IV. A general high school shall be established in every city or county of New England whose population is 40,000 or above. In such schools everything desired shall be taught, provided a sufficient number express a desire for a particular study at a fixed. date, the number and date to be fixed by law.

The triple high school affords much enlargement of educational advantages to the youth; but the general high school would go still further.† Much greater latitude might be allowed in the matter of electives, a course strongly commended at present by some administrators of education.

V. These high schools shall be free to all youth of New England, subject to appropriate regulations by school authorities.

The erasure of the local boundary in a measure by the population group and the adoption of a more comprehensive plan of school management will open high schools to youth in a larger area. The accessibility of a school may therefore be the chief factor in determining where the pupil shall attend. High schools near state borders may be of nearly equal value to pupils in two states on account of accessibility. Such is the case along the border of every New England state. This subordinates the local

That is, in towns having steam or electric roads or both within or close to their borders.

"Equal Education in Connecticut," by W. Scott, pp. 83-29, on commerce, trades, agriculture, music and art in public instruction.

President C. W. Eliot, "The Gap between Common Schools and Colleges," favors the arrangement of secondary schools with a view to railway accessibility.

boundary idea to the educational idea; the latter is fundamental, while the former is capable of readjustment.

VI. Schools of correspondence, with occasional meetings for class work, shall be formed for remote pupils who cannot attend high schools daily.

In

That effective work might thus be done, if placed in the hands of capable instructors, is beyond doubt. The wise development of such a method might utilize the postal system, the book, correspondence and other features of work with less frequent meeting with teacher and class than is secured in daily school sessions. some cases it may develop independent and original elements of character in the student and show, what is believed to be true by some teachers of experience, that many pupils suffer from excess rather than from lack of instruction. They require self-help. At all events, such provision, wisely conducted, will prove of advantage in the effort to reach pupils remote from school centres.

The old classification of school population was urban, suburban, rural and remote,-four classes. These classes have been reduced to two by the marvellous growth of transportation facilities during the last fifty years or less. These two classes are urban and remote. The remote class is numerically small, and it is believed that this phase of the school problem admits a remedy.

VII. The practicability of school cars, for use in sections of New England whose population is sparse and for general educational service, shall be investigated.

The general question of transportation for schools is as yet unsettled. Pupils' fares on steam roads and electrics lack uniformity of treatment. But it is probable that, when transportation becomes more frequent in

connection with central schools, uniformity of rates and lower terms will be secured, and will be found advantageous both to railroads and the public. The power of railroad corporations, however, is so extensive that towns and small communities are at a disadvantage in securing these results. The state has a duty here, and in the final adjustment joint action by the states may be necessary.

VIII. Appropriate legislation and equitable taxation are essential in the plan set forth, or in any plan that may be considered.

In handling these questions of government, the best wisdom of the citizens of New England and a profound interest in public education are indispensable. It is believed, however, that a comprehensive and flexible plan may be secured to reach all New England youth without the need of a single new principle or method of legislation or taxation. Let the principles and methods now existing and generally approved be directed by wisdom, patriotism and a strong desire for the good of the children and youth of New England, and salutary changes for the better in education may be quickly accomplished.

It may be added that taxation for education falls unequally in every part of New England, and this inequality is an obstacle to educational progress.* Governor Wolcott of Massachusetts, in his annual message approving the commission of 1897 on taxation, says, "How best to raise by taxation the vast sums of money required to meet the demands of a progressive civilization, is a problem of great difficulty, which has not yet found its ultimate solution." To equalize the burdens of educational taxation is one of the most important of public problems. Comparing the counties Aroostook with Cumberland, Franklin with Suffolk, Tolland with Fairfield, we see that the poorer county carries the heavier tax rate,

Report of Committee of Twelve on Rural Schools, pp.

29, 30.

and yet is able with it to do far less for its children. The same condition prevails among towns of the same county. The imposition of a state tax has proven a partial cure for this inequality. A wiser division of the receipts of a state tax is also advocated by some friends of education. The better correlation of all taxing units, town, county, city and state, is hoped for by not a few educational people and public men. Uniform educational standards and an equal tax rate are urged on the ground that public education is an interest of the entire commonwealth, which intrusts it, in a measure, to smaller divisions of the state, but can never safely permit it to become unjustly burdensome to the smaller and poorer sections, nor to suffer detriment from meagre support.

IX. Voluntary coöperation should be encouraged in connection with. public education.

The power of such coöperation is well understood in New England. The work of Christian churches is conducted among us almost wholly by the free gifts of the people. The splendid cluster of colleges and universities in New England rests chiefly on the benefactions of comparatively few persons. Some views of public education which government may be slow to take, enlightened philanthropy may be quick to embrace.

*

New England is one in the substance of its life. May not its people coöperate with a strong and prevailing will, where government may feel that it must pause, to bring to every child equal and generous training in public education? Government itself rests on the will of the people. Let the voluntary coöperation of the people, which is capable of indefinite expansion, strengthen and reinforce public education. The cause is among the noblest. It is the training of a free people under the most favorable conditions that have ever existed.

*The Peabody Fund is a unique illustration. See 38th Annual Report, 1898, Hon. J. L. M. Curry, Agent, Washington, D. C.

W

HEN New England started westward, she carried her school system with her. Unfortunately this had suffered disintegration since its first inception. At the outset the Massachusetts system of education was completely collateral with its political system. These two institutions, with the church, formed three distinct and equally important social evolutions; although the church of New England dominated both state and school. The colonial university lay upon a broad basis of higher schools; and these upon schools that were primary and as universal as the population. Harvard was founded as a state school at the apex of the system. But as Massachusetts grew westward, the symmetry of both her political and educational development was broken up. It was a week's travel to cross the state. The counties hung loosely together, and easily acted independently of each other. Even the church system suffered, and would have become dislocated, but for the fact that each church was an independent factor, able to act with its neighbor without a rigid superintendence. As

HAMILTON ONEIDA ACADEMY.

Mathers could write Latin as readily as English; but the graduates of these new colleges, although catechised in Latin, were never thoroughly classical scholars. There was an increase of teaching of theology and a decrease of classical learning.

It was at this point that the overflow went beyond the boundaries of the state. Connecticut was always restless and always pioneering. She had settled Vermont and had a colony in Pennsylvania; and now she was ready to anticipate Massachusetts in the western wilderness. At the close of the War of Independence, her sons pushed up the Mohawk valley, beyond the Dutch settlements, and turned their first furrows near Fort

Schuyler, now Utica. The first village to take organic form was Clinton. There were six founders of the township; and they brought with them a full cargo of New England ideas; eminently that of the necessity of universal education.

But Dominie Samuel Kirkland, also from Connecticut, had preceded these settlers as early as 1764. His mission was to live among the Iroquois, and, if possible, infuse their confederacy with New England conceptions of church and state. The last frontier post left behind him was Johnstown. Having gone beyond this post, Kirkland was unable to communicate with the Indians, until a Dutch trader happened along who could act as interpreter. The first question propounded by the Iroquois was, "What put it into your head to leave your father's home and country, and come so many hundreds of miles to see us and live with us?" It was impossible for Kirkland to give a diplomatic answer to this question; for the two confederacies, that of New England and that of the five Iroquois peoples, were the two most nearly

equal powers upon the American continent. It must be acknowledged that the latter could with some degree of consistency have sent missionaries to the former. But Kirkland answered, with Saxon frankness, that he came "to teach the Indians the knowledge possessed by the whites." From the very first, he formed and announced an educational conception rather than a purely religious or theological. He never

acted the part of a mere preacher of a new religion. He was adopted into the family of the principal chief, and began his work

as the instructor of his tribal father. When the lessons drew upon books and writings, the chief explained that he preferred oral instruction, and that not only himself but all his people chose to have as little to do with books as possible. "Writing," he said, "speaks for a great many years."

In 1766, Kirkland received ordination in Connecticut to estab

compelled to share. Their orchards had been cut down, their houses burned, and their power as a nation forever broken. But they received Kirkland with cordiality, giving him a tract of land two miles square, on the west side of the Treaty Line, which the whites called the Property Line. He was convinced that the only way to save his friends from utter disintegration was by a thorough system of education. A conference on this subject was held with the Indian headsmen. Before these he laid his scheme, and received the following reply:

"You, my friend, are increasing, and we are decreasing. Our canoes were once on the rivers and lakes, which are now full of your great ships. The land which you bought of us for a trifle you now sell for thousands of dollars. Your villages and great cities cover the land where once rose the smoke of our wigwams. Why the difference? It is the curse of the Great Spirit resting upon us for some unknown sin."

lish his relation solely with the Oneidas; that one tribe of the Confederacy which he found to be most ready to receive instruction, and on the whole to be the most intelligent of the six associated peoples. He proceeded at once to establish schools; but these were almost entirely obliterated by the War of the Revolution which so speedily followed. In 1784 we find Kirkland had returned to see what he could do in the way of reconstruction. He found the Confederacy terribly broken up by the conflict in which they had been