But there is another doctrine, and a better one. It regards the man of more significance than any special work he may do, and therefore makes it the province of education to develop him. It seeks by training to give to the mind the full possession of its own powers. It regards the attainment of knowledge as in itself valuable, shows its necessity, and is therefore most vigorous in its pursuit. The utilitarian argument drops out of sight, because it is found that the knowledge which is sought most eagerly-as if its acquirement were the only end in view; its mere possession the sole reward of the effort is more useful, produces more power, than that which is obtained for some special application.

Confronting every human being is the unknown world. To comprehend this world in terms of its own thought is the task fate sets for every soul.

Only as the child becomes acquainted with the objects around him, and begins to know them, does he begin to live. Only as the man discerns the thought underlying the objects of the material world, and makes it his own, does he acquire any power over that world or does it hold any meaning for him. The world of the present or of history has no existence for him who does not rethink it. There are, it is true, inherited tendencies, but there is no inherited knowledge. Each mind has only what it conquers for itself, and each conquest is a larger realization of itself. This movement of life to still larger life, when once it is fairly begun, is felt to be necessary. Its sway over humanity is as sure and as universal as the uplift of the moon upon the sea. Each mind also feels the necessity of struggling forward; is continually prompted to appropriate greater truth by identifying itself with it. Whatever touches the life of man-his inner spirit-to finer issues, helps forward the incessant effort to reach better, more complete life, is culture. Culture is not a completed product or possession. It is rather a tendency or habitude of the mind. We believe that education to be the true one which aims at culture, or the promotion of the cultural tendency. It will not seek to develop a few special aptitudes, but will consider all the needs of the man from the widest generalizations of experience and of philosophy. It will picture a cultured intelligence, "full summed in all its power," as the crown of all educational effort, and though at times it may give more minute attention to other things, it will still keep this picture in sight.

Secondly, it is the function of supervision to use the means necessary to the realization of the ideal; or to organize courses of study, and to see that they are adapted by instruction to the varying capacities of children. This requires, first of all, a knowledge of children. A good deal has been accomplished in child study recently by the experts.

Supervision needs not only to know the results of this study but to verify them. A knowledge of childhood which is built up simply of general terms, each involving many experiments that are performed by others, will probably be as vague and indistinct as Comenius' picture of the soul in his "Orbis Pictus." It may have form, but not much content. The results of child study will be available only to him who studies children. Great caution should be exercised in forming general conceptions about "the child," or any such general concept as "the child." There is no child in general, any more than there is a horse in general. Without attempting to settle the old dispute between the Nominalists and Realists, we will say, that, if there is a general horse, containing within itself the properties of all horses, no one has yet seen or driven it. So, children we may know and teach, but "the child," never. That is a shadowy term; a kind of metaphysical spook, whose claims to consideration must always give way before the children.

Childhood is a distinct period; as different, almost, from that which immediately follows it as the blossom is from the unripe fruit. Children are almost as much a part of Nature as the squirrels or the birds; almost as much at one with her. It is a time "of splendor in the grass; of glory in the flower." Nature makes a delight for the child out of what would be otherwise a hard task-the development of his physical and mental powers by continuous and vigorous exercise. She does this by calling it play. It is doubtful if the common achievements of the first four years of childhood have ever been surpassed by the greatest genius, in the same time, at a later period. In that time most children have learned a language which they will speak well or ill according to the models they have had, and they have learned many of the properties of most of the common things. All things are new to the child, and therefore his interest is intense in them. He sees everything in the halo of the morning light. Every day is indeed an epoch to him. He pursues every investigation which has received the impulse of interest with the industry of a detective. As an illustration of how much children will accomplish when excited by curiosity, permit this description of the experience of a three-year-old boy in learning to read, as told by his mother:

"Upon the wall of the storeroom some one had scratched 'M', and Lucius was very desirous to know what it was; also, what it was for. I evaded telling, not intending that he should know for some time that there were such things as letters. But one day I told him the name, and to his further query told him it was a part of some words, the first part of 'Mamma,'-and was used in other words. He then wanted M for 'Lucius,' but I told him that would not be right. 'What would be right?' I answered, "The first letter of "Lucius" is

“L." ' 'Make it, Mamma.' I did so, hoping his curiosity would be satis fied. A few days later he announces he has found 'M' and 'L' on the hearth of the stove, and a whole lot more. 'What are these other letters? Being some little distance from me his questions contained descriptions. 'What is the round one? Round one with a hole in one side? Another round one with a hole in its side and a mark on it? Without much hesitation, I replied: 'O, C, G.' ‘Here is one round at the bottom and open at the top; another one open at the top but not round at the bottom.' It is not strange that he easily remembered U, and V, since he had noted their peculiarities and compared them with others before asking about them.

"One day he said, 'Why are O and I and L together so many times?' He had seen them in papers and on so many places that he thought there must be a 'why.' I tell him the word, and soon he has the word 'gas' in the same way. These two were the first he knew as words, but they were soon followed by many others, though I think no one encouraged him or gave him any help he did not well earn.

"His attention was soon attracted to the small letters. 'What are these others, and why are they so different?' he asked. He was told that there are two kinds of letters, and he began the same process of hunting down the small letters that he had pursued with the capitals. Now, after about three months of quizzing his mother, he can read fairly well, though he makes some queer mistakes in pronunciation. Care was taken never to give him any information that was not first sought by him."

