self-governing, independent and initiating forces they should be in public life. They were intellectually trained; their minds were drilled; they were alert, shrewd and progressive in many ways. He saw what European investigators have lately noted, that America's preeminence in manufacturing lines and commercial affairs was largely if not chiefly due to our magnificent system of free public education that places knowledge within the reach of the humblest as well as the richest.

But in the presence of this fine showing he was confronted with the anomalous and at first inexplicable fact that the children of our public and private schools, of our colleges and universities, went forth from the educational centers to life's vocations, either so indifferent to politics that they failed to exercise the right of citizenship, or they immediately and usually without a protest came under the domination of political bosses devoid of high idealism and ready to prostitute their party and betray the people in the service of corporations and privileged interests in return for large campaign contributions for the political machines over which they presided. Many of the bosses would not have been allowed to enter the social circles of the young voters who unquestioningly followed their lead. Many of them were men of low and brutal natures; some were wholly wanting in principles of honesty; all, or almost all, were such vicious opportunists that they did not hesitate to sacrifice the interests of the nation for partisan success.

Now for a time the phenomenon puzzled the young student. Here were the direct descendants of Revolutionary heroes who had freely given their lives to emancipate the people and establish a genuine democracy, who were blindly supporting and serving unscrupulous, arrogant, despotic, un-American and reactionary bosses who betrayed the people, corrupted the public servants and defeated the ends of republican government while permeating political life with graft. How was it that educated young

men of good families, who should have led the political forces in the community, were either supremely indifferent or were the active allies of political bosses who defeated the interests of the people and the ends of good government?

This query led to a careful study of the school system, and then the young patriot discovered the key that explained the problem. Our school system was the reverse of democratic. It was an ideal educational system for a monarchal, aristocratic or other form of class-government, but it was inimical to democracy because it habituated the child to unquestioningly obey enthroned authority and do as he was bidden, because the teacher's word or rule was law, instead of making him an independent, self-governing individual who obeyed the law and rule of the school in which he had a voice and where the honor and the glory of the school depended on the degree of civic spirit and the high ideals of himself and his companions. Not only did the whole educational system fail to teach the scholars the principles of self-government and the duty devolving on the free citizen to exercise his sovereign rights for the honor, integrity, advancement and glory of the nation, to the end that freedom, justice and happiness might prevail, but it failed to day by day impress the principles of democracy by having the children exercise self-government and thus habituate them to the rights or functions of citizenship during the plastic period of youth in such a manner that they would become a part of life's recognized duties one of the most sacred privileges and something never to be ignored or trifled with.

When this fact dawned upon the brain of Mr. Gill he saw at once the true explanation of the political lethargy and subserviency of the people, and he then understood how the old New England town-meeting, where the voters attended, discussed and legislated directly, became the great stronghold of freedom, the cradle of democracy and the nursery of

the most virile and practical republicanism the world had known. To make selfgoverning citizens or a nation of sovereigns one thing was needful. The young must be trained in the practice of citizenship, habituated to exercise their sovereign power, drilled to be self-governing and morally responsible citizens, and thus brought into that intimate, sympathetic, personal relationship to government in which its ties become as sacred, holy and lifelong as those of the family.

The more he considered the meaning of this new truth, the more the import of the democratic concept of education was borne home to his reason. He knew what all thinking men and women know, that nothing so tends to develop character as the imposition of a trust entailing responsibilities, and that nothing is better calculated to quicken the moral sensibilities than to be compelled to meet, think about and help solve questions of right and wrong, of good conduct, of just relationship and order; and all these things are fundamental to and present in any system of self-government.

It would be argued at once that children were not fit for self-government, that they

could not be entrusted with it, that anarchy and disorder would rule were it attempted to lodge the conduct or gov ernment of the school with them. But had not similar objections been urged against the kindergarten? Had not conventional educators ridiculed the idea of teaching little tots, too small for the primary school, to make things? Had they not scouted the possibility of children of such tender age being guided by the teachers and so entertained as to look forward to school as older children under the old order looked forward to recess? And had not confusion overtaken the rash critics? Had not the kindergarten more than vindicated the claims of its friends?

Moreover, in the plan that began to formulate itself in the brain of Mr. Gill, of making school cities, he saw that the relation of the teacher to the school could

be made analogous to that of the state to the city; that the teacher, though not desiring to interfere and only acting as an adviser, unless the children failed in selfgovernment, still reserved the right and power to step in when absolutely necessary. By this plan the needed safeguards were present which would render the experiment easy without any danger of demoralizing the old system if the new idea proved impractical. With these facts in mind he prepared to introduce a system of city government into the school, and it happened that an opportunity offered at this time for a practical test of his theory, the circumstances relating to which were as follows:

"The discipline had reached so low an ebb in a large primary and grammarschool on the outskirts of the city of New York, that a policeman was permanently detailed to keep order in the school-yard.

Mr. Bernard Cronson, a teacher with a reputation of being a specially good disciplinarian and president of a chapter of the Patriotic League, was transferred from a down-town school to improve the conditions in this one. At the end of a fortnight he was in despair and described the situation to Mr. Gill, who suggested governing body with a legislative, executhat the pupils be organized into a selfThis was done, the boys and girls were tive and judge of their own election. delighted with the responsibility, and under guidance of the new teacher quickly

established excellent order."

