
 their train, but that train moves at a prescribed 
 pace over a prescribed route, carrying a pre- 
 scribed number of little passengers in each car. 
 
 In Cambridge, as elsewhere, we must reckon 
 with all these forces, though the conditions are 
 probably more favorable to a reform in public- 
 school education than in many other cities. 
 The number of children of school age was, in 
 May, 1893, about twelve thousand six hundred, 
 out of a total population of about eighty thou- 
 sand ; of these children five thousand five hun-
 
 26 6rammar*ScbooI "Reform. 
 
 dred are in the grammar-schools. The school 
 buildings are good, though by no means equal 
 to those of many Western cities; the newer 
 structures are well lighted and ventilated. The 
 average expenditure per pupil throughout the 
 schools was in 1893 $18.51 for salaries, and about 
 $i . 10 a year for the abundant free text-books and 
 supplies, furnished by the city. The supervision 
 is less elaborate than in many cities ; up to 1892 
 one superintendent performed the whole duty, 
 and now he has but one assistant, a lady. All 
 the elements of school government have, how- 
 ever, been unusually well disposed toward mak- 
 ing some change in the grammar-schools. The 
 superintendent himself, once a principal in one 
 of the grammar-schools of the city, has long 
 been convinced that those schools were spend- 
 ing too much time and accomplishing too little. 
 The school board acts entirely without ref- 
 erence to political parties, and although a series 
 of accidents has brought in a large number of 
 new members during the last five years, they 
 have been persons willing to spend the neces- 
 sary time to acquaint themselves with the needs 
 of the schools. The element of warning and 
 good counsel has been especially well repre- 
 sented in Cambridge. The officers of several 
 teachers' associations are found among the 
 Cambridge teachers ; and the President of 
 Harvard University has freely raised his voice
 
 GambrfZ>0e Scboote. 27 
 
 in criticism of the grammar-school system and 
 of the Cambridge grammar-schools as an illus- 
 tration of that system. It is difficult to say how 
 far the public at large has been interested in the 
 proposed changes ; there has certainly been no 
 protest against them. The teachers, as soon as 
 they understood that no change would be made 
 without their co-operation, and without their 
 having a previous opportunity to discuss the 
 details and to suggest amendments, have taken 
 a most gratifying interest in the whole matter. 
 As soon as the newly constituted school com- 
 mittee was organized, in January, 1892, a motion 
 was made for the appointment of a special 
 subcommittee to examine into the whole ques- 
 tion of the time and subject-matter of the 
 grammar-school curriculum. The committee 
 embraced two of the most experienced and 
 conservative members of the board, besides 
 some younger and more impulsive spirits. It 
 adopted the plan of holding a kind of invitation 
 meeting. Thus into one session were intro- 
 duced superintendents and teachers from those 
 neighboring cities in which new methods and 
 new subjects had been introduced. At another 
 time the masters of the grammar-schools were 
 invited to present their views with regard to 
 shortening the grammar-school course. Again 
 a delegation of teachers was called in to meet 
 several experts in the new subjects which it
 
 28 <3rammar*Scbool "Reform. 
 
 was proposed to introduce ; and all the mem- 
 bers of the school board were at one time or 
 another invited to sit with the committee 
 and to take part in its deliberations. The 
 purpose was that the committee might 
 clearly understand the difficulties in the way of 
 reform, and might put itself so far as possible 
 in the place of those by whom new methods 
 were to be carried out. Most of the objections 
 were thus obviated by changes in the scheme, 
 or at least had been considered before report 
 was made. The result of the committee's la- 
 bors, therefore, met with gratifying approval, 
 and their recommendations were adopted, with 
 a few verbal changes, precisely as they were 
 made. 
 
 It was not difficult for the committee to make 
 up their minds as to what ought to be accom- 
 plished in a grammar-school education. Chil- 
 dren go to school less to learn than to learn 
 how ; less to acquire a stock of ideas than to 
 put ideas together. School training is very 
 like gymnasium training ; people do not raise 
 weights for the sake of driving clocks with 
 them, but in order that they may raise heavier 
 weights hereafter. Throughout American edu- 
 cation too much stress has been laid upon 
 acquisition, and too little on the development 
 of power. What the Cambridge school board 
 desires is to make out of its boys and girls
 
 Committee's Bim. 29 
 
 practical, sensible men and women, able to meet 
 and decide the questions which come to them. 
 But we have two very distinct classes of pupils 
 in the grammar-schools : children who do not 
 expect to go beyond the grammar-schools and 
 children on their way to college. Of course 
 the lower schools, the academies, high-schools, 
 colleges, and universities are all engaged in 
 different branches of the same pursuit ; of 
 course they must work together. Cambridge 
 makes careful and very expensive provision for 
 the preparation of boys and girls for college. 
 Should the city begin below its Latin School, 
 and make in the grammar-schools any sort of 
 special provision for future college students? 
 In the minds of the committee it seemed far 
 more important to organize as good a course as 
 possible for those who stop at the end of the 
 grammar-schools. It seems likely that an im- 
 proved course would also direct many children 
 into the road toward higher education ; but the 
 determining motive has been the desire to fur- 
 nish the best education possible to those who 
 will have no other opportunity ; to make the 
 people's schools more popular because more 
 effective, and to carry more children to the end 
 of the grammar-school course. 
 
 Two problems now presented themselves 
 which appeared to nullify each other. The 
 experience of other cities and of other coun-
 
 3 <Srammar=Scbool Inform. 
 
 tries seemed to show that the Cambridge gram- 
 mar-school course was too long. On the other 
 hand, the schools have been urged in the last 
 three or four years to cover more ground. To 
 shorten the course seemed possible ; to increase 
 it seemed possible ; could it both be shortened 
 and increased ? A few months ago a young 
 lady who was taking a civil-service examina- 
 tion in Cambridge, looking forward to a posi- 
 tion under the city government, made the fol- 
 lowing written statement : " When a child I 
 went to a primary school in Cambridge. As 
 there were four teachers and four rooms, I was 
 four years in passing through that school." It 
 is literally true that, although the primary 
 course required but three years, every child 
 who went through that particular school at the 
 time when she attended it was obliged to take 
 an extra year, because it was more " conven- 
 ient " than to break the four rooms up into 
 three grades. Of late years such stifling appli- 
 cations of red tape have not been permitted ; 
 nevertheless, until recently, it was not possible 
 for any child, however quick, to finish a gram- 
 mar-school course in Cambridge in less than 
 six years, although in Western cities the same 
 ground is commonly covered in five years. Ex- 
 perience has shown that six is by no means a 
 magic number, since eighteen per cent, of our 
 grammar-school pupils spent at least seven
 
 <5rammar*Scbool "S&fppers." 3 1 
 
 years on the way. The school board has for 
 some time sought to remedy this artificial sys- 
 tem by authorizing masters to advance pupils 
 by a process of " skipping." A bright child 
 might thus be carried from the fourth direct in- 
 to the second grade, leaving out the third grade ; 
 or, more commonly, small classes of " skippers " 
 have been formed to do the work of three years 
 in two. About thirty per cent, of the grammar- 
 school graduates have taken advantage of this 
 system, and about five per cent, have " skip- 
 ped " twice. The result has been a practical 
 variation of the course from four to seven years, 
 according to the ability of the pupil. By an 
 easy amplification of this principle it seemed 
 possible to make the same allowance for individ- 
 uals, but to make the course more regular and 
 to avoid gaps left by the " skippers," this has 
 been accomplished by a novel system devised 
 by the superintendent, and put into effect for the 
 first time in 1892. Two grammar-school courses 
 are arranged side by side, one of them to re- 
 quire six years and the other four ; but each 
 of these courses is subdivided into two periods 
 or forms. The combination of the lower quick- 
 moving form of two years, and the upper quick- 
 moving form makes a four-years' course. The 
 combination of the lower quick-moving and the 
 upper slow-moving form of three years, or vice 
 versa, makes a five years' course. The combina-
 
 3 2 <5rammar*ScbooI TReform. 
 
 tion of the two halves of the slow-moving divi- 
 sion makes a six years' course. Thus, without 
 reorganizing the schools, it is possible to make 
 every reasonable allowance for the abilities and 
 opportunities of children. A child who loses a 
 year from sickness may make it up by going 
 into the quick-moving division ; a child who 
 proves too delicate for that work may be trans- 
 ferred to the slower division ; and such trans- 
 fers are made at any time according to the 
 discretion of the masters. The system has 
 now had two years' trial and has justified the 
 expectations of its advocates. The proportion 
 of seven-years' pupils is sensibly reduced ; and 
 nearly half the children get through in five 
 years or less. 
 
 Two objections may be suggested to this 
 scheme. One is, that it will be necessary for 
 teachers to have two grades in one room. This 
 is not by any means a misfortune. In the coun- 
 try district schools it is well known that the 
 younger children often learn the lessons of the 
 older from hearing their recitations ; the influ- 
 ence of one grade of children upon the other 
 in city schools may be equally decided and 
 valuable. The other objection is that the sys- 
 tem produces irregularity and confusion. One 
 of the chief educational officers of the Com- 
 monwealth of Massachusetts once said : " Unity 
 in these things is desirable, not only because
 
 parallel System. 33 
 
 unity of results requires it, but because the 
 largest and truest progress can be secured in 
 no other way. There should be unity also in 
 the methods of teaching." So long as the Al- 
 mighty does not make His children uniform, 
 whether young or old, a system founded upon 
 regularity must be evil. The attempt to com- 
 press into the same grade, pursuing the same 
 studies, children who have been the same 
 number of years in school, is an attempt which 
 must result in silting up the inferior minds and 
 in blunting the superior. The ideal system 
 of teaching would be that of the old district 
 schools and of some of the best private schools 
 to form a class whenever half a dozen children 
 could be found of about the same degree of ad- 
 vancement, and to keep several classes in one 
 room, for the sake of the mutual influence of 
 the children on each other. 
 
 Nevertheless, it must be admitted that the 
 scheme requires more care, thought, and su- 
 pervision than an ordinary graded school. 
 There are two ways in which much of the dif- 
 ficulty may be avoided. One is the so-called 
 departmental system, by which one teacher 
 will teach but one or a few subjects ; it has 
 been adopted in the Workingman's School in 
 New York and elsewhere, and one of the mas- 
 ters of the Cambridge schools has desired to 
 make a trial of it. While it seems likely that 
 3
 
 34 <5rammar*Scbool "Reform. 
 
 this system, which is familiar in the gymnasia 
 in Germany, will eventually be introduced, the 
 experience of the schools which have tried it 
 in this country is not wholly favorable. What 
 the children gain in efficiency of teaching they 
 sometimes lose from a weakened discipline. A 
 different step has, therefore, been taken in 
 Cambridge, to provide for the difficulty of 
 handling the carefully classified pupils. In the 
 large buildings " teachers without grade " have 
 been appointed, who make up small classes of 
 children deficient in particular subjects and 
 bring them forward more rapidly than would 
 be possible in the ordinary school-room. By 
 a temporary shifting of teachers this will make 
 it possible to look out for individual needs and 
 to relieve the schools of the children who have 
 been blocking the way by staying more years 
 than was good for them. An advantage of the 
 system is that it practically increases the ca- 
 pacity of the buildings, and is thus a saving to 
 the taxpayer. 
 
 A third objection to the whole system ought 
 to be considered, not because it has force, but 
 because it is perhaps weighty in the minds of 
 the public : it is that such variations in the 
 schools are undemocratic. True democratic 
 equality, however, consists in the right of every 
 man to make the most of his natural powers. 
 No social system can be arranged which does
 
 fteacbers TKttftbout <3raDe. 35 
 
 not take cognizance of the difference of ability 
 between man and man. The elastic arrangement 
 is distinctly in the interest of poor but bright 
 children, who may be brought forward more 
 rapidly and may be better trained if some ac- 
 count be taken of their special abilities. It is 
 the duty of the public schools to promote 
 equality ; but they promote it best, not by de- 
 nying advantages to the fortunate part of the 
 community, best endowed and in the most fa- 
 vorable circumstances, but by bestowing them 
 and pressing them upon those whose active 
 minds will never be properly improved except 
 by giving them special attention. 
 
 The Cambridge schools are thus fully com- 
 mitted to a plan by which it is hoped that the 
 average time in the grammar-schools will be 
 five years or less. It has not been the purpose 
 to diminish the amount of study at present re- 
 quired, because experience has shown that it 
 may be well performed in five or even four 
 years. The next question which arose was 
 whether the same amount of energy and study 
 may not be made more interesting and more 
 stimulating by a rearrangement of work and the 
 introduction of new subjects. The old curricu- 
 lum of the Cambridge schools was simple, on 
 the whole, reasonable, and certainly not exces- 
 sive in amount. Reading was kept up through 
 all the six grades, authorized readers continu-
 
 3 6 <5rammar*Scbool "Reform. 
 
 ing through the eighth grade, and standard 
 English authors being introduced in the sev- 
 enth grade, half - way through the course. 
 Spelling continued through four of the six 
 grades with a spelling-book, besides the cor- 
 rection of written exercises from time to time. 
 Formal grammar was taught with a text-book 
 in all the grades. Geography ran throughout 
 the course with poor text-books, and with more 
 or less of the senseless superposition of maps 
 upon artificial geometrical figures. Arithmetic 
 continued throughout all the grades, but the 
 more difficult and technical subjects were set 
 aside to be added only at the discretion of 
 the masters. This was then the work of the 
 six years: reading, spelling, grammar, geog- 
 raphy, and arithmetic, with the minor subjects 
 of physiology, a little history, music, drawing, 
 penmanship, and the use of the dictionary. Not 
 much is here included besides the essentials of 
 an intelligent existence : pupils left the gram- 
 mar-schools able to read, to write, to cipher, 
 to parse, with some notion of the earth's sur- 
 face, and, it must be admitted, with consider- 
 able ability to express themselves cogently in 
 the mother tongue. Instruction in the use of 
 the English language has much improved in 
 recent years, and already received great atten- 
 tion before the committee began its labors. 
 It was not apparent that any of these subjects
 
 TUsual Curriculum. 37 
 
 could be omitted ; it did seem, however, that a 
 part of the six years might somehow be re- 
 leased. A great deal of time was spent in re- 
 views. An eminent surgeon said of anatomy 
 that it was a subject which you could not know 
 until you had learned and forgotten it seven 
 times ; possibly grammar-masters have some 
 such principle in mind. In practice the reviews 
 served, however, not so much to recall what 
 had been learned by bright scholars, as to teach 
 pupils what they ought to have learned in the 
 grade below ; in Cambridge, as throughout 
 the country, those scholars who least respond 
 to the teacher usually get most of her time. 
 The four and six years' plan has relieved the 
 schools by separating out the scholars who 
 really need review, so that the quicker division 
 may go directly into new subjects. Again, the 
 committee became satisfied that a great deal of 
 time had been spent to little purpose in getting 
 classes ready for examinations, and the school 
 board voted that henceforth there shall be no 
 stated examinations, and that promotions shall 
 be made upon the record of the term work. 
 These two reforms putting bright pupils 
 ahead into the subjects which they are able to 
 take up, and the saving of unnecessary review 
 preparatory to examination left the schools 
 more time than they had previously. Another 
 saving was possible by simplifying the work,
 
 38 0rammar*Scbool TReform. 
 
 particularly in arithmetic ; there is a great ten- 
 dency on the part of teachers to emphasize this 
 subject by giving long, complicated, and numer- 
 ous problems instead of more simple examples. 
 Another loss of time may be avoided by simpli- 
 fying the study of language ; it does not seem 
 necessary that intelligent children should for 
 five successive years be taking up the principles 
 of grammar. Surely what is necessary to re- 
 member may at last be learned ; whatever 
 training comes from such subjects may at last 
 be had ; and the pupils' minds may some time 
 be turned to fresher and more interesting 
 topics. 
 
 When in 1890 the suggestion was first thrown 
 out that the grammar-schools were teaching 
 too little, it was met with incredulity, with de- 
 nial, and personal abuse. It has now been re- 
 peated, developed, and illustrated by so many 
 eminent teachers, administrators, and heads of 
 great systems of public education that the com- 
 munity accepts it, and even the teachers ac- 
 knowledge it. In fact, the opposition to the 
 proposed reform has sprung chiefly out of mis- 
 apprehension ; when the grammar-school sys- 
 tem was criticised, the grammar-school teach- 
 ers felt that they were attacked ; whereas they, 
 like the rest of the community, were sufferers 
 from a system for which they could not be held 
 responsible. The most important advance in
 
 Ifnertncss of tbe Scbools. 39 
 
 the subject was that made November 6, 1891, 
 by the Association of Colleges in New Eng- 
 land. Although the members of that body 
 were all engaged in college teaching, their 
 recommendation does not appear to have 
 sprung from any desire to make the grammar- 
 schools feeders for higher schools ; they were 
 interested in the public schools as citizens, and 
 many of them as fathers of public-school chil- 
 dren. 
 
 What shall be done with the time saved to 
 the schools by cutting off examinations and 
 tedious reviews and simplifying the subjects 
 previously taught ? The Association of Colleges 
 in New England recommended that algebra 
 and geometry be introduced into the grammar- 
 schools. The Cambridge schools then included 
 in their mathematical studies mental and written 
 arithmetic throughout the six grades, and book- 
 keeping. The book-keeping was in most cases 
 of a simple kind, and it has been thought wise 
 to abandon the pretentious and undeserved title 
 and substitute the term, " simple personal and 
 business accounts." Arithmetic has long been 
 chosen as, on the whole, the principal subject in 
 the grammar-schools, both because of its prac- 
 tical applications, and of the excellent training 
 to the mind resulting from its precision. Yet 
 in the ordinary study of arithmetic there has 
 been too little development of the reasoning
 
 4O <5rammar*ScbooI tRetorm. 
 
 powers ; under poor teachers the rules have 
 been learned and applied by rote. On the 
 other hand, there are two mathematical sub- 
 jects algebra and geometry in which train- 
 ing is the larger element; in one, algebra, the 
 processes are closely akin to those of arith- 
 metic. Tf a choice of new subjects must be 
 made, it seems desirable to take geometry, be- 
 cause its point of view is different, and because 
 the exactness of logical reasoning makes up for 
 some of the loose habits of thought which chil- 
 dren get in other subjects. Geometry, proper- 
 ly taught, is one of the most interesting of sub- 
 jects, and it may readily be allied with drawing 
 and with mensuration; the schools may thus 
 teach in a more or less regular fashion the prop- 
 erties of geometrical forms, and the relations to 
 each other of lines and angles. In one of the 
 towns near Boston, in which that study has been 
 introduced into the schools, the boys have de- 
 veloped an interesting practical application ; 
 they go about and offer to calculate the height 
 of their neighbors' houses, by means of their 
 simple instruments and formulae. If this part 
 of the school study be combined and organized, 
 and made to advance from year to year, it will 
 lead up by the most natural steps to the study 
 of simple geometrical problems. The Cam- 
 bridge school board has therefore adopted the 
 study of geometry as obligatory in the gram-
 
 <3eometrg anO Slgefcra. 4 1 
 
 mar-schools. Some of the teachers hesitated 
 on this point, and some of them preferred the 
 teaching of algebra. The board has therefore 
 authorized any master who so chooses, to in- 
 troduce algebra in the last year in connection 
 with arithmetic. 
 
 Next come reading and language. Every 
 well-educated man needs the knowledge of 
 some language besides his own ; but in America 
 there is not the same practical necessity for the 
 use of modern languages as abroad. We have 
 but two neighboring countries in which Eng- 
 lish is not spoken, Cuba and Mexico ; and few 
 Americans have any occasion to use Spanish. 
 Still, nothing surpasses the study of foreign lan- 
 guages in the effect upon one's own vocabulary 
 and mode of speech ; and no man who desires to 
 use the thoughts of current writers on scientific 
 or technical subjects can get on without French 
 and German. Hence it has been suggested 
 that the study of some language should be 
 introduced into the grammar-schools, and the 
 only convenient tongues are Latin, French, and 
 German. Any one of these may be pursued 
 with advantage by American children, as they 
 are by boys and girls of the same age in foreign 
 countries ; while it may be no argument to say 
 that because a subject is studied abroad it 
 ought to be studied in America, we surely can- 
 not admit that American children are less ca-
 
 4 2 <5rammar*Scbool TReform. 
 
 pable or develop less rapidly than those in for- 
 eign countries. If an American boy and a Ger- 
 man boy were cast away upon the same desert 
 island, the American would take care of himself 
 and save his comrade's life ; but if an American 
 young man of twenty be put side by side with 
 a German young man of the same age, he finds 
 himself inferior in the power to deal with new 
 problems in science, in logic, or in the work- 
 ings of the human mind ; whereas, with his bet- 
 ter start and surroundings, he ought to excel. 
 His greater experience in practical matters, in 
 self-protection, in money-making, ought not to 
 interfere with skill in the use of his reasoning 
 powers. The difficulty in the introduction of 
 languages is not that they are too hard for the 
 pupil, but that they are too severe for the tax- 
 payer. Three-quarters of the children in the 
 Cambridge grammar-schools could get a great 
 deal of good out of any one of the three men- 
 tioned ; about one-twentieth of them would be 
 much aided in their preparation for college ; 
 every pupil who had a foreign language would 
 understand the use of English better. The dif- 
 ficulty is that foreign tongues are not so eas- 
 ily taught as spelling, arithmetic, and geog- 
 raphy ; good teachers in these branches are 
 difficult to find for any institution ; and if intro- 
 duced on a large scale, languages require costly 
 supervision. Hence it is much easier to intro-
 
 ^Languages. 43 
 
 duce a new language into a town having one 
 graded school than where there are a dozen 
 large schools. 
 
 No recommendation was made to the Cam- 
 bridge school committee on other modern lan- 
 guages, but the sub-committee suggested im- 
 portant reforms in the teaching of English. 
 In the first place, formal grammar lessons, in- 
 cluding learning of parts of speech and pars- 
 ing, are to be confined henceforth to the last 
 two-thirds of the grammar schools. In the 
 second place, set spelling lessons are to stop at 
 the end of the first two-thirds of the grammar 
 schools. In the third place (and this is one of 
 the most important reforms), extended extracts 
 from standard English authors are to be read 
 in all grades side by side with the authorized 
 readers, and in the latter part of the course to 
 supersede them. Many of the modern school 
 readers are excellently selected, and have inter- 
 esting matter of good literary flavor ; but they 
 are choppy, and children, except in the last year 
 of their course, have almost no opportunity in 
 school to become acquainted with the great 
 English and American writers ; hence, possibly, 
 the growing desire of Americans, in their home 
 reading, to descend from short books to short 
 articles, and thence to short paragraphs. 
 
