and (3) mental tastes and pleasures, to secure culture. Note that I distinguish between discipline and culture; the former emphasizes the power to think and to act, while the latter accents the ability to enjoy the highest things of mind and spirit. Knowledge for guidance chiefly challenges the memory, unlike exercises for discipline, which appeal to conception, judgment and reason. It will be observed that the effect of discipline is specific, intensive and local; while the effect of culture is tonic, extensive and general.

As Professor Payne so aptly said: "Culture is not so much a state of potency as a possession; or, rather, it is a state of potency accompanied by the pleasant consciousness of pos

session."*

Or, as Plato describes the man of culture and of philosophic character: "A lover, not of a part of wisdom, but of the whole; who has a taste for every sort of knowledge and is curious to learn, and is never satisfied; who has magnificence of mind, and is the spectator of all time and all existence; who is harmoniously constituted; of a well-proportioned and gracious mind, whose own nature will move spontaneously toward the true being of everything; who has a good memory, and is quick to learn; noble, gracious, the friend of truth, justice, courage and temperance." t

3. I thought, moreover, that different studies, or different types of study, differed in their power to affect the mind, in their effects and degrees of effect upon the mind, and also in their practical value. With Chancellor Payne, it seemed to me that the studies that might be classed as specific and intensive, affecting the mind locally-hence the studies for mental discipline-included grammar, mathematics (pure and applied), logic, physics, chemistry, anatomy and biology, assuming the sciences to be taught by the experimental or laboratory method. They require the mind to work at a high tension, appealing strongly to attention, judgment and reason. They require analysis and lead to dissection. On the other hand, the main elements of culture being "catholicity or comprehensiveness of mind and emotion tempered and refined, and subservient to

*W. H. Payne, Contributions to the Science of Education, p. 66. New York, 1886. Plato, Republic, pp. 475-487. Jowett's translation.

the intellect and will, it would seem that, to have a high culture value, a study must embody the following characteristics: it must be concerned with a unit that is vast and imposing, capable of inspiring the feeling of grandeur or sublimity; and, involving the main activities of the whole mind, must appeal strongly to the nobler instincts of humanity; and must impress the mind with the sense of a comprehensive, organic unity."*

All these marks are found in literature, history, philosophy, political geography, physiography, geology and descriptive astronomy.

4. From the foregoing considerations it inevitably followed that I had to believe in the essential virtue and value of prescription in education,-not necessarily of a single iron-clad course of study, but either of some studies of each important group already described, or of the group system of courses of study from which the pupil should choose a particular course or fixed group of studies.

I have thus described at some length my conclusions and convictions of other days; because, although somewhat carefully thought out, I do not now believe all of them; and because if, with such views, I experienced in later years a change of opinion, there must have been to me some good reasons therefor. Possibly, therefore, there is some hope for the "unconverted."

After my earlief teaching and thinking on the subject years passed; my professional experience widened and deepened; and my knowledge, I trust, increased in some measure. In earlier days I had been connected as a student and instructor with colleges having prescribed curricula; later, I became a student of Harvard University after the elective system had for a considerable time been adopted there. With such experience I could compare with some intelligence, therefore, the old with the new system. The result was that, while I have never abandoned some of the distinctions hereinbefore expressed, I gave up-I think I outgrew the dogma of formal discipline in education and the doctrine of general educational prescription in secondary schools and colleges. Although my former point of view was by no means narrow, yet I came to look at the educational process in a larger way. I used to regard education as a pro

W. H Payne, ibid., page 58.

cess almost entirely psychological, which indeed it largely is; but now, and for a considerable time past, I have come to regard it also in its sociological and economic aspects. In the Report of the Committee of Fifteen of the National Educational Association (New York, 1895), page 41, Dr. Harris, United States Commissioner of Education, justly says that the chief consideration to which all others are to be subordinated is the "requirement of the civilization into which the child is born, as determining not only what he shall study in school, but what habits and customs he shall be taught in the family before the school age arrives; as well as that he shall acquire a skilled acquaintance with some one of a definite series of trades, professions or vocations in the years that follow school; and, furthermore, that this question of the relation of the pupil to his civilization determines what political duties he shall assume and what religious faith or spiritual aspirations he shall adopt for the conduct of his life."

