one soul-destroying instrumentality. Thomas Arnold did not speak unadvisedly when he said, "I would rather that a son of mine believed that the sun went round the earth, than that he should be entirely deficient in knowledge of beauty, of poetry and of moral truth."

It is not enough that the child's mind be prepared by a scientific process to receive truth; the seed must be sown, and the tender shoot must be nourished by sunshine, rain and dew, if we are to expect abundant fruitage in the life.

As the "heirs of all the ages," the youth of America should be impressed with the value of their inheritance, and the solemn responsibility it entails; they should learn the trite but oft forgotten truth, that the past is our only key to the future; that

"The unerring voice of Time

Warns us that what hath been, again shall be,
And the broad beacon-flame

Of History casts its light
Upon Futurity."

When the history of American institutions, and the literature of the English tongue in its most inspiring and enduring forms, become fundamental studies in our common schools, then may we hope for the speedy assimilation of the diverse elements now thronging our shores from every clime, into homogeneous American citizenship; then will the priceless inheritance of the past, cherished in the hearts of a grateful and patriotic people, prove an exhaustless well-spring of individual solace and joy, and the substantial guaranty of social purity and national integrity.

(This paper was not discussed.)

SHORTENING AND ENRICHING THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL COURSE.

BY PRESIDENT CHARLES W. ELIOT, HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

THE subject assigned to me is, shortening and enriching the grammar school course.

I. We may properly use the term shortening in either of two senses. In the first place, the number of grades may be reduced from ten to nine and from nine to eight, so that the combined primary and grammar school periods shall end at fourteen or thirteen; or, secondly, the studies of the present course may be reduced in volume or in variety, or in both, so that there shall be room for the introduction of new subjects. I observe that both kinds of shortening have actually been begun in various towns and cities, and I believe that both are desirable, if not universally, at least, in most localities. The argument for the first kind of shortening is a compact and convincing one; averaging the rates of progress of bright children with those of dull children being the great curse of a graded school, it is safer to make the regular programme for eight grades, and lengthen it for the exceptionally slow pupils, than to make it for ten grades and shorten it for the exceptionally quick. In other words, since holding back the capable children is a much greater educational injustice than hurrying the incapable, the programme should be so constructed as to give all possible chances of avoiding the greater evil. Without altering the nominal length of the programme in years, a great shortening of the course can be effected for part of the children, simply by permitting the capable ones to do two years' work in one. I heard a grammar school master testifying a few days ago, in a teachers' meeting, that nearly onequarter of the pupils in his school (which numbers about 650 children) were successfully accomplishing this double task. Such a statement opens a cheerful vista for one who desires to see the grammar school course both shortened and enriched.

With no more words about the first kind of shortening, I turn to the second kind, namely, the desirable reductions in the volume and variety of the present studies. The first great reduction should, I believe, be made in arithmetic. I find that it is very common in programmes of the grades to allot to arithmetic from one-eighth to one-sixth of the whole school-time for nine or ten years. In many towns and cities two arithmetics are used during these years; a small one of perhaps one hundred pages, followed by a larger one of two or three hundred pages. Now the

small book ordinarily contains all the arithmetic that anybody needs to know; indeed, much more than most of us ever use. Before a body of experts like this it were superfluous to enlarge on this proposition. On grounds of utility, geometry and physics have stronger claims than any part of arithmetic beyond the elements, and for mental training they are also to be preferred. By the contraction of arithmetic, room is made for algebra and geometry. In a few schools these subjects have already been introduced, with or without mention in the official programmes, and they have proved to be interesting and intelligible to American children of from eleven to thirteen years of age, just as they are to European children. Moreover, the attainments of the pupils in arithmetic are not diminished by the introduction of the new studies, but rather increased. The algebraic way of solving a problem is often more intelligible than the arithmetical, and mensuration is easier when founded on a good knowledge of elementary geometry than it is in the lack of that foundation. The three subjects together are vastly more interesting than arithmetic alone pursued through nine consecutive years. Secondly, languago studies, including reading, writing, spelling, grammar and literature, occupy from onethird to two-fifths of most grades' programmes. There is ample room here for the introduction of the optional study of a foreign language, ancient or modern, at the fourth or fifth grade. Here it is to be observed that nothing will be lost to English by the introduction of a foreign language. In many schools the subject of grammar still fills too large a place on the programme, although great improvement has taken place in the treatment of this abstruse subject, which is so unsuitable for children. In the Beginner's Latin Book, by Messrs. Collar & Grant, I noticed, five years ago, an excellent description of the amount of knowledge of English grammar needed by a pupil of ten or twelve years of age about to begin Latin. Of course, the pupil who is not to begin Latin needs no more. All the grammar which the learner needed to know before beginning Latin was "the names and functions of the parts of speech in English, and the meanings of the common grammatical terms, such as subject and predicate, case, tense, voice, declension, conjunction, etc." Manuals have now been prepared in considerable variety for imparting this limited. amount of grammatical information by examples and practice rather than by rules and precepts, so that the greater part of the time formerly spent on English grammar can now be saved for more profitable uses. Thirdly, geography is now taught chiefly as a memory study from books and flat atlases, and much time is given to committing to memory masses of facts which cannot be retained, and which are of little value if retained. By grouping physical geography with natural history, and political geography with history, and by providing proper apparatus for teaching geography, time can be saved, and yet a place made for much new and interesting geographical instruction. Fourthly, a small saving of time can be made.