 The next change suggested is in the teaching 
 of geography. Political geography and his-
 
 44 <5rammar*ScbooI "Reform. 
 
 tory are thenceforth to be treated together as 
 branches of the same subject. Physical geog- 
 raphy is to be expanded and to be grouped with 
 science. The details of the new course have not 
 yet been worked out, but they will include, as 
 fast as the means of the board will allow, the 
 use of maps, apparatus, and models. Children 
 are to be taught to look on physical geography 
 as a part of the development of the crust of the 
 earth, then to connect with the contour of the 
 earth's surface the movements of the winds, 
 and finally, to observe the effect of physical 
 causes on the settlement and development of 
 nations. 
 
 The last new subject introduced was physics. 
 Here it has been much more difficult than in the 
 other changes to frame the right kind of course 
 and to fit it into the grammar-school system. 
 The choice of the board was between two sys- 
 tems ; they might, as in many cities, teach chil- 
 dren to notice flowers, trees, rocks, and stones, 
 to count their fingers and toes, and to compare 
 them with the hoofs of horses and cattle, and 
 then call that science ; on the other hand, they 
 might choose some one branch of science and 
 teach it in such a way as to give children their 
 first ideas of scientific methods and scientific 
 accuracy. After considering all possible sub- 
 jects, the board finally resolved to introduce 
 experimental physics, the recommendation to
 
 (Beograpbp and ipbgetcs. 45 
 
 take effect after a year. The difficulties have 
 proved serious, but not insurmountable. In the 
 first place, some part of each building must be 
 set aside for a little laboratory, and most of the 
 school-houses are already well occupied ; it has 
 proved, however, that the corner of an assem- 
 bly-room, a lobby, or even an unused cloak- 
 room, may be furnished with a few rough ap- 
 pliances sufficient for the purpose. The next 
 difficulty is the lack of apparatus ; it had been 
 estimated that to fit up the rudest laboratory, 
 so that it would be sufficient for the use of a 
 grammar-school, would cost two hundred dol- 
 lars, and perhaps more. Experience has shown 
 that sixteen sets of the necessary apparatus 
 sufficient to fit out as large a section as can be 
 conveniently taught at once cost eighty to 
 ninety dollars. The necessary tables for sixteen 
 persons cost forty-five to fifty dollars. The 
 teacher's list of appliances and certain miscel- 
 laneous supplies cost about thirty dollars. One 
 hundred and fifty to one hundred and seventy- 
 five dollars will hence stock a suitable little 
 laboratory. It was thought that the boys in 
 the manual training-school would be sufficiently 
 advanced to make most of the necessary appa- 
 ratus, and the superintendent of that school 
 helped on the system by constructing some 
 necessary pieces, at the cost of materials. But 
 the boys proved not to be sufficiently skilled to
 
 <5rammar*Scbool IRefocm. 
 
 make the accurate and delicate pieces required. 
 The third difficulty was the lack of trained 
 teachers, and it was met by providing special 
 normal instruction in physics during two years. 
 Of all the subjects proposed this is probably 
 the most desirable, both for its training and for 
 its practical applications. No other goes so 
 far in suggesting to children to look below the 
 surface for the cause of things ; and no study 
 is more likely to be useful to boys and girls 
 who are hereafter to use their hands and their 
 heads in any kind of trade which calls for man- 
 ual skill. 
 
 The four new subjects thus proposed are 
 English literature, geometry, physical geogra- 
 phy from a new stand-point, and physics. The 
 Cambridge teachers are certainly equal to the 
 average of their profession. Before appoint- 
 ment most of them have had a high-school edu- 
 cation, a normal-school education, and an expe- 
 rience of one year, preferably in the Cambridge 
 training-school for teachers, which is part of the 
 school system. Yet not many except the mas- 
 ters were prepared properly to teach geometry, 
 physics, or physical geography. Some special 
 provision for training in these subjects would 
 have been necessary at the public expense, and 
 it is doubtful whether the scheme, loaded down 
 by such a necessity, could have been accepted. 
 At this point Harvard University, with an un-
 
 Conditions of Inform. 47 
 
 derstanding of the inter-dependence of com- 
 mon-school and college education, agreed to 
 furnish, at its own expense, normal instruction 
 for the Cambridge teachers in the three sub- 
 jects named. The successful workings of this 
 system will be described in the next essay. 
 
 It is apparent that the conditions for a reform 
 in the grammar-schools in Cambridge were 
 unusually favorable. The city has been placed 
 in the midst of a long discussion of the subject, 
 in which some of the grammar-school teachers 
 have been engaged. The superintendent has 
 been unusually interested ; the school commit- 
 tee have given an amount of time and consid- 
 eration to the subject which could not be se- 
 cured every year. The teachers are interested, 
 and the university has simplified the whole 
 problem by providing for the necessary special 
 instruction of the teachers. Furthermore, it 
 has not been attempted to make all the changes 
 which have been suggested by the New Eng- 
 land Association of Colleges and elsewhere. 
 Algebra has not been made obligatory. No 
 new language has been introduced, and but 
 two sciences, physics and physical geography. 
 Most cities could undertake these reforms 
 without serious additional expense ; but every 
 school board must make up its mind that the 
 saving of time means, not that less money need 
 be expended on the schools, but that a bet-
 
 48 0rammar*Scbool "Reform. 
 
 ter education may be furnished for the same 
 outlay. It is estimated that in Cambridge five 
 hundred scholars were spending an unneces- 
 sary year, at a total cost of about nine thousand 
 dollars ; but under the new system most of those 
 five hundred children would simply add that 
 extra year to the top of their present schooling. 
 The result will be an incalculable advantage to 
 the community, but not a lessening in the tax- 
 rate.
 
 III. 
 
 participation H Substitute for 
 Extension, 
 
 IN the history of Florence there was once a 
 time when the only people who felt that they 
 had power and security were the nobles, who, 
 from their towered fortresses, looked down 
 upon the multitude ; there was another time, a 
 little later, when those same nobles began to 
 sue for admission into the great trade guilds 
 which had become a power in the state. Much 
 such a change is coming over American educa- 
 tion. For many years the colleges went on 
 their way with little reference to the secondary, 
 and especially to the public, schools. Now, 
 however, university presidents consult the 
 secondary schools which furnish them with 
 students, and are interested in every grade of 
 education. The college men are now the neo- 
 phytes, the apprentices, the learners, so that 
 at the meeting of school superintendents in 
 Boston, in 1893, two professors were present as 
 official delegates of Columbia College. Per- 
 4 (49)
 
 50 innfversitg participation. 
 
 haps the most cheerful symptom in the present 
 educational movement is the exchange of views 
 by teachers from all sorts of institutions. It is 
 a period of good feeling, of common interest, 
 of mutual understanding, and of co-operation 
 between the public schools and the universities 
 of the land. 
 
 This is also a period of searching examination 
 into the character and needs of our schools ; 
 and educators throughout the country seem to 
 recognize three ways in which education may 
 be improved. In the first place, the public calls 
 imperatively for a widening of interest for the 
 pupils : the fight on that point is apparently 
 almost over; it seems an accepted principle 
 that such broadening may be brought about by 
 the introduction of new branches into the gram- 
 mar and lower schools. 
 
 The second need, both for schools and col- 
 leges, is the development of training methods 
 of study ; the disappearance of the idea that we 
 are trying " to teach pupils what," and the sub- 
 stitution of the idea that we are trying to 
 " teach pupils how." To this demand the pro- 
 posed new studies distinctly lead ; for they can 
 be successfully taught only by proper scientific 
 methods. 
 
 The third and greatest need of the schools 
 is that the teachers themselves be properly 
 trained. The new subjects and the reformed
 
 of tbe Scbools. 5 1 
 
 methods both call for preparation improved in 
 kind and degree ; but everybody acquainted 
 with the schools of the country knows that the 
 teachers have too little training even for the 
 old subjects and inferior methods. The body 
 of private and public school teachers is intelli- 
 gent, conscientious, and painstaking ; they are 
 doing much, but doing it imperfectly, because 
 they are imperfectly educated. 
 
 Of course this defect is not now discovered 
 for the first time. Many years ago, Horace 
 Mann convinced the tax-paying public of Mas- 
 sachusetts that the community needed normal 
 schools for teachers ; we have now pedagogic 
 courses in many colleges ; and special public 
 training schools are established in a few enlight- 
 ened cities. The inefficiency of these agencies 
 is seen in the fact that primary, grammar, and 
 even secondary teachers are constantly finding 
 employment without any of these forms of train- 
 ing, or at least with no evidence of benefit from 
 them. 
 
 This is not the place to discuss the reasons 
 for the failure properly to educate the teachers 
 who seek preparation. What this essay aims 
 to do is to discuss the status of the teachers 
 who now spend five days every week in the 
 severe toil of the school-room ; to ask how they 
 may have their horizons widened, their work 
 brightened, and their efficiency increased. Not
 
 5 2 THniversitg participation. 
 
 that there are no existing systems intended to 
 provide for teachers in service.. Teachers' insti- 
 tutes do something in this direction, but their 
 fundamental defect is that they are nearly all 
 " pour in " institutions. The effect on the in- 
 tellectual development is like the effect of going 
 to church on the moral character : it is a stimu- 
 lus, a suggestion, and an aid, but it is not in 
 itself a religious life. More promising are the 
 special teachers' meetings held in large cities ; 
 too often they also become a place for hearing 
 some one else tell you " how you ought to do 
 it;" there is nothing to work out, and little 
 reaction of the teachers on each other. An- 
 other suggestion, which was repeatedly put for- 
 ward at the 1892 meeting of superintendents in 
 Boston, was that teachers most need pedagogic 
 reading, and especially a private study of psy- 
 chology. The suggestiveness of such studies 
 is undeniable, but they are no more a normal 
 education than reading a geometry is mathe- 
 matics. Teachers need to acquire, to state, and 
 illustrate principles. What they need still more 
 is practice in properly applying those principles. 
 The only device which has been even moder- 
 ately successful for teachers already in service 
 is the summer schools ; they furnish communi- 
 cation with a new range of thought, and with 
 scientific methods worked out carefully ; and, so 
 far as they are practice courses, there is an
 
 3f acuities for Graining. 53 
 
 opportunity for actual work and for sharpening 
 the faculties. Against the system there are 
 several objections ; it destroys the vacation of 
 teachers and taught, and it involves an expense 
 which seriously limits its usefulness. 
 
 A few years ago the magic phrase " univer- 
 sity extension " flashed over the country. 
 
 Nor slacked the messenger his pace ; 
 He showed the sign, he named the place, 
 And, pressing forward like the wind, 
 Left clamor and surprise behind. 
 
 No one can deny the advantage to the public 
 and to the universities of this helpful relation. 
 It has had a broadening and enlarging effect ; 
 it has been a stimulus to many teachers. Never- 
 theless in several respects university extension 
 has not completely justified its name. In the 
 first place, a part of the work has fallen into 
 a form which is neither genuine nor useful. 
 There is a pseudo " university extension " which 
 has behind it really no university at all, but 
 simply a society, a journal, a seminary, a pro- 
 gramme, and a lustily blown trumpet. When 
 one hears of " staff lecturers," one sighs for a 
 school-extension system to teach the instruc- 
 tors ; for a staff lecturer is a person whom 
 no university authorizes to teach its own stu- 
 dents, but who is supposed to carry university 
 instruction to others outside. Such a system
 
 54 TUntversftB participation. 
 
 is nothing more nor less than a lecture bureau 
 conducted on semi-charitable principles. In 
 order to extend a university, you must have a 
 university to extend. 
 
 In the second place, the university extension 
 teachers are able in very few cases to carry on 
 work of the character of that done within 
 college walls. What are the characteristics of 
 university training, if not the specialization of 
 studies, the use of elaborate collections and 
 apparatus, the application of a scientific meth- 
 od to all branches of learning, and personal 
 contact with specialist instructors, masters 
 of their particular subjects ? To the popular 
 mind, university extension means the carrying 
 of teaching away from the universities to outly- 
 ing communities; and it is evident that such 
 courses must be divorced from the essential 
 university spirit. They are useful, they are 
 enlightening, they are encouraging, they are 
 stimulating, but they are not of the university. 
 Sets of ten lectures cannot be made educa- 
 tive in the university sense ; the development 
 of the subject in the mind of the student is an 
 essential characteristic of university study ; 
 the element of previous preparation and train- 
 ing must also in most cases be wanting in out- 
 side courses. It is impossible to duplicate col- 
 lege instruction without duplicating the college 
 and its surroundings.
 
 Extension. 55 
 
 The third criticism on university extension 
 as a system is that it neglects its greatest op- 
 portunity to improve education throughout 
 the country, in that it does not sufficiently pro- 
 vide courses for teachers. The members of 
 that profession are, indeed, the most interested 
 of the auditors of university extension courses ; 
 they make up a considerable majority of the 
 hearers ; and they are almost the only students 
 from whom systematic work can be obtained. 
 Is it not, then, reasonable that the time, mon- 
 ey, and energy so generously poured into the 
 movement of university extension should be 
 carefully applied for the benefit of the class 
 most inclined to appreciate its advantages ? Is 
 it not possible to devise a system which shall 
 be rooted and grounded in actual universities 
 and resident instructors, which shall require 
 actual work of the same quality, if not precisely 
 of the same kind and degree, as that asked of 
 college students, and which shall interest the 
 great body of conscientious teachers now in 
 service ? In other words, can we not find some 
 practical means by which teachers of the public 
 schools may come under the training influence 
 of the universities, and through which the uni- 
 versities may learn how to contribute toward 
 supplying the needs of common-school educa- 
 tion ? 
 
 It is, of course, difficult to lay down with
 
 THniv>er0itB participation. 
 
 confidence the details of a scheme somewhat 
 complicated and dependent on the co-operation 
 of colleges with school boards, superintendents, 
 teachers, and the general public. But it seems 
 altogether possible to draw up a general plan 
 of teachers' normal courses which shall be 
 offered by colleges, and to which the name 
 " University Participation " might not unrea- 
 sonably be applied. It should be based on the 
 following general principles : 
 
 1. The object should be training, and the 
 training of teachers already in service. 
 
 2. The subjects ought to be those commonly 
 taught in primary and grammar schools, with 
 some reference also to secondary schools. 
 
 3. The methods ought to be active and scien- 
 tific, including the use of apparatus, collections, 
 and libraries. 
 
 4. The expense must fall in the long run in 
 considerable part on the universities. 
 
 A feeling of responsibility in this matter has 
 sprung up simultaneously in several different 
 colleges. Courses have been offered in Brown 
 University, at the University of Pennsylvania, 
 by Columbia through the Teachers' College, 
 by Leland Stanford, Jr., University, by the 
 University of Minnesota, and elsewhere. The 
 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and 
 probably other scientific schools, have estab- 
 lished teachers' courses in science. From the
 
 of Tflniversities. 57 
 
 experience of the courses which have been 
 offered by Harvard University is drawn 
 much of the material for this essay. The 
 system thus suggested is not at all the same 
 as that of the lecture courses for teachers 
 offered by many colleges ; they have undoubt- 
 edly been instructive and broadening, but, like 
 almost all the other devices for persons already 
 at work, they are simply " fill up " courses. They 
 arouse thought, but not action ; they are ex- 
 tensive, but not " intensive," they are instruc- 
 tion, but they are not education. They make 
 better men and women, but do not distinctly 
 tend toward making better teachers. 
 
 The first point to emphasize is that university 
 teachers' courses ought to be specific, and not 
 to aim at a general all-round education. The 
 purpose of a system of university participation 
 is to aid the teachers to do, in a better fashion, 
 what they are now doing ; practical psychology 
 might well form one of the special subjects ; but 
 psychology in itself is not a complete peda- 
 gogic education. On the other hand, the work 
 must not take the form of simply furnish- 
 ing the teachers with a basket of educational 
 oranges which they are to deal out to their 
 children one by one until exhausted. Several 
 of the auditors in Cambridge have complained 
 that in their training courses the instructors 
 have given them a great many things which
 
 58 TUntversitg participation. 
 
 cannot be used with their pupils. What else 
 is the purpose of educational training, if not 
 to put the teacher into possession of more than 
 he can possibly use ? No one understands bet- 
 ter than the college professor the discomfort 
 of poling with a class across the shallows of 
 one's own knowledge, with the dread that 
 some quick pupil may discover how nearly the 
 instructor is aground. It is not the object in 
 Cambridge to make out a course for the chil- 
 dren and then to teach up to that course, but 
 to put the teachers in possession of the ele- 
 ments of their subject and the relations of the 
 parts, so that they may intelligently select for 
 themselves that which they think adapted for 
 their children. 
 
 On the other hand, we must cut our coat ac- 
 cording to our cloth ; the methods, so far as 
 they go, must be thorough, but we cannot ex- 
 pect to get a great deal of time from teachers 
 over whom the roller of the week's work is 
 passing. Perhaps two to three hours' work 
 each week, besides the exercises, is all that we 
 can safely demand. 
 
 What subjects may profitably be taken up in 
 teachers' training courses ? Such as are usually 
 taught in the grammar-schools. Mr. Mitts 
 said, when asked where Dudley Chester got 
 his Latin and Greek : " He had to learn some- 
 thing at Yale." So most of the high -school
 
 proper Subjects. . 59 
 
 teachers are college graduates, and it might be 
 unseemly to suggest that possibly they are not 
 all prepared in all the branches which they 
 teach. The greatest need is in the grammar- 
 schools, and for them the universities ought to 
 make the first provision. Besides the advan- 
 tage of establishing such a point of contact be- 
 tween the universities and public schools, uni- 
 versity participation will facilitate the intro- 
 duction of new subjects where they will do 
 most good. This is the principle of the three 
 courses established in Cambridge, for training 
 in geometry, geography, and experimental 
 physics. 
 
 The weekly exercise in geometry was attend- 
 ed by fifty grammar-school teachers. Some 
 work was required of the class, and the in- 
 structors thought there should have been 
 problems or other exercises in sufficient num- 
 ber to constitute a substantial piece of work 
 every week. The course showed the advan- 
 tage of special training for teachers who have 
 had nothing but a high -school training in 
 mathematics. It has helped them to teach al- 
 gebra and arithmetic as well as geometry ; it 
 has widened their intellectual horizon. 
 
 A subject of even greater importance is Eng- 
 lish ; probably none so much needs the intelli- 
 gent co-operation and assistance of the most 
 highly trained teachers in the country. The
 
 6o TUniversitg participation. 
 
 public is demanding in the most unmistakable 
 terms that children shall read something more 
 than exercises or scrappy excerpts, and shall 
 write clearly and vigorously. The selection of 
 material, the succession of pieces, the methods 
 of getting children to think about what they 
 are reading in all this teachers must have as- 
 sistance or they will fall behind. English com- 
 position is admirably fitted for university par- 
 ticipation, because it can be conducted with 
 written exercises and with valuable criticisms 
 before the class. What the teachers need is not 
 a set of composition subjects for their children, 
 but ease and facility in expressing themselves, 
 quickness to point out ways of improving style, 
 and a knowledge of helpful methods and illustra- 
 tions. If other languages are to be introduced 
 into the grammar-schools, it is imperative that 
 the teachers should have some sort of contact 
 with experienced instructors in the languages ; 
 but none of the ordinary means of training, ex- 
 cept the summer schools, affords any sufficient 
 preparation in either modern languages or 
 Latin. Efforts have been made to meet this 
 want by a Harvard course in English composi- 
 tion. Like the other courses, this was free to 
 Cambridge teachers, and open on payment of a 
 fee to teachers from other places. There were 
 weekly lectures on English literature and fifteen 
 themes a year. For the correction of the latter
 
 Bngltsb. 6 1 
 
 the teachers paid a reader's fee of about nine 
 dollars. The principal trouble with the course 
 was the same as in some of the others where 
 there was no laboratory exercise ; many of the 
 teacher-pupils did not keep up the written work, 
 in which lay the principal value of the course. 
 
 Perhaps the set of subjects most suited to 
 university participation are the strictly scien- 
 tific. No one can really teach botany, zoology, 
 or physiology, who has not had a practical 
 training course, with illustrative exercises and 
 laboratory work. The so-called scientific read- 
 ing-books do not teach science. Kindergarten 
 exercises instill observation ; but the cutting up 
 of plants is in itself no more scientific, no more 
 botanical, than the excision of the tails of the 
 three blind mice was zoological. Columbia 
 offers a general course in the teaching of science ; 
 Harvard and the Institute of Technology have 
 dealt intensively with the teaching of single sub- 
 jects. The Cambridge school committee has 
 adopted the principle of taking up one science 
 in the grammar-schools, and pursuing it in a 
 method as rigorous as the subject permits ; the 
 subject chosen is experimental physics, and in 
 some respects the university training school in 
 that branch has been the most effective of the 
 series. It was attended the first year by twenty- 
 two Cambridge teachers who were preparing to 
 teach the subject in the following year ; a sec-
 
 62 IHntversitB participation. 
 
 ond group of sixteen teachers came up in the 
 second year. The advantages of the university 
 connection were here especially displayed ; the 
 excellent physical laboratory used for college 
 courses was opened to teachers ; they came 
 into personal relations with an experienced col- 
 lege professor ; there was constant opportunity 
 for discussion ; the teachers themselves were 
 much interested. On the other side, the in- 
 structor freely admits that he has learned much 
 from this class as to the difficulties of his sub- 
 ject and the best method of teaching it, and 
 he has since worked out the results of the two 
 years' courses in a text-book. 
 
 A quite similar system was pursued in the 
 Harvard course in geography, to which about 
 sixty teachers came once a week to listen to a 
 lecture. The trouble here was that, while the 
 university maps and apparatus were available 
 for the lectures, it was difficult to suggest simple 
 apparatus which is cheap enough to be furnished 
 to the schools ; but the work has been stimulat- 
 ing and helpful; the teachers have acquired a 
 new view of their subject, and a large body of 
 illustrations, and the instructor drew upon the 
 experience gained from this connection with 
 teachers in service ; he has since prepared a care- 
 ful list of maps for school use, and another of 
 lantern-slides illustrating geography. 
 
 The course in botany offered by the uni-
 
 Sciences an& Ibtetorg. 63 
 
 versity was followed by about seventy teachers. 
 It was strictly a working course, the director 
 applying the whole amount appropriated by the 
 university to the employment of six assistants, 
 and a college laboratory being set apart on 
 Saturday for this exercise. The teachers paid 
 about three dollars each for the material, care- 
 fully grown in advance, for their uses. The 
 course has illuminated the subject for the teach- 
 ers, and through them for the children whom 
 they are now teaching. 
 
