motive, he will work not merely to master his vocation' but his enthusiasm will extend to his other studies. His English, his history, his mathematics, will not mean the same to him when he sees that they will help him along the line of his chosen work. He may even see the relation of the study of foreign languages to his future career, and, if he does, he is in a position to get some real benefit from it. In fact, it is not the purpose of vocational inspiration to narrow the pupil's interests, but to broaden them and make them many-sided.

SOME RESULTS OF FALSE EDUCATIONAL IDEALS

It is extremely important to-day in the education of boys and girls to inculcate a proper attitude toward work. The movement toward the education of all the people without changing our educational system to meet the new conditions has tended to create in the minds of many people the feeling that work is degrading, and all of us are dominated to a greater or less degree by the old conception of education that its purpose is to help us to keep from working. As Principal Lewis says, "there are thousands of men whom the Lord intended to follow the plow and drive nails, gouging each other and mulcting the public in the shabby genteel rush after patients, clients, and congregations. Pills and red tape are dispensed everywhere, but you have to hunt a long time. before you can find the man who can plant the garden or fix the storm window. This is because our educational train has been through scheduled for the professions, and the thousands who found that they did not care to reach this destination have been bowled off like mail sacks wherever it happened, instead of being comfortably landed where they ought to have gone."

The report of the census of 1910 says: "It is a

significant fact that between 1900 and 1910, the urban population increased 34.8 per cent and the rural population only 11.2 per cent. The report shows that the farm acreage increased only 4.8 per cent. The cereal products increased 3.5 per cent in acreage, 1.7 per cent in quantity, and 79.8 per cent in value.” This explains, in part at least, our high cost of living. So many people have left the farm that there are not enough remaining to supply the rest with raw products. Thus, all society has to suffer because of our false educational ideals, which have resulted in an improper vocational adjustment.

Not only has the old régime with its Latin, ancient history, and algebra absolutely failed in preparing men and women vocationally to perform their proper functions in society; but it has actually driven them out of school before they received even the rudiments of an education. Professor Thorndike of Columbia University, in a careful, scientific investigation of the elimination of pupils from the schools, says in a report made for the United States Bureau of Education that, out of every 100 pupils entering school, 10 have dropped out by the end of the third grade, 19 by the end of the fourth, 32 by the end of the fifth, 46 by the end of the sixth, and 60 by the end of the seventh. Only 27 enter first-year high school, 17 enter the second, 12 enter the third, and 8 enter the fourth year. He does not tell how many graduate.

As to the cause of the elimination, Professor Thorndike says: "One of the main causes for the elimination is incapacity for and lack of interest in the sort of intellectual work demanded by the present course of study." With this view such educators as Professor Dewey, ex-President Eliot, Dr. Cubberley, Dr. Winship, and, in fact, all the progressive educators of the day agree. The

governor of Massachusetts, a few years ago, appointed a commission to look into the question, and after a study embracing 5,500 children in over 3,000 homes this commission came to the conclusion that these boys and girls did not have to drop out of school because they were not able financially to stay in, but they dropped out because of a lack of interest in and appreciation of the course of study.

Yet, in spite of the failure of the old régime to meet the educational needs of the great majority of our people, we still continue to talk about high aims in education and cry "fad" if anybody says anything about the practical study that will interest boys and girls and keep them in school.

We do not want to leave the impression that we are in favor of the elimination of the old-time cultural study from our school program. Latin, ancient history, and algebra have served a noble purpose for a great many men and women in the past, and there is a class which they will reach at present; but the class is comparatively small. Granting that these old-time studies are good, there is a chance of one's having even too much of a good thing. We once knew an old doctor who prescribed just one kind of medicine. The first thing he did when he came into the sick room was to ask the patient to "stick out" his tongue, and we always knew beforehand the results of his diagnosis: "You need a course of calomel." Now calomel is a good medicine for many purposes, but this old doctor is the only one we ever knew who thought it was a remedy for all diseases. Latin is a good tonic for a good many boys and girls who have a taste for intellectual pursuits, but this is not true of the great majority of them, who are motor-minded, and we make a great mistake when we prescribe a dose

of Latin, algebra, and ancient history for every patient that comes to us.

PUT FIRST THINGS FIRST

One trouble with our educational system is that it is not adapted to the needs of the pupils; another is that it does not put first things first. Interested in what we call the higher things of life, we have lost sight of those things that are more fundamental. We are like the man who built his house on the sand. As long as the weather was fair, the sand foundation did as well as any other, and nobody could tell the difference between the house on the sand and that which was founded on the rock. But when the floods came, the winds blew, and the rain descended, the difference was easily seen. We suspect that the man who built his house on the sand even laughed at his neighbor for doing so much work in digging down to the rock for a foundation. When education was a luxury for the rich, rather than a necessity for the common man as it is to-day, it made but little difference what the boys and girls studied in school, just so they were acquiring some information their less fortunate neighbors did not have. But in this day of sharp competition, when conditions demand that everyone have that training which best prepares him for his place in life, it does make a great difference, and the difference is a matter of success or failure.

When we visited the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo in 1901, we saw a house upside down. It was poised on the roof and the foundation was pointing upward. This house attracted the attention of everybody, for all knew that that was not the proper position for a house. All knew that the foundation should come first, then the body of the house, then the roof. This

is as true of education as it is of houses.

The physical

Man never

comes first, then the mental and the moral. begins to advance in civilization until his physical needs have been satisfied. We may seem to be able to satisfy his higher needs before we satisfy the lower ones, but in attempting to do so we shall make a situation that is as ill-adapted to its environment as the house that was built upside down. The satisfaction of the higher needs always follows the satisfaction of the lower. This is why the missionary societies are beginning to see the importance of sending the physician to care for the body of the heathen along with the preacher who cares for his soul. This is why they are building hotels, sanitariums, bath houses, as they have never done before. They are no longer satisfied with merely teaching the people about the higher things of life. They are realizing that man is not in a condition to talk about the higher things until he is supplied with bread, meat, warm clothing, and sufficient shelter. The sad condition in many rural communities existing, in spite of the fact that much money is being spent to give them the advantages of good schools, is due to our trying to give them what we call the cultural side of education before helping them to satisfy their physical needs. The average man in such a community has to work so hard to secure a livelihood that he has no time to enjoy this culture if he had it. The first and most important thing is to give him skill in his vocation so that he can readily satisfy his physical wants; then he will have the time and the disposition to satisfy his higher desires. The vast amount of money appropriated by legislatures for rural schools will be absolutely wasted if it does not give the people of the rural communities greater vocational skill. These people must learn to plant and cultivate crops to advantage before