It was not an accident that the colonists from the first made ample provision for popular education. They knew that there must be cultivated in the minds of those that were to be organized into a democratic State the power to think for themselves, and the disposition to exercise an enlightened conscience in all their civil relations. They knew, also, that popular education could be secured in no other way than by public schools organized, controlled and supported by the State; for in no other way can instruction be made common and in harmony with the constitution of the State, nor regular and universal attendance be secured, nor ample and constant means of support be provided.

A common training of the people of a free State is necessary, that through a common development they may be disposed to think alike concerning the fundamental principles which should form the basis of civil government, and exercise that common sympathy by which alone it is possible for human individuals to become a free people.

Burke says that the idea of a people is the idea of a corporation held together by common agreement. A common agreement is the result of common thinking and common sympathy. The necessary conditions of unity in thinking and feeling by a people are educational institutions, in which the youth may be trained together by common courses of study pursued in accordance with a common method.

It has already been shown that such institutions are possible only as they are established, organized and controlled by the State.

For the well-being of a self-governed State it is not enough. that the people receive some disciplinary school education; they must receive it in the schools of the people.

Burke says "that men are not tied together by papers and seals. They are led to associate by resemblances, by conformities, by sympathies; " not by the resemblances of outward forms. and circumstances, nor by the conformities which result from a natural desire to imitate, nor by the sympathies which spring from the instinctive principles of action, but by those influences which control minds made alike by a common development.

Whoever has an intelligent and patriotic regard for the preservation and promotion of our democratic State will at once

admit the necessity of fostering those institutions which are best adapted to cultivate the democratic spirit.

The establishment of public schools, supported and governed by the State, and the compulsory education of all the children in the schools, so far, at least, as is necessary to intelligent, loyal citizenship, are made clearly necessary by the State's supreme necessity.

This necessity is the solid ground on which is founded the right and duty of the State to support public schools, directed by its own Government.

A belief in these truths controlled the framers of our civil government in their constructive acts, and, throughout the history of the Commonwealth, has directed all our school legislation. Our public schools are State institutions. This is made evident by reference to the civil constitution of Massachusetts, and to the Public Statutes of the State.

Chap. 5, Sec. 2 of the constitution declares, "That wisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people, being necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties, and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education in the various parts of the country and among the different orders of the people, it shall be the duty of legislators and magistrates in all future periods of this Commonwealth to cherish the interests of literature and sciences, and all seminaries of them, especially the University of Cambridge, public schools and grammar schools in the towns."

Article XVIII. of the amendments provides, "That all moneys raised by taxation in the towns and cities for the support of common schools shall be applied to, and expended in, no other schools than those which are conducted according to law under the order and superintendence of the authorities of the town or city in which the money is to be expended."

In accordance with the spirit of the constitution the Public Statutes of the State have made ample provision for the establishment of free public schools, and have made the attendance of children of school age upon these schools compulsory. They provide that the towns shall maintain a sufficient number of schools for all the children who may legally attend school

therein; that these schools shall be kept for a specified portion. of the year, and that they shall be taught by teachers of competent ability and good morals.

The branches of learning which are required to be taught are enumerated. The towns are under legal obligation to maintain a sufficient number of schoolhouses and in good order for the comfort and convenience of the children and their teachers. Every town is required to raise not less than a specified sum for every child between the ages of five and fifteen years in the town, and to send all children between eight and fourteen years. of age into the schools for a specified number of weeks every school year. Every town is required to choose some of its citizens to serve as members of the school board, which shall have the general charge and superintendence of the schools. These are some of the provisions which the State has made for the organization and control of popular education. Towns and individual citizens are required to comply with these provisions under a heavy penalty for their violation.

The compulsory laws of the Commonwealth, requiring the support of public schools and the attendance of the children upon their exercises, suspend the ordinary course of rights of the individual, with reference to his exclusive use of his own. property, and to his absolute control of his own family.

The justice and authority of these laws will appear when it is shown that they have their origin in the State's supreme necessity. Then will appear the supreme right of the State to levy a general tax for the support of public instruction, and to compel the children to avail themselves of its advantages. It should not be forgotten that our schools are common public schools. This implies that there is some knowledge which all should know and some mental cultivation which all should receive. Necessary knowledge and development of mental power are such as make the individual to direct himself in the future acts of his private and public life.

It is the peculiar function of the public school to train the young to think so as to discover the truth for themselves, to feel the pleasure or pain which the truth is adapted to produce, and to choose the best ends. With such training the learner will be able to enter upon practical life prepared for the successful

performance of all the duties of citizenship in a highly civilized and free Commonwealth.

The fundamental idea of a system of public common schools, supported and controlled by the State, is that of a common education, which every citizen must receive as a necessary preparation for citizenship. This education must produce such states of mind as are favorable to a common belief in those general principles and that particular form of civil government which the people have pledged themselves to accept and maintain.

The province of the public schools seems to include those exercises only which have a tendency to produce a right general development of the mind, without special reference to any particular application of active power.

In Massachusetts the non-sectarian administration of the public schools has always been their most distinctive characteristic. The people have always believed that while religion is a matter of vital concern to the individual, nevertheless it is wholly voluntary and personal as far as the State is concerned; that every person should regulate his spiritual life according to the dictates of his own conscience, free from the controlling power of public authority; that all religious bodies are voluntary associations of families holding the same religious doctrines, and that the training of children in any particular forms of religious belief and service belongs wholly and exclusively to the family and the church. It is to these institutions that all strictly religious instruction should be referred.

The people will never submit to a general tax for ecclesiastical objects, concerning which the State has no right to express any opinion and over which it has no right to exercise any control, but they will voluntarily support those institutions whose exclusive aim it is to train their pupils to become intelligent and loyal citizens of a free Commonwealth.

While the public common school, from the nature of the case, must exclude from its exercises those topics of study and discipline which have for their objects special forms of religious belief and religious service, it should with the utmost fidelity communicate a knowledge of the moral qualities of human conduct, and furnish occasions for acquiring facility and inclination for the practice of every virtue.

If some children of school age in our Commonwealth are for sufficient reasons not in the public schools, it is still the duty of public school authorities to supervise their elementary education. No child, except for physical or mental disability, can be permitted to grow up in ignorance. The length of time of attendance upon the means of instruction provided and the nature of the instruction are all defined in the Public Statutes, and apply alike to public schools and to all substitutes for them.

We must cherish these institutions as the true sources of our civilization.

SYMPATHY IN THE SCHOOLROOM.

RAY GREENE HULING, SC.D., HEAD MASTER OF THE ENGLISH HIGH SCHOOL, CAMBRIDGE, MASS.

THE RA

HE characteristics of a good teacher are various. Some of them are physical, and may be lightly passed over here. Others have to do mainly with the intellect. The successful teacher possesses a vigorous and flexible mind with growing insight into character. She has at command a sufficient store of learning, not merely loosely aggregated, but fairly well co-ordinated, and ready for use at slight notice. Within her range of duty, also, she has developed and made habitual certain helpful methods of presentation. She has familiarized herself with the resources of her position. She has the ability to adapt herself to new circumstances, devising new means to new ends. These qualities we may term her intellectual characteristics.

Still other elements of her usefulness will be discerned by a skilled observer. She will evince an interest in the subject which she teaches, and a love for the work of presenting it. In addition she will manifest unobtrusively a desire to promote the welfare of the learners. These are her moral characteristics.

Am I claiming too much? Can there not be good teaching, successful teaching, even if the moral qualities just mentioned are lacking? For the answer we must appeal to our standards. If we hold with Herbert Spencer that the acquisition of material