 Another subject for university participation 
 is history and civil government. Teachers need 
 to be made aware of the possible improvements 
 in the teaching of these neglected subjects, and 
 especially in the use of material on what may be 
 called the laboratory method. A good course 
 of this kind ought to give to a teacher a fund of 
 valuable material and illustration, and a train- 
 ing in the teaching of history as a developing 
 subject, rather than as a memory subject. The 
 University of Pennsylvania and Columbia have 
 both awakened to this necessity. The former 
 has had a " Saturday Class " in American his- 
 tory ; the latter a course on " methods of teach- 
 ing history in secondary schools." 
 
 Mathematical studies, English, other lan- 
 guages, sciences, and history, are evidently the 
 principal subjects which lend themselves to this 
 method of treatment. To this list many edu-
 
 64 TOntversitB participation. 
 
 cators would probably add high-school studies 
 classics, algebra, chemistry, advanced physics, 
 and other natural sciences, and others would 
 add formal pedagogy. It must not be forgotten, 
 however, that the first purpose of the univer- 
 sity participation is to come to the rescue of 
 the large bodies of helpless teachers in lower 
 grades, the persons who have most opportunity 
 and the least preparation for the improvement 
 of the education of the country at large. High- 
 school teachers are already fairly provided 
 for, both in preliminary training and in present 
 apparatus ; most of the teachers' courses now 
 opened by colleges are intended for them ex- 
 clusively. As for pedagogy, that is from the 
 point of view of university participation only 
 one subject out of many ; if teachers learn how 
 to teach geography or English or physics, they 
 are getting a pedagogic education. Pedagogy, 
 as such, should follow, and not precede, the 
 special training courses, so far as the teachers 
 now in service are concerned. 
 
 The methods to be pursued in these courses 
 must depend in part upon the relations of 
 place between the universities and the taught. 
 Wherever possible, university participation in- 
 struction should be given in the university 
 buildings. This is not a mere question of con- 
 venience to the teacher ; it puts the teachers 
 and taught into a different relation ; it empha-
 
 65 
 
 sizes the fact that it is university instruction of 
 a special kind ; and it is absolutely essential in 
 laboratory, museum, or library courses. 
 
 In many parts of the country the schools 
 which need the help are not in the immediate 
 vicinity of the colleges. In such cases Ma- 
 homet may go with some subjects to the moun- 
 tain. History, English composition, literature, 
 and possibly geography, may be taught away 
 from university surroundings, provided they 
 are taught in that rigorous scientific method 
 which is the essential characteristic of univer- 
 sity instruction. 
 
 Wherever the classes meet, they should be 
 conducted by regular university teachers of 
 experience. The work cannot be delegated to 
 assistants, for a principal advantage is the con- 
 tact with the mind of the trained instructor. 
 Experience shows that such men are more like- 
 ly to appreciate the difficulties of teachers and 
 of pupils than are men less familiar with the 
 subjects and less accustomed to deal with a 
 variety of minds. To secure the services of 
 such teachers is difficult, because they are al- 
 ways busy. This, however, is not so much a 
 question of time as of expense : if the university 
 has a sufficient teaching force, one man in each 
 department can always be found for such work ; 
 if college professors can, with great loss of time 
 and energy, travel many miles to deliver lect- 
 5
 
 66 XflniversitB participation. 
 
 ures in university extension, why may not 
 these same men be secured for university par- 
 ticipation ? Besides the formal lectures of the 
 instructor, he will naturally draw up a syllabus 
 or list of topics such as is common in college 
 or university extension courses. Perhaps the 
 greatest aid that can be rendered by the in- 
 structor is to suggest illustrations suitable for 
 class use ; the expert in any subject ought to 
 have at command a great fund of instances, and 
 even of anecdotes, which would interest chil- 
 dren. It may be said that such illustrations are 
 frequently to be found in books ; there is, how- 
 ever, a peculiar freshness in getting them at 
 first-hand, and a distinct convenience in having 
 them recorded in the note-books along with the 
 general suggestions upon the question under 
 discussion. For instance, in a lecture in the 
 Cambridge course on geometry, the instructor 
 suggested four different problems in measur- 
 ing the height of buildings and the width of 
 streams, and showed how each could practi- 
 cably be solved with very simple and inexpen- 
 sive apparatus. In the course on geography, the 
 lecturer illustrated the stopping of the water- 
 courses by new streams working into the side 
 or upper end of a valley, by a little sketch of a 
 river now flowing into Lake Erie, of which 
 the branches all point away from the mouth ; 
 and which consequently once ran the other
 
 ffllustrations. 67 
 
 way. The instructor may also aid the teacher 
 by recommending simple and inexpensive ap- 
 paratus and appliances, 'such as can easily be 
 made by teachers or by school boys and girls 
 for their own use. In other subjects, such as 
 history and literature, may come in the sugges- 
 tion of interesting methods for drawing out the 
 children's inventive faculties. It has been ob- 
 jected that university teachers are not compe- 
 tent to judge what can or can not be presented 
 to children or be understood by them. Pos- 
 sibly university instructors are a little less 
 sceptical about the intelligence of children than 
 other teachers; but experience shows that a 
 discussion between two people who look at 
 the subject from two different points of view, 
 is likely to be helpful to them both, and that 
 the result will assist the children. One sugges- 
 tion which has not been tested, but which seems 
 rather promising, is that occasionally the in- 
 structor should have before him an actual class 
 of average children, in order to show how he 
 would present a difficult point, and to elicit 
 suggestions and discussions. 
 
 How far the instructors can do anything out- 
 side their lecture-rooms and laboratories is not 
 yet plain. One of the founders of the Cam- 
 bridge courses feels confident that he could en- 
 force his instruction if he could follow it into the 
 class-room and there make suggestions. This
 
 68 7Hnfver0ftt> jparticipation. 
 
 is, of course, impossible with large systems of 
 schools, because of the time it would take ; and 
 most school boards also would feel a natural 
 hesitation in permitting a person not under 
 their control to make official visits. A part of 
 the service of the instructor might well be to 
 visit teachers' meetings ; or he could lay out 
 work for such meetings and see that it was 
 properly carried on. 
 
 An essential feature of university participa- 
 tion is to get a return in work and thought 
 from the teachers themselves. The lack of 
 such a reaction was felt by the instructors in 
 geometry and geography in the Cambridge 
 courses. It was not so with the laboratory 
 course in physics; there the instructor was, 
 with reason, much delighted with the alertness 
 of mind and the disposition to do something 
 which he found in the teachers who came to 
 him. They were selected from about twice 
 their number of applicants, and they included 
 for the most part teachers whose previous suc- 
 cess has caused their advancement to the high- 
 est grammar grades. The enthusiasm and 
 freshness on the part of the teachers in that 
 course suggests the importance of embodying 
 laboratory methods of some kind in all the sub- 
 jects thus undertaken. In such a case it would 
 be desirable to apply some kind of final test at 
 the end of a course, or rather it would be pos-
 
 Geacbers' TKHorfc. 69 
 
 sible for an instructor to base on the laboratory 
 work of each teacher a judgment as to whether 
 that teacher ought to be certified as prepared 
 to teach the subject which she had been pur- 
 suing. 
 
 Some provision must be made for the ex- 
 pense of such an undertaking, but it is no more 
 difficult than to raise the money for university 
 extension. The cost of such courses, if carried 
 on in the regular habitat of the instructor, is 
 much less than might generally be supposed. 
 Radcliffe College for women is manned entirely 
 by instructors and professors of Harvard Col- 
 lege ; and the uniform cost of instruction in that 
 institution is three hundred dollars for a course 
 of sixty exercises, with whatever collateral read- 
 ing of papers and so on may be necessary, and 
 four hundred dollars for a course of ninety ex- 
 ercises. There is no difficulty in finding uni- 
 versity teachers, young and old, who are will- 
 ing to undertake that work, partly for the 
 money and partly out of public spirit. 
 
 A year's course for busy teachers ought not 
 to require each week more than one exercise 
 of tAvo hours ; that is, three hundred dollars or 
 four hundred dollars a year ought to furnish 
 one such course for a number varying from 
 twenty to one hundred, according to the nat- 
 ure of the subject. In a class of sixty a fee 
 of five dollars each would sometimes pay for
 
 70 TUniversftB participation. 
 
 the instruction ; in some cities, therefore, such 
 courses might be provided simply by the sub- 
 scriptions of those who participate. Fees tend 
 to defeat a main purpose of the system, viz., 
 the taking of one course after another for a 
 series of years. The difficulty has been seri- 
 ously felt by university extension, which has 
 encountered the indisposition of the same peo- 
 ple to pay year after year for the same general 
 kind of instruction. Another method would 
 be for school boards to appropriate a sum suf- 
 ficient to compensate the colleges for carrying 
 on the work. This solution seems difficult in 
 Cambridge ; the city is liberal Avith its schools 
 and desires to improve them ; the university 
 is inclined to co-operate ; but no money could 
 be appropriated that would seem to be in any 
 way a subsidy for the college. In some places 
 such a scheme seems practicable, especially if 
 the instructors come from a distance. In the 
 city of Pawtucket, R. L, for example, such a 
 system has been organized. 
 
 A third alternative, the payment for such 
 courses by private subscription, is only a tem- 
 porary resource. If the system is to be estab- 
 lished in any permanent form, it must rest on 
 the public spirit and generosity of the univer- 
 sities. They must do what they do for their 
 regular students. " I think the best way," 
 writes the president of a famous university
 
 7 r 
 
 south of New York, " would be to provide such 
 courses at the expense of the universities, and 
 to draw in fees for tuition from those who have 
 the advantages of the plan." This is not sim- 
 ply a case of noblesse oblige ; there are certain 
 very practical advantages which the univer- 
 sities would gain from such a plan. They 
 establish relations with other systems of edu- 
 cation than their own; they put to a more 
 extended use the apparatus given them in trust 
 for the advancement of learning ; by improv- 
 ing the schools they help to broaden the whole 
 community, and eventually to increase the 
 number of college students. They are thus to 
 become powerful agents to improve the in- 
 struction in the lower schools, especially in 
 languages, history, and science, so that the 
 college and university work may begin on a 
 higher plane. Where high - school teachers 
 have the proper opportunities and are willing 
 to organize, they may do the same kind of 
 work for the teachers in lower grades ; but for 
 the high -school teachers themselves, and for 
 large cities, the work must be done by the 
 universities or not at all. 
 
 It is plain that this system can be most ad- 
 vantageously applied only in the immediate 
 neighborhood of large cities; but a study of 
 the relation between the colleges and the cities 
 of the country shows that of the fifty largest
 
 7 2 TUnivcrsftB participation. 
 
 cities, thirty -eight are within easy reach of a 
 college or university ; in those cities there are 
 1,300,000 children at school and 26,200 teachers. 
 That is, one-ninth of the children and one-tenth 
 of the teachers in the country could be aided 
 by university participation. It seems a scheme 
 which promises large returns to the country 
 against a moderate outlay of money, time, and 
 strength. 
 
 That the universities are willing to do their 
 part in this matter is proven by many answers 
 from the presidents of universities in or near 
 cities to letters of inquiry ; not one is unfavor- 
 able; several refer to successful experience. 
 The school authorities must do their part also. 
 It is not enough that one teacher here atad 
 there should avail herself of these opportuni- 
 ties. School boards must insist that no teacher 
 shall be employed who remains a poor teacher 
 on any subject where she has had the oppor- 
 tunity to perfect herself. Those who already 
 have had a proper education would naturally 
 be exempt; the teacher who is too apathetic 
 to improve herself ought not to be retained. 
 In Cambridge the school committee have re- 
 quired teachers of specified grades to attend 
 the training courses in geography, botany, or 
 geometry. The matter might be permanently 
 arranged very simply by any school board 
 which should arrange a suitable set of courses
 
 Application. 73 
 
 with a neighboring university, and then should 
 vote that after one year it would employ no 
 teacher who had not a satisfactory normal 
 training, let us say in geography ; at the end 
 of another year, to employ no teacher who had 
 not had a satisfactory training also in English ; 
 and so on till every teacher had shown her 
 ability to teach every subject which she under- 
 took. 
 
 In spite of the many practical difficulties 
 stated, and many others undiscovered by the 
 writer, the advantages of university participa- 
 tion are obvious. For the schools, the system 
 will facilitate, and in some cases alone will 
 make possible, the remodelling of the curricu- 
 lum ; and it will add daily to the interest and 
 efficiency of the teaching. To the teachers, 
 the system promises a relief from the endless 
 monotony of ordinary class exercises, and gives 
 them a broader and surer hold upon what they 
 are doing. The normal schools will be stimu- 
 lated if it be found that their graduates are, in 
 the power of teaching the ordinary subjects, 
 inferior to those who have had the training 
 courses. To the colleges, the system will be 
 of great advantage ; for the instructors will 
 gain the clearness of understanding which 
 arises from meeting difficulties suggested to 
 the minds of others ; and preparation for col- 
 lege will eventually be improved. To parents,
 
 74 "dniversitg participation. 
 
 the advantage will be the better training of the 
 children and the saving which will come from 
 the harmonious working together of the dif- 
 ferent departments of education. To the chil- 
 dren, it will be one of the instruments in build- 
 ing up character. To the country, it will aid 
 in the advance of learning, for it will help the 
 study of each subject from the beginning to 
 the highest point of specialization.
 
 IV. 
 t>ow to Stuos 
 
 " GOOD wine needs no bush," and if there 
 were need to urge the reading of history it 
 would be a proof that history is too dull and 
 unattractive to be read. We read history all 
 the time, not only in text-books and formal his- 
 tories, but in the magazines and the newspa- 
 pers ; history is j>hilologically almost exactly 
 the same word as story, and the world is as 
 determined now as it was in the time of the 
 Athenians " to hear and tell some new thing." 
 
 History in a more formal sense has been in- 
 troduced into many schools of every grade 
 throughout the Union, and there has sprung up 
 a literature of advice, suggestion, and illustra- 
 tion on proper ways of teaching the subject. 
 Hence, wherever there is a good school and a 
 good teacher, history is sure to be taught. 
 
 Nevertheless reading history and teaching 
 history are neither of them necessarily study- 
 ing history. What we learn from the atmos- 
 phere of newspaper gossip in which we are all 
 (75)
 
 7 6 *ow to Stu&s 
 
 enveloped, even what we gain in the school- 
 room, lacks the essential quality of study, be- 
 cause it usually means the acceptance of what- 
 ever reaches us from the first comer, the first 
 book, or the first teacher. Learning by heart 
 tables of dynasties, presidents, or battles, is not 
 studying history. Brer Rabbit was always 
 "studyin'," but study with him meant, not com- 
 mitting the statement of a text-book, but put- 
 ting his mind upon the problem before him, 
 considering how far he could depend upon the 
 historical statements made to him by Brer Fox, 
 and soberly discounting the oratorical flights of 
 Brer Turkey Buzzard. The study of history, 
 then, means the attempt to form for one's self an 
 independent judgment upon historical events, 
 a judgment based upon the most trustworthy 
 accounts within reach. 
 
 In the study of history the first essential is 
 that we should have before us not general his- 
 tory but some definite subject. Well does the 
 writer remember his struggle to learn Free- 
 man's Outlines, and ill does he remember any 
 part of those Outlines, except the distinction 
 between orthodox Christianity and Arianism 
 and just what that distinction was has escaped 
 him at this moment. Such a book as Lavisse's 
 Political History of Europe is interesting, sug- 
 gestive, and broadening, but it only attempts 
 to describe tendencies and general results. For
 
 imbat fls StuDgt 77 
 
 purposes of study, a general history is no more 
 possible than a general text-book on science, 
 or a general treatise on mathematics, or a gen- 
 eral history of all literature. 
 
 What subjects shall we choose, especially if 
 we have no guiding teacher or sagacious friend 
 to lay out a course for us ? There used to be a 
 current idea that any book answered the pur- 
 pose ; that Rollin's Ancient History and Jo- 
 sephus were intellectual nutriment even for 
 boys and girls. There is a malicious Italian 
 story about a condemned criminal who was re- 
 prieved on condition that he should read all of 
 Guicciardini's Wars of the Italian Republics ; 
 at the end of the eighth volume he returned to 
 the executioner and asked to have the original 
 sentence completed. Many things that have 
 happened even to Italian republics are not 
 worth studying. On the other hand, the world 
 has been full of great crises when men came 
 forward and performed splendid deeds, made 
 new civilizations, and built up commonwealths. 
 Let us choose such great periods. 
 
 What are the criteria of selection ? In the 
 first place, since the field is so enormous, both 
 in the period of time covered and in the number 
 of nations which have had interesting history, 
 we surely may find a few countries which by 
 their central situation, their importance as lead- 
 ing powers, their influence on later civilization
 
 78 t>ow to Stu&s 
 
 deserve the attention of all ages. Let us choose, 
 therefore, countries which have nurtured strik- 
 ing, strong, characteristic, and original men 
 such as Themistocles, Sulla, Charlemagne, Lu- 
 ther, Richelieu, Cromwell, Bismarck, and An- 
 drew Jackson. Let us especially choose coun- 
 tries which have raised men who summed up 
 in themselves for the time being the nation's 
 life, men such as Pericles, Augustus, Hilde- 
 brand, William of Orange, William Pitt, and 
 Abraham Lincoln. Let us choose out of uni- 
 versal history the nebulae of human events in 
 which sparkle the stars of human character. 
 
 In the next place let us avoid wars and ru- 
 mors of wars. Of all subjects upon which the 
 human intellect can be employed military 
 history is one of the least profitable. To follow 
 campaigns on the map teaches military science, 
 but it does not teach history. To know the 
 names of battles and of commanders and the 
 numbers of their troops is to follow the method 
 of a worthy but wrong-headed teacher of art in 
 a young ladies' seminary in Massachusetts. 
 
 " What is this picture ? " she asked at an ex- 
 amination. 
 
 " It is a picture of the Apollo Belvidere." 
 
 " Where is that statue ? " 
 
 " In Rome." 
 
 " In what part of Rome ? " 
 
 " In the Vatican."
 
 Cboice of Subjects. 
 
 " In what part of the Vatican ? " 
 
 " In the Cortile del Belvedere, second corner 
 cabinet." 
 
 " That will do." 
 
 Yet a knowledge of the ground plan of a mu- 
 seum is no more useless to the ordinary student 
 than an acquaintance with the evolutions of a 
 battle ; both are for experts only, except in so 
 far as either puts us in the place of artists, or of 
 the commanders of troops, and enables us to 
 share their spirit and to sympathize with their 
 purpose. Hence let us choose no period sim- 
 ply because it is studded with wars. 
 
 Yet, on the other hand, it is the plea of his- 
 torical writers that times of peace are so dull 
 and uneventful that the chronicle of a happy, 
 contented, and advancing people has little to 
 attract the attention ; while wars mark the con- 
 flict of great moral principles, the establishment 
 of a new order of things. Some of them do so ; 
 but what of the interminable annals of blood in 
 India, wars in which one bad throne or dynasty 
 simply succeeds another ? The victories of Ma- 
 rius over the Cimbri and Teutoni were decisive 
 because they beat back the tide of barbarian im- 
 migration for four hundred years ; the battle of 
 Tours was decisive because the great organiza- 
 tion of Christendom stopped the advance of 
 the great Moslem organization ; and Waterloo 
 was decisive simply because it permitted the
 
 f)o\v to 
 
 nations of Europe each to work out its own 
 salvation without the interference of France. 
 The interest of the student is not in the day of 
 battle, but in the days after, when the effect of 
 the military struggle becomes evident. 
 
 The next essential is that we should study the 
 history of people who thought. The ancient 
 Germans were such good military men that 
 they finally beat the Romans, but their history 
 is of less account to the student than that of 
 long-peaceful Switzerland. Above all let us 
 study the history of nations that thought about 
 government and law, because those nations 
 have contributed to that stock of political ideas 
 out of which our own government is built. 
 
 Perhaps we may now choose the history of 
 half a dozen nations, during limited periods 
 when the minds of men were most active. 
 First of these in time, purpose, and importance 
 is the history of Greece, during the splendor 
 of Athens. The struggle of the Greeks against 
 Persia is one of the noblest of all assertions of 
 freedom against despotism, and has inspired 
 hundreds of armies to stand resolute against 
 great numbers. It is a period abounding in 
 great as well as in despicable characters, a peri- 
 od full of romantic inspiration, prolific in politi- 
 cal inventions, glowing with literature and art ; 
 a period which has had something to teach to 
 every western nation. Then comes the counter
 
 Selected* JEpocbs. 81 
 
 epoch of Rome the conqueror that is, Rome 
 from the beginning of the Punic Wars to the 
 widest extension of the Empire. It is a time 
 full of the overmastering power of organiza- 
 tion, of combination, of the repression of ex- 
 cesses, of well-knit administrative discipline, of 
 experiments in government, successful and un- 
 successful. Next, chronologically, comes the 
 period of the Crusades ; though the military 
 result was the defeat and almost the disgrace 
 of the Christians, they restored to Europe an 
 interest in literature and science, and began 
 for the second time to unite the histories of 
 Europe and Asia. 
 
 The next era especially worthy of study is 
 the movement known in Italy as the Renais- 
 sance the rebirth of literature, art, and philos- 
 ophy. No period in the world's history more 
 abounds in magnificent characters, such as Dan- 
 te, Petrarch, Cosmo di Medici, and Can Grande 
 della Scala. Of equal importance as a study 
 of human character, and more interesting to 
 Americans on account of its immediate effect 
 on our forefathers, was the Reformation, the 
 counterpart of the Renaissance. It was the re- 
 assertion of the idea that people's thoughts are 
 not to be cut and dried for them by earthly 
 rulers, or by spiritual potentates. While the 
 English Reformation is to us the most in- 
 teresting episode in that epoch, perhaps the 
 6
 
 82 f)ow to StuDg 
 
 most instructive single period of English his- 
 tory is the struggle with the Stuarts, during 
 the whole of the seventeenth century. Here 
 began to take form those mighty ideas of free 
 representative government which are the great 
 political force of the present age. In this cen- 
 tury sparkle many of the greatest names in the 
 history of the Anglo-Saxon race ; it is the 
 time of Shakespeare and Bacon, of Milton and 
 Cromwell, and of William the Third. French 
 history is of particular interest because France 
 has ever since the time of Charlemagne been 
 a sort of nucleus of European politics and con- 
 stitutional development. Out of that long, rich 
 history the most absorbing period is that of 
 the French Revolution and the Napoleonic 
 wars, from 1789 to 1815, during which the 
 French experienced almost every form of gov- 
 ernment known to man, from the despotism of 
 a tyrant to the worse despotism of a conven- 
 tion. 
 
