1894.]

it under the general law. The difficulty was recognized of framing a law that would stand the constitutional test and yet meet the wants of the several cities. The Legislature tried it, and their work was rejected by the courts. I believe that electing directors on a general ticket is likely to give us a better class of men than electing by wards.

Dr. Jeffers: I am asked by the superintendent of York, who is detained at Harrisburg, to suggest to this body the propriety of legislation providing for the care and protection of the free text-books.

Supt. Keith: Is not that already provided for by the general law making directors custodians of all school property?

No

Supt. Buehrle : We think so in Lancaster. We have had free books since 1887, and when we got them we assumed that we had the same right to make rules for them as for all other school property. We made our rules and carried them out, and have had no trouble worth speaking of. If pupils do not return books, or injure them, they are required to replace them; if they refuse or neglect, the teacher has the remedy of suspension until they comply. All this is quite within the general powers of directors. I may mention an objection made to free books, that 'disease is spread by distribution of books and pencils. I do not believe it. evidence is produced that the health-rate of communities is lower with free books than without. Of course there are possibilities of contagion in school, as everywhere on the street, in the cars, at church or public assembly; but no special danger hides in the books. Some croakers in Erie tried to trace the prevalence of disease to the schools, but Supt. Missimer laid them out so flat that we have not heard of them since. Reasonable precautions should be and are adopted; if we have books out in a family where there is contagion, they are destroyed at the house-not brought back to the school; children of such a family must. remain out of school two months-we pay no heed to doctors' certificates of safety, though those gentlemen give us more annoyance than anybody else. There is

a danger with us in the insane custom of crowding to funerals, whether contagious cases or not; we were compelled to make a rule keeping pupils out of school ten days after attending such funerals.

Supt. Hotchkiss: Lancaster needs an efficient Board of Health, apparently.

TLACHE

RANTY 393

Prof. Stewart (Hollidaysburg): I prot test against the attempt to vitiate argument based on statistics published by proper authority. If they are not reliable, why are they published? and what else have we to argue from? It is wrong to discredit them so long as they have the presumption of truthfulness in their favor. Adjourned to 9 a. m. to-morrow.

FRIDAY MORNING.

N reassembling, the President read a dispatch from Principal Welsh, of Bloomsburg, giving sickness of his wife as the reason of his absence.

Dr. E. T. JEFFERS, of York Collegiate Institute, addressed the convention on

THE PLACE OF THE HIGH SCHOOL.

Being a high school boy, prepared there for college, and now in charge of a school of that grade, although not a public school, I Whether we are inside or outside the high may venture to discuss this question here. school "ring," we must admit that the whole question is open-even the right of the high school to exist is not absolutely settled. There are those who say it has no place in a public school system, by any right which a white man is bound to respect -that it exists only by sufferance, is an expensive mistake, an educational blunder, and ought to be abolished. Its enemies are not all dead nor converted, and never lose a chance to express themselves. On the other hand, the high school, entrenched behind the strong defense of its alumni, its intelligent friends, the great body of scholars and educators, feels the need of no special advocacy of its right to exist. It does exist, by virtue of the survival of the fittest," doing a work that is done by nobody else, and that needs to be done by somebody, and it must stay for that reason. But it should not esteem itself safe because of what it has done, or because it fits into the framework of the system-its only safety for to-morrow will be found in its efficiency to-day. If the high school holds a place in the twentieth century, it will be because it has filled one effectively up to the end of the nineteenth, spelling out the prophetic words of its own destiny. As in everything else, it must continue to prove itself worthy of existence. It cannot remain as it is-nothing stands still: if it is to stay, it must be better tomorrow than to-day. As we have heard here, the high school is a variable quantity in different cities-changes of principals for political reasons, because of a longer purse or a stronger "pull," do occur; but these are accidents, which do not affect its general growth or development. If the high school does its work, it will keep its place; if not, it will be swept away.

