curiosities and oddities in the way of cataracts, water gaps, caves, strange animals, public buildings, picturesque costumes, national exaggerations, and such matters as would furnish good themes for sailors' yarns. Little or nothing was taught to give unity to the isolated details furnished in endless number. It was an improvement on this when the method of memorizing capital cities and political boundaries succeeded. With this came the era of map drawing. The study of watersheds and commercial routes, of industrial productions and centers of manufacture and commerce, has been adopted in the better class of schools. Instruction in geography is growing better by the constant introduction of new devices to make plain and intelligible the determining influence of physical causes in producing the elements of difference and the counter process of industry and commerce by which each difference is rendered of use to the whole world and each locality made a participator in the productions of all.

D. HISTORY.

The next study, ranked in order of value, for the elementary school is history. But, as will be seen, the value of history, both practically and psychologically, is less in the beginning and greater at the end than geography. For it relates to the institutions of men, and especially to the political state and its evolution. While biography narrates the career of the individual, civil history records the careers of nations. The nation has been compared to the individual by persons interested in the educational value of history. Man has two selves, they say, the individual self and the collective self of the organized state or nation. The study of history is, then, the study of this larger, corporate, social, and civil self. The importance of this idea is thus brought out more clearly in its educational significance. For to learn this civil self is to learn the substantial condition which makes possible the existence of civilized man in all his other social combinations-the family, the church, and the manifold associated activities of civil society. For the state protects these combinations from destruction by violence. It defines the limits of individual and associated effort, within which each endeavor reenforces the endeavors of all, and it uses the strength of the whole nation to prevent such actions as pass beyond these safe limits and tend to collision with the normal action of the other individuals and social units. Hobbes called the state a leviathan, to emphasize its stupendous individuality and organized self-activity. Without this, he said, man lives in a state of "constant war, fear, poverty, filth, ignorance, and wretchedness; within the state dwell peace, security, riches, science, and happiness." The state is the collective man who "makes possible the rational development of the individual man, like a mortal God, subduing his caprice and passion and compelling obedience to law, developing the ideas of justice, virtue, and religion, creating property and ownership, nurture and

ation of the child into a knowledge of this within the nurture of the family. The child me town officer, some public building, a courtestes or hears of an act of violence, a case of robwed by arrest of the guilty. The omnipresent as been invisible hitherto, now becomes visible to at still more in its acts.

is contended, should be the special branch for es of citizenship. There is ground for this claim. se of belonging to a higher social unity which possolute control over person and property in the of the whole. This, of course, is the basis of al must feel this or see this solidarity of the seme authority. But history shows the colthe victory of one political ideal accompanied

History reveals an evolution of forms of becter and better adapted to permit individual sation of all citizens in the administration of

c own government have a special interest in a! evolution as exhibited in history. But it has evolution has not been well presented by

For instance, the familiar example of old-time Roza in republic was conceived as a freer gova capire that followed it by persons apparently essentative self-government associated with was the beginning of a new epoch when this The college student became aware of the true mariely, the supremacy of an oligarchy on ovinces in Spain, Gaul, Asia Minor, Gerends and with an ever-increasing arroRome, not having a share in the camat appreciate the qualities of the great the nations by forbearance, magnaon of a sphere of freedom secured to aws, which were rigidly enforced by › yo'once of arms. The change from bordination of this tyrannical of the rights of the provinces to w how easily a poor teaching of purpose into a bad one. For secured a degree of freedom m spite of the election of he imperial purple. The civil he aars of distant countries, and cultivating a love for

accumulating private property. Those countries had before lived communistically after the style of the tribe or at best of the village community. Roman private property in land gave an impulse to the development of free individuality such as had always been impossible under the social stage of development known as the village community. To teach history properly is to dispel this shallow illusion which flatters individualism and to open the eyes of the pupil to the true nature of freedom, namely, the freedom through obedience to just laws enforced by a strong government.

Your committee has made this apparent digression for the sake of a more explicit statement of its conviction of the importance of teaching history in a different spirit from that of abstract freedom, which sometimes means anarchy, although they admit the possibility of an opposite extreme, the danger of too little stress on the progressive element in the growth of nations and its manifestation in new and better political devices for representing all citizens without weakening the central power.

That the history of one's own nation is to be taught in the elementary school seems fixed by common consent. United States history includes first a sketch of the epoch of discoveries and next of the epoch of colonization. This fortunately suits the pedagogic require ments. For the child loves to approach the stern realities of a firmly established civilization through its stages of growth by means of individual enterprise. Here is the use of biography as introduction to history. It treats of exceptional individuals whose lives bring them in one way or another into national or even world historical relations. They throw light on the nature and necessity of governments, and are in turn illuminated by the light thrown back on them by the institutions which they promote or hinder. The era of semiprivate adventure with which American history begins is admirably adapted for study by the pupil in the elementary stage of his education. So, too, is the next epoch, that of colonization. The pioneer is a degree nearer to civilization than is the explorer and discoverer. In the colonial history the pupil interests himself in the enterprise of aspiring individualities, in their conquest over obstacles of climate and soil; their conflicts with the aboriginal population; their choice of land for settlement; the growth of their cities; above all, their several attempts and final success in forming a constitution securing local self-government. An epoch of growing interrelation of the colonies succeeds, a tendency to union on a large scale, due to the effect of European wars which involved England, France, and other countries, and affected the rela tions of their colonies in America. This epoch, too, abounds in heroic personalities, like Wolfe, Montcalm, and Washington, and perilous adventures, especially in the Indian warfare.

