pressure comes upon the schools to train men to an understanding of the problems of taxation, and the fair distribution of the earnings of capital, labor and intelligence. We may fairly say that the condition demands the separate consideration of the latter element to the problem.

If we grant the correctness of this position we are bound to conclude that, if the state is to maintain a system of education adequate to the demands put upon it by such a growth as we have here suggested, the wealth produced by our great industries must return to the support of education a much larger royalty than it is now doing. This is demanded not alone in the interests of fairness, but also as an absolute necessity in the maintenance of an adequate system of schools. The collecting and disbursement of such royalties call for a somewhat different distribution of responsibilities in regard to education from that now in vogue. We are accustomed to leave it to individual commonwealths to provide for the support of all phases of education undertaken by the state. At the same time we are familiar with the idea of national endowment, through land grants, of certain phases of this training.

Now it seems evident enough that the collection of much of the royalty due for the support of our educational institutions would naturally fall to the national government. Most of the great industries involved can hardly be treated as state interests. They are not susceptible of a fair valuation in that way. We should, therefore, have to become accustomed to considering the national government as the proper trustee to collect and disburse large sums for education.

This would make necessary a reclassification of educational interests on a basis to suit such disbursement. Such a scheme would be comparatively simple. The interest of the nation in education is much broader, perhaps, than we are accustomed to think. This has already been suggested in the discussion of a preceding proposition. For safeguarding the interests of the state the nation is interested in intelligent citizenship, in the development of the great national industries, in engineering skill, in the protection of public health through proper sanitation and the prevention of disease, in well trained civil

officers at home and abroad, in the mastery of the principles of national economics, in well trained teachers, especially in higher institutions. Surely, here is broad enough ground for national activity, without in any way interfering with the educational domain of the individual commonwealths. Indeed, the disbursement of national educational funds in the support of such training as we have here suggested does not involve the necessity of federal control and management of the actual work of the schools. All the great technical schools for training in agriculture and mechanic arts founded as a result of federal grants of land are evidence of the ability and willingness of the states to make good use of such funds as might be received from the national treasury at any time.

It will readily appear that the relief of the individual states along even a few of the lines of educational endeavor above suggested would make it possible to maintain a much better system of lower schools. It would take from every commonwealth a very heavy strain on the systems of local taxation, and would make possible a much fairer distribution of the burden of maintaining such a system of public education as the nature of our problems of government demands.

It will be seen that the tendency of the above line of thought is toward a much stronger nationalization of our schools. In some respects the argument is in sympathy with the sentiment expressed by Von Holst, where he says, "In no respect is conscious and systematic nationalization more imperatively needed than in regard to education." This is certainly true with respect to the financing of our schools. It is likewise true when it comes to dealing with such problems of education as confront the nation in the colored race of the South.

Yet there are "metes and bounds" to this matter of centralized power which we are bound to observe if we maintain our national ideals of a democracy. These ideals involve the gradual uplift of all the people; but to accomplish this we must maintain a conscious and active interest by the people in those instrumentalities by which alone an intelligent citizenship may be involved.

There is no more certain principle than that growth in the

ideals and standards of the social body comes not without participation of the individuals in those activities through which this growth comes. We may not cease, then, to stir the masses, even to the dregs, by constant agitation for the higher cause. We need, therefore, to move cautiously and with due discrimination whenever we contemplate setting up a machine to take the place of this individual sense of participation and responsibility. The machine may produce better results outwardly; but the essential condition of the masses may deteriorate thereby.

An Autumn Song

(SEPTEMBER)

JULIA HARRIS MAY

Over the western hills

I see the tree tops shine;

And a hint of autumn the valley fills,

As I sit beneath the pine.

And a leaflet, here and there,

On bough, or tree, or bush,

The tints of October seems to wear,

Or a September blush.

But the daisies still remain;

And the new-taught birdlings sing;

And the brook still chatters to the rain,

And I hear, in its chattering,

"Over the ripples go;

Down to the billowy main,"

And listening blossoms as they blow,

Are whispering back again

"Stay, stay,

For many a day

Linger, and listen, long,

Oh, stay, stay, stay."

Schools

PROFESSOR GEORGE HARRISON DURAND, YANKTON COLLEGE, YANKTON,

T

SOUTH DAKOTA

HE teaching of English in the secondary schools (and elsewhere, too) is often felt to be in an unsettled state. As compared with other subjects its purpose is less distinctly recognized, its methods are more variable and uncertain, and the results obtained more indefinite. It is open to much criticism, and is often said to fail in its object, according as that object is variously conceived. In fact, English, in the otherwise settled and well ordered community of school subjects, is apt to appear as a kind of vagrant, a source of painful questionings to many decent and methodical minds.

My purpose here is not to defend English from the charge of vagrancy, but on the contrary to admit the charge, and to exalt it in that very character. I believe it is peculiar to the nature of English to be rebellious of regulation and, in a measure, indefinite in results. What I wish to do here is to remind ourselves of what English fundamentally is, and to indicate broadly how in our teaching we may bring out its inherent and positive virtue.

It is first necessary to notice that of the four branches included under secondary school English, rhetoric, composition, literature and literary history, two are of a subordinate character, viz., rhetoric and literary history. For as to rhetoric, we teach it not for itself alone but for something beyond—on the one hand the application of its principles in actual composition, and on the other the cultivation of the appreciation of literature. Upon composition and literature it has its bearing, not upon an independent object. And in like manner literary history is a branch that does not exist for itself alone, but for its bearing upon literature. To give it an independent position in the course of study, or to allow it to take the place of the study of literature itself, is a mistake-it is putting second things first.

It is more

important in the schools to teach literature than to teach something about literature. The latter is entitled to a place as a support to the former, but not otherwise.

The four branches of English study, then, are reducible to two main ones, literature and composition. In these two, I believe, the teaching of English in the secondary schools ought to focus. And of these two, literature and composition, neither is inferior; they are equal and co-ordinate; nay, more, they are fundamentally counterparts and companion subjects, vitally related, and each to be most truly conceived when viewed in the light of the other.

What then is the real nature of these two, and the real relation between them?

In the first place as to literature. How should it figure as a subject for study in the schools? I suspect that many a student if put to an honest opinion about the classics, as taught in the schools, would express himself somewhat as follows: "A classic is a book with a long introduction in front and a great many notes in the back; the lines of it are numbered for class-room reference; it contains many hard words and allusions to look up, sentences and paragraphs to analyze, problems of construction to study, and subjects for investigations and exercises of many kinds. Classics are fine training in English, but they are not as interesting as books one reads outside of school." Now, such an opinion as that recognizes much good that has undoubtedly been accomplished in the teaching of literature to that student, but it indicates, also, that the real life of the book itself has somehow been obscured by other matters.

What the teacher of English, above all other persons, must never forget, is the fundamental fact that literature is the great life study. We had better hang up, as a motto in the class room, Milton's definition of a good book as "the precious life blood of a master spirit treasured up on purpose to a life to come," and Matthew Arnold's definition of poetry as "the criticism of life," and Wordsworth's definition of it as "the first and last of all knowledge, immortal as the heart of man," and other sayings such as these by the writers of books, lest we forget, in the