Hence, for the reasons above given, I was forced to accept and advocate the elective system. Let me now briefly particularize the considerations that strongly impelled me to do so.

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1. On intellectual grounds: a. As Pestalozzi said, “ Activity is a law of childhood," and self-activity is the condition, the cause and effect of all intellectual growth. Now, freedom is an essential of all self-activity. The latter, by its very nature, must be spontaneous, and subject only to a stimulating and soliciting environment. Such the elective system seeks to provide. Or, to put it in another form, to state it as "the doctrine of interest,"

b. Power, a primal object of education, "can be developed economically only through interest. . . . During the school period the virtues of work (which, even when acquired through drudgery, i. e., labor without interest, contribute to usefulness) cannot, however, be advantageously developed without interest, and it is doubtful if they ever can."*

Now, it is needless to say that freedom of choice of studies is necessarily a part of the basis of interest in study. Compulsion or prescription tends to kill interest. While it is true that there

*Professor P. H. Hanus, of Harvard University, in Educational Aims and Educational Values pages 10 and 11. New York, 1899.

is a distinction between temporary and permanent or dominant interests; yet the elective system, rightly administered, furnishes the opportunity for youth to determine their permanent interests. Without such a chance, their lives are partially and often entirely wasted. Or, to put it in still another way:

c. The elective system gives pupils the opportunity for selfrevelation, which is one of the most important objects of education. Many ruined lives and many economic evils are clearly traceable to latent or undeveloped powers and to ignorance, among individuals.

2. On pedagogical grounds: a. The elective system demands better teachers. It discovers poor teachers and sifts them out of the ranks, because-under such a system-there is a silent competition among teachers for pupils.

b. It makes better teachers, because it is much more stimulating to teach pupils who are interested in a subject from personal choice. The best in others calls out the best in us.

3. On economic grounds: The elective system permits and encourages the development and cultivation of aptitudes in pupils. The modern industrial system, governed as it is by the law of division of labor, is largely based on personal aptitudes of laborers, of whatever grade. Likewise,

4. On sociological grounds: The elective system in secondary education is to be encouraged; because its tendency is to prepare every pupil for his particular "niche" in the great structure of human society. Every man should find his place and perform his functions in the social organism; failure to do which is responsible for many shattered lives and social evils. Similarly, also,

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5. On political grounds: For unless men find their proper place in the industries and commerce of the world, or in its professional life, we cannot expect good citizenship. Without the right man in the right place," all homilies, all appeals for political reform will be in vain.

6. On ethical grounds: a. The elective system develops character by increasing the sense of responsibility,—the responsibility of selection, of decision. This affords very important moral training. "The education of the school is not for life;

it is life."

b. Usefulness or service in the world, even more than happiness, is the duty of every man. Furthermore, it it his duty to render more than ordinary service; he should contribute something unique, something peculiarly his own, to human society. The world should be really better because every particular person has lived in it. The elective system, which provides the best opportunity for making every man ready for such particular contribution to human welfare, is therefore to be fostered and encouraged.

Let it be carefully noted that I have spoken only of the tendencies of the elective system. No system, however wise, or however nearly perfect, can wholly overcome the inertia and imperfection of human nature, the weakness of the human will, and the torpor of the human intellect. The reality, under any system, is always, therefore, different from the ideal of what is desirable; but this forms no objection to, but rather an argument for, the elective system. If we have so many serious obstacles to overcome, then we need the help of whatever serves to remove a single one of them. Such is the elective system, which tends-as I have already said-to diminish drudgery by the development of interest and personal initiative under freedom of choice.

Let us now turn to the

II. Practical aspects, by which I mean the various ways of administering the elective system in high schools.

I will mention the following:

Of these

1. Several prescribed courses of study, in each of which is allowed a number of alternatives for particular studies;

2. A general course, partly prescribed and partly elective, with the prescribed studies stated in one column and the elective studies in another;

3. A general course of studies all elective, except four years of English, two of history, two of mathematics, and two of science, allowing each pupil freedom to choose which sciences, etc., he will study.

In each of the foregoing courses the present plan of requiring four years for its completion, with specific indications of what studies are offered for each year and each semester, has been presupposed. But another plan might be adopted, namely,