course is reserved for the consideration of matters of importance to us as a city. Such questions as the common council, the powers of the mayor, the important appointments made by him, the city departments, the methods of carrying on public business, the difficulties in the way of good government in large cities, are presented and discussed.

It is the business of a school to furnish proper nourishment for the higher life and aspirations of the young. Appropriate literature is one of the best means of imparting right sentiments, and of leading the children to appreciate self-sacrificing deeds and noble thoughts. By bringing the better emotions into play the sympathies are aroused, the spiritual nature cultivated, and the foundation laid for right conduct.

The mind grows with what it feeds upon. We are dependent, not only upon our habits, upon the established trend of mental action produced by exercise and discipline, but also upon our acquired ideas, upon the thought materials stored up and organized in the mind. This material seems to possess a kind of vitality, an energy, an attractive or repulsive power. When ideals once gain a place in the mind they become active agents. They are not only the material with which the mind builds, they are a part of the mind itself.

The power to feel needs development as much as the power to know. The muscles of the body are developed by use. We make the mind strong and active by giving it exercise. So right feelings may be cultivated by calling them into exercise. If the nobler feelings are often appealed to, nobler feelings become easier, and, finally, habitual. If there is any truth in this philosophy, how important a teacher becomes as compared with the book he uses! If there is any truth in it, the age of the mere giver-out of information is going; the age of the inspirer is coming.

In an address delivered before this department three years ago, Supervisor Martin, of Boston, impressively showed that true moral teaching affects conduct indirectly by the general elevation of ideals; that it cannot be separated from the general discipline, instruction, and moral atmosphere of the school; that it must be the air which the young unconsciously breathe; that the stuff out of which the ideal is made is always character in the concrete, qualities incarnate- not precepts nor codes of ethics. He cited the case of Abraham Lincoln. While this great man lived and was carrying burdens such as no president ever carried before or since, men wondered how such a man could come from such a beginning. From a child he lived seemingly without one gleam of light or of fair surroundings. Such largeness of understanding, such loftiness of purpose, such singleness of aim, such grasp of great moral questions and questions of state they seemed an effect without a cause ; but when, after his death and under the influence of his growing fame, men began to scrutinize all the details of his early life and to find that

his early associates had been, not merely the rough pioneers of the frontier settlements, but the men and women of the Bible, of Pilgrim's Progress, of Plutarch and Shakespeare, the mystery was in a large measure explained. He had been associated with the great characters of the world and had grown into their likeness.

Results such as I have described are not a matter of buildings, or systems, or text-books, or courses of study, but of teachers. It is essential that the individual teacher possess those elements of sincerity and earnestness which belong to high personal character. Some of the most effective functions of a teacher are really performed when he seems least to be teaching, because the power of his own personal character is constantly creating ideals in a way not laid down in any book. Every teacher moves thru the school, and before the pupils, the constant and visible embodiment of some type of manhood or womanhood. The pupils feel the contagion of a selfish or a generous spirit, of an honest or a tricky disposition, of a soul cast in a large or a little mold. It is not easy to explain the power of a born teacher to influence character, to create right motives. The truth is that selfishness begets selfishness, and noblemindedness begets noble-mindedness. The child unconsciously takes the measure of his teacher. If, in reality, teachers are disinterested, if their chief aim is to be of service to those under their charge, and if they at the same time are really skillful, the children, tho they may never have reasoned it out, feel and recognize the influence of their personality. I have never known an instance where a class, as a whole, proved an exception to this rule.

The forming of right character, no less than the gaining of mental power, depends on the self-activity of the pupil. For this reason it is necessary to diminish, so far as possible, the element of coercion in discipline and substitute for it self-control. It is easier, of course, to govern by force. You can make a troublesome boy obey you by flogging him, but you cannot change his moral attitude on the general question of obligation and duty except by long-continued patience and persistent effort. The less we repress and tyrannize over children, the greater their tendency to assert their freedom, sometimes in disagreeable ways; but there is no other method of leading them into that self-government which is the end of education. We must give them some liberty in order that they may learn how to use liberty. Where there is no choice, no putting upon honor, no confidence shown, there can be no development of self-control.