The fourth epoch is the Revolution, by which the Colonies throughth joint effort secured their independence and afterwards their uni

nation. The subject grows rapidly more complex and tasks severely the powers of the pupils in the eighth year of the elementary school. The formation of the Constitution, and a brief study of the salient features of the Constitution itself, conclude the study of the portion of the history of the United States that is sufficiently remote to be treated after the manner of an educational classic. Everything up to this point stands out in strong individual outlines and is admirably fitted for that elementary course of study. Beyond this point the war of 1812 and the war of the rebellion, together with the political events that led to it, are matters of memory with the present generation of parents and grandparents, and are consequently not so well fitted for intensive study in school as the already classic period of our history. But these later and latest epochs may be and will be read at home not only in the text-book on history used in the schools, but also in the numerous sketches that appear in newspapers, magazines, and in more pretentious shapes. In the intensive study which should be undertaken of the classic period of our history the pupil may be taught the method appropriate to historical investigation, the many points of view from which each event ought to be considered. He should learn to discriminate between the theatrical show of events and the solid influences that move underneath as ethical causes. Although he is too immature for far-reaching reflections, he must be helped to see the causal processes of history. Armed with this discipline in historic methods, the pupil will do all of his miscellaneous reading and thinking in this province with more adequate intellectual reaction than was possible before the intensive study carried on in school.

The study of the outlines of the Constitution for ten or fifteen weeks in the final year of the elementary school has been found of great educational value. Properly taught, it fixes the idea of the essential threefoldness of the constitution of a free government and the necessary independence of each constituent power, whether legislative, judicial, or executive. This and some idea of the manner and mode of filling the official places in these three departments, and of the character of the duties with which each department is charged, lay foundations for an intelligent citizenship.

Besides this intensive study of the history of the United States in the seventh and eighth years, your committee would recommend oral lessons on the salient points of general history, taking a full hour of sixty minutes weekly-and preferably all at one time-for the sake of the more systematic treatment of the subject of the lesson and the deeper impression made on the mind of the pupil.

E. OTHER BRANCHES.

Your committee has reviewed the staple branches of the elementary course of study in the light of their educational scope and significance.

Grammar, literature, arithmetic, geography, and history are the five branches upon which the disciplinary work of the elementary school is concentrated. Inasmuch as reading is the first of the scholastic arts, it is interesting to note that the whole elementary course may be described as an extension of the process of learning the art of reading. First comes the mastering of the colloquial vocabulary in printed and script forms. Next come five incursions into the special vocabularies required (a) in literature to express the fine shades of emotion and the more subtle distinctions of thought, (b) the technique of arithmetic, (c) of geography, (d) of grammar, (e) and of history.

In the serious work of mastering these several technical vocabularies the pupil is assigned daily tasks that he must prepare by independent study. The class exercise or recitation is taken up with examining and criticising the pupil's oral statements of what he has learned, especial care being taken to secure the pupil's explanation of it in his own words. This requires paraphrases and definitions of the new words and phrases used in technical and literary senses, with a view to insure the addition to the mind of the new ideas corresponding to the new words. The misunderstandings are corrected and the pupil set on the way to use more critical alertness in the preparation of his succeeding lessons. The pupil learns as much by the recitations of his fellowpupils as he learns from the teacher, but not, the same things. He sees in the imperfect statements of his classmates that they apprehended the lesson with different presuppositions, and consequently have seen some phases of the subject that escaped his observation, while they in turn have missed points which he had noticed quite readily. These different points of view become more or less his own, and he may be said to grow by adding to his own mind the minds of others.

It is clear that there are other branches of instruction that may lay claim to a place in the course of study of the elementary school; for example, the various branches of natural science, vocal music, manual training, physical culture, drawing, etc.

Here the question of another method of instruction is suggested. There are lessons that require previous preparation by the pupil himself; there are also lessons that may be taken up without such preparation and conducted by the teacher, who leads the exercise and furnishes a large part of the information to be learned, enlisting the aid of members of the class for the purpose of bringing home the new material to their actual experience. Besides these, there are mechanical exercises for purposes of training, such as drawing, penmanship, and calisthenics. In the first place, there is industrial and aesthetic drawing, which should have a place in all elementary school work. By it is secured the training of the hand and eye. Then, too, drawing helps in all the other branches that require illustration. Moreover, if used in the study of the great works of art in the way hereinbefore mentioned, it helps to cultivate the taste and prepares the future workman for a