a position and success at thirty-five years of age, which non-graduates do not reach until they are forty-five.

If this observation be correct, then a college training virtually adds ten years to a man's life-ten years, not of childhood or of dotage, but of vigorous manly life. The college graduate having ten years more in which to grow and labor, easily rises to the highest positions and bears away the brightest honors.

The facts presented in this paper teach us that mind is a vital force in all human activity-that it is "the forecast and insight of disciplined intellect, not brute muscle that accumulates the treasures and bears away the honors of the world," and that collegiate training tends to secure such a discipline. Not that a college education can transform mediocrity into genius, or brickbats into diamonds. But it can and does polish diamonds, and at the same time it molds and shapes even brickbats so that they become more serviceable in the building of national character.

The reasons are obvious. For four years, and under the guidance and inspiration of learned teachers, college students pursue a course of study and discipline which the wisdom of centuries has devised and improved for the complete and harmonious development of all the mental and moral powers. Such a training in language, mathematics, science, and philosophy tends to develop the power of consecutive and continuous thought-mental grip upon difficult questions--concentrated attention, sustained and patient effort; and teaches that success is sure if waited for and labored for.

It develops habits of industry, self-control and indefatigable application, before which obstacles crumble and difficulties vanish. It accustoms one to long and laborious effort for the attainment of an end. It trains him in the habit of methodizing what he learns and digesting what he reads. The inspiration that springs from four years of communion with the greatest thoughts of the greatest men of all times," elevates the aspirations, enlarges the horizon of mental vision, and therefore tends to prevent what has been called "the dry rot of partial development and "the intolerant self-sufficiency of the so-called practical man," and increases the capacity for professional intensity without professional narrowness and bigotry. It prepares one to look beyond the narrow boundaries of his own vocation, and to grasp in his conceptions and sympathies the multiform needs and interests of society, and therefore he becomes of more value to himself and the world. It makes a man more thoroughly master of himself, and fits him for the best mastery of any specific calling he may choose.

Such discipline, such power can be put to immediate and valuable use in any and every department of human activity, and the technical and

specific training that may be needed will soon and easily be acquired. Given such a development of mind and character, and only an opportunity is needed to insure success in any vocation. Nor is this in the above cases usually wanting. For while a college or university cannot guarantee employments to its graduates, it is more or less an intelligence office to its alumni, and a reliable source of reference for employers seeking the services of competent, ambitious, and worthy young men. It is no cause for surprise, then, that with such help, such training, such incentives and such opportunities, one-half of one per cent. of our young men who have graduated from college, have borne away so large a percentage of the lucrative and honor prizes of our country. If this has been so in the past, when schools were few and the demands upon industrial, professional, and political leaders were comparatively light, still more will it be true in the future. Those who aspire to be leaders in any industrial or professional calling, in social or political life, owing to the greater demands laid upon them, must, in the coming time more than in the past, possess a broad and liberal culture as well as technical and special training—such a culture as only colleges and universities can give.

A college education is a safe as well as a profitable investment. It cannot be carried away by robbers, sold under a mortgage, destroyed by fire or tornado, and is sure to repay in large dividends. But this is not all. Wealth and honor are good if rightly used-good, if sought for not as ends, but as means-means to a higher end. And a higher education pays if it brings to its possessor only material success. It does this and more; aye, almost infinitely more. It tends to heighten intellectual enjoyments, enhance social influence, increase personal refinement, awaken purer aspirations, and develop a nobler manhood.

SUMMARY.

THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF COLLEGE EDUCATION.

1. The two classes compared:

a. College graduates.

b. Non-college graduates.

2. Official statistics show:

a. That college graduates include about one-half of one per cent. of the young men of our country.

b. That these college graduates have filled fifty-eight per cent. of the chief national offices during the past one hundred years.

3. The same results appear in the professions and organized industries. 4. It also appears that the higher the rank or position, the larger the per cent. of college graduates who occupy it.

5. It is observed also that a college education virtually adds ten years to a man's life.

6. College education not only increases the chances of material success, but it also refines, elevates, and ennobles character.

7. Unless some other cause can be shown for the remarkable success of college graduates, the strong presumption is that it is due to college training.

8. A course of study and training that has wrought such results should be carefully and wisely conserved.

DEPARTMENT OF NORMAL SCHOOLS.