Encouraged by this success, Mr. Gill gave up his business engagements and devoted his entire time to perfecting the School-City idea, with a consecration and devotion similar to that which had been exhibited by Pestalozzi and Fröbel. With the aid of several leading educators, municipal chiefs and others interested in real progress, a simple yet comprehensive school-charter was perfected embracing the principles of the initiative and referendum, with proportional representation optional with each school. So armed

with this School-City charter, which represented the ripest thought of leading men in civic and educational life, the young apostle of democratic education laid his plan before the Philadelphia Board of Education, and later before the Franklin Institute of the State of Pennsylvania. Both these bodies received the theory favorably, and some of the public-school principals entered so heartily into the plan that Mr. Gill was enabled to organize over thirty of these School Cities in Philadelphia. The Franklin Institute awarded to Mr. Gill

of cities in many of our states, and in all instances where the teachers have intelligently grasped the theory and have given it their hearty and enthusiastic support their efforts have proved magnificently successful, and this is true of all grades, from the primary to the high and normal school. The immense value of the system has been thus admirably summed up:

judicial, and administrative functions of “Direct participation in the legislative, these miniature republics awakens great enthusiasm among the children, and

President Roosevelt observed the emi

nent degree of success that marked the initial experiment in New York city, and who had later followed with interest the who had later followed with interest the success of Mr. Gill, who at the request of Military-Governor Wood had introduced

his plan into the newly-organized publicschool system in Cuba, thus endorsed

the system:

“I hear with satisfaction that an earnest movement is well advanced in Philadelphia to establish in the schools of that city the teaching of civics by the admirable plan originated by Wilson L. Gill in the School City as a form of student government. I know of the work of Mr. Gill, both in this country and in Cuba, where Mr. Gill inaugurated this form of instruction upon the invitation of General Wood. Nothing could offer higher promise for the future of our country than an intelligent interest in the best ideals of citizenship, its privileges and duties among the students of our common schools. I wish for your efforts in this

direction the utmost success."

The School Cities have long since ceased to be experiments. They have been successfully operated in numbers

of government and human nature.

habits of good citizenship that are in"Civic training in early years forms valuable in after life both to the individual and to society. Purity and efficiency in political life and high character in every relation of life are fostered and developed by the School City.

"The School City is to the child what the town-meeting has been to New England-a developer of thought and conscience and civic spirit.”

ucational advance, the perfect flower of It is the latest and greatest step in eddemocracy in methods as applied to the expanding mind of childhood. Nothing that has been attempted in recent years promises so much for pure democracy— promises to so successfully meet and overcome civic indifference and subserviency to bossism, or is so well calculated to dethe School City. It is the education of velop a fine, self-disciplined character as democracy, the education of the future,

and as its originator and the one who has successfully introduced it Mr. Gill will occupy a high place among the great apostles of moral and intellectual advance.

Boston, Mass.

B. O. FLOWER.

Mrs. Fiske on The Ethics of The Drama.

O

N THE afternoon of December 12th, Mrs. Fiske delivered before the Harvard Ethical Society an address on "The Ethics of the Drama," marked by breadth of thought and fine discrimination. The first portion of the discourse was devoted to art in its broader signification and some of its uses apart from yielding pure delight and satisfaction to man's esthetic sensibilities.

"Ruskin proves," said the actress, “what any philosophy must admit, that life without art is brutal. Art has a function beyond that of affording pleasure for the moment. It should be an inspiration; and it should be potent-indirectly, of course, and by degrees in mitigation of the terrors whose contemplation may induce a question as to its utility. True art in any form inspires esthetic feeling, and the psychologist will tell you that esthetic feeling, like any other feeling, may be a spring

to action."

Moreover, art at times becomes a powerful weapon in arousing a public realization of colossal crimes that have come to us as a part of our heritage from a more brutal past, or which have grown up silently and subtly in civilization's midst without society realizing their enormities until the great artist, the man of transcendent imagination, uncovers the evil and so vividly reveals it that after the first feeling of horror men begin to systematically work for the abatement of the wrong.

“Verestchagin, the great Russian painter, whose work was so largely devoted to picturing war's inhumanity and terrors, and who lost his life in the midst of a carnage that his brush would have revealed to assist in the reformation of humanity, did not live in vain. Tolstoi, the great man and great artist, devoted his pen and life to a like end. The pen of Zola, like that of other artists whose purpose it has been to picture miseries that they might be cured, has wrought and is still working reform in life. The great dramatists of the modern school have aims higher than for the moment's amusement. They are striking at the root of

evils that mankind, if it progresses, must see decay."

From the consideration of art in its broader significance and its higher influence on human life, Mrs. Fiske passed to the notice of the theater in its relation to the ethical advance of man. She showed how powerful and deeprooted was the dramatic instinct in the human breast and how great had been the influence, direct and indirect, of the theater throughout the past.

"An institution," she urged, “that has grown from human impulse must be related closely to every ethical idea. We know that for almost three thousand years the play in one form or another has been a factor in educating and delighting the world. Ever since man has been able to give voice to his impulses in song or to limn on flat surfaces his ideas or to make images of his conceptions-ever since melody, drawing, or painting, sculpture and living language have been known-drama, emthe world. What could have taken the place bodying them all, has been an inspiration to

of the theater if it never had existed?"

While deploring the presence of plays "that shame the stage" and the "crazy dramatic miscellany" that flourishes under the present dominance of commercialism in the theatrical world, Mrs. Fiske insisted that:

"One great play, like the leaven of Holy Writ, may serve to save the theater for any season that may appear to be given over to the world, the flesh and the devil. And thus the theater survives, because always it may be found to project something on the side of

ethics."

The actress held that any dramatic art, to be good, must be sincere, true and genuine. Plays that made false appeals to the audience, that were artificial and not true to life or to an idealism in alignment with the orderly development of life, were in her judgment essentially immoral. In referring to the great difference between the plays of the elder day and the best work of the leading modern playwrights, the lecturer said: