lodge, a church, and of a state, just as it is of a school. The botanist does not make the laws of plant life, nor does the physician make the laws of the human body. The statesman does not make, but reveals, the laws of the state. He is the best botanist who has the clearest insight into the laws of plant life and can best reveal them. He is the best statesman who best understands the purposes and nature of the political organization called a state and gives the clearest enunciation of them. If the statesman were to promulgate a statute that would not help the state to perform its proper function, that statute would not be a law. The teacher's business is not to make the laws of the school, but to reveal them, and he is the best teacher who is most in sympathy with the nature and purposes of the school and can reveal its laws with accuracy.

The first step in bringing about the proper conditions in the school and in securing the proper attitude of the pupil toward law is to get him to understand thoroughly that its laws are not teacher-made, but that they are what they are because the school is what it is. This is the best place in the world for the teacher to take the pupil into her confidence and to have a heart-to-heart talk with him about the nature of the school and its laws. She should make it clear to him that she is not a dictator, a master whose word is law, but that she is a friend whose business it is to reveal the law of the school and that she can do this better than the pupil because she knows better than he the nature of the school organism. The next step is to get him to see that he is not the only one who must obey the law, but that the teacher, the superintendent, the school board, and the patron are as much subject to the law of the school as the humblest pupil. The real law of school life is violated by anv

one of these when he does anything that impairs or tends to impair, or when he fails to do anything that increases, the usefulness of the school. All these are bound as much as the pupil by the following obligation: I will be guilty of no line of conduct unless all may be guilty of the same without impairing or tending to impair the usefulness of the school. This includes the law of the school, and the governor of the state has no more right to violate it than has the smallest boy in the school.

If we can get the pupil to understand this fundamental law, he will have a different attitude toward the school and its work. If we can get him to understand that the highest function of the school is to bring about his normal growth and development, the problem of school discipline will have been solved. Our trouble in the past has been due to our dealing with the child as though the origin or nature of the school regulation were no concern of his; his business was to obey and ask no questions, and it is our opinion that he has conducted himself admirably under the circumstances. The child in many instances rebels against the law of the school because he feels that it is imposed by the arbitrary will of another without regard to his welfare.

TRUE LAW IN HARMONY WITH CHILD NATURE

The true laws of the school are in harmony with child nature, and the ideal school organism is such as will bring about the harmonious development of all the child's faculties. If the school does not take into consideration the child's instincts and present needs, it is not what it ought to be, nor is it founded on the true laws of school life. If it does not offer a suitable atmosphere for the normal growth of the child in every phase of its life, it is not a proper school for him. There is no better evidence

that there is something fundamentally wrong with the schools as they are organized at present than the fact that they do not bring about the harmonious development of all the child's faculties and do not secure his co-operation in their work. They do not lead the child, but drive him. The average boy would not attend school if his wishes were consulted. There are many things about the school that do not appeal to his nature. He feels that he is not in his normal element. He is cramped by the presence of the teacher, whom he regards, not as a friend and helper, but as a master whom he must serve and whose will he must obey. If the school were organized properly, he would like to attend, for it would appeal to him as no other place in the world. There is something fundamentally wrong with the school which the pupil does not like to attend, and the first thing necessary is the arrangement of the work of the school in harmony with his present instincts and needs. The normal child is not predisposed to disobey the real laws of the school, as is commonly believed. He wants to obey and does obey implicitly for a year or two until he finds that this obedience is not in harmony with his best interests. When he begins to realize that he is not the chief factor, but that the teacher overshadows him, he rebels, because he likes to have his worthiness recognized. He likes to be the central figure wherever he is, if he is a normal child, and he can be handled most easily by being made such.

The fact that pupils regard it as a breach of honor to "tell on" one another is evidence that they have an abnormal conception of the school and its relation to them. In an absolute monarchy, where the government is carried on for the benefit of the ruler, the citizen cannot be blamed for shielding his neighbor from the penalty of

the law and thus protecting him from a common enemy. But in a democratic country, where the government derives its powers from the consent of the governed and where the ruler as well as the ruled must obey the law of the land, it is to the interest of all that the laws be enforced. If the teacher's strong arm is the source of authority in school, and if all laws emanate from her, the school is not a democracy, but a monarchy, and we should expect the pupils to conduct themselves as do the subjects of a monarchy, and band themselves together to oppose the ruler. He is on one side, they are on the other, and it would be treason to give any information that would give an enemy any advantage over a friend. Such conditions would suit very well in a school where the aim was to train subjects for an autocracy, but they are altogether out of place where the end is to train them for citizenship in a free republic.

However, when the law emanates from the school organism founded on the best interests of the pupil, the violator will be regarded as a common enemy. He will no more be countenanced by the law-abiding students than a highwayman is countenanced by the law-abiding citizens of a republic, where all recognize that the laws of the land are in harmony with their highest good. If conditions were right and the pupils were taught to understand their true relation to the school law, they would feel in duty bound to report every infraction of that law, for such an infraction would be, not against the teacher, but against the school and their own best interests.

OBEDIENCE TO LAW BASIS FOR FREEDOM

This conception of the law offers the only basis for freedom. When the school is organized in harmony with

the child's instincts and brings about his complete development, the pupil will be free, but he will be free, not in spite of, but through, the law. He will be free, not by violating the law, but by obeying the "perfect law of liberty." Most people have a wrong conception of law and believe that its purpose is to restrain. But the real purpose of the law is to direct us to the attainment of the greatest good. If the draymen, cab drivers, and automobilists in Chicago did not obey the city's regulations, soon all traffic on the streets would be impossible. These regulations may seem in certain instances to interfere with the liberty of some certain cab driver, but in the end they bring about not only his good, but also the greatest good of all. The laws of the school offer such conditions as will bring about the pupil's best development, and there can be no true development without obedience to these laws. When the sacred writer said, "We are no longer under the law, but under grace," he meant that we are no longer under the old law; but that we had substituted the will of God for law, and that now that will is law to us. It is not law in the sense that it tells us that we shall or shall not do, but it works with our wills and leads us to all truth-the truth that makes us free. Thus freedom does not come apart from the law, but through the law-the perfect law that is not man-made, but that is inherent in the nature of the organism, whether that organism be a school, a state, or the kingdom of God. Knowing the truth about this organism is the only way to freedom, hence not without reason the Great Teacher could say, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Man is free only when he acts in harmony with truth, and he cannot act in harmony with truth without knowing the truth. The man or woman, or the boy or girl, who