 Since the end of that crisis there have been 
 two remarkable episodes in modern history. 
 The first is the reconstitution of Europe, 
 grouped about the unification of Germany. 
 We do not realize that in ages to come the 
 gathering together of three hundred mutually 
 repellant German states into one nation, and of 
 half a dozen Italian principalities into another, 
 will be looked upon as one of the marvels of
 
 ITntroDuctorg JBoofes. 83 
 
 history ; nor that it has been accomplished by 
 two of the greatest men of the last four cen- 
 turies, Bismarck and Cavour. The other epi- 
 sode comes closer home to us ; it is the estab- 
 lishment of a free republic in America, the 
 long, slow-burning struggle against slavery, 
 leaping into the flame of the Civil War, out of 
 which a new nation has arisen with renewed 
 power. 
 
 Having selected the period, the next step is 
 to find the material. First of all some brief 
 books are necessary, to cover the whole ground 
 in a summary fashion. There is now such a 
 supply of " Series " and " Eras " and " Epochs," 
 of little books systematically taking up the his- 
 tory of particular countries, that on any inter- 
 esting period a good " eye-opener " is readily 
 to be found. It should be read, read carefully, 
 and read more than once, so that the student 
 may have in his mind the dimensions of his 
 subject but it is never to be memorized. 
 Such a book corresponds to the architect's 
 preliminary sketch. Then comes the process 
 of broadening, the working out of the ground 
 plan of the historical edifice. For this purpose 
 the general student should choose such stand- 
 ard works as are recommended by teachers, 
 or by such guides to historical study as W. F. 
 Allen's " History Topics ; " C. K. Adams's " Man- 
 ual of Historical Literature ; " Gordy and Twit-
 
 84 1>OW to StuDg 
 
 chell's " Manual," and B. A. Hinsdale's " How to 
 Study and Teach History." William E. Foster's 
 " References to the History of Presidential Ad- 
 ministrations ; " Edward Channing's " Guide to 
 the Study of American History," and R. R. 
 Bowker's " Reader's Guide," give lists of books 
 on American history, with some criticism of 
 their relative value. In the better brief books 
 on any period will be found lists of classified 
 authorities. One may read history in one 
 author ; one can study history only by a com- 
 parison of various authors. 
 
 Just here comes in the value to the student 
 of owning his books. There is no more useful 
 adjunct to the study of history than a good, 
 sharp lead-pencil, or red-ink pen, with which 
 to annotate the margins of the volume that one 
 is using. Very few books have a convenient 
 apparatus of running headings and dates, and 
 there is no better way of fixing attention than 
 to put in over the page-headings the missing 
 guide to the contents. An exercise still bet- 
 ter, but which does not interfere with that just 
 described, is to make out in one's own mind 
 a logical analysis of the book as one goes on, 
 and to write the headings of that analysis, 
 point by point, in the margin. A third con- 
 venient method is to indicate the author's 
 thought by underlining the significant words 
 in each paragraph. These three processes,
 
 THee of JBoofts. 8 5 
 
 consistently combined, accustom the mind to 
 search for the essential thought of the pages 
 before it, and to put into brief and significant 
 terms an abstract of that thought. Whenever 
 the student has occasion to use the same vol- 
 ume again, he will be surprised to find how the 
 argument comes back to him through his own 
 abstract. Again, one may enjoy in his own 
 books that which would be a crime if committed 
 on the book of another; he may write down his 
 reasons for agreement or disagreement with his 
 author. In the Harvard College library are the 
 volumes which Carlyle used in preparing his 
 " Life of Cromwell," and nothing could be more 
 humorously characteristic of the writer than 
 some of the comments which he has scribbled 
 on the margins of his pompous authorities : 
 " It was long after ' this ' " " Stuff ! " " Error " 
 " Never above 6." If you must use bor- 
 rowed books, then let your attempt be to re- 
 turn them as clean as they came, and to take 
 whatever abstracts you can in a note-book of 
 your own. The point of all this system is that 
 by seeing, or trying to see, what is in the au- 
 thor's mind, you furnish yourself with that con- 
 densed outline around which historical knowl- 
 edge must be built. 
 
 To keep such 'an outline in view is an easy 
 task, provided one uses only one or two paral- 
 lel authorities ; but, as the student proceeds,
 
 86 t)ow to StuDB Ibfstorg. 
 
 he begins to find that one book effaces another. 
 The methods, the order, the proportions of one 
 writer do not agree with those of the next; 
 and the knowledge of men and events so labo- 
 riously acquired begins to dissolve in the very 
 multiplicity of facts. This is the time for the 
 historical student to make up some sort of 
 written topical outline of his subject. He now 
 knows not only what is important and what is 
 accidental, but he has also in his mind a theory 
 of how facts and events fit together. He is in the 
 position of the architect who has decided what 
 he wishes to place on each floor of his build- 
 ing ; the next step is to draw in the partitions 
 so as to divide off each enclosure from its 
 neighbor. There is but one way in which a 
 large amount of historical knowledge may be 
 co-ordinated, and that is by keeping a sort of 
 table of contents of the whole subject in one's 
 head and arranging one's material in that or- 
 der. If such a system is adopted, each new 
 important fact fits into its place as it comes ; 
 and no matter how different the mode of treat- 
 ment by a new book, the mind sifts out of it 
 what is unfamiliar and assorts it according to 
 its own system. Hence some kind of written 
 topical arrangement is necessary, as one pro- 
 ceeds from book to book. 
 
 Of course much may be done by subdivision 
 of labor; in a class of bright people, all study-
 
 an Outline. 87 
 
 ing the same general subject together, one per- 
 son may take up one phase of the subject, and 
 another a different phase. For instance, on the 
 French Revolution the first may take the rev- 
 olutionary statesmen ; a second, the Conven- 
 tion ; a third, the army ; a fourth, the navy ; 
 and still another, the revolutionary societies. 
 This means that an assignment is to be made 
 as soon as all the co-workers have the general 
 period in their minds ; then it becomes the 
 duty of each member of the class to use all the 
 available material upon his topic, and, so to 
 speak, to sub-analyze that material until it be- 
 comes clear to him. 
 
 Long before the work has reached this stage, 
 however, the necessity of taking written notes 
 of some kind will become apparent. A very 
 eminent American historian is accustomed to 
 take his notes in a note-book just as they come. 
 When the note-book is filled, he indexes it 
 and begins a new one ; when a sufficient num- 
 ber accumulate he indexes them all ; and at 
 last account he had more than eight hundred 
 such note-books in his collection. His is, after 
 all, a cumbersome system ; it is quite as easy 
 to take notes upon the most complicated sub- 
 ject in such a form that they will index them- 
 selves. Suppose that this eminent author in 
 collecting material for his next volume let us 
 say on the War of 1812 should use separate
 
 t>ow to Stu&g 
 
 half-sheets of paper of uniform size and ruling. 
 Upon the first half-sheet he notes an account 
 of Hull's surrender, upon the second of Com- 
 mander Rogers's first cruise, upon the next of 
 the departure of Pinkney from England. Thus 
 he goes on taking a fresh sheet for every fresh 
 topic until he finally strikes a second reference 
 upon Hull's surrender; the note on this point 
 may be put upon the original sheet for that 
 topic ; and thus the recurring accounts will 
 each fall into their logical place, where they 
 may be compared. When one half -sheet is 
 full another may be begun ; when a sufficient 
 number of half-sheets have accumulated to 
 make it worth while to keep them separate, 
 they may be laid together loosely within a 
 whole sheet of the same size, upon the outside 
 of which the general subject is stated. With a 
 little practice it is not difficult when one meets 
 a subject to find the sheet upon which that 
 subject had previously been noted. As topics 
 accumulate, a subdivision of each will suggest 
 itself, and the sheets may be sorted and stowed 
 away accordingly. Thus in the end the stu- 
 dent has a bundle, not of disorganized memo- 
 randa but of consecutive material. It is almost 
 a book in itself ; it is divided into chapters, sec- 
 tions, and even paragraphs ; and when the 
 material for any literary work is collected the 
 work is already half done.
 
 *Wote*tafting an& Sources. 89 
 
 The question of note-taking is perplexing at 
 the best. Students usually take too many. 
 They copy out long, exact quotations from 
 books which are perfectly accessible, and 
 which they could reach a second time if neces- 
 sary. They do not know how to digest the 
 author's statements and to reduce them to a 
 brief form. If you are trying to get simply a 
 good general idea of a period from the use of a 
 small number of works, take notes in very brief 
 form, with a view simply to comparing the 
 statements and opinions of one writer with 
 those of another, and at the same time of so 
 arranging your notes that you may have a 
 general view of the subject. 
 
 Shall the student use sources ? Yes, if he has 
 sources and has judgment. One may often get 
 a more vivid and exact picture of an epoch by 
 reading a few extracts from contemporaries than 
 by going over a series of later writers. After 
 one has digested a brief account of the Puritan 
 Revolution and then has gone through Gardi- 
 ner's careful and scholarly treatise, one would 
 better read some of Oliver Cromwell's letters, a 
 poem of Milton's, and Sir Harry Vane's opin- 
 ions on government. It is very easy to over- 
 do the comparison of standard writers ; but no 
 historical study is complete without the ex- 
 perience and flavor of original material which 
 come from using sources ; and no ordinary stu-
 
 9 t>ow to Stufcs 
 
 dent need expect to study such material care- 
 fully enough to disagree seriously with his- 
 torians like Gardiner, who have used all avail- 
 able sources. 
 
 In a word, the object of the historical stu- 
 dent is to bring before his mind a picture of 
 the main events and the spirit of the times 
 which he studies. The first step is to get a 
 general view from a brief book ; the second 
 step is to enlarge it from more elaborate works, 
 reading more than one, and to use some system 
 of written notes logically arranged ; the final 
 step is to read some of the contemporary 
 writers. Having done these three things care- 
 fully, the historical student carries away an 
 impression of his period which will never be 
 effaced.
 
 V. 
 
 l)ow to Ueacb ibistorg in Secon&atB Scbools, 
 
 IT is not many years since the question, how 
 is history taught in the United States ? could 
 be answered in only one of two brief ways ; it 
 was not taught at all ; or it was taught perfunc- 
 torily from single text-books. A certain quan- 
 tum of knowledge of affairs in the ancient world 
 was imbibed by students of the classics ; some 
 people, old and young, read history for the 
 love of it ; an acquaintance with the past was 
 thought desirable for the statesman ; only here 
 and there a choice spirit taught his pupils, in 
 school or college, what history actually meant. 
 But the methods common, even in the most 
 advanced classes, are illustrated by an experi- 
 ence which a present professor of history in 
 Harvard University enjoys telling. At his 
 first recitation in history the tutor gave him 
 his cue : " ' The fleet of Callicratidas was now 
 double that of Conon ' proceed, sir." 
 
 The attempt to make history interesting to, 
 and comprehensible to, the ordinary reader
 
 9 2 aeacbinfl of t>i0torB. 
 
 may be said to have begun in America with 
 George Bancroft's work ; the study of history 
 has been greatly stimulated since the Civil 
 War, by the eager interest of the nation in its 
 own life ; and it has been made possible by the 
 multiplication of text-books and elaborate his- 
 tories. No good college now graduates any 
 student without some attempt to teach him 
 history ; a great number of the secondary 
 schools have taken up the subject ; and it be- 
 gins to appear even in the primary schools. 
 Yet the precise end in view in most places is 
 still indistinct ; the methods are frequently 
 crude and tentative ; and the equipment is 
 poor. The object of this essay is therefore to 
 examine and compare the systems of a number 
 of schools, so as to discover what is actually 
 going on. Proceeding from the information 
 thus acquired, it might then be possible to 
 suggest some directions in which the instruc- 
 tion in history may tend, and some methods 
 which may be helpful. 
 
 Only the secondary schools will be consid- 
 ered: The work of the colleges has been 
 examined, and results published, under the 
 direction of the Commissioner of Education ; 
 while the primary schools are too numerous 
 and the work too little systematized as yet to 
 allow much useful discussion. The point of 
 view of the writer is that of one who knows the
 
 3Baste of tbc Bssag. 93 
 
 secondary schools in some degree by their 
 effects ; who sees that the graduates of the fit- 
 ting schools are often badly prepared or unpre- 
 pared in history ; and who would like to receive 
 them into his classes with some clear element- 
 ary knowledge, with good habits of reading, 
 and with practice in finding things out for 
 themselves. Some important elements in the 
 problem require a more intimate personal ac- 
 quaintance with the schools, their needs, and 
 their limitations. 
 
 The immediate sources of information are the 
 answers received from about ninety principals 
 or teachers of high and preparatory schools ; 
 and also a hundred and seventy-five statements 
 made by students of history in college. The 
 schools are representative because they are 
 scattered over the United States, and because 
 they are of every degree of importance ; but it 
 is presumable that a large number of those who 
 failed to answer had little to tell, and that the 
 amount and quality of instruction in history 
 described in these reports is much above the 
 average. In the same way the circular to stu- 
 dents was laid only before those who had suffi- 
 cient interest in the subject to elect a course in 
 history in college. 
 
 Three-fourths of the schools reporting, con- 
 fine their instruction in history to a period 
 ranging from one to two years; a very few
 
 94 tEeacbfna of "fctetorg. 
 
 carry it on during four, five, or even six years. 
 The variation in the number of hours of weekly 
 exercises has no special significance ; the com- 
 mon practice is, three, four, or five hours or 
 " periods." The combination of years and 
 hours gives, however, widely varying results. 
 The least total is forty exercises ; the greatest 
 total, eight hundred ; as nearly as an average 
 can be determined, it is about two hundred and 
 forty hours, or three hours a week for two 
 years. 
 
 Through the circular the attempt was made 
 to discover the proportion of time spent upon 
 ancient, modern, and American periods. The 
 results show a great variety of practice. An- 
 cient history is taught in some form in nearly 
 every school, usually as a part of the prepara- 
 tion for college; on the average it takes up 
 one-third of the time devoted to history. A 
 little more attention, on the whole, is given to 
 modern European history. American history is 
 omitted entirely in half the schools, and, where 
 taught, occupies less that half the time allotted 
 to history. It will be seen that the total hours 
 devoted to history vary from one-third to one- 
 twentieth of the school recitation hours ; the 
 average in the schools reporting would seem to 
 be about one-tenth. 
 
 More important than these questions of time 
 and division is the arrangement of work and
 
 ttfme an5 Srrangement. 95 
 
 the order of courses. Here are two schedules ; 
 the first is that of a large city high-school : 
 
 "First Year: I. Lectures on current ques- 
 tions one hour per week throughout the entire 
 school year. 
 
 2. Historical Biography, j Two hours per 
 
 3. Greek History. > week throughout 
 
 4. Roman History. ) the entire year. 
 
 " Second Year : History of England four 
 hours per week throughout one-half of the 
 school year. 
 
 "Third Year: General European History 
 four hours per week throughout the entire 
 school year." 
 
 In the high school of a New England city 
 of 50,000 people the following excellent course 
 is prescribed : 
 
 " In his first year the pupil is obliged to have 
 Ancient History five hours per week for the 
 school year of forty weeks. 
 
 " In his second year he may have Mediaeval 
 History and that of the United States for the 
 same time, viz. : five hours a week for forty 
 weeks, Mediaeval for first half ; United States 
 second half of year. 
 
 In his third year his option is English his- 
 tory just as above. 
 
 " In his fourth, if in the college course, he 
 must take Greek and Roman History as be- 
 fore." 
 
 Several different aims usually influence the 
 minds of teachers of history : to teach the pupil
 
 96 fteacbfng of f>fstorB. 
 
 to know something ; to teach the pupil to 
 think ; and to enable the pupil to pass the en- 
 trance examination of some college. Public 
 sentiment and many Boards of Education de- 
 mand facts ; and parents expect " a good fit." 
 It is therefore very encouraging to find so 
 clear a perception of the essential in history as 
 is shown by the following extract from the an- 
 swer of the Principal of the high-school in a 
 large Western city : 
 
 " In general history the attempt is made to 
 give the pupil some notion of the ' flow ' of his- 
 tory, its ' unity ' as well as diversity, to bring 
 out correspondences in different countries and 
 times, and to knit the whole firmly together by 
 constant cross-references and review questions. 
 Special attention is directed to the experiences 
 of older nations on questions of present im- 
 portance in this country. In examining con- 
 flicting views the pupil is encouraged in the 
 attempt to place himself for the time being in 
 the position of the author discussed. In these 
 classes the things mostly aimed at are local 
 color, perspective, breadth of view." 
 
 An examination of the returns show that few 
 schools have the facilities, the teachers, or the 
 spirit for very much more than is required by 
 the demands of the colleges. " The present 
 temptation," says one principal, " is to ' read 
 up ' on history, simply because it admits of be- 
 ing done. No amount of that carries a boy
 
 THsuaI fl&etbo&s. 97 
 
 through Quadratics or Homer," and he com- 
 plains bitterly of " the coat of many colors that 
 the New England colleges force us to draw 
 on." 
 
 Whatever the aim of a school, it is of little 
 importance unless it is aided by adequate meth- 
 ods; and there are discernible three distinct 
 types of instruction : the lecture system ; the 
 text-book system ; and the topical system. 
 The first may be quietly passed over ; for not 
 more than one-ninth of the schools have regu- 
 lar required lectures, and only exceptional 
 teachers with unusual pupils can make it prof- 
 itable in secondary grades. In others there 
 are " supplementary talks ; " or, to take a stu- 
 dent's definition : " the teacher told stories." 
 The text-book method is by far the most fre- 
 quent. In fully half the cases no other instruc- 
 tion is attempted ; only five out of a hundred 
 and seventy-five students report that it was 
 never used where they were prepared for col- 
 lege. In some schools, however, where the 
 topical method is not employed, there are ad- 
 juncts to the recitation, designed to make the 
 exercises more interesting. Such are " oral 
 reviews," reports of the news of the day, dis- 
 cussions, or the reading of selections in class. 
 
 Since text-books are the basis of the work, 
 let us look into the books. They are almost 
 as numerous as teachers. In the ninety schools 
 7
 
 98 teaching of 1)tstorB. 
 
 reporting, seventy-six different works are used. 
 There are thirteen text-books on general his- 
 tory, eighteen on ancient history, nine on the 
 mediaeval and modern periods, eighteen on 
 England, and thirteen on the United States. 
 Only fourteen of the books in the list are used 
 by more than four schools each. 
 
 Perhaps a fourth of the reporting schools 
 have put into operation some form of topical 
 recitation ; it has taken root but slowly, since 
 a hundred and forty-six students out of a hun- 
 dred and sixty-seven had never experienced it. 
 The general method is well shown in the fol- 
 lowing description of the work in the high- 
 school of a small city in New York : 
 
 " In the General History classes the follow- 
 ing plan has been tried with satisfactory re- 
 sults : 
 
 " On Wednesday the lesson in the text-book 
 for the entire week is given. Subjects are se- 
 lected, covering the week's work, and one as- 
 signed to each pupil. During the week any 
 questions asked by pupils are noted, and to 
 these the teacher adds any that may occur to 
 him. In this way quite a list of ' curious que- 
 ries ' will be made each week. Monday, the 
 topics which were assigned the previous Wed- 
 nesday are discussed by the pupils, each per- 
 son being usually allowed all the time he or 
 she chooses to take. Sometimes, however, a 
 ' one minute ' or ' two minutes ' address is re- 
 quired.
 
 anfc programmee. 99 
 
 " Tuesday, teacher and pupils bring selec- 
 tions bearing upon topics of the week, all extra 
 reading being introduced on that day. 
 
 " Wednesday the time is devoted entirely to 
 the text-book pupils are expected to be thor- 
 oughly prepared on that portion assigned the 
 previous Wednesday. 
 
 " Thursday the questions collected during 
 the week are answered as far as pupils have 
 been able to look up answers. All are anxious 
 to have as many as possible and no compulsion 
 is necessary. If no pupil has found answers to 
 one or more than one of the questions, the 
 teacher makes some suggestion as to sources 
 of information, and questions are left for the 
 next Thursday. Current events are also dis- 
 cussed on this day. 
 
 " Friday is the pupil's day, and each one pre- 
 pares a list of ten questions that he considers 
 a fair test for members of the class. (Pupils 
 may select questions from any portion of his- 
 tory that has been studied by the class.) As 
 the teacher designates two pupils, they rise 
 and one asks his questions of the other, stating 
 at the close what per cent, have been correctly 
 answered. Two other pupils are then named 
 and the same course pursued." 
 
 The advantage of the topical method is 
 twofold ; it trains the student to investigate 
 and to think ; and it encourages good habits of 
 reading. The efficiency of the system depends 
 upon the abundance and accessibility of books. 
 Not many schools can equal the library of 
 eighteen thousand volumes in a Central New
 
 ioo aeacbfng of 
 
 York high-school ; and few happy principals 
 " can think of no necessary book wanting ; " 
 still, about one-third of them appear to have 
 creditable collections of books within their own 
 walls ; more than another third possess a few 
 standard encyclopaedias and histories. Eight 
 schools depend wholly on public libraries, and 
 others makes those libraries add to their own 
 scantier resources. At a few places there is a 
 small circulating library, made up by purchase 
 or by contribution. 
 
 On the question how faithfully the books of 
 reference are employed, there is a difference of 
 opinion between teachers and students. Fifty 
 schools out of ninety report a good use ; only 
 twenty-seven students out of a hundred and 
 sixty-nine had noticed that in their schools the 
 books were well used ; twice as many had no- 
 ticed the contrary ; one had used them " only 
 for amusement," and eighty-three had had 
 either no books or no impressions. It appears 
 proven that the reference libraries of the 
 schools are in a great many cases too small or 
 too uninteresting, or that pupils are not 
 properly trained in their use. 
 
 Home reading in many cases doubtless sup- 
 plies the lack. The taste for historical reading 
 is easily implanted in the minds of thoughtful 
 young people ; about half the students who 
 made out a statement had read at least one
 
 TUse of JBoofcs. ioi 
 
 standard history. The favorites are Pres- 
 cott, Macaulay, Irving, Green, Bancroft, and 
 as the writer regrets to record Abbott. About 
 a sixth have read juvenile histories, historical 
 novels, and various other books ; nearly a 
 third appear to have read, or at least to have 
 remembered, absolutely nothing outside of 
 their text-books. The proportion of readers is 
 the more remarkable, because only about a 
 sixth of the whole report that outside reading 
 was required in their school. 
 
