4. A general course of studies all elective, except four progressive English courses, and two progressive courses in French or German,-no limits of time being placed for completion and graduation. In this way the high school system of four classes would be broken up, and the brighter or more industrious pupils would not be so seriously hampered as now by their dull or lazy classmates.

Under any of the above schemes, particularly under the last, certain directions and restrictions would have to be imposed on pupils. Thus, for example,

I. No pupil should be allowed to begin two foreign languages the same year.

2. No pupil should be allowed to begin a study for which he is not qualified by previous study.

3. No pupil should take less work in the aggregate than amounts to say, sixteen prepared recitations, nor more than amounts to say, twenty prepared recitations weekly.

4. Every pupil must obtain the written approval of his adviser in the faculty, of the principal, and of his parent or guardian, before he will be allowed to begin the study.

5. Required work of a lower grade, both in kind and amount, must always be taken in preference to work of a higher grade. Among still other considerations are these: Every pupil should be discouraged from taking but one year of a foreign language, either ancient or modern; and in every properly administered elective system there should be-especially in each scienceboth an elementary and a more advanced course. This is necessary, in order that the pupils may discover their real aptitudes and their permanent interests without irremediable losses of time and energy. It is one of the faults of the system of several inflexible four-year courses, "between which the pupils are to choose once for all," that it "abandons completely the theory of benevolent despotism, and substitutes the optional principle in its most injurious and indefensible form; in that, namely, in which the youth of the pupil and the irrevocable nature of the decision combine to produce the maximum number of fatal mistakes and completely ruined careers."

* Principal E. V. D. Robinson, of the St. Paul High School, in the School Review for. October, 1899.

In order to prevent pupils from selecting or making up "scrappy" courses of study, the plan in use in several wellknown universities, by which students are required to pursue a subject-called a major-for four years, and one or two other allied subjects-called minors—might work well in secondary schools. Certainly such a plan would effectually prevent discursiveness on the part of pupils, and-what is of great consequence-not only encourage but, require them to advance. beyond the mere elements of at least one branch of study. If adopted, such a plan, moreover, would quite as effectually remove one well-known objection to the elective system.

Certain practical difficulties will at once be encountered in operating an elective system. One is that of schedule making; another, the greater expense of the system in the necessity for a greater number of teachers. There is no way of overcoming the first altogether. One plan is to publish in May the days and hours of recitations in each subject for the next year, to which pupils must conform in making their choices; but there are some obstacles here. For example, one cannot tell in advance how the choices will run. One method of reducing the expense by reason of additional teachers is to reserve the right to decline to form a class or a section of a class in an elective study unless a certain number of applicants wish it. In a large high school in the first year, this number might be set at twenty-five, in the second year at twenty, in the third at fifteen, and in the fourth at ten. In conclusion, let us turn to the topic :—

III. College admission requirements in relation to the elective system in high schools.

On this topic it is scarcely necessary for me to say that I hail with very great satisfaction the new Harvard entrance requirements, the aim of which is clearly to encourage and render possible the pupil's freedom of choice (within certain limits) of his studies in the high school. Incidentally, this will prove a great advantage to the smaller and poorer schools, which cannot afford the expense of a wider range of special college preparatory subjects taught in separate classes. In adopting her new requirements for admission, moreover, Harvard will exert a powerful influence for good in secondary schools not merely by fostering in them the elective system, but also by bringing to

bear college preparatory standards of attainment and of teaching on the general courses of these schools. The latter have been hitherto manifestly inferior in educational value to the college preparatory course, but such will not long be the case hereafter in schools preparing candidates for admission to Harvard College. Let us hope, therefore, that all other colleges for which we are likely to prepare candidates for admission may speedily adopt similar liberal entrance requirements.

As is, I suppose, very generally known, Leland Stanford Junior University, from its establishment in 1891, has offered candidates for admission the privilege of preparing in any ten, including English, of a possible twenty subjects which are named and described in its annual catalogue. Surely nothing could be more liberal than this; and, I have been told, that it has greatly stimulated the high schools of California to do more and better work.