ལ་བཀ

The committee of ten, appointed by the National Association in 1892, increased to one hundred by the addition of ten others by each original member-representative of the scholarship and educational efficiency of the United States- have made their report. They do not find the high school a moribund organization, which must be galvanized to save it from needed burial, but a living organization, tingling with vitality to its finger-tips. We may assume then, that the high school is alive, and that what it needs is direction-I say we, because my work is in the same line. Whether public or private, the high school work is of the same rank and character. What, then, shall be its place? One says, "Just above the elementary course." I think that is a dangerous position, unsound in theory, and working evil results in practice. Its true place is just below the college. Another asks, "What is the difference? It stands between the two, and what matters it which way you state it?" The difference is in the two points from which you look at it. There is danger in referring its place to the elementary school below, and there is safety in referring it to the college above.

Nothing good comes to us except from above. The idea that we came up from the lower forms of matter and life, or were pushed up by some inherent force, is atrocious philosophy and contrary to what we know of fact. Evolution takes place only by the power of something above lifting up that which is below. Some men have spent their lives looking at footprints in mud, until they thought they saw all power and potency in mud; but I hold there is no influence in the inferior to shape into the superior. All good starts at the throne of God and works down, and no man does good except as he lifts up. If this be true, then where the college reaches down and influences the schools below, we shall have good high schools; and where we have bad ones we shall find they are the spawn of what is below. Therefore we say, the place of the high school is just below the college. The practical advantage of the influence and prestige of college to the high school which ends where the college begins is plain enough.

"The high school is not intended to prepare for college," we are toid. Certainly not, since not one in a dozen can go there. Why then place it in that position? Because the majority who cannot go to college by that means get the most and best possible to them in the school time they have.

We still sometimes hear the cry, This is the age of science-we have no time to bother with the old college course." Those who talk like that are back numbers-at least twenty years behind the age. That question was on trial when I was a high school boy, chiefly anxious to recite as little as possible. Substitution of science for the classics was tried, and Germany-foremost in science then as now-through the united

faculties of her great universities, told the world that they would not receive graduates from the realschulen, from which the classics were excluded. After practical experiment extending over years, they decided that the best development of mind comes from training in Latin and Greek and the stiffer mathematics. That is the food for graspgrip-grit. Some of the colleges, refusing to be switched off, retained the old course; and the reaction in their favor has come, and the most thoughtful men are more and more agreed that they were right.

Here in Pennsylvania the University stands at the top; we want the high schools in our cities and boroughs to work up to a standard that will send their graduates to the University of Pennsylvania. That is what we want; how shall we get there?

1. We must have better teachers-those who come after us must be better than we. 2. Better methods-here we are improving, nobody uses those of twenty years ago.

3. Change of subjects-many high schools have not all they need to reach the mark.

We are not advocating any wild leap that will put up the high school to its place and leave a great chasm between it and the elementary work. Almost any superintendent who will, may in a series of years gradually bring up the schools of a city to a point where those who go through the elementary grades will be ready for a high school course that will connect with the college. I myself was the son of a poor man, and could never have gone to college had not the high school in the town of Massachusetts where I lived been able to fit its graduates for Harvardthat was nearly twenty-five years ago, and here are we in Pennsylvania now, only talking about the possibility of doing it!

There is compensation in the world, if you look for it. Brains and money do not always go together; and it is fair that the rich man be taxed in order that the poor man's bright boy may have a chance for higher education. Any boy that is worthy a chance can go through college if he starts without a dollar; and a college man who cannot succeed in life is a chump who would be no good with or without education. How many unemployed A. B.'s do you know of? The people who reduce these matters to figures tell us that a college course adds thirty-three per cent. to a man's chances in life; and we want every boy who can to have the chance. I do not care much about the certificate of the high school passing its boys into college without examination-what does it matter, if they are prepared, whether they are examined or not? The graduating examination of any decent high school should be stiffer than any for college entrance that I know anything about.

I said we must have better teachers for our high schools. These should have attainments at least equivalent to the college course, and the more of course the better. We want men of culture-classical, scienti

fic, literary-men of broad, strong, deep, thorough training, are the teachers the high schools must have. This is by no means undervaluing the good men we now have, who had not our chances, much less the chances we give our boys; but we must look out for the future, and place our pupils in contact with the best men possible. Think of the advantage of contact with Mark Hopkins or Dr. Porter! The boy who goes to college has the benefit of the touch of such lives, and when he comes back to the high school as a teacher, he will be able to inspire his pupils with the love of learning-to give them the touch of the touch of those who taught him. We need such teachers not only for the boys who go to college, but even more perhaps for those who cannot.

