Blimber took charge of only ten boys at a time; but he had always on hand enough information for a hundred, and, as Dickens says, it was his delight to stuff the unhappy ten with it. No wonder that under similar circumstances our pupils either take no interest in their school work and like Blitherstone escape the evil effects of its methods, or like Tozer become "learned but not educated," or like Briggs, who had his knowledge packed so tight in his mind that he could not get at anything he wanted. No wonder that children take no interest in their school work, when no attention is paid to their needs, when the whole time of school is given up to cramming into their heads the dry facts of textbooks. We require them to study the history that educated people are supposed to know and give no time to satisfying their history needs; we require them to go through the arithmetic, the algebra, the geometry, not because they will need these things in practical life, but to satisfy the prevailing fashion. The educated man is supposed to have read Latin; therefore boys and girls must try to read it or at least "go through with it," whether they get any good out of it or not. Indeed, this acquisition of the required amount of knowledge, or, rather, the going over the required field, has become in our schools so mechanical that about all that is expected of the graduate is that he shall have gone over the required ground, and few questions are asked as to his proficiency. He must have read Caesar, but is not expected to know much about him; he must have studied algebra, but in most cases he studied it so long ago that he has forgotten how to solve a simple equation. There are certain things in English literature that one must have read to be educated, but few questions are asked as to the extent of such knowledge. In most cases the things studied in

school are not mastered; they are not made a part of the pupil's life and they mean nothing to him when he goes out into the world. It is said that a professor of English in one of the northern universities went abroad with his two daughters, who had just graduated from high school. They were traveling over the country made famous by Scott's Lady of the Lake. The father was greatly touched by the many happy memories that were brought to him by different places visited and he could not understand why the girls seemed not to be moved at all. He said to them, "Girls, how is it that you can pass over these historic places hallowed by the many references to them in Scott's Lady of the Lake? They call to my mind the most sacred memories and stir my soul to its very depth. How can you remain unmoved?" To this the girls replied that "they had had all of Scott they wanted in the high school and they were sick and tired of him." It seems, in the great majority of cases, that when our pupils have run the accustomed number of times around our educational race course, they are ready to quit; they breathe a sigh of relief that it is all over. They lay aside their books, and 98 per cent of them never refer to them again. Then, in the face of all this, is it an untimely question to ask if our intellectual medicine is bringing about the proper reaction? All fairminded people must admit that the cramming process is a failure, that the intellectual hothouse methods are not adapted to the growing lives of boys and girls.

STAGES IN EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS

In the hothouse method the efficiency of the pupil is measured by his passive receptivity, and the efficiency of the teacher is measured by her ability to cram into his head the customary information. The good pupil sits

with his mouth, eyes, and ears open to take in what the teacher gives him; the bad pupil is the one who is prepresumptuous enough to question the efficacy of such methods and manifests a certain degree of independence. Under such conditions it is an unpardonable offense for the pupil to think for himself. He must accept without question what the teacher and the textbook say. That the educational world has not long ago seen the absurdity of such methods goes to show how it has been dominated by tradition, and before our schools are made really educational institutions we must have the courage to free them from the domination of the past and adapt our education to the needs of the pupil.

In the first stage of educational progress the pupil is a passive recipient of information. In the next stage he passively organizes this information. He is not yet an independent thinker, however; he merely reflects on the thoughts of others. These thoughts pass through his mind and he passively reviews them. He accepts what the book and the teacher say without question. In this stage the pupil thinks over his history lesson, his geography lesson, or his civics; but he does this to fix the thoughts of the textbook more firmly in his mind. He never thinks of using that thought and of making it productive of other and deeper thoughts.

Then we come to the next step in educational progress, in which the pupil is passively active. In this stage the stimulus comes from without as in the other two stages mentioned before. While the pupil is active, he is active at the command of the teacher and is mechanically active; his life is not in what he is doing. He writes his compositions because the teacher requires him to do so; he makes the table in the manual training shop, not because there is something in him that will give no rest until he makes

the table, but because the course of study requires him to do a certain amount of work to receive a credit. He is active in what he does; but he is only partly active. He does not lend himself entirely to his work.

The next step in educational progress comes when the pupil becomes an active inquirer. This step is important in the accumulation of knowledge; in fact, there can be no real accumulation of knowledge without it. When the pupil becomes an active inquirer, he takes the lead in his work. He enters into it with the same enthusiasm with which a child enters his play. His whole being is active and responsive and is in the proper attitude to make the knowledge which he receives a part of him. When the pupil becomes an active inquirer, he becomes selective. He does not take everything that comes his way, but he selects only that which satisfies his needs. He may passively receive what is not adapted to his needs, but he will not become active under such conditions.

For the pupil to become an active inquirer, it is necessary that he be in good physical condition; that the conditions under which he works be wholesome-the proper temperature and ventilation in the room, the desks properly adjusted, and the tone of the room positively exhilarating-and that his work be adapted to his present needs and in line with his instincts. Under such conditions the child is in a position to enter into his work actively. He is in a position to take the lead, and his teacher should let him do so. In his number work he should be permitted to make his own investigations. He should become a problem-finder as well as a problem-solver. At present he is a problem-solver almost altogether. The teacher assigns to him a list of problems, and his business is to solve them. Under such conditions it is no wonder that he takes so little

interest in his work; no wonder that he solves the problems mechanically and gets but little from them. But if he were permitted to make his own problems, or if they were selected from practical experiences, he would enter into his work with a full enthusiasm. About all that is needed to arouse the child's self-activity in his number work is to adapt the work to his needs, and this is not as difficult a task as it at first seems. The number needs of all the pupils in a given class are about the same, and we should have no difficulty in finding out what they are. We cannot, however, select a text in arithmetic made for New England children and use it in classes composed of Texas children.

In reading, the pupils should be given a wide range in the selection of their reading material. They should not be required to take up a reader and read the lessons in the order in which they come. Certain selections may be read with more profit at certain seasons of the year. The teacher should always endeavor to have the class read a selection when the occasion is best suited to impress it on their minds. Selections about great men, for instance, should be read on or about their birthdays. Then it will kill the interest of a class in reading to require every pupil to read every selection. The aim in the reading class is to teach the pupil to read silently and aloud, and to create in him an interest in good reading. If the teacher can do this better by permitting him to read some selection of his own choice than by requiring him to read the selection in his book, we can see no good reason why it should not be done. The aim is to get the pupil interested in reading and to get him to read as much as possible; it matters little what he reads just so it is good, wholesome literature.

The same principle applies in all studies. It is not