our civilization, we must for a period come into close contact with the literature in which Greece and Rome portrayed their national life. Language is the clothing of the ideas of a people, a garb woven of poetic phantasy and prose reflection. In it we reach the germinal cell-growth of the ideas of a people. In this respect the study of Latin and Greek furnishes to a European or an American a far higher means of culture than does any modern language. No one modern language is an embryonic type of another, nor does its literature portray the embryonic form of the civilization of another people, even though it may be an "arrested development" of some type of civilization. To study the embryology of the butterfly, we must begin with the caterpillar and not with the house-fly. So to understand the frog we must study the tadpole rather than the turtle. French and German have their own evolution and their own embryology. 6. Pursuing this thought we come to inquire why it is that language in general should furnish so large a portion of the course of study. The spirit of protest demands: "why not things rather than words?" And yet education goes on dealing with words! If thought-scientific thought-be the end of culture and education, it is not strange after all that so much is made of the word that expresses it. Things are only transitory phases of processes in nature-the temporary equilibria in the great movement of forces. Science seizes the eternal laws or forms of the process itself and thus deals with what has more validity than the mere things. Words express not things alone but also forces-processes. The verification of the word is therefore not through things alone but through the synthetic activity of thought. Words stand for more than mere things. Looked at as an object of knowledge the world is twofold; (a) the world of man-including his realizations in art and literature, in his political and social institutions, in his science and history; (b) the world of nature including the inorganic aspect, and the organic one of plant and animal. In the study of language we find the threefold world of man as theoretical, practical, and æsthetic. If we go so far as to call the world of man the most important of studies for man, we shall certainly call language the most important study of the course—the one which gives most clearness of insight to the mind and the most discipline to its powers. But while the perfection of man is the object and end of civilization and consequently of all other culture and education, on the other hand nature is the instrumentality by which this end is achieved. To the savage man nature is master and tyrant; to civilized man nature is servant and thrall. To omit the science of nature from any course of study, is to do wrong to the supremacy which man holds by reason of his empire over nature. To slight the science of language in a course of study, is to insult the object of all study itself. 7. The final difficulty which your committee encountered in their investigation is the one of the natural and proper order of development of the topics of the course of study in the mind itself. Such questions were met as these: "Why not get discipline of mind first before taking up collateral branches, such as the natural sciences, the national literature and history ?" "These topics involve the highest reach of the mind to be understood properly." Or the counter position: "Why are not the natural sciences, history, and literature as valuable discipline-studies as Latin, Greek, and mathematics? and if so, why not begin with them in a course of study? Upon consideration of this question of the order of topics, your committee are of opinion that each one of the several fields of the objective world of man and nature should be represented at each point in the course of study. Nature in its organic and inorganic forms, mind in its theoretical, practical, and æsthetic forms. To those who object to collateral and information-studies side by side with the discipline-studies it may be said that they lay emphasis on the inorganic phase of nature by the exclusive study of mathematics and physics and on the theoretical phase of mind to the exclusion of the practical and æsthetic phases by the too exclusive study of grammatical forms and constructions. To those who object to the study of topics that are too difficult to be understood in the most comprehensive sense, until the close of one's disciplinary course it is sufficient to point out the fact that every subject has its abstruse side and that no phase of natural or human history can be completely comprehended except in and through the world itself. Even the disciplinary studies themselves treat of topics that are not fully explicable until one has mastered the other studies. The child seizes whatever subject he studies more vaguely than the adult. His active phantasy is his chief organ. Hence the descriptive phases of science can and should be learned early. In secondary education the classifications and relations come properly to be considered — reflection is then the chief mental activity. In the highest phase of education objects are studied as organic wholes-each individual is seen through the perspective of its history. Without previous familiar acquaintance with a subject obtained by studying its first or descriptive phases, one gets very little insight into the philosophy of it, even though he listens to the exposition of a Huxley or Agassiz. That mathematics and the classic languages are justly regarded as disciplinary studies in a sense that will not apply to the other studies, is pretty evident from the reasons already given. Discipline is the process by which the will is purified from the sway of appetite and caprice. In his infantile state, as child or savage, man's will is implicit―not separate from his desires or appetites. A child or savage is a creature of impulse. To become rational he must substitute principle for caprice; moral forms for impulses. The training requisite to emancipate the will and elevate it from the stage of impulse to that of moral activity, must needs possess the following essential characteristics: (a) It must occupy the pupil with what is remote from the interests of his every-day life; self-alienation is necessary to self-knowledge; in order to see our own dwelling in its relations to surrounding objects it is necessary to go out of it and stand at some distance. The atmosphere of the classic people of Greece and Rome furnishes the broad contrast to our every-day life which enables us to discriminate sharply the motives which unite to form our impulses. (b) Inasmuch as the civilization of those classic peoples is the embryonic form of our own, as has already been pointed out, the student of the classics has the advantage of seeing the universal, or regulative, forms of his life (the laws, institutions, and usages which define his status as a human being,) in their special forms and applications. He learns more readily the universal by studying it, at first as a typical instance. The invisible cloak of forms wrapped about his life-invisible because of its general or abstract nature-thus becomes visible to him and he acquires the ability to separate his deed from his impulse by the insertion of general motives. Reflection takes the place of instinct and caprice. By studying that which has no direct and obvious relation to his immediate interests but which is allied to