It is well for us to remember that the colleges have nothing to ask from us. Harvard, Yale, Columbia, the new Standard Oil University at Chicago, with their great endowments, can take care of themselves-what is it to them what we do? They can and do draw students from everywhere; they need not ask our help-it is we who need theirs, and to have it we must bring the high school just as close up to the college as we can get it, so that the sons and daughters of poverty and disadvantage may have all that can be given them of University help.

Better methods are needed. These will come with better teachers. Give us men and women with brains, culture, grip, original thought, and methods will work out from within. The method is part of the man. Of course there is much in improved methods; and we are getting them.

What subjects shall we teach? First, Latin throughout the four years' course-if not the brain, Latin is at least the spinal cord of the intellectual system. Mathematics may be the backbone, but Latin is the cord. I would not have anybody in a high school who did not take at least one year's Latin-the first year. You do not know what material may come to you from any home in the land, and that touch of Latin may reveal the capacity for a great linguist. Give them two recitations a day for the first year, not less than one a day any time, and you have given the child a chance-otherwise you have not. The idea of allowing a boy or girl of thirteen to elect whether they will take Latin is a simple absurdity. There might be some excuse if they were mature men and women, but not for children; and parents who thus attempt to shirt from their shoulders the burden of condemning their children to a life of obscurity are inexcusable. Many sins have been committed in that direction, and we need to repent and do works meet for repentance.

Then we should have three years of Greek. That will stir up the Trojans! I know it is said that at Harvard and some other schools "Greek and God are optional, but foot-ball and base-ball are compulsory -no discount to the athletics, but I stand for the Greek.

Chemistry and Physics-two years, three if possible, under thoroughly trained teachers, the requirements here being as high as for a college professor; good apparatus and laboratory. Botany and Zoology, looking at nature as animated biology. Teach all this intelligently, not as elaborate professional studies, but so as to give a taste for future work.

After these I place mathematics. We need to improve our teaching of arithmetic. On this line I refer you to the report of the Committee of One Hundred.

German and French-three years of one at least, both if you can. Have them taught well; not by some girl who takes a lesson in the evening and then tries to teach it next day, and if her teacher is sick or absent must postpone her class-but by one who can read and pronounce the language, who is thoroughly grounded in it, who loves it and can inspire the pupils with love for it. Of course there are not many such, but these are the ones we want. Half-fledged teachers do much mischief here.

English first, last and all the time! Not "English Grammar"-I would like to put what is commonly called English grammar in the pocket of McGinty [laughter], or let Corbett at it, and if he knocked it out in three rounds there would be some reason for patriotic pride in the United States! The pupils should be trained in expression by practice long before they know there is such a thing as English grammar. Leave what you must teach of that to the last year, after they know the Latin grammar-they cannot understand it before-it is only the Latin grammar badly fixed up, any way. Study authors-not in the skeleton way, with dates and lists of books, but familiarizing them with good specimens of the author's work, until his style is apprehended and its excellences seen, and the boy or girl gets a taste for good literature.

Do you say all this is a tremendous dose to prescribe for youth from fourteen to eighteen-that it is too much for you to handle? What shall you do about it? Well, do the best you can. In some things electives may be allowed, not all; or you may have parallel courses; or you may use what is called the University plan-requiring so many studies, taken according to time or capacity, and graduating when the required number are passed, so that a pupil is never either overloaded or idle. Some may find this last plan work best.

For my own part, I am trying to do what I have outlined, and in comparison find my parallel courses to agree closely with those recommended in the report of the Committee of One Hundred, which I again recommend you all to read and study. [Applause.]

