turning of old abuses, it may properly be claimed that the Mission Schools established by four or five Christian denominations have been among the leading causes to which the recent marked and radical changes in both territories are to be referred. They created new ambitions; threw fresh light upon forgotten truths; erected new standards of education; supplied models for those who advocated improved methods; exalted the worth of education; and thus hastened the enactment of better school laws; kindled enthusiasm and hope in young minds, and thus created new conditions out of which a better order of society was sure to rise. The enactment of excellent school laws and improved social conditions will change the form of this educational work, but not lead to its discontinuance. The lower schools will gradually be closed, but the higher will demand increased care and expenditure. The country at large has no need greater than that which pertains to the better education of its citizens; and the state has not yet reached that pitch of conviction and power touching education, which will permit it to dispense with the alliance of Christian educators, who, seeing existing necessities, are willing to expend money and sympathy and time and toil in relieving them. FRATERNALISM AND PATERNALISM. THERE E. P. POWELL. HERE are two distinct forms of government adapted to families, schools and colleges. They should be better understood, defined and applied. Paternalism is the application of law as supreme. Fraternalism is the supremacy of love. The former has steadily lost its hold on our schools and families; but the latter has not been definitely and understandingly substituted. There has been very frequent regret expressed at the breaking down of family discipline. Possibly it has not been considered that we are in a transition period; and that our families have not yet fully thought out and worked out the more modern and rational sort of discipline. Have we not had too much to do with the words government and discipline? What is true of families is markedly true also of our colleges. I have before me a copy of the laws and regulations of one of our colleges as enforced before 1850. At that time these laws were already becoming a dead letter. Among other enactments, all students were required to attend prayers at five in the morning; to retire at nine at night. Study hours were absolute; and no student might be outside his room. The professors had daily and nightly visitations of the rooms. It was not improbable that a tutor would drop in at any moment, and he frequently inspected the closets and bedrooms. The paternal government of Doctor Nott at Schenectady was a great success, because it was tempered with marvelous wit and personal tact. I have seen Taylor Lewis enter a room with his cane and thumping it down on the floor give his orders like an Eastern Cadi. President Penny of Hamilton College on one occasion horsewhipped some riotous students. They afterwards rolled him in the gutter; and paternalism was in his case a disaster. Gradually, without consultation, the proverbial wisdom of Solomon, "Spare the rod and spoil the child" has lost its credence with parents, and the whole system has fallen through. In our colleges there remains only a technical right of visitation. A president would call on a student with quiet respect for his rights of domicile. The question is, what has taken the place of paternalism, or what should take its place. My answer is fraternalism, a greatly enlarged brotherly kindness. I would begin this very early in life; and, while not despising solid authority, I would have my boy at sixteen a true brother in the manliest sense of the word. If by that time I have not succeeded in making him a law unto himself, he will never be self-governable. It is a great mistake to protract the enforcement of external law; the true object being to create within him a knowledge and regard for right and truth and beauty, so that he shall personally choose the life beautiful. I am confident that this adjustment of home life and training is possible. It not only disposes of arbitrary legalism in the relation of parent and child; but it affirmatively creates a new relation that is quite as sure of securing respect and right obedience. Brute force that is passing away from our social relations as communities, must not be allowed to linger in our households under the cover of a parent's right to govern. Millions of petty tyrants are inexcusable in an age of popular liberty. No one has a natural right to break the will of a younger person, simply because he begat him. I shall perhaps be pardoned for a personal illustration. Some years ago when the "Mechanics Society School" was in operation in New York, the trustees requested me to take charge of a department five hours each day. There had been rebellion in the school, and the teacher of this department had been stoned in the streets, and abused in the room where he received his classes. The result was that he was obliged to leave. The government of the school was rigidly paternal. Another teacher was secured whose physical size and strength were supposed equal to the task on hand. He was attacked and driven off in two days. The chaos was indescribable. Two boy pupils had undertaken a duel -but were followed by policemen, arrested, and brought back. When put in charge it was at once apparent that brute-force rule had no chance whatever. I adopted what I have tried to define as fraternal discipline. It would not be possible to describe the process adopted in full; or all that we did and said. It is enough that my appeal to the trustees to be allowed entire freedom of action, was granted. Out of those boys during the next two summers I took four to my country home for lengthy visits. One of them is a college