 In addition to oral recitations and the prep- 
 aration of topics, about one-third of the 
 teachers require written exercises. In class, 
 the usual form is the preparation of written 
 reviews, either on the lesson or on a subject 
 studied outside. Occasionally teachers expect 
 notes to be taken. Out of class, pupils prepare 
 abstracts of paragraphs or of specified chap- 
 ters ; they write theses ; they arrange gene- 
 alogical tables ; they make out outlines, sum- 
 maries, and analyses. Two schools report de- 
 bates as part of their exercises ; and one has 
 established a prize examination on the knowl- 
 edge of American history gained by outside 
 study. 
 
 Geography, the twin sister of history, has 
 as yet but a cold reception in the historical 
 family. Only about half the schools make it 
 what it should be an essential and integral
 
 102 Geacbfnfi of fjtstorg. 
 
 part of the study of every period. To be sure 
 nearly half the pupils have had some geography ; 
 but it is very doubtful whether they have 
 really studied anything beyond the classical 
 atlas. A few enthusiastic teachers begin the 
 study of each country with a description of its 
 geography, or even adopt helpful devices such 
 as this : 
 
 " Attention is called to geography by ques- 
 tions as to location of places mentioned in 
 the lesson. Failure is met by drawing a map 
 of the State containing the point in question, 
 locating the special place, and several others. 
 Pupils are required to draw State groups 
 for instance, the Massachusetts Group. This 
 means to draw Massachusetts, with all the 
 adjoining States, in one group, so as to learn 
 its relative position, and to draw Massachusetts, 
 the central State, in detail the capital, chief 
 places of note mountains, rivers, in short, 
 anything the teacher sees fit to call for. Draw- 
 ing on the blackboard is required in some 
 cases." 
 
 A fair proportion of schools have an ap- 
 paratus of wall maps and atlases ; the more 
 energetic teachers oblige pupils to locate 
 places and to trace movements. Perhaps one 
 fourth of the schools require map-drawing of 
 some sort, although the greater part of it is 
 probably topographical rather than historical. 
 A few use blank outlines, to be filled in by the
 
 fjfstoricat <3eo0rapbg. 
 
 103 
 
 pupil ; or ask him to draw maps from memory 
 upon the board. To judge from personal ex- 
 perience with many undergraduate students, 
 the two things which the candidate for en- 
 trance to college does not know are : how to 
 add figures ; and how to remember or represent 
 geographical facts. Historical geography is 
 still almost undeveloped in the fitting schools. 
 Here the doctrinaire may justly criticise the 
 practical teacher, even without knowing all his 
 difficulties. Whether the pupil is being pre- 
 pared for college or for business or for home 
 life, his education is of little value if it leaves 
 no definite impression upon his mind. The 
 colleges do not expect that those who come to 
 them shall have a wide historical training, or 
 shall remember a great many facts ; they have 
 a right to expect that certain general historical 
 principles may be taken for granted. One of 
 the questions asked of the students was : " Did 
 your previous study of history help you to un- 
 derstand better your college courses?" The 
 answers may be tabulated as follows : 
 
 ' Yes, decidedly," 7 
 
 ' Very much," . 10 
 
 ' Much," ... 2 
 
 'Yes," . . 42 
 
 'Partially," . ^ 12 
 
 'In general training," 4 
 " In general knowledge from reading," 7
 
 104 ZTeacbfng of f>fston?. 
 
 " Somewhat," 14 
 
 " Hope so," or " think so," . . 4 
 
 " Not much," 7 
 
 " Very little," n 
 
 "No," 37 
 
 "Not a bit," 13 
 
 Total, 170 
 
 Let us sum up the evidence from the state- 
 ments of teachers and graduates of the fitting 
 schools. In many schools little or no history 
 is taught ; where taught, the best methods are 
 not always employed ; where good methods 
 prevail there is often a lack of books and ap- 
 paratus ; where there are the best facilities pu- 
 pils sometimes neglect them. 
 
 If the previous criticism be well founded, 
 historical instruction in the secondary school 
 is not in a satisfactory state; pupils who are 
 sent to college come indifferently prepared, 
 and those whose education ends with the high- 
 school are not well grounded in the elements 
 of history. The defects are in part beyond 
 the power of teachers, principals, or even 
 school boards. Suitable text-books are lack- 
 ing ; trained teachers are not to be had, or are 
 overworked ; there are no funds for additional 
 instruction, or for libraries and apparatus. 
 Other defects are simply those of arrange- 
 ment, and the efficiency of the work may be
 
 present flbetbofcs Criticised. 105 
 
 increased by a little thought on the part of 
 the principals. A more serious trouble is, in 
 many cases, a wrong aim on the part of the 
 teacher ; he does less than he might do with 
 the material and means in his hands. The at- 
 tempt will, therefore, be made to point out 
 some methods which require no considerable 
 increase of expense, and which may be ap- 
 plied by any competent teacher in any good 
 school. 
 
 In general, the schools give less time to his- 
 tory than its importance justifies. If the work 
 be undertaken at all, pupils ought to be sent out 
 with a permanent impression of the history of 
 at least one country, and with some facility in 
 finding things out for themselves. The re- 
 quirements of the colleges are certainly no 
 criterion of what ought to be taught. Three 
 hours a week, throughout the four years' sec- 
 ondary course, is perhaps as much as can be 
 expected, and is sufficient for a thorough and 
 practical grounding in history. 
 
 How to divide the allotted time among the 
 various periods and countries is a perplexing 
 question. Ancient and mediaeval history have 
 a peculiar value, in that they present to the 
 mind the workings of human nature under cir- 
 cumstances unlike our own ; there is a further 
 practical advantage in the greater abundance 
 of good text-books. On the other hand, there
 
 106 {Teaching of 
 
 is a stimulus in the close connection of modern 
 history with present events. If a great deal of 
 time be devoted to the subject, ancient, med- 
 iaeval, modern European, English, and Ameri- 
 can history may each be taken up separately. 
 Where the time is limited, it is a clear waste to 
 devote it to small " universal" histories, unless 
 accompanied by enlarging comment. It is far 
 better to study in a larger way the history of 
 one or two countries : the United States and 
 England are first in importance to Americans ; 
 then come Greece, Germany, France, Rome. 
 
 There are two well-known systems of ar- 
 rangement of historical courses : the first is 
 that of chronological succession, beginning 
 with the most remote and ending with the 
 most recent ; the second is the German 
 method of working from within outward ; 
 the child begins with his own town or city, 
 then studies his district, then his State, then 
 Germany, and perhaps finally arrives at the 
 asteroids and the United States. The difficulty 
 with the latter method is the danger that the 
 pupil will leave off before he has learned how 
 much greater is the world than his horizon ; 
 and in this country there are few good ele- 
 mentary books on local history. To begin 
 with ancient history, on the other hand, means 
 that a certain number of pupils never will 
 reach the history of their own country. Per-
 
 Selecting Subjects. 107 
 
 haps the best principle is to begin with that pe- 
 riod which is most likely to be interesting and 
 important, and then to follow immediately with 
 the history of some country remote from the 
 pupil's ken. In most cases the history of Eng- 
 land or the United States is the best intro- 
 duction. Where literature or art is systemat- 
 ically studied, a double interest may be created 
 by making these studies run parallel with the 
 history. 
 
 Let us now pass to the every-day work of 
 the class-room. In all historical teaching the 
 first principle to fix in the mind of pupil and 
 teacher is the importance of accurately estab- 
 lished facts : and the second principle is the 
 worthlessness of detached incidents. From the 
 beginning, it should be understood that a 
 knowledge of facts is not a knowledge of his- 
 tory ; that the text-book simply selects and 
 groups a very small number of actual historical 
 events, and that the essential thing is to know 
 how facts are related, and what they mean 
 when viewed together. There are, therefore, 
 several co-related aims which the teacher must 
 keep constantly in mind. He must teach facts ; 
 and for that purpose the text-book and recita- 
 tion system is best adapted. He must show 
 the relations between them; and lectures and 
 talks will bring out those relations. He must 
 accustom the pupil to assemble material for
 
 io8 (Teaching of f>tetorg. 
 
 himself and to test it ; the topical method af- 
 fords the necessary training. He must lead 
 the student to think and judge a little for him- 
 self ; the preparation of topics and outside 
 reading will induce some degree of such inde- 
 pendent thought. 
 
 The recitation system requires for its success 
 a good text-book. The old-fashioned " school 
 history," with its mass of unimportant detail, 
 overloaded with military history, has rather 
 given place to new books of two types. On 
 the one hand we have the various " Young 
 Folks' Histories," in which the " story " is de- 
 veloped. On the other hand is the class of 
 excellent school histories which include the 
 social and economic side as well as the politi- 
 cal. The topical method has its special helps 
 in the " Hand-books," " Pathfinders," " Topics 
 and References," " Guides," and " Outlines," 
 just now coming forward. For pupils who are 
 likely to go farther, the " story " books are best 
 for a beginning ; for those who have but the 
 one opportunity a more compendious book 
 is desirable. In every case good and accurate 
 maps are much more serviceable than illustra- 
 tions, and the pictures should represent only 
 real things and persons. The value of a book 
 is much increased if it contain good review 
 questions, especially if they group into new 
 combinations the facts that have been acquired.
 
 fftecttatfons. 109 
 
 What is learned from the text-book ought in 
 most cases to be confirmed in recitations, less 
 as a test of faithfulness than as a supplement. 
 The actual memorizing should be confined as 
 narrowly as possible. A few things must be 
 learned by heart and when forgotten learned 
 again, to serve as a framework about which 
 to group one's knowledge ; without knowing 
 the succession of dynasties, or of sovereigns, 
 or of presidents, or the dates of the great con- 
 stitutional events, the pupil's stock of informa- 
 tion will have no more form than a jelly-fish. 
 But these few necessary facts ought to be 
 clearly defined as the sole memorizing ex- 
 pected. The story must be told in the pupil's 
 own words. His interest may be stimulated 
 in a variety of ways. Actual discussion or 
 quiz is hardly to be expected from those who 
 have only the foundation of the text-book, but 
 the utmost freedom of questions should be 
 encouraged. Photographs and pictures may 
 be brought in. The report on the news of the 
 day, common in some city schools, may often 
 be made to hinge upon the lesson in hand. 
 The reading of illustrative extracts, of other 
 accounts of the same affair, or of a succeeding 
 lesson, will add interest. In a word, the recita- 
 tion ought to give the pupil something that 
 does not appear in the book. 
 
 Nor should the teacher be content with di-
 
 Geacbing of Ibistorg. 
 
 rection. It is his special duty to bring out the 
 cause and effect of events : and it must be done 
 by his words and not by the pupil's. The prep- 
 aration is a severe task for a hard-worked 
 teacher ; but if he does no more than to read 
 one or two extended accounts of the ground of 
 the day's lesson, he will have a fund of com- 
 ment and illustration. Perhaps the ideal of 
 teaching would be to make the text-book only 
 the connection and groundwork for a series of 
 simple talks with quiz and discussion. It is 
 possible only with conscientious students : and 
 the necessary control of the note-books adds a 
 great deal of labor. In advanced classes, bright 
 pupils may sometimes be trusted under careful 
 direction and supervision to prepare a talk for 
 their fellows. A very happy effect may often 
 be produced by introducing some outsider into 
 the class exercise, or at another hour, who shall 
 give a prepared lecture on some subject illus- 
 trating the field of study ; in any town large 
 enough to sustain a good high-school may al- 
 ways be found intelligent people able and glad 
 to say something effective. This system has 
 been admirably marked out in the highly suc- 
 cessful Old South courses of lectures for young 
 people, given in Boston every summer to au- 
 diences of hundreds of children and older 
 people. The important thing to remember in 
 talking or lecturing is that the lecturer ought
 
 f>ow to IRouge Interest, m 
 
 not to add an assortment of new and bewilder- 
 ing facts, but to set in order and explain the 
 principles governing those already acquired. 
 
 One of the most learned historians in New 
 England is accustomed to say that he no longer 
 tries to remember any particular fact, but only 
 where to find it recorded. American schools 
 and even American colleges have been slow to 
 recognize that the ability to find out what one 
 wants is as essential a part of historical training 
 as the ability to remember facts and to under- 
 stand the relations between them. The topical 
 method is an attempt to give instruction in 
 research ; and at the same time it is often a 
 superior method of presenting facts. Its ad- 
 vantages are that it teaches the pupil to ex- 
 amine and use books ; it throws upon him an 
 educating responsibility of choice ; it leads him 
 to select the important from the unimportant ; 
 it obliges him to compare and collate authori- 
 ties ; it gives him the pleasing sense of dis- 
 covery. Nor does it require large libraries, or 
 a great expenditure of the teacher's time. 
 
 In one form, the topical system supersedes 
 text-book recitation ; the whole field is divided 
 into successive topics which are prepared by 
 all pupils ; and the recitation is held on the sub- 
 ject and not in any book. But these themes 
 may also be used as adjuncts or occasional exer- 
 cises. In fact the great advantage of the sys-
 
 ii2 {Teaching of t>i0torg. 
 
 tern is that it can be applied by each teacher to 
 the circumstances of his own school. In select- 
 ing topics care should be taken to make them 
 cover only one simple subject : questions should 
 be avoided about which little definite informa- 
 tion is to be had ; to a child's mind a negative 
 result is a failure. Biography lends itself 
 easily to this method ; any number of subjects 
 of about equal difficulty may be found, and it is 
 easier to secure a lucid, well-arranged report 
 than on other questions. Where the topics are 
 numerous, the teacher owes it to his pupils 
 to give them a good outfit of specific direc- 
 tions and exact references : for an occasional 
 theme it is an excellent plan to turn a pupil 
 loose into a library ; but where he is expected 
 to learn something valuable about his subject 
 in a short time, he must not be discouraged by 
 the mass of books : he must have his clew. 
 
 Where the topics are only occasional the fol- 
 lowing system may be found useful. Let the 
 topics be given out in groups ; a set of geograph- 
 ical subjects ; a set of biographical subjects ; 
 a set of narratives ; a set of military subjects ; 
 and so on ; out of each group, set for each pupil 
 his own individual topic. When the group is 
 given out, a circular of directions may be issued 
 or put on the board meeting the questions most 
 likely to be asked and the difficulties most 
 likely to arise, and prescribing a form in which
 
 flfcetbctf). 
 
 the answers are to be returned. Pupils should 
 then be put on their own resources : as their 
 topics are all different, they cannot use each 
 other's work ; as they are all of the same kind, 
 a few books will suffice for their sources, and 
 the teacher can more easily control the work. 
 Some provision should be made for giving a 
 little help to those who have, after honest 
 effort, failed to find authorities. The return of 
 the work in the precise outward form required 
 should be insisted upon, because it is of such 
 vast importance to be able to put information 
 into a shape useful to another person : and the 
 labor of handling the papers is thus greatly re- 
 duced. There is plenty of room for originality 
 in the choice of books and the selection and 
 arrangement of facts. Great care must be 
 taken to prevent the pupil from simply repro- 
 ducing what he finds in one or several books. 
 From the very outset, the pupil should be 
 taught always to append a brief bibliographical 
 note, setting forth the sources of his informa- 
 tion and giving exact references to volume and 
 page. The selection of the best papers to be 
 read in class may be a reward for diligence and 
 especially for orderly arrangement and clear 
 statement. With classes of any considerable 
 size, the specific references should include sev- 
 eral common books on each topic, so as to 
 make sure that the pupil has the opportunity of 
 8
 
 U4 {Teaching of "fcistorg. 
 
 using at least one. Both teacher and pupil 
 will find useful some of the printed topical out- 
 lines mentioned in the bibliographical note at 
 the end of this essay. 
 
 The topical system, and good teaching ot 
 any sort, is dependent on books of reference. 
 Every school ought to have a library, conven- 
 ient, and accessible every day and all day. It 
 need not be large ; in most places, if the school 
 funds are insufficient, contributions of books or 
 money may make up a small collection. Pupils 
 should be encouraged to buy books, and it is 
 worth while to put into their hands a brief list 
 of the volumes most desirable for them to own. 
 The library should include at least the follow- 
 ing works : 
 
 A good atlas of modern geography (Andree's 
 or Stieler's are the best, and furnish most for 
 the money) ; 
 
 An historical atlas; Putzger is cheap and 
 good; 
 
 A standard encyclopaedia, biographical dic- 
 tionary, and gazetteer ; 
 
 Lalor's Cyclopaedia of Political Science ; 
 
 Ploetz's Epitome of Universal History (for 
 chronology) ; 
 
 One or two classified library catalogues (for 
 bibliography) : the most useful are the Brook- 
 lyn, Milwaukee, Peabody, Boston Athenaeum ; 
 
 Collections of historical texts like Poore's
 
 Reference JBoofcs. 
 
 Charters and Constitutions, and Preston's Docu- 
 ments illustrative of American History, and the 
 various series of Leaflets. 
 
 The standard histories of each period and 
 country studied ; 
 
 Sets of briefer compendious histories like the 
 Epoch Series and the Story of the Nations se- 
 ries; 
 
 Some of the handier biographies ; such as the 
 American Statesmen series, Great Command- 
 ers, etc. ; 
 
 A few selected historical novels ; 
 
 Good illustrated books, such as are likely to 
 awaken interest. 
 
 If books are scanty, they may sometimes 
 be borrowed for a few days or weeks, and a 
 working collection in some particular topic 
 may thus be made. Where there is a library, 
 it should be drilled into pupils' minds that they 
 do not learn history unless they use it. 
 
 If a taste for historical literature is thus 
 formed, it is likely that pupils will read for 
 themselves at home. It is easy to suggest, in 
 class, books that illustrate the subject under 
 discussion. It may even be desirable to make 
 out and distribute lists of general readings, 
 parallel with the subject. In some schools 
 pupils are encouraged to give the substance of 
 their outside readings in recitation. The free 
 use of books may further be encouraged by
 
 aeacbfng of 
 
 clubs and debating societies, and by public dis- 
 cussions. 
 
 From the beginning of historical instruction 
 to the end, geography should be made an in- 
 tegral part of the work. No teacher should ex- 
 pect his pupils to understand history without 
 making clear to them the physical features of 
 the country described. Fortunately there are 
 good physical wall maps of most countries ; and 
 excellent and cheap little relief maps begin to 
 appear. When we come to historical geography, 
 there is a dearth of good atlases and maps. 
 Whatever atlas may be used, the teacher ought 
 to supplement it by a set of historical maps of 
 his own manufacture. By using outline maps, 
 which may be had on scales large and small for 
 most important countries, and by utilizing the 
 power stored in the minds and fingers of his 
 pupils, the teacher may, in a few years, have a 
 set of unique maps. No topical work is more 
 interesting to the student than the preparation 
 of maps. Elaborate drawing-rooms and expen- 
 sive supplies are not necessary ; a few cheap 
 water-colors and brushes, and a roll of outline 
 maps or of stout paper, are all that is nec- 
 essary ; and geography will thus come to have 
 a new meaning by practical exercise. 
 
 The proper teaching of history in the sec- 
 ondary schools calls for no new, complex, or 
 expensive, methods ; there ought to be a good
 
 Ibfetorical Geograpbg. 
 
 text-book for a basis of fact: a good teacher 
 to explain relations ; a good library as a source 
 of material ; and good practice in the use of the 
 library, as a training to the judgment. 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE. The titles of many 
 books, pamphlets, and articles on the teaching 
 of history may be found in Hall and Mansfield's 
 Hints toward a Select and Descriptive Bibliography 
 of Education. (Boston : D. C. Heath & Co., 1886.) 
 These gentlemen have added a few words of 
 instructive comment to most of the titles. Re- 
 cent articles on the subject are to be found in 
 The Academy for June, 1886, in the Moderator 
 for May, 1887, and in Education for June, 1887. 
 The latter is by Dr. Francis N. Thorpe, who 
 has also reprinted from Education a pamphlet 
 on American History in American Schools, Col- 
 leges, and Universities. Hints on historical 
 study and historical reading may be found in 
 the Old South Leaflets and Old North Studies in 
 History, prepared by Mr. Edwin D. Mead, in 
 connection with the free popular lectures 
 which he has directed ; there are brief hints in 
 Mr. George L. Fox's Study of Politics in Unity 
 Clubs and Classes. (Chicago : Colegrove Book 
 Co., 1885.) President G. Stanley Hall has also 
 edited a book on Methods of Teaching History. 
 (Boston : D. C. Heath & Co., 1885.) Many of 
 the topical outlines contain suggestions.
 
 teaching of 
 
 The most elaborate discussion of historical 
 study and teaching is the invaluable treatise 
 by Professor B. A. Hinsdale : How to Study and 
 Teach History. (New York, Appletons, 1894.) 
 In 1893 appeared the well-known Report of the 
 Committee of Ten to the National Educational 
 Association. It contains the Report on History, 
 Civil Government, and Political Economy, which 
 is a systematic little treatise on the arrange- 
 ment of historical courses in schools, and the 
 methods applicable. 
 
 The following works, containing lists of 
 topics, in most cases with references appended, 
 have come to the notice of the writer. 
 
 Charles K. Adams : in his Manual of His- 
 torical Literature. New York : Harper & 
 Brothers, 1882. 
 
 Charles K. Adams : Questions and Notes on 
 the Constitutional History of England. Ann 
 Arbor: Sheehan & Co., 1879. 
 
 John G. Allen : Topical Studies in American 
 History. Rochester : Scrantom, Wetmore & 
 Co., 1885. 
 
 William F. Allen : History Topics for the Use 
 of High Schools and Colleges. Boston: D. C. 
 Heath & Co., 1886. 
 
 Henry L. Boltwood : Topical Outline of Gen- 
 eral History. Chicago: George Sherwood & 
 Co. 
 
 Edward Channing and Albert Bushnell Hart: 
 Guide to the Study of A merican History. Boston : 
 Ginn & Co., 1895.
 
 topical Outlines. 119 
 
 Hannah A. Davidson: Reference History of 
 the United States for High Schools and Academies. 
 Boston: Ginn & Co., 1892. 
 
 [Charles F. Dunbar] : Economics VIII. [His- 
 tory of Financial Legislation in the United States.] 
 Cambridge, printed by the University [1892]. 
 
 [Charles F. Dunbar] : Topics and References 
 in Political Economy IV. [Economic History of 
 Europe and A merica since the Seven Years' War.~\ 
 Cambridge : William H. Wheeler, 1885. 
 