Dr. N. C. SCHAEFFER, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, took the floor. He was warmly received and spoke as follows:

I am glad to have come in time to hear Dr. Jeffers, and in fact it was to listen to him, more than anything else, that I came. Yesterday my nearest duty seemed to be with the farmers at Harrisburg [State Board of Agriculture], for some of them are heretics on the length of the school term, and I need your help in your several districts to get them converted. To the last Legislature came a petition from the Grangers living almost in the shadow of the capitol, praying that the minimum school term be reduced from six to five months; and at their very last meeting certain speakers condemned the Department-both my predecessor and myself because we favored longer terms and better teachers. While that spirit is abroad, there is little hope for a wise solution of the high school question. There were one hundred and thirty-three districts in the State last year that did not pay as much for teachers' salaries as the State gave them for the support of their schools; many districts levied no tax last year, and, no doubt there will be more such this year; and in the next Legislature we will hear the complaint of the corporations that they are taxed beyond the necessities of the State. We did have a majority on the right side in the State Board of Agriculture this year, but I do not know that it would be so outside.

The time has come when the minimum term should be lengthened to seven months. Pennsylvania to-day stands thirteenth on the list; do we stand there in material resources? Our neighbors of New York to the north, Ohio to the west, Delaware to the southeast, Maryland to the south, New Jersey to the east, all give better school advantages to their children than Pennsylvania, so far as the rural districts are concerned. In New Jersey the State Treasurer pays five dollars to each school for each pupil in attendance; and every child has a chance to attend school from the 1st of September to the last of May. Pennsylvania appropriates five and a half millions for less than a million children-more money in proportion than New Jersey-why can not we do at least as well for our schools?

But we are to consider the high schools. Here then is the entering wedge to lift them: why not reserve say $100,000 out of the five millions, to be distributed among those high schools which reach a given grade? That would draw the line between high schools that deserve the name and those that are high schools in name but grammar schools in fact. New York distributes $106,000 among her high schools: we pay more money in the aggregate-why not profit by her example? That we should do something in this direction, is one of the few conclusions I have arrived at.

Let us review some of the facts that have brought this high school question into prominence. The four largest universities in the country are Harvard, University of Michigan, Yale, and the University of Penn

sylvania-we may congratulate ourselves upon having one of them. Each of these has its special excellences-on some lines our own University stands foremost. Some time since President Eliot, finding Michigan moving ahead, left his institution to take care of itself for a year, and traveled over the whole ground, clear over to California, studying the educational systems of the land; and there are indications that he was convinced that the West is ahead of New England. When the National Association met at Toronto, the National Council assembled, as usual, in advance of the general session-this body is supposed to consist of the Great Moguls of education, but perhaps they are no bigger than others and President Baker, of Colorado University, read a paper showing the relation between high school and college. He represented the requirements for college entrance as widely varying, and the same difference in preparation by different schools and teachers. (It was said at Columbia College recently that "the life of a preparatory teacher might be very pleasant if it were not for three things: 1, the parents; 2, the boys; 3, the colleges." [Laughter.]) In spite of general apathy, this paper roused the college men to consider the question; they elected Baker President of the Council, he brought together prominent college men, and at a meeting when I was present, the appropriation of $2,500 was made from the Association treasury for investigation of the question of secondary education. The report has been published, and can be procured by addressing the National Commissioner of Education. I have it on my table, but have not yet had time to study it. My mind is still open on the question-I have reached few conclusions on this line.

Let me give a few moments to an impression brought from my old University days, that it is the business of the government to conserve and make the best of the brighest intellects among its people. The little, hilly, poor country of Würtemburg has produced more renowned men of science and letters than any portion of Europe of equal extent-why? Because the government watches in all the Volkschule for the brightest boys, who are selected and sent to the preparatory schools; from these again the best are selected and sent to the University at Tübingen; and having gone through that, still another selection is made of those who are worthiest, and they are given a chance for travel and study in other universities and countries. It is not surprising that under such a system the best talent comes to the surface. Everybody knows the result. In theology, for instance, the higher criticism that is shaking the world was first evolved on the banks of Neckar, where the peasants are huddled together with the cattle on the first floor, the family on the second, and the hay in the attic.