PROCEEDINGS.

THE Department of Normal Schools met in the room of the Court of Appeals, Wednesday, July 15, at three o'clock P.M. The meeting was called to order by the President, GEORGE P. BROWN, of Indiana. The Secretary being absent, F. F. Irish, of Lima, Ohio, was chosen Secretary pro tem.

The annual address of President Brown was given, after which the President appointed E. C. Hewett, of Illinois; A. R. Taylor, of Kansas, and Miss M. S. Cooper, of New York, as committee on nomination of officers.

C. C. Rounds, of New Hampshire, moved that a committee of five be appointed to prepare a plan for a Reading (ircle, which plan should be reported at the Friday meeting of this Department. President Brown was chosen chairman of said committee, who appointed C. C. Rounds, of New Hampshire, J. H. Hoose, of N. Y., Robert Allyn, of Illinois, and A. R. Taylor, of Kansas.

A paper entitled "The Functions of Normal Schools in our Educational System,” was read by Edward E. Shieb, Ph.D., Natchitoches, La.

The committee on nominations reported the following: For President, Albert G. Boyden, Bridgewater, Mass.; Vice-President, George L. Osborne, Warrensburg, Mo.; Secretary, E. H. Cook, Potsdam, N. Y., who were elected.

A. R. Taylor moved that a committee of five be appointed to prepare a report on the curricula and methods of teaching in the different Normal Schools.

Dr. Hoose moved as a substitute for Principal Taylor's motion that this committee consist of one person, and that person to be Principal Taylor. After discussion by Professors Hoose, Taylor, Brooks, Wilson, and Cook, the substitute was adopted. After which the Department adjourned to meet Friday, at three P.M.

SECOND SESSION.

FRIDAY, July 17.

The Department was called to order at three o'clock by President Brown, E. H. Cook being elected Secretary pro tem., in the absence of F. F. Irish.

The minutes were approved.

The report of the Committee on Reading Circle was as follows:

Resolved, That we recognize in the movement known as the Teachers' Reading Circle an agency of great value in promoting the advancement of the general and professional culture of teachers. That this Department appoint a committee to collect information in regard to the character and effectiveness of the Reading Circles in the different States, and to report at its next meeting a plan of union of effort between them and the Normal Schools, that shall best combine the energies of both for the improvement of the schools of the country.

That the purpose for which the Reading Circle is organized is in harmony with that of the Normal Schools, and that these schools should exert their influence to promote the largest usefulness of this new agency.

These resolutions were adopted.

A paper by J. H. Hoose, Ph.D., N. Y., on the "Educational Value of the Common School Studies," followed.

[ABSTRACT.]

ON THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF EACH OF THE COMMON-SCHOOL STUDIES.

BY JAMES H. HOOSE, PH.D., CORTLAND, N. Y.

PREFATORY REMARKS.

THIS investigation is a professional study. The subject was assigned to me by President Brown so late in the year that I could not begin to write until four or six weeks ago; and the duties of school absorbed my time mostly until about two weeks since. But I have done the best that I could, under the circumstances. The theme is profoundly interesting; it has been treated from the stand-point of my own professional investigations upon mental activity rather than from the historical stand-point. My critical studies of mental action have extended over a series of years, and have been based upon the mental phenomena of the school-room. I have no speculative theories to propound; my investigations have completely upset many theories touching education that I held once. So that I am now much more certain of what I do not know concerning education than I am of what I do know of it; I am fully persuaded, however, that our educational literature discourses very loosely and erratically about education. I fear that too many of us are more zealous to protect our belief and defend our prejudices than we are to learn truth in educational matters. This investigation is merely introductory to the subject of the paper; the theme is too extensive and profound to be handled in one brief hour.

INTRODUCTORY INVESTIGATION-THE THEME OUTLINED.-The value of education can be investigated from two stand-points: First, It gives to him who possesses it a knowledge and a skill to perform his part in that community of interests which constitute the family, society, church, and the State; this is the utilitarian stand-point. Second, It confirms in its possessor a peculiar subjective state. This paper will limit its investigations (by command of the President) to the second product of education-the educational value of the subjective states which the common school studies confirm.

CONCEPTIONS OF EDUCATION ANALYZED.-The inquiry must proceed upon that conception of education which will allow the investigator to establish some basis for estimating the educational value of a branch of study.