 Charles S. Farrar: History of Sculpture, Paint- 
 ing, and Architecturs. Chicago: Townsend 
 MacCoun, 1881. 
 
 William E. Foster : Monthly Reference Lists, 
 Providence, R. I., Public Library. Providence, 
 1 88 1, 1883. [Out of print] 
 
 William E. Foster : References to the Constitu- 
 tion of the United States. With an appendix. 
 New York : Society for Political Education. 
 (Economic Tracts No. 29), 1890. 
 
 William E. Foster: References to the History 
 of Presidential Administrations. New York: So- 
 ciety for Political Education, 1885. 
 
 Wilbur Fisk Gordy and Willis Ira Tvvitchell: 
 A Pathfinder in American History. 2 pts. in I 
 vol. Boston: Lee & Shepard, 1893. 
 
 Albert Bushnell Hart : Suggestions on the 
 Study of United States History and Government, 
 prepared for the use of Students in Harvard Uni- 
 versity. Cambridge : Harvard University, 1893. 
 
 J. W. Jenks : Practical Economic Questions. 
 Albany : University of the State of New York, 
 1893. 
 
 Henry Matson : References for Literary Work- 
 ers. Chicago: A. C. McClurg Co., 1892. 
 
 Martin L. Smith : Brief Compend of the His-
 
 120 {Teaching of trtstorg. 
 
 tory of the United States. Boston and New 
 York: Leach, Shewell, and Sanborn, 1886. 
 
 Edwin E. Sparks : Topical Reference Lists in 
 American History, with Introductory Lists in 
 English Constitutional History. Columbus, Ohio, 
 A. H. Smythe, 1893. 
 
 [Frank W. Taussig : Topics and References in 
 Economics VI^\ Tariff Legislation in the United 
 States. Cambridge: Harvard University, 1892. 
 
 Frank W. Taussig : Topics and References in 
 Economics V. Railways in the United States. 
 Cambridge: Harvard University [1893]. 
 
 Francis Newton Thorpe : Outline of the Prin- 
 ciples of Government in the United States. Phila- 
 delphia, 1893. 
 
 George A. Williams : Topics and References 
 in A merican History. Syracuse : C. W. Bardeen, 
 1886. 
 
 The list price of these books ranges from 
 twenty-five cents to one dollar ; any of them 
 might be had in quantities for school use at a 
 considerable reduction. 
 
 The following books will be found of great 
 assistance in selecting a reference library, or 
 filling up gaps in one already formed. 
 
 Lyman Abbott: Hints for Home Reading. 
 New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1880. 
 
 Osmund Airy : Books on English History. 
 London : Simpkins, Marshall & Co., 1886. 
 
 American Library Association : Catalog of the 
 "A. L. A" Library. Washington Bureau oi 
 Education [No. 20], 1893.
 
 to Selection, 121 
 
 H. Courthope Bowen : Descriptive Catalogue 
 of Historical Novels and Tales. London : Edward 
 Stanford, 1882. 
 
 R. R. Bowker and George lies : The Readers 
 Guide in Economic, Social, and Political Science. 
 New York : Society for Political Education, 
 1891. 
 
 Lynds E. Jones : The Best Reading, Second 
 Series, Priced and Catalogue Bibliography [Cur- 
 rent Literature only.'] New York : G. P. Put- 
 nam's Sons, 1882. 
 
 Charles H. Moore : What to Read and Hozv to 
 Read. New York : D. Appleton & Co., 1875. 
 
 Frederic B. Perkins : The Best Reading. New 
 York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1877. 
 
 Noah Porter : Books and Reading. New 
 York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1881. 
 
 I. A. Spencer : Course of English Reading. 
 New York: James Miller, 1873. 
 
 William G. Sumner, W. E. Foster and others: 
 Political Economy and Political Science. A 
 Priced and Classified List of Books. First and 
 second Series. Society for Political Educa- 
 tion. New York: 1881,1882. 
 
 G. A. F. Van Rhyn : What and How to Read. 
 New York : D. Appleton & Co., 1875. 
 
 Justin Winsor : Narrative and Critical His- 
 tory of America. Boston : Houghton, Mifflin & 
 Co. 
 
 The publishers' prices of American books 
 now in print may very easily be found in Ley- 
 poldt's American Catalogue, New York (3 vols.). 
 New York, 1880-1892.
 
 VI. 
 
 Status of Btbletics in Hmerican 
 Colleges. 
 
 ONE of the popular delusions about colleges 
 is the notion that college students are a race 
 apart ; that they have temptations quite differ- 
 rent from and more numerous than those met 
 by other young men ; that they have different 
 amusements, different standards in a word, a 
 different human nature. Those who live among 
 students know that they are, in th'e main, very 
 like their twin brothers at home or in business : 
 they are not much wiser, and are as prone to 
 do absurd things ; on the other hand, they have 
 more leisure, more command of their time, a 
 wider range of interest, and a tickling sense of 
 belonging to a guild of learning ; so that, on the 
 whole, they are more likely than other young 
 men to avoid bad or vicious habits. 
 
 The same principle applies in athletics as in 
 
 more important things. College athletes are 
 
 not a peculiar genus of \hekomojuvenis; they 
 
 are very like other strong young men. College 
 
 (122)
 
 6enus "StuDens." 123 
 
 athletic clubs are governed by the same rules 
 and principles as other amateur clubs. Yet 
 there are some reasons why the interest in such 
 matters is sharper where colleges are con- 
 cerned, why abuses are more apt to creep in, 
 and why attention should be directed more 
 carefully to the manner in which college ath- 
 letics are conducted. 
 
 The enormous and perhaps disproportioned 
 public interest in college sports is made evi- 
 dent several times a year by the items and 
 squibs of the daily press ; and this is an inter- 
 est which has grown up within the last thirty 
 years. The enjoyment of sports is as old as 
 the toys of Egyptian children, or the ball-game 
 of Nausicaa and her maids. 
 
 ral 8' Up' eirat^oc . . . CM' 8' etrl ft.aKpbv &vcra.v. 
 " With the ball they played, . . . and mightily they 
 shrieked." 
 
 The contest of animal with animal, of men 
 with animals, and still more of men with men, 
 has excited Greek, Roman, and barbarian. 
 There is no doubt that a stand-up fight between 
 two trained men or bodies of men, whether 
 fought with fists, rapiers, Winchester rifles, or 
 army corps, or " interference " is the most ab- 
 sorbing of human diversions. In modern ath- 
 letic sports, however, the contest is not usually 
 against a man's person ; our preference is still
 
 124 College Htbletfcs. 
 
 for races and competitions rather than for set- 
 tos. 
 
 This milder and manlier form of sport is due 
 to England. While German youths still exer- 
 cised with a sword and American lads with 
 a trotting-sulky, young Englishmen ran, rowed, 
 played cricket, and revived foot-ball and tennis. 
 The development in England has been due in 
 part to the ancient customs of the people, 
 in part to climate, in great part to the schools 
 of that country. School-boys' sports have, 
 during the past fifty years, been carried into 
 the universities and into private life. 
 
 To England, then, we owe the example fol- 
 lowed in our outdoor sports ; and in England 
 the practice has been brought under certain 
 generally accepted principles. In the first 
 place, no sport among gentlemen can be direct- 
 ed against the life or limbs of an antagonist. 
 To inflict bodily injury was the great object of 
 the Greek boxer and the Roman gladiator. In 
 modern days even in boxing to wound is to be 
 awkward. For better security, almost all ath- 
 letic sports avoid personal contact ; players 
 strike the ball, but not one another. 
 
 To carry out the principle of avoiding bodily 
 injuries, and to make the game more interest- 
 ing, a second principle is applied : the sports 
 are all hedged in by elaborate rules. Every 
 complicated game, especially foot-ball, seems to
 
 Sports anO "Rules. 125 
 
 the uninitiated an elaborate system of how-not- 
 to-do-it. Strength, fleetness, and agility are to 
 be applied only in specified ways. Here is an 
 example, taken from the Intercollegiate foot-ball 
 rules : " A player may throw or pass the ball 
 in any direction except toward opponent's 
 goal." Yet the sole object of the game is some- 
 how to move the ball precisely in the direction 
 forbidden, by throw or pass. The basis of the 
 sport is always the tacit assumption that the 
 game is between gentlemen who wish to win, 
 but who accept and observe the limitations set 
 by the rules. The principle that an umpire 
 shall be provided has been established, but the 
 practice is intended only to meet the case of 
 a gentlemanly disagreement. Only under the 
 intense competition of the last ten years has it 
 been found necessary to provide double um- 
 pires, and to give summary powers of punish- 
 ment where a player wilfully breaks rules ; 
 of late in the hard-fought contests of foot-ball 
 a third judge, the " linesman," has been found 
 necessary. The necessity itself shows that the 
 standard of sport has fallen ; that a professional 
 spirit has crept in. 
 
 What is a professional ? He is defined and set 
 apart by the third great principle of modern 
 sport. A sharp line is drawn between those 
 who take up sport for their own pleasure and 
 those who practise it for money. Here is the
 
 126 College Stbletfcs. 
 
 statement of the distinction laid down in the 
 rules of the Amateur Athletic Union of the 
 United States which define an amateur : 
 
 " One who has not entered in an open com- 
 petition ; or for either a stake, public or admis- 
 sion money, or entrance fee ; or under a fic- 
 titious name ; or has not competed with or 
 against a professional for any prize or where 
 admission fee is charged ; or who has not in- 
 structed, pursued, or assisted in the pursuit of 
 athletic exercises as a means of livelihood, or 
 for gain or any emolument; or where member- 
 ship of any athletic club of any kind was 
 not brought about or does not continue be- 
 cause of any mutual understanding, express or 
 implied, whereby his becoming or continuing a 
 member of such club would be of any pecun- 
 iary benefit to him whatever, direct or indirect; 
 and who shall in other and all respects conform 
 to the rules and regulations of this organiza- 
 tion." 
 
 For so rigid a rule there are abundant rea- 
 sons. A man who plays from a love of sport 
 prefers not to compete with a man who has 
 gained superior skill by making his sport an 
 occupation. A gentleman has no reason for 
 concealing his name. If a man's success in his 
 calling depends upon his winning, or if his live- 
 lihood is at stake, he is more apt to break or to 
 strain rules ; and the experience of the world 
 has shown that one who receives money for
 
 IJClbat fs a Urofe0sfonaU I2 7 
 
 winning a contest may sometimes, by the offer 
 of a larger sum, be induced to lose. Contests of 
 professionals, therefore, are not so sure to be 
 carried through on the merits of the competi- 
 tors. Owing to this element of trickery, pro- 
 fessional sports offer a field for betting and for 
 other forms of gambling. There are hundreds 
 of perfectly honest professionals, but in accept- 
 ing money for their services they give up the 
 element of personal pleasure, and change their 
 sport into a task. 
 
 In America, boat-racing and games of ball 
 are as old as boyhood, rivers, and town com- 
 mons, but in the colleges and outside they 
 were very simple and unorganized school-boy 
 sports till about thirty years ago. Regular 
 teams began in boating, and there was a race 
 between Harvard and Yale in 1852. In 1858, 
 the present president of Harvard University 
 was a member of the famous Harvard crew 
 which brought the first six-oared shell in ahead 
 of a rival Boston boat. 
 
 The Civil War gave a singular impetus to 
 field sports of all kinds. Perhaps the boys in 
 blue brought home a love of fresh air and ex- 
 ercise from their marches and bivouacs ; per- 
 haps the German turnvereine taught Ameri- 
 cans the use of their muscles ; perhaps gentle 
 croquet led to more active sports. In 1863 
 came the first organized games of intercolle-
 
 128 College Btbtetics. 
 
 giate base-ball. The sport spread throughout 
 the country, and the college teams contended 
 on equal, sometimes on superior terms, with the 
 mighty and forgotten Lowells, Peconics, and 
 Redstockings. The Canadians taught us foot- 
 ball and lacrosse about 1877. Lawn tennis and 
 bicycling came in a little later. Amateur rec- 
 ords in track athletics began to be taken about 
 1875. 
 
 For the conduct of these sports there are 
 numerous permanent and recognized amateur 
 organizations. In all the large cities athletic 
 clubs have begun to spring up, with expensive 
 houses and apparatus ; but the chief seat of 
 amateur sport is in the colleges. Here are as- 
 semblages of young men having unusual con- 
 trol over their own time ; here is a strong feel- 
 ing of esprit de corps ; here, out of the many 
 players offering themselves, a first-rate team 
 may easily be formed. Not one in twenty of 
 the spectators at a professional base-ball game 
 knows any of the players personally, or ever 
 himself handles the bat ; while in the colleges 
 the athletic spirit is greatly stimulated by the 
 fact that the whole body of students, and often 
 of professors, feel a personal interest in the 
 players. College authorities acknowledge, will- 
 ingly or unwillingly, that athletic sports must 
 be allowed and even encouraged, partly be- 
 cause of the sentiment that physical exercise
 
 amateur r0anf3atfons. 129 
 
 is essential for the most efficient use of the 
 mind ; and in the colleges are usually the best 
 facilities for exercise as well as contest. No 
 large institution of learning is now considered 
 complete without a good gymnasium and some 
 instruction in field sports ; the college athletic 
 associations are more numerous and important 
 than other amateur organizations. In the col- 
 leges, therefore, the growth and effect of ath- 
 letics are more clearly discernible than else- 
 where. 
 
 The first distinct result of athletics, as seen 
 in academic groves, is a considerable increase 
 in the average of bodily strength. The popu- 
 lar caricature of the college student no longer 
 represents the stoop-shouldered, long-haired 
 grind, but a person of impossible biceps and 
 rudimentary brains. As a fact, the most popu- 
 lar man in any college class to-day is usually a 
 good student who can do something in athletics 
 better than anybody else. The effect of this 
 accepted standard of complete manliness is seen 
 on men who never take part in athletic con- 
 tests. The bodily vigor and health of students 
 in the colleges have visibly risen in twenty 
 years ; the variety of exercise is greater ; a 
 larger number take exercise. Experienced di- 
 rectors and trainers apply scientific methods of 
 developing the body. The Director of the 
 Hemenway Gymnasium states, as the result of 
 
 9
 
 130 College Stbletfcs. 
 
 more than four thousand measurements since 
 1879, that ne h as now a re cord of at least forty 
 men in Harvard University, each of whom is 
 stronger than was the strongest man in 1880. 
 Of course, there is a tendency to admire mus- 
 cle and strength for themselves instead of as a 
 means of health or enjoyment, but the physi- 
 cal results of athletic sports are highly bene- 
 ficial. 
 
 An equally striking change is the great de- 
 velopment of skill in athletics. The famous 
 base-ball teams of the sixties could not now 
 make a run against a good nine ; the records in 
 athletics are constantly being broken. This 
 skill is gained, however, at the cost of in- 
 creased expenditure of time. Rowing men 
 must settle down to their work in December, 
 if they hope to win in July. Captains of teams 
 spend more and more thought on selecting and 
 placing players, on training, on planning cam- 
 paigns. Hence, college teams far surpass all 
 other amateurs, and are but little inferior to 
 the most skilful professionals. The inevitable 
 result is that, to the participants, the element 
 of sport is fast disappearing. It is very agree- 
 able to be recognized as a " star player " and 
 to travel with a team ; but any one who 
 watches a great contest must admit that it is 
 " sport " only for the excited spectators ; the 
 participants find both practice and match hard,
 
 Strenfltb anfc Sfctll. 
 
 unremitting work. As the Dean of Harvard 
 College in his report of 1893 says of the fresh- 
 man : " If he does not surrender himself to foot- 
 ball body and soul, he is abused for treating so 
 serious a pursuit as if it were play." To sup- 
 pose that the labor discourages men from try- 
 ing for the teams is a mistake. Where one 
 man gets on, ten try ; where ten try, twenty 
 play " for the fun of the thing ; " where twenty 
 play occasionally, a hundred are influenced to 
 keep up some regular exercise. The standard 
 of skill required for enjoyment in a " scrub " 
 game has not been raised. Nevertheless, the 
 great matches, especially in foot-ball, are com- 
 ing to have the interest of gladiatorial con- 
 tests ; players are not there to pass a pleasant 
 afternoon or to show their skill, but to beat. " It 
 is magnificent, but it is war." 
 
 Such elaborate contests cannot be carried on 
 without great preparation and expense. In 
 addition to gymnasium trainers, paid by the 
 college authorities, many teams have coaches, 
 often professionals. Another great source of 
 expense is the training-tables ; the board often 
 costs double the ordinary rate, and the differ- 
 ence sometimes the whole is paid by the 
 management. Whenever a team travels, it 
 makes up a little array of players, managers, 
 and attendants, whose expenses are paid by the 
 organization. Men so solicitous to win, spare
 
 132 College Stbletfcs. 
 
 no money that will insure greater comfort. 
 The incidental expenses for such organizations 
 are sometimes appalling: uniforms, accoutre- 
 ments, the travelling expenses of managers and 
 delegates, the keeping of grounds in order 
 these are but a part of the items. In the year 
 1893 for a single campaign lasting about seven 
 weeks, the Harvard Foot-ball Association had 
 paid out $16,238.86, or an average of $700 for 
 every actual player ; and Yale expended $16,- 
 652.43. The same organizations received re- 
 spectively $23,500 and $29,000, and the total re- 
 ceipts for athletics were $51,000 and $67,000. 
 To turn over and judiciously to expend sums 
 so considerable might perhaps give the finan- 
 cial officers of athletic associations good busi- 
 ness training ; but the money has usually been 
 handled carelessly and spent lavishly. Here is 
 a verbatim transcript of an account rendered 
 by the treasurer of a college organization a 
 few years ago : 
 
 RECEIPTS. 
 
 Subscriptions, season tickets, and 
 
 other sources .... $2,917 69 
 Gate receipts .... 3,291 74 
 
 $6,209 43
 
 IRuOfmentarB finances. 
 
 133 
 
 EXPENDITURES. 
 
 Uniforms .... 
 Yale-Amherst trip 
 Brown-Princeton . 
 New Haven (exhibition) 
 New York (Yale game) 
 Umpires .... 
 Printing, advertising, and sundries 
 
 Balance in Bank 
 
 $320 50 
 
 37i 45 
 318 36 
 190 06 
 410 42 
 
 IOO CO 
 
 3,443 94 
 
 $5,155 72 
 1,053 7i 
 
 $6,209 43 
 
 One of the most vexatious things about col- 
 lege athletics is the india-rubber inertia which 
 makes it difficult to induce any treasurer or 
 manager to keep full and lucid accounts and to 
 take vouchers, and which sums up in "sundries" 
 all the items that can no longer be remembered. 
 Not very long ago, a perfectly honest young 
 fellow, who had been asked to account for the 
 magnitude of certain expenditures, explained 
 in good faith that he was sure a particular bill 
 had been thrice presented and paid ; but he 
 had taken no receipts. 
 
 As expense has increased, various moral 
 evils have also grown. In all the older col- 
 leges there are men who receive from home 
 more money than they can put to good ac-
 
 134 College atblettcs. 
 
 count for their personal expenses. Among 
 that class betting grows up ; and the example 
 is followed by a few who can less afford to 
 lose. Betting on the field can be repressed by 
 denying the use of grounds to the organiza- 
 tion which permits it ; outside betting cannot 
 be so controlled, and, as it takes the insidi- 
 ous form of loyally "backing up the team," 
 college public opinion is not sufficiently pro- 
 nounced against the practice. Of late years, 
 the custom has sprung up for bodies of college 
 men to attend the theatres in the city where 
 the great game has that day been played, and, 
 by cheering, the waving of flags, and the inter- 
 ruption of the performance, to make their pref- 
 erences known. An excited, irresponsible state 
 of mind seems to be induced by the tremendous 
 competition of the greater sports, and to be 
 more marked in the larger cities. 
 
 A similar excitement manifests itself among 
 the general public. The class-rooms at Cam- 
 bridge and New Haven are nearly deserted on 
 the day of the Yale-Harvard game at Spring- 
 field. In New York, on Thanksgiving Day, 1893, 
 there was paid for tickets to the Yale-Princeton 
 game something like $25,000; and people in 
 North Carolina mountain towns watched the 
 telegraphic bulletin. Not even Patti can com- 
 mand such audiences or take so much money 
 for one performance. The newspapers reflect
 
 135 
 
 the public impression that the whole interest of 
 the colleges is absorbed in gladiatorial shows. 
 
 To the evils just mentioned irregularity, ex- 
 travagance, excitement there is added a still 
 more serious evil, that of professionalism in col- 
 lege athletics. The first approach to the pro- 
 fessional spirit is found in the few young men 
 who become at least enrolled students in order 
 to develop and exhibit their skill as athletes. 
 No college ought to have a place for such men. 
 Occasionally they enter late, and disappear at 
 the end of the athletic season ; more frequently 
 they keep on, year after year, preventing other 
 possible candidates from getting on the teams. 
 Another phase of the disposition to make sport 
 the end rather than the means is the pressure 
 brought to bear on athletic men, who have 
 graduated from college, to return and go upon 
 teams. A further advance of the same spirit is 
 seen in those students who accept from pro- 
 prietors of summer hotels offers of board, and 
 sometimes of incidental expenses, as an induce- 
 ment to play during the season, and who thus 
 come within the strict definition of profes- 
 sionals. Another step is to receive money for 
 occasional games ; and, finally, a considerable 
 number of college students or graduates have 
 accepted summer employment from profes- 
 sional clubs, or have become teachers of ath- 
 letics, and have thus separated themselves
 
 i3 6 College Stbletfcs. 
 
 from all amateur organizations within college 
 or outside. Some of these men have, by their 
 practice of a sport, acquired the means honor- 
 ably to clear off college debts, or to provide for 
 a professional education. No one can com- 
 plain of their taking money for their skill ; but 
 the moment a man begins to consider his skill 
 a pecuniary resource the element of pleasure 
 or of physical benefit that is, the element of 
 sport disappears, and with it the purpose for 
 which college athletics exist. 
 