I trust I shall not be considered unorthodox and reactionary if I express a fear that our new methods of education, as carried on by extremists, easily degenerate into a source of weakness because they fail to develop the power of self-reliance and individual initiative, which are more and more necessary elements of success in life. The complaint is sometimes made, and justly I think, that the tendency of the new methods

is to give pupils a many-sided interest, but less vigor of mind and purpose than the old way, that the power of the teacher to impart knowledge and smooth out difficulties has been developed out of proportion to the pupil's power to acquire, and that the latter are less reliant and less prepared to attack and overcome difficulties than in former years. While we rightly try to make the schoolroom more homelike and attractive, we should at the same time remember that the world which the boy is to enter is no respecter of persons. While we attach less and less importance to examinations and aim to make the studies interesting and attractive, we must also remember that no education is complete that ignores the overcoming of difficulties as a factor in character-building. The human race has been developed by exertion. Except for care and struggle and pain man would never have risen above the intellectual and physical stature of Polynesian savages. As the chief argument against socialism is that nobody can explain what would spur on the lagging faculties of man when the incentive of want is taken away, so it would be difficult to show how the child is to be prepared for the struggle of life where he is allowed to proceed along the lines of least resistance, where there is no real downright hard work required, and where the boy thinks if he is not interested it is always the teacher's fault.

It is taken for granted in this country that children are to make their own way in the world, that they will have to look out for themselves, that they are not to depend on their parents, or on society, or on the government. If at school they form the habit of relying on the teacher, of having things made easy, the more likely they are to rely on help from others, from the community, or the state. Why is it that a boy who leaves school early and goes to work so often proves more than a match for the graduate? Because he is put on his own resources in circumstances where he has to sink or swim.

In an article written since the Spanish war, President Eliot insists that, when it comes to a pinch, the source of victory in modern warfare is in the personal initiative of each individual commander, private soldier, or sailor. "When all preparation is made," he says, "when all appliances have been perfected and brought together, in the particular thicket or mined strait in which the work of the moment is to be done, it is the perceptive power or moral resolution of the individual that commands success." In industries as in warfare the automaton counts for less and less, and the thinking, resourceful individual for more and more. What has made the English-speaking peoples the leaders in the modern world, whether in planting colonies, or in maintaining self-government, or in extending commerce, or in storming forts, or in boarding ships? It is their common-sense, their readiness of combination, their realistic logic, their power of individual initiative. Surely this type of character is not developed where boys are coddled and entertained to

such an extent that nothing is actually learned, and where the memory is so far underrated that even the learning of the multiplication table is considered to be unpedagogical.

I plead for schools where there is freedom enough in matters of conduct to develop the power of self-control, where the requirements are definite and exacting enough to develop the power of self-reliance and individual initiative, and where there is inspiration enough to implant high ideals and right ambitions to the end that the power gained in school may not be selfishly used.

I am aware that a school cannot, in this higher sense any more than in the lower sense, fully educate the young. It can only make the beginning, give the right bent, supply the means; the rest depends on the individual. The important question in regard to the products of our schools is not alone, What do they know? but, What do they love, and what do they hate? What is their attitude toward life ? What is their notion of success? Is duty to them only a myth? If they think that success consists in wealth or position obtained at no matter what cost of character and honor, then their education has not done for them what it should. The bad, the unscrupulous, are never successful. When we speak of them as successful, when we envy them, we simply pass judgment on ourselves, and show that our own estimate of true character and worth needs toning up. The men who are the strength of society, who in times of stress and danger stand as beacon lights in the storm, are not men who simply look out for themselves, but men who are moved by some inner principle and are faithful to eternal verities. Whatever else we teach, let us inculcate this simple lesson: that no melancholy failure can possibly be in store for the youth who adheres to the simple purpose to be upright and useful; that plain living and high thinking is better than high living and no thinking; that self-denial is greater than self-indulgence; that selfishness cannot develop our highest capabilities, while a proper understanding of the higher meaning of life and its responsibilities has power to lift us above what is petty and trifling, make common life heroic, and give even to humble conditions something of greatness and joy.