president: one a minister, the third a merchant. The two duelists were church members before the close of the first year; and I have enjoyed attending service with one of them. One more of the worst rebels was, when last I met him, a strong pillar in a New York church and superintendent of the Sunday School. I cannot relate the experiment without apparent egotism; and must confess that it was not a thought-out, definite plan of action; but came unripe out of my instinctive conviction that the ruling method was a failure. I shall be pardoned for the personality of the illustration because it is to me essential to show what I mean by the "brother" method in place of the legal method. I am sure that a wise and sincere teacher may come into relations with his pupils; by persistency with the most incorrigible, that shall compel them to love him rather than fear him; and shall secure the full ends of discipline. Lingering last of all in our schools and homes, in our relations to the young, remains the barbaric idea of force as a legitimate-even religious attitude, toward the weaker. As this conception passes away, it is all important that we shall not rest in a negative position. With a firm will and steady purpose we must take in charge the young soul, to patiently educate it into clear conceptions of right, and firm purposing of a right sort. I do not fall into the error of saying force is always an evil. It is right only as an exception; wrong wholly as a principle. This change of governing method will go on naturally with other changes in educational method. When the laboratory or investigating method has fully displaced the plan of using a book as an arbitrary authority, the teacher will naturally cease to hold any other position than one of adviser and helper, while books become aids in free research. This relation of pupil and teacher involves no task-mastership; on the contrary, the teacher is an elder brother leading the way in the search after truth. I can point out a few schools where the problem is already solved; and fra ternalism has been wrought out in its fullest symmetry. It is surely destined to be the idea of the future school as it is of the future home. But I am deeply interested in the application of this principle in our colleges and universities. I find a few high officials in these schools who are quite afloat. They recognize unconsciously the decay of paternalism, but in a crisis they see nothing else to fall back upon. The result is disastrous failure, and a loss of influence. The gentlest-hearted men, for mere lack of having thought out this problem, blunder into sporadic attempts at highhanded paternalism. If instead they were consciously and persistently striving to win the regard of the young men, that regard - often love would do the very thing legalism tries to accomplish, but in vain. I have seen the home of a professor opened every Sunday to half a dozen or more selected from the students. The selection in all cases aimed at reaching those who needed or those who deserved special care about equally. These coming together for a dinner, and delightful table talk, and an hour's visit in doors or out after dinner were invariably made to love the man; and of course, honor the teacher. It may be protested that these visits are a profanation of the Sabbath. If any one thinks so I have only to say he regards the day more than pulling an ox out of a pit. The problem on hand just now is not how to keep Sunday but how to save our young men. There is no question about the extreme dangers that surround our college boys; not altogether dangers to morals but dangers to manhood. Fraternalism of course depends for its power to create fine character, on the character of the professor who exercises it. We are not able to assume that every college teacher will exercise a manly power. A few of them lack the ethical sense; are in fact intellectual automatons. As fraternalism becomes a recognized evolution in the relation of pupils and preceptors, much more attention will be paid to the character of those selected to occupy professional chairs. It will be seen to be part of the fitness of such a man to be capable of enthusiasm for goodness as well as truth or possibly for facts, which are but truth husks. The present condition of affairs is transitional. In every direction arbitrary authority wanes. It is seen in ministers of the churches and judges of the courts. The newer evolution of brotherly love and patient fellowship steadily wins and will win. WE IN THE ENGLISH LAKE COUNTRY.* I. A COACH RIDE IN CUMBERLAND. DAVID N. BEACH, CAMBRIDGE. E left Edinburgh at twenty minutes of two on a Friday afternoon. The Friday night before we had been set down on the massive quay at Queenstown. Saturday we had spent at Killarney. Sunday at Limerick. Monday at Dublin, Drogheda, and the Field of the Boyne. Tuesday at Belfast, the Giant's Causeway, and the lonely ruin of Dunluce. We had seen the great Scottish seaport under the morning sun of Wednesday; had threaded Lochs Lomond and Katrine; had walked through the Trossachs to Callander, scenting the heather, and gathering the beautiful harebells. Thursday we had looked over the field of Bannockburn with some care, had taken a turn among the historic places of Stirling, but had spent the best of the day at Edinburgh. And now, on Friday, we were leaving it for England, expecting never to see - as we never had seen a city in all respects so satisfying. - We broke our journey at Melrose; spent a half hour among the graves and under the shadow of the beautiful Abbey; and an hour in the principal apartments of Sir Walter's home. Now we were whirling southward again. It is well to approach England by way of Ireland and Scotland, even if one's trip must be as hurried * Copyrighted by David N. Beach, Cambridge, 1893. |