 Serious as are the evils connected with ath- 
 letic sports, the writer believes that they are 
 more than counterbalanced by the effect on the 
 health of the students, and by the opportu- 
 nity given for working off youthful spirits in 
 a harmless way. Students themselves are 
 sensible of the evils, but the expectation that 
 they would in their own way find a remedy 
 has not been realized. Students' organiza- 
 tions are loose ; college generations are very 
 short ; traditions quickly fade ; and there is 
 lack of permanent policy. Captains usually 
 serve a single year, and each feels like one of 
 the ten Greek generals on his day of command. 
 It is almost impossible for one college to ob- 
 tain any reform without negotiation with other 
 colleges, and diplomacy enough to secure an 
 extradition treaty with Great Britain. Or- 
 ganizations controlled by graduates do better
 
 of IReauIatfOtt. 137 
 
 because they hold the undergraduates down to 
 a definite policy. Hence those colleges in 
 which the graduates have most influence, 
 as Yale and Princeton, have proved upon the 
 field and the river the excellence of graduate 
 management. But the system is not very 
 much freer than untrammelled control by un- 
 dergraduates from the evils of extravagance, 
 sharp practice, and wastefulness of time. The 
 teams are better ; the morale of the sports is 
 little improved. 
 
 College faculties have been unwilling to take 
 responsibility for athletic contests, and have 
 from the first rather tolerated them as an 
 unavoidable evil. They began by legislating 
 against broken windows and broken heads. 
 As it was evident that athletic sports were 
 a vigorous growth, the next step was to make 
 provisions for exercise by building new gym- 
 nasiums. In some cases physical examinations 
 have been required, as at Amherst, or exercise 
 has been made obligatory, as at Cornell. 
 
 Then came a time when it was discovered 
 that students were making appointments which 
 took them away from college work, or which 
 unduly absorbed the attention of their fellows. 
 A mild system of interference was adopted, 
 with gentle rules as to time, place, and num- 
 ber of games. Some colleges, notably Yale, 
 have gone no further, preferring to leave the
 
 138 College athletics. 
 
 whole matter to students. Additional legisla- 
 tion has been difficult : any serious limitations 
 have been resented by the students ; and the 
 smaller colleges have hesitated to take any 
 step which might keep students away. Most 
 of the larger colleges, however, have appointed 
 Faculty committees on athletics, whose office 
 has been to exercise moral suasion over the 
 students, and sometimes actually to regulate. 
 There has been little interference with student 
 organizations. Money has been collected by 
 subscription, and it has been a delicate mat- 
 ter to protect voluntary subscribers from 
 their own agents ; but with the present large 
 revenues from gate money a system of audit 
 has been found indispensable. In some col- 
 leges it is exercised by graduate committees. 
 At Yale, Harvard, and Princeton by strenuous 
 exertion, the organizations have been brought 
 to agree to the appointment of a graduate 
 treasurer, and to the deposit of surpluses aris- 
 ing from gate money, to be used for general 
 athletic purposes. 
 
 The evils incident to the keen competition of 
 intercollegiate athletics have received little 
 checks from individual faculties. The trouble 
 is, of course, that any restriction put upon a 
 team is a handicap, unless applied to its com- 
 petitors. Half a dozen years ago, therefore, 
 Harvard proposed a system of general regula-
 
 ffacultg "Restrictions. 139 
 
 tion by the authorities of all the principal col- 
 leges ; but it was found impossible to get an 
 agreement. For a time Harvard forbade her 
 teams to play against professionals. That re- 
 striction was withdrawn, as tending to keep up 
 an irritation between students and Faculty ; 
 since every defeat was ascribed to the want of 
 practice with professionals. 
 
 The futility of the restriction was shown by 
 the fact that in the face of it the professional 
 spirit steadily grew at Harvard and elsewhere. 
 Evasion of the rules became more common ; 
 men were brought into the colleges who had 
 no serious purpose of study ; the behavior of 
 men on the field was rough and sometimes 
 coarse. The governing boards began to take 
 alarm, and the Harvard Overseers, in the spring 
 of 1888, came almost to the resolution to pro- 
 hibit intercollegiate contests. At this point a 
 committee of the Faculty made an investiga- 
 tion, and reported that "intercollegiate con- 
 tests stimulate athletics, stimulate general 
 exercise, and thus favorably affect the health 
 and moral tone of the university." They sug- 
 gested a mixed committee of members from the 
 Faculty, graduates, and undergraduates, with 
 adequate powers. That committee was ap- 
 pointed in 1888, and has formulated a policy of 
 regulation. 
 
 The difficulties of restriction have already
 
 140 College Btbletics. 
 
 been set forth. Since the principal evils of 
 athletics are those of excess rather than of in- 
 herent wrong, they are hard to regulate by 
 statute. In many cases, they arise from a neg- 
 lect by the students to look after the details of 
 their own contests, and such neglect cannot be 
 supplemented by supervision. Busy faculties 
 have neither the time nor the inclination to 
 form and hold a consistent policy in regard to 
 athletics. It is felt that athletic sports are only 
 a very incidental and subsidiary part of college 
 life, and that control of them requires the time 
 and interest of professors who are better em- 
 ployed in teaching ; and hence that they should 
 either be unrestricted or wholly prohibited. 
 Such is the argument of those who advocate 
 the prohibition of intercollegiate contests. It 
 seems to furnish an easy solution to say, " Let 
 the boys attend to their duties." 
 
 To solve the question in this off-hand manner 
 is impossible. If there were no athletic clubs 
 or athletic young men outside the colleges, 
 perhaps the matter might be one for academic 
 discipline ; if intercollegiate contests were less 
 attractive to students and their friends, to 
 graduates and men interested in the colleges, 
 they might be relegated to the place they oc- 
 cupied twenty years ago, and again become 
 simply an agreeable diversion for half-holidays 
 and vacations. If athletics had not many dis-
 
 l>robibition Difficult. 
 
 tinctly bracing effects on the physical and mor- 
 al tone of young men, the system of contests 
 might be treated as an evil per se. If there were 
 not at bottom a healthy moral sentiment among 
 the students, opposed to professionalism and 
 kindred evils, the governing boards might at- 
 tempt to supply an artificial conscience. No 
 votes of the faculty or other governing boards 
 can permanently put an end to intercollegiate 
 athletic contests at the present day, because 
 nine-tenths of the students and at least seven- 
 tenths of the graduates consider them de- 
 sirable. 
 
 Can, then, no principles of limitation and 
 restriction be found, which students, graduates, 
 and governing boards will unite in thinking 
 reasonable ? Most certainly there are some 
 such fundamental conditions which may be im- 
 posed. The first business of every man, 
 whether in a bank, in a law office, or in a col- 
 lege, is to perform his daily task : students, 
 therefore, will readily accommodate themselves 
 to regulations intended to bring contests out of 
 the hours of college exercises, and to restrict 
 the number of games played abroad. Impor- 
 tant contests at a distance from home, or in a 
 city not the seat of either contesting college, 
 plainly lead to irregularities and to interference 
 with study ; and the effects of the excitement 
 thus induced extend far beyond the day of the
 
 142 College Btbletics. 
 
 contest. Experience has shown that students 
 are candid enough to admit the necessity of 
 reducing the geographical compass of their 
 sports. The first principle of regulation is to 
 subordinate athletics to study. It would aid 
 the enforcement of this principle if games were 
 allowed only on the college grounds. 
 
 The second principle is that every organiza- 
 tion of every kind which goes before the public 
 as emanating from a college, or bearing its 
 name, shall present none but genuine represent- 
 atives of that college, and shall do nothing 
 discreditable to alma mater. The principle ap- 
 plies as much to theatrical and musical per- 
 formances as to athletic contests. No man 
 ought to be permitted to sing, to act, or to 
 contest as a member of a college organization, if 
 he be under college censure, or if he be a stu- 
 dent only for a few months, or if he come only 
 to pursue his favorite amusement. The present 
 rules of the most careful colleges exclude spe- 
 cial students in their first year, and limit the 
 continuance on a university team to four years. 
 It is equally important to keep alive the feeling 
 that the members of teams compete for the 
 fame of their college, and not for any pecuniary 
 gain to themselves : for this reason, students 
 who have enjoyed a money profit from the 
 practice of their sport must be excluded rigor-
 
 principles of TRegulation. 143 
 
 ously, although their regular standing as mem- 
 bers of the college may be unquestioned. 
 Here, again, so soon as students clearly per- 
 ceive how and why professionalism degrades 
 amateur sport, they heartily join in an attempt 
 to keep out professionals. 
 
 A third principle is that of publicity. No 
 organization which, from its connection with a 
 college, secures subscriptions from undergrad- 
 uates and graduates, enjoys the use of college 
 grounds or buildings, or appears before the 
 public under the college name, has any right to 
 conceal its accounts, or to refuse to the authori- 
 ties of the college a knowledge of its methods, 
 its system of training, and the men who are to 
 make up its teams. The system of irresponsi- 
 ble handling of large funds, of irresponsible 
 selection of players, and of irresponsible 
 diplomacy with other colleges is one which ac- 
 knowledges only half the principle of freedom. 
 A boy chooses his college, but abides by its 
 discipline. A student chooses or accepts his 
 studies ; but, in every college, his instructors 
 require him to satisfy them that he pursues the 
 work that he has undertaken. College athletic 
 sports, as now conducted, are no longer private 
 enterprises ; much more than college societies 
 they affect the good name and the efficiency of 
 individual colleges and of college education,
 
 144 College Btbletfcs. 
 
 and the college authorities have a right to 
 know what goes on. 
 
 In applying the three principles above spec- 
 ified the subordination of athletics, exclu- 
 sion of men not representative, and publicity 
 the co-operation of students is essential, and is 
 freely given. There is no want of good will, 
 but a " plentiful lack " of good business habits. 
 Somewhere in the organization of a university 
 there must therefore be authority to require 
 the observance of rules laid down under the 
 three principles enunciated ; and the judicious 
 application of such rules requires the expen- 
 diture of a great deal of time. The detail will 
 inevitably fall into confusion if not carefully 
 looked after, for the simple reason that col- 
 lege students are boyish, thoughtless, and 
 slack, and that college generations change 
 quickly. The time necessary for supervision 
 is well spent, if it brings young men to see the 
 reasons for a punctilious standard in the selec- 
 tion and management of athletic teams. Pen- 
 alties may be simple, and yet effective. To de- 
 prive a man of the privilege of taking part in 
 athletic contests is often a memorable punish- 
 ment to him and to his fellows ; to deprive an 
 organization of the use of grounds or buildings, 
 for sufficient cause, will prevent the recurrence 
 of the cause. Within the limitations suggested,
 
 Joint Btbletfc Committees. *45 
 
 students should be left to control their own 
 affairs and to make their own arrangements, 
 without being troubled by successive petty en- 
 actments. Regulations should be few ; con- 
 ferences should be many. 
 
 In whom should the authority over athletic 
 sports primarily be vested? The Harvard 
 Committee on the Regulation of Athletic 
 Sports is composed of nine members : three 
 members of the Faculty and three graduates, 
 all six appointed for a year by the Corporation 
 and confirmed by the Overseers ; and three un- 
 dergraduates, chosen by representatives of ath- 
 letic organizations. In practice the six ap- 
 pointed members serve for a term of years. 
 The action of this Committee, or rather Com- 
 mission, may be subsequently reversed by the 
 governing boards, but during the six years of its 
 existence it has never been so reviewed. The 
 combination has proved singularly harmonious; 
 and the undergraduate members habitually 
 show a spirit of open-mindedness and conserv- 
 atism which reflects the best sentiment of the 
 college. A similar system has been adopted at 
 Dartmouth, and suggested in other colleges. 
 
 This is not a perfect system, but it is sugges- 
 tive of methods which ought to prevail every- 
 where. Athletic sports and competitions and 
 intercollegiate contests are an established part 
 
 10
 
 College Btbletfcs. 
 
 of the life of American colleges. The evils in- 
 cident to them can best be met by judicious 
 legislation, founded on a few reasonable prin- 
 ciples, and by giving to students full freedom 
 within these limitations. On the other hand, 
 students must recognize and observe the public 
 sentiment which protests against brutality and 
 unfairness, wherever shown. If, at any time, 
 it appear that college sports are not gentle- 
 men's sports, then will be the time for gov- 
 erning bodies to choose the lesser of two evils, 
 by prohibiting those intercollegiate games in 
 which the bad tendencies most manifest them- 
 selves.
 
 Unfcey. 
 
 ADA 
 
 ADAMS, Henry, on the Capitol, i. 
 Adams, John, as a teacher, 7. 
 
 Algebra, in Cambridge grammar 
 schools. 40, 41. 
 
 Amateur, in athletics, 126. 
 
 American history, study of, 94, 106. 
 
 Americans, distrust of experts, 1-4 ; 
 like Romans, 5 ; modern languages 
 for, 41. 
 
 Amherst College, physical examina- 
 tions at, 137. 
 
 Ancient history, study of, 94, 95, 105. 
 
 Arithmetic, in Cambridge, 36, 38 ; re- 
 form of, 39. 
 
 Art, study of, 78. 
 
 Association of Colleges in New Eng- 
 land, 39, 47. 
 
 Associations, value of educational, 9, 
 20. 
 
 Athens, history of, 80. 
 
 Athletics in American colleges, 122 
 146 ; interest among students, 122, 
 128 ; origin of, 124 ; avoidance of 
 bodily injury, 124 : complicated rules, 
 125; "professionalism," 125, 135; 
 amateur defined, 126; early sports 
 in America, 127 ; effect of the civil 
 war, 127 ; growth in colleges, 128 ; 
 effect on exercise, 129 ; long training, 
 131 ; large expenditures, 131 ; poor 
 book-keeping, 133 ; pseudo-students, 
 135; lack of responsibility, 136 ; re- 
 lations of the college faculties, 137 ; 
 mild regulations, 139 ; action of Har- 
 vard University, 139: question of pro- 
 hibition, 140 ; position of alumni, 140; 
 principle of non-interference with col- 
 lege exercises, 141 ; principle offona 
 _fide students, 142 ; principle of pub- 
 licity, 143 ; good-will of students, 144 ; 
 athletic committees, 145 ; necessity of 
 reform, 146. 
 
 Atlases, use in schools, 102, 114, 116. 
 
 COL 
 
 BANCROFT, George, influence on 
 study of history, 92. 
 
 Betting, on college athletics, 127, 134. 
 
 Bibliography, guides to historical, 84. 
 
 Bismarck, in history, 83. 
 
 Book-keeping, in Cambridge, 39. 
 
 Books, convenience of possessing, 84; 
 how to use, 84-86 ; for reference, 
 99-101, 117-121. See also libraries. 
 
 Boston, Public Library built by " prac- 
 tical men," 3. 
 
 Botany, Harvard teachers' course. 62. 
 
 Brown University, teachers' courses, 
 56. 
 
 /CAMBRIDGE, college graduate 
 
 Vx teachers, 17 ; schools of, 25 ; 
 primary schools, 30 ; reform of gram- 
 mar schools, 28-48 ; Harvard courses 
 for teachers, 57-65 ; selection of a 
 science, 61 ; question of fees from 
 teachers, 70 ; pressure on teachers to 
 improve, 72. 
 
 Canada, example in athletics, 128. 
 
 Carlyle, his Cromwell books, 85. 
 
 Cities, possible relations with uni- 
 versities, 72. 
 
 Civil government, teachers' courses in, 
 63. 
 
 Civil War, influence on athletics, 127. 
 
 Cleveland, popular physician in, 4 ; 
 former school-board, 23. 
 
 Colleges, professor of morals, i ; " edu- 
 cation business," 5 ; vacations, 7 ; 
 marriage of women professors, 7 ; 
 pedagogics in, 8 ; training courses for 
 teachers, 16 ; require trained instruct- 
 ors, 17 : appointments in, 23 ; prep- 
 aration for, 29 ; interest in secondary 
 instruction, 49 ; advantages of teach- 
 ers' courses, 73 ; history in, 91-93 ; 
 
 (H7)
 
 148 
 
 COL 
 
 entrance requirements in history, 96 ; 
 athletics in, 122-146. 
 
 Columbia College, Jefferson not of it, 2 ; 
 influence of the faculty, 12 ; interest 
 in educational meetings, 49 ; teach- 
 ers' courses in, 56, 63 ; courses in 
 science for teachers, 61. 
 
 Columbian Exposition, educational ex- 
 hibit slighted, 6. 
 
 Congress, its opinion of scientists, if. 
 
 Cornell University, influence of the 
 faculty, 12 : exercise at, 137. 
 
 Crusades, history of, 81. 
 
 Curriculum of schools, teachers not 
 consulted, 13, 33 : reform in Cam- 
 bridge, 35-47 ; enlargement neces- 
 sary, 50. 
 
 pvARTMOUTH College, regula- 
 \-J tion of athletics, 145. 
 Democracy in schools, 34. 
 Departmental instruction in grammar 
 
 schools, 20, 33. 
 
 District schools, advantages of, 32. 
 Diwer, Paddy, respect for learning, 
 
 10. 
 
 EDUCATION. .$>/ colleges, gram- 
 mar schools, schools, teachers' 
 training. 
 
 Educators, function of, 24. 
 
 Eliot, President, "what does he find 
 to do ? " 5 ; on Cambridge grammar 
 schools, 27 ; a rowing man, 127. 
 
 England, Reformaiion in, 81 : S-uart 
 period, 82 ; example in athletics, 
 124 ; history of, 83, 89, 106, 107. 
 
 English, study of, in Cambridge, 35, 
 36, 38 ; aided by study of foreign 
 languages, 42 ; reforms in Cam- 
 bri Jge, 43 ; Harvard teachers' 
 course, 60. 
 
 European history, study of, 80-83, 
 
 Examinations of grammar school 
 pupils abolished, 37 ; of teachers by 
 State, 19. 
 
 Exercise. See athletics. 
 
 Tj*LORENCE, government in, 49. 
 
 X/ Football, compared with teach- 
 ing, 9 ; rules in, 124. See also ath- 
 letics. 
 
 France, importance in history, 82 ; 
 topical work on, 87. 
 
 Freeman, E. A., "Outlines," 76. 
 
 French, in grammar schools, 41. 
 
 HIS 
 
 f^AR FIELD, J. A., began as a 
 
 vj teacher, 7. 
 
 General history, difficulty of, 76, 106: 
 time devoted to, 96, 98. 
 
 Geography, study in Cambridge, 36, 
 43 ; Harvard teachers' course in, 
 62, 66, 68 ; historical in schools, 
 101, 116. 
 
 Geometry, study in Cambridge, 40 ; 
 Harvard teachers' course, 59, 66, 
 68. 
 
 German, in grammar schools, 41. 
 
 Germany, boys in, compared with 
 Americans, 42 ; ancient Germans, 
 80; unification of, 82; historical 
 methods in, 106. 
 
 Grammar schools, teachers little con- 
 sulted, 12; place in education, 15 ; 
 college graduates as teachers, 17 ; 
 departmental instruction, 20, 34 ; 
 reform in, 22-48 ; interest of super- 
 intendents, 23 ; in Cambridge, 26- 
 48 : function of, 28, 29 ; question of 
 separation of pupils, 29 ; length of 
 the course, 29-31, " skipping " in, 
 30-32 ; two grades in a room, 
 32 ; democracy in, 34 ; old Cam- 
 bridge curriculum, 35-37! four and 
 six years course, 37 ; study of lan- 
 guage, 38, 41 ; new subjects, 38-46 ; 
 arithmetic, 39; geometry, 40; alge- 
 bra, 41 ; reading, 43 ; geography, 
 43 ; physics, 44. 
 
 Greece, importance of history, 80. 
 
 Guicciardiui, dulness of, 77. 
 
 HARVARD University, experi- 
 ence of Professor 15., i ; the 
 president of, 3 ; on weather-proph- 
 ets, 10 : faculty and overseers, 12 ; 
 aids to Cambridge giammar schools, 
 46; teachers' couises, 57-63; in- 
 structors in Radcliffe College, 69 ; 
 Carlyle's Cromwell books, 85 ; old 
 methods in history, 91 : first boat- 
 race with Vale. 127 ; football no 
 play, 131 ; athletic expendiiuies, 
 138 ; effect of Yale games, 134 ; 
 graduate management of athletics, 
 138 ; faculty restrictions on athletics, 
 139; committee on athletics, 145. 
 
 High schools, teachers' courses, 71. 
 
 History, teachers' courses in, 63, 66 ; 
 how to study, 75-90 ; reading of 
 75 ; teaching of, 75 ; study cf, 76 ; 
 must choose a definite subject, 76 ; 
 criteria of selections, 77 ; avoid 
 wars, 78 ; study people who thought ; 
 Greek and Roman, So', Crusades,
 
 JTnDej. 
 
 149 
 
 ITA 
 
 8t ; Renaissance, 81 ; Reformation, 
 81 ; France, 82 ; Stuart period, 82 ; 
 French Revolution, 82 ; unification of 
 Germany, 82 ; brief books, 83 ; sug- 
 gestive books, 83 ; marginal notes, 
 84; written outline, 85 ; co-operative 
 methods, 86; note-taking, 87; use 
 of sources, 89 ; summary, 90 ; teach- 
 ing in secondary schojls, 91, 121 ; 
 ol I me hods, 91 ; imp ovements, 92 ; 
 time spent, 93, 94, 105 ; distribution 
 of time, 94, 95, 105; aims, 95, 107; 
 preparation for college, 97 ; lecture 
 systems, 97, no ; recitation, 97, 109 ; 
 text -books, 97, 104, 108 ; topical 
 method, 98, 111-114; libraries, 99, 
 104, 114; use of books of reference, 
 100,112; home reading, 100, 115 ; 
 written exercises, 101, in; histori- 
 cal geography, 101, 116 ; maps, 102, 
 114, 116; practical effect, 103, 116 ; 
 unsatisfactory condition, 104 ; an- 
 cient, mediaeval, and modern, 105 ; 
 centrifusal and centripetal methods, 
 106 ; value of facts, 107 ; bibliog- 
 raphy, 117-121. 
 
 TTALY, Renaissance in, 81 ; unifi- 
 J. cation of, 82. 
 
 T EFFERSON, Thomas, opinions 
 J on architecture, 21. 
 Johns Hopkins University, impetus to 
 education, 16. 
 
 "Iy r OSSUTH, criticism of, in New 
 _LV England, i. 
 
 T ANGUAGES, study in grammar 
 I ^ schools, 41-43. 
 Latin in grammar schools, 41. 
 Latrobe, architect of the Capitol, 2. 
 Lectures in schools, 97, no. 
 Legal profession, status of, 4 ; bar ex- 
 
 uminations, 12, 19. 
 Leland Stanford, Jr., University 
 
 teachers' courses, 56. 
 Library, Boston, built by non-experts, 
 
 3 ; school libraries, 99, 104. 
 Literature. See English. 
 
 MANN, Horace, on normal 
 schools, 51. 
 
 Map-drawing, in schools, 102, n6. 
 Maps, use in schools, 102, 116. 
 