Such, then, are in outline the chief reasons for my belief in the elective system in public high schools; and I trust that the day is not far distant when it will be more widely adopted in the United States.

THE FIELDS OF GOD.

EDWARD W. DUTCHER, STILLWATER, MINN.

O icy breath of the northern wind,
Thresh out the seed from the ripened pod;
For the gleaner leave no wheat behind
In the winter fields of God.

Blow on the sails of the fated ship,

As she bends to the tempest free,

Till the voice is hushed on the trembling lip,
In the swirl and sweep of the sea!

O zephyr, queen of the dreamy south,
Breathe on the bud of the hawthorn tree;
Kiss to blushes the tulip's mouth,

And the clover red for the bee.

Scatter the mist till it falls below

On the seed of the ripened pod,

And a million blooms shall spring and grow
In the summer fields of God!

TH

POE AND THE RAVEN.

MISS DELLA COURSON, LEBANON, PA.

◄HERE is an amusing anecdote related of Poe. It is said that he and a friend were in the habit of exchanging confidences over their literary productions, and that Poe, having just finished The Raven, read it to the other for criticism. "Good," was the verdict of his friend; "a very good poem, indeed." "Good!" ejaculated Poe, in extreme disgust; "why, man, it is the best poem ever written." Whatever Poe's opinion may have been, however, that of the world differs much as to the literary value of The Raven.

The analysis of the poem, as given by the poet himself, while unusual, and giving the impression that his method of composition was elaborate, so far as structure is concerned, hardly goes so far as to explain why Poe declared it "the greatest poem ever written."

To review his analysis briefly, he regards beauty as the one requirement of a poem; asserts that beauty in its intensest form is melancholy; therefore the death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetic topic in the world. "I determined to produce continuously novel results by the application of the refrain . . . I made the night tempestuous for the effect of contrast with the serenity of the chamber. I determined to place the lover in his chamber, rendered sacred by the memory of her who had frequented it"; and so he proceeds to the closing stanzas, "it will be observed that the words from out my heart' involve the first metaphorical expression. They with the answer 'Nevermore' dispose the mind to seek a moral in all that has been previously related. The reader begins now to regard the Raven as emblematic-but it is not until the very last line of the very last stanza that the intention of making him emblematic of mournful and never-ending remembrance is permitted distinctly to be seen."

If Poe be truthful in his account of the poem's construction, it is certainly marvellously made, even though the close attention to minute detail detracts from the intensity of the thought. But we like to believe that, even if he is "three-fourths fudge " in his

minor details, unconsciously to himself, his soul worked out an intensity of emotion which characterizes no other poem from an American pen.

Of all our poets none other has a life so teeming with interest; so brilliant in its intellect; so sad in its lack of moral foundation; so pitiful in its wreck. We view it with wonder; we are lost in admiration; but we must pity, yes, even condemn. His peculiar temperament presents a study in psychology, and it is a question whether this study can be best approached by the objective method; but we believe it will be safer, and undoubtedly more generous, to judge him so than by comparison, for he himself says:

"From childhood's hour I have not been

As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
Then in my childhood—in the dawn
Of a most stormy life was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still;
From the torrent or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold-
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by-
From the thunder and the storm

And the cloud that took the form

(When the rest of heaven was blue)

Of a demon in my view."

Perhaps it is to this "mystery that binds him still" that we may look for a true interpretation of The Raven.

That imagination was the predominant element of Poe's mind is generally conceded, but surely Griswold is not right when he asserts that in all the poet's productions no trace of conscience is to be found. His virtues were emotional rather than intellectual, and unknown perhaps to himself, the moral is not lacking in his poems. True, he has seemed in his essay, The Poetic Principle, to abjure truth, and deny that it is a requisite of poetry. He says: "The demands of truth are severe. She has no sympathy with the myrtles. All that which is so indispens