teachers, both men and women, already possess this mastery, and that what remains to be done is to make the exceptions the rule. Toward effecting this great improvement two important measures are the elevation of normal schools and the creation or strengthening of educational departments in colleges and universities. At any rate, there can be no doubt that this specialization of instruction is a common need from beginning to end of any national system of instruction, and that is capable of adding indefinitely to the dignity, pleasure, and serviceableness of the teacher's life. Obviously this common need and aspiration should unite rather than divide the various grades of education, and should induce cooperation rather than cause dissension.

VII. There is a fundamental policy in regard to educational organization which should unite in its support all teachers, whether in schools or universities-the policy, namely, that administrative officers in educational organizations should be experts, and not amateurs or emigrants from other professions, and that teachers should have large advisory functions in the administration of both schools and universities. The American colleges and universities are better organized in this respect than the American schools. More and more, the heads of the institutions of higher education are men of experience in education itself or in other administrative services. The presidencies of colleges are no longer filled, as a rule, by withdrawing from the ministry men well advanced in life and without experience in teaching. The deans of the rather distinct schools which compose universities are usually men of experience in their several departments; and much power is exercised by the faculties of colleges and universities, these faculties being always bodies composed of the more permanent teachers. Moreover, in large colleges and universities all the teachers of a given subject are often organized into a body called a division or department, with a chairman chosen from among them as a judicious man and a distinguished teacher. These or similar dispositions need to be adopted throughout the large urban school systems. Superintendents should be educational experts of proved capacity. Their assistants, whether called supervisors, inspectors, or assistant superintendents, should be organized as a council or faculty, and all the teachers of a single system should be associated together in such a way that by their representatives they can bring their opinions to bear on the superintendent and his council, or in the last resort on the committee or board which has the supreme control of the system. The teachers of the same subject should also be organized for purposes of mutual consultation and support, and at their head should be placed the best teacher of the subject in the whole system, that his influence may be felt throughout the system in the teaching of that subject. Moreover, the colleges and the schools need to be assimilated in respect to the tenure of office of teachers. After suitable probationary periods, the tenure of office for every teacher should be during good behavior and efficiency.

In general, the differences of organization between colleges on the one hand and school systems on the other are steadily growing slighter. The endowed schools and academies already have an organization which closely resembles that of the colleges, and ail the recent changes in the mode of conducting urban school systems tend in the good direction I have described. There is in some quarters a disposition to dwell upon the size of public school systems as compared with the size of colleges and universities; but size is no measure of complexity. A university is indefinitely more complex than the largest city school system, and the technical methods of university management are more various and intricate than the technical methods of any school system. Independently of all questions of size or mass, however, administrative reform is taking the same directions in both colleges and schools-first, toward expert control under constitutional limitations; secondly, toward stable tenures of office; and thirdly, toward larger official influence for teachers.

Recalling, now, the main heads which have been treated, namely, the individualization of instruction, the six essential constituents of education, power in action as

the true end of education, the selection or election of studies, the appeal to permanent instead of temporary motives for controlling conduct, the specialization of teaching, and the right principles of educational organization, do we not see that the principles and methods of educational reform and construction have a common interest for all teachers, whether connected with colleges, secondary schools, or elementary schools, and shall we not agree that there is something unphilosophical in the attempt to prejudice teachers of whatever grade against the recommendations of the committee of ten and of the conferences that committee organized, on the grounds that a small majority of the persons concerned in making them were connected with colleges, and that the opinion of college or university officers about school matters are of little value?

The plain fact is that there is community of interests and aims among teachers throughout all the grades into which the course of education is at present artifically divided. The identity of the principles which govern reforms and improvements at every stage is strikingly illustrated by the simultaneousness and similarity of the advances now being everywhere made. Elementary schools, secondary schools, and colleges all feel similar impulses, and are all making similar modifications of their former methods. I can testify from personal observation that some of the administrative improvements lately made in universities resemble strikingly improvements made at the other extremity-namely, in the kindergartens. It is very noticeable that even some of the mechanical or business changes made in school administration-changes which were not supposed to have any bearing on the philosophy of education, or on new methods of teaching-have facilitated true educational reform. Thus, the method of transporting children at public expense to central grammar schools in a rural town, or to high schools in large towns and cities, has distinctly facilitated the introduction of departmental and elective instruction. Again, the purchase and free issue of books for pupils by towns and cities has facilitated the use of good literature instead of readers-an important contribution toward improving the teaching of the native language and literature by increasing interest in them and love for them. In like manner, the institution of departmental libraries-that is, of small working collections of books on the same general subject, deposited in a place by themselves, and always accessible to students of that subject—has made possible great improvements in the instruction of Harvard College and many other colleges.