 ROM 
 
 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 
 
 courses for teachers, 56, 61. 
 Mediaeval history, interest of, 81 ; time 
 
 spent in, 95, 105. 
 Medicine, status of profession, 4 ; 
 
 choice of medical professions, 22. 
 Memorizing, 109. 
 Methods, cant about, 15. 
 Military history, not interesting, 78. 
 Ministry, status of profession, 3. 
 Modern history, study of, 82, 94. 
 Modern languages, in grammar 
 
 schools, 41-43. 
 
 NATIONAL Educational Associa- 
 tion, 9. 
 
 Normal training, recent, 8 : improve- 
 ment in, 16 ; established in Massa- 
 chusetts, 51 ; advantages of teachers' 
 courses, 73. 
 
 Note-taking, system of, 87-89 ; in 
 schools, no. 
 
 o 
 
 LD South lectures, 110. 
 Outlines, historical, 85. 
 
 teachers' courses 
 -IT in, 70. 
 
 Pedagogy, teachers' courses in, 64. 
 
 Physical geography. See geography. 
 
 Physics, in Cambridge grammar 
 schools, 44 ; apparatus, 45 ; Harvard 
 teachers' courses, 61, 68. 
 
 Politics, lack of experts, 2, 3. 
 
 Presbyterian government, 13. 
 
 Princeton College, athletics, 134 ; grad- 
 uate management, 138. 
 
 Profession, of teaching, 1-22 ; status of 
 learned, 3, 4 ; characteristics, 6. 
 
 " Professional " in athletics, 125. 
 
 Promotion, without examinations, 37. 
 
 Psychology, study of, 52. 
 
 Public opinion, interest in education, 
 20, 24, 50. 
 
 Public schools, status of teachers in, 
 ii ; interest of colleges in, 49. See 
 also grammar schools, teachers. 
 
 OADCLIFFE College, instructors' 
 JX. fees in, 69. 
 Reading, reform in schools, 43, 60 ; 
 
 historical, 100, 115. 
 
 Reformation, historical importance, 81. 
 Renaissance, historical importance, 81. 
 Research, in schools, in. 
 Rome, Romans did not value learning,
 
 InDej. 
 
 ROT 
 
 S ; overthrow, 80 ; historical impor- 
 tance, 81. 
 Rotation in office, 3. 
 
 CCHOOL BOARDS, advantage of, 
 vJ 19 ; out of teachers' hands, 22 ; 
 
 power of, 23 ; relations to teachers' 
 
 courses, 70, 72. 
 Sciences, in grammar schools, 44 : in 
 
 schools, 61 ; for teachers, 61. 
 Secondary schools, qualifications for 
 
 teachers, 17 : history in, 91-121. 
 "Skippers," in Cambridge, 31, 32. 
 Sources, use in studying history, 89. 
 Spanish, little use for, 41. 
 Spelling, teaching of, 43. 
 Summer schools for teachers, 52. 
 Superintendents, should trust teachers 
 
 more, 13 ; power of, 23. 
 Switzerland, historical importance, So. 
 
 '"PEACHERS, profession of, 1-21 ; 
 JL low popular estimate, 4, n ; often 
 a makeshift, 6 ; lack of opportunities, 
 7 ; associations, 8, 20, 50 ; no State 
 examinations, 12, 19 ; too much su- 
 pervised, 13 ; conservative, 14 ; cant, 
 15 ; need of training, n, 16, 50 ; well- 
 off, 17 ; departmental instruction, 
 20 : Teachers' Council, 20 ; lack of 
 influence, 22, 23, 25 ; interest in re- 
 forms, 27 ; two grades at once, 32 ; of 
 languages, 42 ; of physics, 46 ; train- 
 ing of, 46 , institutes, 52 ; meetings, 
 52 : study of psychology, 52. 
 
 Text-books, historical, for private 
 study, 83 ; for schools, 97, 108, no. 
 
 Thornton, Dr. William, i. 
 
 Topical method in history, 86, 87, 95, 
 98-100, 111-114. 
 
 Tours, battle of, 79. 
 
 YAL 
 
 Training of pupils, 50 ; of teachers by 
 colleges, 1 6, 49-74 ; lack of, 104. 
 
 UNITED States. See Ameri- 
 can. 
 
 University. See colleges. 
 
 University of Minnesota, 56. 
 
 Unive.sity of Pennsylvania, 56, 63. 
 
 University extension, as a lecture 
 bureau, 53 ; not university work, 54 ; 
 adapted for teachers, 55 ; substitute 
 for, 49-74. 
 
 University participation, in general, 
 49-74 ; reason for, 55 ; objects and 
 method, 56 ; should be specific, 57 ; 
 time, 58 ; subjects, 58 ; geometry, 
 59 : English, 59 ; sciences, 61 ; phy- 
 sics, 61 ; geography, 62 : botany, 
 62 ; history, 63 ; high-school studies, 
 64 ; pedagogy, 64 ; methods, 64 ; 
 place, 65 ; instructors, 65 ; illus- 
 trations, 66 ; connection with class- 
 rooms, 68 ; work of the teachers, 
 68 ; expense, 69 ; duty of the uni- 
 versities. 71 ; how far applicable, 71 ; 
 duty of school boards, 72 ; advan- 
 tages, 73. 
 
 WARS, not interesting, 78. 
 Washington, George, as a 
 model, n. 
 
 Waterloo, battle of, 79. 
 Workingmen's School, 33. 
 Written exercises, in history, 101. 
 
 YALE University, influence of 
 the faculty, 12 ; first boat-race 
 with Harvard, 127 ; athletic expen- 
 ditures, 132; effect of Harvard 
 games, 134 ; regulation of athletics, 
 137. 138.
 
 PRACTICAL ESSAYS 
 ON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 
 
 By ALBERT BUSHNELL HART, Ph.D., of Harvard University, 
 Author of " Epoch Maps," " Introduction to the Study of 
 Federal Government," etc. izmo, cloth, gilt top, $1.50. 
 
 Contents : The Speaker as Premier The Exercise of the Suf- 
 frage The Election of a President Do the People Wish Civil 
 Service Reform ? The Chilean Controversy A Study in American 
 Diplomacy The Colonial Town Meeting The Colonial Shire 
 The Rise of American Cities The Biography of a River and Har- 
 bor Bill The Public Land Policy of the United States Why the 
 South was Defeated in the Civil War Index. 
 
 14 Dr. Hart demonstrates by this book, as we think no one else 
 has so well demonstrated, the possible close connection between 
 academic study and practical politics." Atlantic Monthly. 
 
 "The book is a solid, substantial, and most satisfactory piece of 
 honest work. The author has selected his sheaves with excellent 
 judgment, and threshed the grain out of them to the very best of 
 his ability. There is no eye-service in it no paragraph written to 
 round out an article or help fill the pages of a magazine. Prof. 
 Hart has worked for his readers with a will, and there is no reader 
 so well informed on the topics of the book that he will not find it in- 
 teresting, suggestive, and instructive. . . . Take the masterly 
 exposition of one of the most important many people will say the 
 most important of American public questions, the exercise of the 
 suffrage. It will astonish almost every reader that such a wealth 
 of thought, research, and information can be compressed into the 
 limits of such an article, and yet be interesting, clear, and indeed 
 attractive." The Nation. 
 
 " We have found nearly all of them interesting, and some of them 
 suggestive. One quality that marks the collection is a refreshing 
 surprise; we mean the entire absence of economic discussion. . . . 
 Prof. Hart has opened a different field, and has given us some things 
 that are fresh and bright . . . well worthy of perusal by the 
 thoughtful citizens." The Critic. 
 
 " Practical essays are difficult undertakings ; it is hard to always 
 distinguish between fact and theory, and to present the one effect- 
 ively and eliminate the other successfully. Prof. Hart seems to 
 have attained a high degree of proficiency in this accomplishment, 
 and his ' Practical Essays on American Government' will commend 
 themselves to statesman, citizen, and student alike. . . . The 
 essays are all remarkable for the foresight and intuition they 
 display." Nassau Literary Magazine. 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO., 91-93 Fifth Avenue, New York
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, &> CO.' S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 A GENERAL VIEW OF THE POLITICAL 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
 
 By ERNEST LAVISSE, Professor at the Sorbonne. Translated, with the 
 Author's sanction, by CHARLES GROSS, Ph.D., Instructor in History, 
 Harvard University. I2mo, 200 pages. With Index. $1.25. 
 
 The title of Professor Lavisse's work is Vue Ginlrale dt fffistoire Politiqtte 
 del' Europe. (Third edition. Paris: Armand Colin & Co. 1890.) While giv- 
 ing essential facts of universal history, he aims, above all, to describe the for- 
 mation and political development of the states of Europe, and to indicate the 
 historical causes of their present condition and mutual relations. In other 
 words, he shows how the existing political divisions of Europe, with their 
 peculiar tendencies, were created. To accomplish this, it was necessary to 
 begin with the history of Greece and Rome, which played an important part 
 in Europe long after their death ; then, to show the potent influence of the 
 Holy Roman Empire and of the Papacy in the Middle Ages ; next, to point out 
 how these two great ideal powers were superseded by modern Europe, an 
 organic entity composed of various states, new and old, most of which were 
 dominated by the monarchical idea ; and, finally, how, in the nineteenth cen- 
 tury, the new principle of nationality and the power of the people have sup- 
 planted the old monarchical element. The ability of Professor Lavisse to com- 
 press the essence of a great event or sequence of events into a few comprehen- 
 sive and expressive sentences, has enabled him to accomplish his difficult task 
 with signal success. At any rate, this is the opinion of the Translator, and 
 hence he believes that the work will prove useful to general readers, as well as 
 to college students, in America and England. 
 
 \* A prospectus with specimen pages sent on application. 
 
 " This is an admirable little book, and Dr. Gross, in selecting and translat- 
 ing it, has rendered good service to historical education. M. Lavisse, who is 
 known by his recent work on the history of Prussia, brings to the difficult task 
 here achieved accurate knowledge combined with a fine sense of proportion 
 and value, and much skill in tracing the movements of great currents under 
 the criscross play of local and momentary surface commotion. He writes for 
 the most part quite simply and clearly, with a true conversational ease, so that 
 the reader comes to think the writing of philosophical history the easiest thing 
 in the world ; yet if any one will try to express in no more pages than suffice 
 for M. Lavisse the nature of the Roman Empire, or the rise of Christianity, or 
 the growth of Prussian power of French nationality, he may not be readily 
 satisfied with the result. With all its ease the style has a nervous suggestive- 
 ness provocative of thought, so that the book is one of those that repay a 
 second reading better than the first, and a third better than the second. If 
 Professor Lavisse lectures thus, his hearers must be accounted fortunate. . . 
 The translation adheres closely to the original, which it presents in style as well 
 as in meaning." The Nation, New York. 
 
 ** For other books dealing with Political History, see Longmans, Green, 6* 
 Co's Catalogue of Educational Works. 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, # CO., 91-93 Fifth Avenue, New York
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, & COS S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 EPOCHS OF AMERICAN HISTORY. 
 
 MESSRS. LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. have the pleasure to state 
 that they are now publishing a short series of books treating of the history 
 of America, under the general title EPOCHS OF AMERICAN HISTORY. The 
 series is under the editorship of DR. ALBERT BUSHNELL HART, Assistant 
 Professor of History in Harvard College, who has also prepared all the maps 
 for the several volumes. Each volume contains about 300 pages, similar in 
 size and style to the page of the volumes in Messrs. Longmans' series, 
 ' Epochs of Modern History,' with full marginal analysis, working bibliogra- 
 phies, maps, and index. The volumes are issued separately, and each is 
 complete in itself. The volumes now ready provide a continuous history 
 of the United States from the foundation of the Colonies to the present 
 time, suited to and intended for class use as well as for general reading and 
 reference. 
 
 ** The volumes of this series already issued have been adopted for use as text- 
 books in nearly all the leading Colleges and in many Normal Schools and other 
 institutions, A prospectus, showing Contents and scope of each volume, specimen 
 pages, etc, , will be sent on application to the Publishers. 
 
 I. THE COLONIES, 1492-1750. 
 
 By REUBEN GOLD THWAITES, Secretary of the State Historical Society of 
 Wisconsin ; author of " Historic Waterways," etc. With four colored 
 maps. pp. xviii.-3Ol. Cloth. $1.25. 
 
 CORNBLL UNIVERSITY. 
 
 41 1 beg leave to acknowledge your courtesy in sending me a copy of the first 
 volume in the series of ' Epochs of American History,' which I have read with 
 great interest and satisfaction. I am pleased, as everyone must be, with the 
 mechanical execution of the book, with the maps, and with the fresh and valua- 
 ble ' Suggestions ' and ' References. ' . . . . The work itself appears to 
 me to be quite remarkable for its comprehensiveness, and it presents a vast 
 array of subjects in a way that is admirably fair, clear and orderly." Professor 
 MOSES COIT TYLER, Ithaca, N. Y. 
 
 WILLIAMS COLLBGB. 
 
 " It is just the book needed for college students, not too brief to be uninter- 
 esting, admirable in its plan, and well furnished with references to accessible 
 authorities." Professor RICHARD A RICE, Williamstown, Mass. 
 
 VASSAR COLLEGE. 
 
 " Perhaps the best recommendation of ' Thwaites 1 American Colonies ' is 
 the fact that the day after it was received I ordered copies for class-room use. 
 The book is admirable." Professor LUCY M. SALMON, Poughkeepsie, N. Y. 
 
 " All that could be desired. This volume is more like a fair treatment of the 
 whole subject of the colonies than any work of the sort yet produced.' 1 
 
 The Critic. 
 
 " The subject is virtually a fresh one as approached by Mr. Thwaites. It is 
 * pleasure to call especial attention to some most helpful bibliographical notet 
 provided at the head of each chapter.'' The Nation. 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO., 91-93 Fifth Avenue, New York,
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, & COS S PUBLICATIONS. 
 EPOCHS OF AMERICAN HISTORY. 
 
 II. FORMATION OF THE UNION, 1750-1829. 
 
 By ALBERT BUSHNELL HART, PH.D. Assistant Professor of History in 
 Harvard University, Member of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 
 Author of "Introduction to the Study of Federal Government," 
 "Epoch Maps," etc. With five colored maps. pp. xx.-278. Cloth. 
 $1.25. 
 
 The second volume of the EPOCHS OF AMERICAN HISTORY aims to follow 
 out the principles laid down for "THE COLONIES," the study of causes 
 rather than of events, the development of the American nation out of scattered 
 and inharmonious colonies. The throwing off of English control, the growth 
 out of narrow political conditions, the struggle against foreign domination, and 
 the extension of popular government, are all parts of the uninterrupted process 
 of the Formation of the Union. 
 
 LELAND STANFORD JR. UNIVERSITY. 
 
 " The large and sweeping treatment of the subject, which shows the true re- 
 lations of the events preceding and following the revolution, to the revolution 
 itself, is a real addition to the literature of the subject ; while the bibliography 
 prefixed to each chapter, adds incalculably to the value of the work. " MARY 
 SHELDON BARNES, Palo Alto, Cal. 
 
 " It is a careful and conscientious study of the period and its events, and 
 should find a place among the text-books of our public schools. " 
 
 Boston Transcript. 
 
 " Professor Hart has compressed a vast deal of information into his volume, 
 and makes many things most clear and striking. His maps, showing the terri- 
 torial growth of the United States, are extremely interesting." 
 
 New York Times. 
 
 " . . The causes of the Revolution are clearly and cleverly condensed into 
 a few pages. . . The maps in the work are singularly useful even to adults. 
 There are five of these, which are alone worth the price of the volume." 
 
 Magazine of American History. 
 
 " The formation period of our nation is treated with much care and with 
 great precision. Each chapter is prefaced with copious references to authori- 
 ties, which are valuable to the student who desires to pursue his reading more 
 extensively. There are five valuable maps showing the growth of our country 
 by successive stages and repeated acquisition of territory." 
 
 Boston Advertiser. 
 
 " Dr. Hart is not only a master of the art of condensation, . . . he is 
 what is even of greater importance, an interpreter of history. He perceives 
 the logic of historic events ; hence, in his condensation, he does not neglect 
 proportion, and more than once he gives the student valuable clues to the 
 solution of historical problems." Atlantic Monthly. 
 
 " A valuable volume of a valuable series. The author has written with n 
 full knowledge of his subject, and we have little to say except in praise." 
 
 English Historical Review. 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO., 91-93 Fifth Avenue, New York.
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 EPOCHS OF AMERICAN HISTORY. 
 
 III. DIVISION AND RE-UNION, 1829-1889. 
 
 By WOODROW WILSON, Ph.D., LL.D., Professor of Jurisprudence in 
 Princeton College ; Author of "Congressional Government," "The 
 State Elements of Historical and Practkal Politics," etc., etc. With 
 five colored Maps. 346 pages. Cloth, $1.25. 
 
 " We regret that we have not space for more quotations from this uncom 
 monly strong, impartial, interesting book. Giving only enough facts to 
 elucidate the matter discussed, it omits no important questions. It furnishes 
 the reader clear-cut views of the right and the wrong of them all. It gives ad- 
 mirable pen-portraits of the great personages of the period with as much free- 
 dom from bias, and as much pains to be just, as if the author were delineating 
 Pericles, or Alcibiades, Sulla, or Caesar. Dr. Wilson has earned the gratitude of 
 seekers after truth by his masterly production." N. C. University Magazine, 
 
 " This admirable little volume is one of the few books which nearly meet our 
 ideal of history. It is causal history in the truest sense, tracing the workings of 
 latent influences and far-reaching conditions of their outcome in striking fact, 
 yet the whole current of events is kept in view, and the great personalities of 
 the time, the nerve-centers of history, live intensely and in due proportion in 
 these pages. We do not know the equal of this book for a brief and trust- 
 worthy, and, at the same time, a brilliantly written and sufficient history of these 
 sixty years. We heartily commend it, not only for general reading, but as an 
 admirable text-book." Post-Graduate and Wooster Quarterly. 
 
 " Considered as a general history of the United States from 1829 to 1889, 
 his book is marked by excellent sense of proportion, extensive knowledge, im- 
 partiality of judgment, unusual power of summarizing, and an acute political 
 sense. Few writers can more vividly set forth the views of parties." 
 
 Atlantic Monthly. 
 
 " Students of United States history may thank Mr. Wilson for an extreme- 
 ly clear and careful rendering of a period very difficult to handle . . . they 
 will find themselves materially aided in easy comprehension of the political 
 situation of the country by the excellent maps." ./V. Y. Times. 
 
 " Professor Wilson writes in a clear and forcible style. . . . The bibli- 
 ographical references at the head of each chapter are both well selected and 
 |well arranged, and add greatly to the value of the work, which appears to be 
 especially designed for use in instruction in colleges and preparatory schools." 
 
 Yale Review. 
 
 " It is written in a style admirably clear, vigorous, and attractive, a thorough 
 grasp of the subject is shown, and the development of the theme is lucid and 
 orderly, while the tone is judicial and fair, and the deductions sensible and 
 dispassionate so far as we can see. ... It would be difficult to construct 
 a better manual of the subject than this, and it adds greatly to the value of this 
 useful series." Hartford Courant. 
 
 ". . . One of the most valuable historical works that has appeared in 
 many years. The delicate period of our country's history, with which this 
 work is largely taken up, is treated by the author with an impartiality that is 
 almost unique." Columtia Law Times. 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO., 91-93 Fifth Avenue, New York,
 
 LONGMANS, GREEK, & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 ENGLISH HISTORY FOR AMERICANS. 
 
 By THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON, Author of "Young Folks' His- 
 tory of the United States," etc., and EDWARD CHANNING, Assistant 
 Professor of History in Harvard University. With 77 Illustrations, 6 
 Colored Maps, Bibliography, a Chronological Table of Contests, and 
 Index. i2mo. Pp. xxxii-334. Teachers' price, $1.20. 
 
 The name " English History for Americans," which suggests the key-note of 
 this book, is based on the simple fact that it is not the practice of American 
 readers, old or young, to give to English history more than a limited portion ol 
 their hours of study. ... It seems clear that such readers will use their 
 time to the best advantage if they devote it mainly to those events in English 
 annals which have had the most direct influence on the history and institutions 
 of their own land. . . . The authors of this book have therefore boldly 
 ventured to modify in their narrative the accustomed scale of proportion ; while 
 it has been their wish, in the treatment of every detail, to accept the best re- 
 sult of modern English investigation, and especially to avoid all unfair or 
 one-sided judgments. . . . Extracts from Author 1 s Preface. 
 
 DR. W. T. HARRIS, U. S. COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION. 
 " I take great pleasure in acknowledging the receipt of the book, and be- 
 lieve it to be the best introduction to English history hitherto made for the use 
 of schools. It is just what is needed in the school and in the family. It is the 
 first history of England that I have seen which gives proper attention to socio- 
 logy and the evolution of political ideas, without neglecting what is picturesque 
 and interesting to the popular taste. The device of placing the four historical 
 maps at the beginning and end deserves special mention for its convenience. 
 Allow me to congratulate you on the publication of so excellent a text-book." 
 
 ROXBURY LATIN SCHOOL. 
 
 '. . . The most noticeable and commendable feature in the book seems 
 to be its Unity. ... I felt the same reluctance to lay the volume down 
 . . . that one experiences in reading a great play or a well-constructed 
 novel. Several things besides the unity conspire thus seductively to lead the 
 reader on. The page is open and attractive, the chapters are short, the type 
 is large and clear, the pictures are well chosen and significant, a surprising 
 number of anecdotes told in a crisp and masterful manner throw valuable side- 
 lights on the main narrative ; the philosophy of history is undeniably there, but 
 sugar-coated, and the graceful style would do credit to a Macaulay. I shall 
 immediately recommend it for use in our school." DR. D. O. S. LOWELL. 
 
 LAWRENCEVILLE SCHOOL. 
 
 " In answer to your note of February 23d I beg to say that we have intro- 
 duced your Higginson's English History into our graduating class and are 
 much pleased with it Therefore whatever endorsement I, as a member of the 
 Committee of Ten, could give the book has already been given by my action 
 in placing it in our classes." JAMES C. MACKENZIE, Lawrenceville, N. J. 
 
 ANN ARBOR HIGH SCHOOL. 
 
 " It seems to me the book will do for English history in this country what 
 the ' Young Folks' History of the United States ' has done for the history of our 
 own country and I consider this high praise." 
 
 T. G. PATTENGILL, Ann Arbor, Mich. 
 
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