This is not given as an illustration of the most desirable method of teaching reading, but of how great progress a child may make along the line of his interests. Undoubtedly, if learning to read had been forced upon him, it would have proved irksome, and the same result would have been reached after a great deal of worry and with a much greater expenditure of force.

Supervision must so direct the teaching force that it will feel the necessity of knowing children, of learning what they know, how they may be influenced, and what they care for before it attempts to guide them. The interests of children furnish the surest clue for their guidance. If they were set to studying objects. for which they care and to find such is not difficult, for they are intensely interested in all natural things-almost the whole primary course of instruction would grow easily out of this study. They would learn to observe accurately, to verify their observations, and to record them correctly. They would learn to read, impelled by the natural desire of gaining information.

By the side of this work would naturally belong the humanistic studies the lives of great men, the early history of our own country, and how it came to be what it is; and finally, literature as the art of expression, the voicing of truth and emotion in fitting forms. Besides its own intrinsic value, this course of work also furnishes the most appropriate introduction to the secondary schools.

Courses of study also need revision. The old common school course, consisting mainly of the three R's, has been called a narrow stream, but one which flowed with a strong, deep current. Whether it was strong and deep or not, it was certainly narrow. Compared with it many modern courses may be said to have broadened out or to have flattened out into swamps. There must be condensation; some branches must be dropped, and only those retained which naturally assist each other and which are necessary to the cultural needs of the learner. The course may also be shortened as a whole by substitution. Much of the work in arithmetic is more difficult and abstract than some of the work in algebra, and these may properly change places. Considerable of the time spent upon technical grammar might be much more profitably spent upon French and Latin, as recommended by the committee of fifteen. We have great hope of help in this direction from the attention which is now being given to the composition of courses as determined by the relations of the separate studies.

It is also the function of supervision to look after the interests of the individual while dealing with masses. Companies of learners cannot march through a curriculum and all arrive at the same time. The course of studies may be "nailed to the calendar," but the children should not be. A certain amount of work may be assigned to each grade or year's work, but the pupils in each grade may be divided into groups, the greater number of groups being formed in the lowest grades and diminishing to two in the upper grades. The individuals of each group may be changed as often as may be necessary. Each group progresses as rapidly as it is able, passing the yearly limits when the work is done, and not necessarily at the end of June. If it be objected, that this plan of grouping means short recitations, the reply is, that a child of six years of age or less will learn as much of one subject in a short time as he would were he to devote all day to that subject. His mind refuses to act very long in any one dirction; for him "change is rest." As the child advances in years or progresses in the course the time of the recitation will be lengthened.

The plan proposed arranges for five classes or groups in the first year, four in the second and third, three in the fourth, and two in each of the succeeding. This would in a large measure do away with

the discouragement which often results from sending a pupil back to do over again a half or a whole year's work because he has failed at the end.

Finally, it is the essence of supervision to so organize instruction that the efforts of both teachers and pupils may harmonize and secure the highest results in culture to the learner.

The course which makes culture its aim is the best preparation for life which those students can get who do not complete it but who are compelled to drop out at different stages of advancement. Their faces are set in the right direction, and they have been guided awhile along the true path.

DISCUSSION.

SUPT. F. TREUDLEY, Youngstown, Ohio.-It may be a commonplace statement, and yet I do not know how better to express my thought than by saying, that the function of supervision is to realize in practice the ideals of the supervisor. In this respect it is like all work to which the race puts its hands. The business man sees in his growing business the realization of long-cherished ideas. The scientist works out the dim visions that come to him and at last gives to them tangible form.

The artist, whether he be a poet, giving to his dreams "a local habitation and a name;" a sculptor, impressing upon marble the forms embodied by his imagination; an architect, rearing to heaven his splendid conception of what is fitting in God's worship; a painter, setting forth his thoughts of life and death; a musician, delighting the ear with matchless harmonies-all these, alike, are engrossed in the one sole aim of realizing, in tangible forms, what they deem of most worth.

In this respect, the work of supervision is in common with all other occupations. From many, however, it differs widely, both in the agencies with which it works and in the material upon which it works.

It differs in the agencies, for those of the supervisor are men and women, varying in aptitude and capacity for their work. And hence, as a pursuit, the work of supervision is difficult, baffling, uncertain; peculiarly prone to yielding ground for discouragement, because one cannot always clearly determine what he has accomplished or the degree to which the products of manhood or womanhood belong to him, or to the teacher, or to the many agencies engaged, by divine appointment, in the education of youth.

The supervisor's work belongs to a realm less visible to the eye than that of occupations engaged upon a different material. He deals with that which is more delicate and refined. But herein is lent a worth of peculiar quality, imparting an almost divine aspect. Because whereas in other pursuits the work once done is done forever (an immortal work of art may be a discovery, an invention), the work of the teacher, the supervisor, grows, changes into more beautiful forms as the soul co-operates all through life,-and may be, through eternity,-with that influence which, at an early stage, sought to mold it. For life can pass into life to quicken it, invigorate it, enlarge it, uplift it, speed it on in its work of self-ful