That is what can be done by a govern

ment that takes care of the best intellects among its people. Pennsylvania is not doing it-the tendency of our system is rather to bring up the lower end of the class, to promote the highest percentage, while the upper end is left to take care of itself. Many a bright boy or girl must be disgusted at bemade to chew over the old story ad nauseam. I heard of a school, under a lady who was called one of the best teachers, where fifty in fifty-three were promoted, while one boy after studying three months, never looked at a book for the balance of the term, while the others were reviewing that three months' work. This case was not in Pennsylvania, but no doubt we have enough of such work. At the Saratoga meeting, in the discussion of the study of language, my feelings got the better of me, and I talked of my schoolday experience; among other things of my Hebrew tutor in theological seminary, who told us that when we had mastered the first few chapters of Genesis we had half the words in the Hebrew language. I was gratified when what I said was endorsed by Andrew D. White, the man who has organized and developed one of the greatest scientific schools in the United States-that the mechanical memory is too much neglected in these days. United States Commissioner Harris said that the best mathematical teacher St. Louis ever had-the late Helen Shafer-could at any time give exactly the formulæ lying at the basis of the problem before her; they were indelibly fixed in her memory, and she tried to do the same for her pupils, the result being that they surpassed everybody else in accuracy and precision.

How does this apply to our question? Well, it shows that the courses in our high schools are out of shape when it comes to educating our brightest boys and girls. When can the mind best master the vocabulary of a foreign tongue? Not at eighteen or nineteen, but from eight to twelve. A boy who takes Greek at twelve with a good teacher never knows the proverbial difficulty of the Greek verb. Comenius began the study of languages at sixteen or seventeen, and protests against that method of study; he started too late in life, having passed the period when those centres in the brain were developing. How about mathematics? The arithmetics we still use were written to meet the wants of young men from eighteen to twenty-five, who had to make a little money go a long way, and went to schools like the normal schools to get what education they could. The books are good for that purpose: but how about the young child? How many of our children at twelve or fourteen get clear concepts of operations in difficult questions of percentage? If that is true, is this the material to develop the child's thought-power? Why not give instead some algebra? I have a boy of seven who came to me wanting something to do. I suggested some algebra; he was flattered,

tried it, and is doing it without difficultyindeed, the beginnings of algebra are easier than much of the arithmetic we try to teach to children. We need something in the public schools to prevent the everlasting grind on things already mastered, and we want some things postponed that will give no trouble at eighteen or nineteen but almost split their heads at nine or ten. Remembering that all thinking is comparison, we must adapt the work to the condition of development, so as to promote healthy growth of brain. We shall be better prepared to study and discuss this question when we have the information now in process of collection; in a few months we can at least tell what we are doing. Meanwhile I will try to give you two keys that will help to unlock this high school mystery.

1. Any system of education should make the best possible of the child at each step of his advancement. If he must stop at the end of the primary, or grammar, or high school, it is our duty to give him the best that can be done, in each case, in so many years. If he can go on to the end, we ought not to so arrange the course that he must go over ground twice, nor so that one grade will not dovetail into the next above. We know that this is not the case now; there is lack of adjustment at different points, notably between high school and college or university. We must not look entirely to the colleges for this readjustment-you superintendents have a large part in it; but in whatever is done, remember always that the course must be so arranged that wherever a pupil may be compelled to stop, we have given him the best possible in the given time.

2. Any system of education must take into account the three great tendencies of modern education. The first of these was spread over Europe after the fall of Constantinople, when the scattered Greeks everywhere taught school for a living. They taught what they knew-the Greek tongue. While the Latin nations were studying the humanities, north of the Alps the knowledge of Greek led to the study of the New Testament, and this in turn led to the outbreak of the Reformation, and put into the schools that religious spirit which has done such great things for the race. But when men wanted to prove anything they always went to a book-to the Bible, or to Aristotle. Did Galileo's telescope reveal sun-spots?-they found none in the books, therefore there were none. But there came more men who went to nature instead of books for their facts, and so began the realistic movement, which has had fruition in modern scientific development. So the study of history reveals the beginning and course of these three great tendencies-the religious, the humanistic, the realistic-all of which educators feel must be recognized in any correct system of modern education.

The Trustees of the State College this