DISCUSSION

WILLIAM E. HATCH, superintendent of schools, New Bedford, Mass.-The subject that I was first asked to discuss and consented to speak upon was "The Tenure of Office of Superintendents and Teachers." I cannot refrain from saying that I regret the subject was changed.

It is said that “in Spain to this day they bar the windows and leave open the door." The thought sometimes comes to me whether we, as superintendents, do not avoid the discussion of direct issues for the safer and more pleasing task of considering generalities. It may be that this view is due to my narrowness of vision, but I have always felt

that as a body we have been rather weak in offensive warfare. I trust I may be pardoned if I say a word on the original subject.

The question of the tenure of office of superintendents and teachers is one of great importance, and one that touches closely the future welfare of the schools. In Massachusetts, by the Report of the Board of Education for 1897-98, one-third of the cities and towns of the state had availed themselves of the provisions of the statute by which teachers may be elected to serve during the pleasure of the school committee. This is the latest report which deals with the subject. Since that report was made other cities and towns have adopted the measure, among them my own.

Now, either this is a movement in the right direction or it is not. I had hoped to hear the views of superintendents serving in various parts of the country on this important subject, and I am disappointed in not being able to do so.

"But to return to our muttons. We can but agree with the speaker in his main contentions. No one would argue that an encyclopædic man is a worthy product of the schools unless he can bring his knowledge to bear with force upon the problems of life that he is to meet. But I do believe that the field for improvement in fixing valuable knowledge in the minds of the pupils is yet wide. Full and exact knowledge is necessary if there is to be skill in application.

That the schools are accomplishing all that they might in moral training may well be questioned, but that they are doing their part and doing it well under present conditions can scarcely be gainsaid.

That the home is not doing all it ought in the development and the training of the children we all must feel who have thought much upon the subject. There is a tendency in parents, even among the best, to shift their responsibility upon others. This is as noticeable from the early age at which the wealthy pack off their boys to the boarding school as from the sad neglect to be observed in the homes of the poor. The spirit that causes the constant increase in urban population — the desire for companionship and the enjoyment of social pleasures, whether in the gilded ball-room on the one hand or the saloon and the cheap theater on the other-is characteristic of the age, and makes the problem of creating a strong and clean citizenship in the future a difficult one. But withal the rich and the poor are the extremes, and there is a large and dominating middle class who are God-fearing and serious in their lives, whose children are worthy of their sires; and I am optimist enough to believe that America is in no danger from the degeneration of its youth as yet.

We are absorbing much of the very dregs of Europe, and in a generation or two making of their sons and daughters men and women, able, upright, and to be honored. In my travels thru Europe I have never seen children so happy, so strong, so interesting as our American boys and girls.

This is the children's age, at least in this country. It may be that we have swung to the extreme of the pendulum; that we are moved more by our sympathies in our treatment of children than by our judgment. But it seems to me that we must always remember that men and women are only boys and girls grown a little older. Children are influenced more by example than by precept, as are their elders. I think sometimes that we give them tithe of anise and cumin, and expect them to render tribute in the coin of the realm.

If, as the speaker has said, the true welfare of the country is in the keeping of the schools, we as guardians and directors of those schools have grave responsibilities. In organizing them, in planning the courses of study, in directing their administration, do we proceed from a thoro knowledge of the conditions of the community in which we serve ? Do we know the various classes of children who are to be the victims of our planning? Do we look sufficiently into the future? If the welfare of the nation depends upon the public schools, we and the teachers are the conservators of that destiny.

And the teachers are the most important of all. If the schools are to send forth