The committee of ten declare in their report "that it is impossible to make a satisfactory secondary school programme, limited to a period of four years, and founded on the present elementary school subjects and methods." In view of the rapid changes now going on in elementary school subjects and methods, this declaration amounts to saying that the committee's work on the four secondary school programmes they recommend has only a temporary interest. Tables I, II, and III of their report have some permanent value; but Table IV, which contains the four programmes called classical, Latin-scientific, modern languages, and English, and which cost the committee a great deal of labor, will surely be rendered useless by improvements in the elementary and secondary schools which may easily be accomplished within ten years. Some firm, lasting principles are embodied in Table IV, but the programmes themselves are only temporary trestle work.

If I were asked to mention the best part of the contribution which the committee of ten have made to the progress of American education, I should say that their general method of work was the best part-the method of investigation and discussion by subject of instruction teachers and experts from all sorts of colleges and universities and from all sorts of schools, public, private, and endowed, taking part in both investigation and discussion. The committee's method of work emphasizes the community of interest at all grades, and the fact that experience at every grade is valuable for suggestion and counsel at all other grades. To my thinking, the present artificial and arbitrary distinctions between elementary schools and secondary

schools, or between grammar schools and high schools, have no philosophical foundation, and are likely to be profoundly modified, if they do not altogether pass away. In the same sense, I believe that the formal distinction between college work and university work is likely to disappear, although the distinction between liberal edu-. cation and technical or professional education is sure to endure. I have never yet seen in any college or university a method of instruction which was too good for an elementary or a secondary school. The alert, inspiring, winning, commanding teacher is just the same rare and admirable person in school and in college. There is, to be sure, one important element of university work which schools and colleges can not participate in-namely, the element of original investigation-but although this element is of high importance, and qualifies, or flavors, a considerable part of university work, there remains in all large universities, and particularly in those which make much of professional training, an immense body of purely disciplinary work, all of which is, or should be, conducted on principles and by methods which apply throughout the whole course of education. When it is a question how best to teach a given subject, the chances are that college or scientific school teachers of that subject can help school teachers, and that school teachers can help college teachers. Moreover, it is important that each should know what the other does. I have observed, too, that, even when neither party is ready to venture on affirmative coun sel, each is pretty well prepared to tell the other what not to do. Such negative counsel is often very useful.

On the whole, the greatest promise of usefulness which I see in the report of the committee of ten lies in its obvions tendency to promote cooperation among school and college teachers and all other persons intelligently interested in education, for the advancement of well-marked and comprehensive educational reforms.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF TEN.

By JAMES H. BAKER, President of the University of Colorado.

HISTORY.

In a report on requirements for admission to college, made to the National Council of Education in 1891, the following recommendation appeared:

"That a committee be appointed by this council to select a dozen universities and colleges and a dozen high and preparatory schools to be represented in a convention to consider the problems of secondary and higher education."

In accordance with the recommendation the committee making the report, of which the writer was chairman, was authorized to call a meeting of representatives of leading educational institutions at Saratoga in 1892. Invitations were issued and some 30 delegates responded. After a three days' session a plan was formulated which was adopted by the National Council. The committee of ten thus appointed and charged with the duty of conducting an investigation of secondary school studies held its first meeting in New York City in November, 1893. The committee arranged for nine subcommittees or conferences, each to consider a principal subject of high school courses, and submitted to them definite inquiries. Each conference was composed of prominent instructors in the particular subject assigned. The inquiries covered such points as place of beginning the study, time to be given, selection of topics, advisability of difference in treatment for pupils going to college and for those who finish with the high school, methods, etc. The reports of these conferences in printed form, together with a summary of the recommendations, were in the hands of the committee of ten at their second meeting in New York, November, 1893. The report of the committee of ten, including the conference reports, through the good offices of the Commissioner of Education, was published by the Government, and it has now been before the country for some months.

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GENERAL COMMENTS.

The manner of investigation took a somewhat different turn from what was anticipated when the original report, which led to the undertaking, was made, but I do not doubt the wisdom of the plan finally adopted. The committee is confident that it would be difficult to find groups of men in America better fitted than the members of the conferences to discuss the specific subjects assigned them, and their recommendations as to choice of matter, the time element, place in the curriculum, and the best methods constitute a most valuable contribution to the educational literature of the period. In the main they represent the best thought of practical educators. It is not my purpose to enter into a discussion of the details of these conference reports. Each report, and in many instances each part of the report, is in itself a large theme. The summary of results and the recommendation of the committee of ten will occupy the time allotted me.