for useful subjects by striking out the book-keeping, which, in many towns. and cities, is found in the last grade. This subject is doubtless included in the grammar school programme, because it is supposed to be of practical value; but I believe it to be the most useless subject in the entire programme, for the reason that the book-keeping taught is a kind of bookkeeping never found in any real business establishment. Every large business has in these days its own forms of accounting and book-keeping, which are, for the most part, peculiar to itself. Almost every large firm or corporation has its own method, with printed headings, schedules, billheads, invoices, and duplicating order-books, adapted to its own business, and intended to simplify its accounts and reduce to lowest terms the amount of writing necessary to keep them. What a boy or girl can learn at school which will be useful in after-life in keeping books or accounts for any real business is a good hand-writing, and accuracy in adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing small numbers. It is a positive injury to a boy to give him the impression that he knows something about book-keeping, when he has only learned an unreal system which he will never find used in any actual business. At best, book-keeping is not a science, but only an art based on conventions. As trade and industry have been differentiated in the modern world, book-keeping has been differentiated also, and it is, of course, impossible to teach in school the infinite diversities of practice.

II. I have thus indicated in the briefest manner the reductions which may be conveniently made in some of the present subjects in order to effect a shortening of the present grammar school programme. My next topic is diversifying and enriching it. The most complete statement of the new subjects proposed for the grammar school programme is that made by the Association of Colleges in New England at their meeting at Brown University last November. That association then invited the attention of the public to certain changes in the grammar school programme which it recommended for gradual adoption. These changes are five in number :-The first is the introduction of elementary natural history into the earlier years of the programme, to be taught by demonstrations and practical exercises rather than from books. The term natural history was doubtless intended to include botany, zoology, geology and physical geography. Some room for these subjects is already made in most grammar school programmes, and the recommendation of the association refers as much to methods of teaching as to time allotted to the subject. The association recommends that the teaching be demonstrative, and that adequate apparatus be provided for teaching these subjects. There is a lamentable lack of the proper apparatus for teaching geography in the public schools. Indeed, in many schools there is no proper apparatus for teaching geography, or any other natural history subject, to young children. Natural science apparatus has been provided in some

exceptional high schools; but as a rule grammar schools are still destitute in this important respect.

The second recommendation is the introduction of elementary physics into the later years of the programme, to be taught by the laboratory method, and to include exact weighing and measuring by the pupils themselves.

The third and fourth recommendations cover the introduction of algebra and geometry at the age of twelve or thirteen.

The fifth is the offering of opportunity to study French or German or Latin, or any two of these languages, from and after the age of ten.

III. Such are in brief the proposals for shortening and enriching the grammar school course. I want to use the rest of the time allotted to me for discussing the objections to these various changes.

The first objection I take up is the objection to a reduction in the time devoted to arithmetic. Many teachers are shocked at the bare idea of reducing the time given to arithmetic, because they believe that arithmetic affords a peculiarly valuable training, first, in reasoning, and secondly, in precision of thought and accuracy of work. They perceive that the greater part of the school programme calls only for memorizing power, and they think that arithmetic develops reasoning power. The fact is, however, that mathematical reasoning is a peculiar form of logic which has very little application to common life, and no application at all in those great fields of human activity where perfect demonstration is not to be obtained. As a rule, neither the biological nor the moral sciences can make use of mathematical reasoning. Moreover, so far as mathematical reasoning is itself concerned, variety of subject is very useful to the pupils. The substitution of algebra and geometry for part of the arithmetic is a clear gain to the pupil so far as acquaintance with the logic of mathematics goes. Again, practice in thinking with accuracy and working with demonstrable precision can be obtained in algebra, geometry and physics just as well as in arithmetic. It is quite unnecessary to adhere to the lowest and least interesting of these exact subjects in order to secure adequate practice in precision of thought and work.

The second objection is that there are children in the grammar schools who are incapable of pursuing these new subjects. Assuming that this allegation is true of some children, I have to remark, first, that we shall not know till we have tried what proportion of children are incapable of pursuing algebra, geometry, physics, and some foreign language by the time they are fourteen years of age. It is a curious fact that we Americans habitually underestimate the capacity of pupils at almost every stage of education from the primary school through the university; the expectation of attainment for the American child, or for the American college student, is much lower than the expectation of attainment for the EuroThis error has been very grave in its effects on American educa

pean.