It was expected that the report as a whole would excite much discussion and invite extensive criticism; and if no other result is attained than the sharpening of wits in controversy, the existence of the report has sufficient warrant.

It is impossible to say of any opinions that they are final and of any methods that they are the best. Some hold that the eternal verities are to be discovered in the consciousness of the few geniuses, and that obtaining a consensus of opinion is not the way to reach wise conclusions. If we are Hegelian in our philosophy of history, we shall hold to the law of development, shall believe that each stage of thought is a necessary one, that the best light is obtained by the historic method, and that the highest evolution of thought is to be found in the belief and practico of the advanced representatives of any line of investigation. The work of the conferences was to correlate the parts of each subject by the method of applying reason to history; it was the work of the committee proper to correlate these results by the same method. Whether the committee was large and varied enough to represent all sides is to be decided by the discussions of those best fitted to form opinions.

SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS.

After a careful review of the work of our committee I venture to make a formal list of opinions presented, most of which I think should be heartily indorsed, reserving till later the discussion of a few of them.

(1) That work in many secondary school studies should be begun earlier.

(2) That each subject should be made to help every other, as, for example, history should contribute to the study of English, and natural history should be correlated with language, drawing, literature, and geography.

(3) That every subject should be taught in the same way, whether in preparation for college or as part of a finishing course.

(4) That more highly trained teachers are needed, especially for subjects.that are receiving increased attention, as the various sciences and history.

(5) That in all scientific subjects laboratory work should be extended and improved.

(6) That for some studies special instructors should be employed to guide the work of teachers in elementary and secondary schools.

(7) That all pupils should pursue a given subject in the same way and to the same extent as long as they study it at all.

(8) That every study should be made a serious subject of instruction, and should cultivate the pupil's powers of observation, memory, expression, and reasoning.

(9) That the choice between the classical course and the Latin-scientific course should be postponed as long as possible, until the taste and power of the pupil have been tested and he has been able to determine his future aim.

(10) That twenty periods per week should be adopted as the standard, providing that five of these periods be given to unprepared work.

(11) That parallel programmes should be identical in as many of their parts as possible.

(12) That drawing should be largely employed in connection with most of the studies.

(13) The omission of industrial and commercial subjects. This is mentioned without comment.

(14) That more fieldwork should be required for certain sciences.

(15) The desirability of uniformity; not definitely recommended in the report. (16) That the function of the high schools should be to prepare for the duties of life as well as to fit for college.

(17) That colleges and scientific schools should accept any one of the courses of study as preparation for admission.

(18) That a good course in English should be required of all pupils entering college.

(19) That many teachers should employ various means for better preparation, such as summer schools, special courses of instruction given by college professors, and instruction of school superintendents, principals of high schools, or specially equipped teachers.

(20) That the colleges should take a larger interest in secondary and elementary schools.

(21) That technological and professional schools should require for admission a complete secondary school education.

(22) That each study pursued should be given continuous time adequate to securing from it good results.

The points of the report which I should question are as follows:

(1) That Latin should be begun much earlier than now. recommendation.)

(2) That English should be given as much time as Latin. (Conference recommendation.)

(3) The large number of science subjects recommended, with loss of adequate time for each.

(4) The omission of a careful analysis of the value of each subject, absolute and relative, preparatory to tabulating courses.

(5) The apparent implication that the multiplying of courses is advisable.

(6) The implications that the choice of subjects by the pupils may be a matter of comparative indifference-the doctrine of equivalence of studies.

(7) Some parts of the model programmes made by the committee.

BEGINNING CERTAIN STUDIES EARLIER.

(This is a conference

An examination of tabulated results of the investigations of the conferences will show that in their opinion the following studies should be begun below the high school:

English literature.

German or French.

Elementary algebra and concrete geometry.

Natural phenomena.

Natural history.

Biography and mythology, civil government, and Greek and Roman history.
Physical geography.

There has been much discussion within a few years as to improvements in elementary courses of study, with, I believe, a growing tendency toward important modifications. Rigid and mechanical methods and an exaggerated notion of thoroughness in every detail have often become a hindrance to the progress of the pupils in elementary schools. The mind of the child is susceptible of a more mature development at the age of 14 than is usually attained. There are numerous exam