the general forms of his rational activity, the youth obtains breadth and perspective of practical insight. The disciplined mind makes its purpose a general one and does not allow caprice (likes and dislikes, weariness of the body, curiosity, love of ease or amusement,) to hold sway. Mathematics as the science of the general relations of time and space-the conditions under which the existence of nature is possible, has the same relation to man's physical existence as classic study has to his humane culture. This mental discipline is not a matter of perseverance and industry simply, so that whoever studies any subject thoroughly will get the same amount of discipline as another, but the object studied must stand related to the student's general and rational forms of life and thought. Assuming the division already indicated, our course of study will fall under five sub-divisions, each of which must be represented at every stage of progress. A careful survey of this ideal standard discovers the fact that with the exception of the divergence already mentioned between preparatory schools and the public high schools, there is a close conformity to the educational system generally adopted in the country. Were the college or university to require for admission a knowledge of the elements of natural philosophy and physical geography (the former a compend of physics and the latter of natural history), universal history, and English literature, and slightly less of Latin and Greek, it would remove the necessity of two courses of study in the high school. The five sub-divisions are: I. Inorganic Nature, treated in (a) mathematics, the science of the general form of nature as existing in time and space, and hence as quantitative; (b) Physics, molar and molecular, including the science of the contents of nature in their quantitative aspect. II. Organic Nature or Cyclic Processes, treated in Natural History and in all natural sciences which have for their object a cyclical process, whether that of life or not; hence, astronomy, meteorology, geology, botany, and zoology, and kindred sciences. III. Theoretical Man or Intellect, treated indirectly in (a) Philology or the science of the instrument invented for the reception, preservation, and communication of thought; treated directly in (b) Philosophy which investigates the universal and necessary conditions of existence or the forms of the mind that appear in logic, psychology, ontology, and other spheres more concrete, The study of grammar is the propedeutic to this field. IV. Practical Man or Will, treated in (a) Civil History, which portrays man's progress in realizing forms of freedom by means of political organization: (b) Social and Political Science which investigates the evolution of institutions of civil society and their logical basis. V. Esthetical Man, or Phantasy, as developed in the Fine Arts, and especially in Literature as the symbolic portrayal of man to himself, the collisions of his real world with his ideal, and the reconciliation of the two. In mapping out the provinces which shall be investigated, only a small portion of the work of preparing a course of study has been accomplished. It remains to select those branches of study which are to be pursued continuously from year to year throughout the course, and likewise to decide the amount of time to be given to the other branches, as well as their exact order in the course. In this difficult and delicate part of the task it becomes evident that within certain limits very much freedom may be allowed to the teacher and pupil, and in fact must be allowed. It is necessary to have each one of the five departments well represented in the course. But a choice may be made, for example, in the department of the study of organic nature, between botany, zoology, physiology, and geology, each one of these studies being a fair type of the rest as regards effect on the mind in culture or discipline. It must not be forgotten moreover that the age of pupils and the amount and quality of previous preparation will determine whether the course shall be very full or whether it shall embrace only a few of the representative branches; whether the special branches shall be continued for half a year each or for a whole year. In the more important branches there should be no option left to the pupil in the high school, for example, all should be required to take Latin, Algebra and Geometry, Universal History, Constitution of the United States, History of English Literature, Rhetoricals, Natural Philosophy, and Physical Geography. Omitting the phase of physical training, except in so far as the art of drawing secures it in the form of a culture of the hand and eye-a general propedeutic of manual skill—and not including the ground covered by the Kindergarten which would precede, or that of the special trades or professions which would succeed this general course, your committee present the following tabulated scheme for a general course of study from primary school to university. DISTRICT OR COMMON SCHOOL. TOPICS RELATING TO NATURE. Inorganic.-Arithmetic, Oral Lessons in Natural Philosophy. 66 TOPICS RELATING TO MAN; OR THE HUMANITIES." Theoretical (Intellect).—Grammar, (Reading, Writing, Parsing and Analyzing). Esthetical (Feeling and Phantasy.)—Reading Selections from English and American Literature. Drawing. HIGH SCHOOL OR PREPARATORY SCHOOL. TOPICS RELATING TO NATURE. Inorganic.-Algebra, Geometry, Plane Trigonometry, Analytical Geometry, Natural Philosophy, Chemistry. Organic or Cyclic.—Physical Geography, Astronomy (Descriptive), Botany or Zoology, Physiology. 66 TOPICS RELATING TO MAN; OR THE HUMANITIES." Theoretical (Intellect).—Latin, Greek, French or German, Mental and Moral Philosophy. Practical (Will).-History (Universal), Constitution of the United States. Esthetical (Feeling and Phantasy).-History of English Literature, Shakespeare or some standard author, (one or more whole works read). Rhetoricals (Declamation and Composition). Drawing. COLLEGE OR UNIVERSITY. TOPICS RELATING TO NATURE. Inorganic-Analytical Geometry, Spherical Trigonometry, Differential and Integral Calculus, Physics, Chemistry, Astronomy, (etc., Elective.) Organic or Cyclic.-Anatomy and Physiology, Botany, Zoology, Meteorology, Geology, Ethnology, (etc., Elective). TOPICS RELATING TO MAN; OR "THE HUMANITIES." Theoretical (Intellect).—Latin, Greek, French or German, Comparative Philology, Logic, History of Philosophy, Plato or Aristotle, Kant or Hegel, (or a representative of ancient philosophy and also one of modern philosophy). Practical (Will).—Philosophy of History, Political Economy and Sociology, Civil and Common Law, Constitutional History, Natural Theology and Philosophy of Religion. Esthetical (Feeling and Phantasy).—Philosophy of Art, History of Literature, Rhetoric. The Great Masters compared in some of their greatest works: Homer, Sophocles, Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe, Phidias, Praxiteles, Skopas, Michael Angelo, Raphael, Mozart, Beethoven, &c.. The HON. DAVID MURRAY of the Department of Education, Japan, was then introduced, and gave a brief account of the condition of education in that country. He said the world had been surprised at the rapid improvement made by Japan, which he said could only be accounted for by the fact that long before the opening of Japan to the world there was a system of education there. China was the mother country of Japan, who derived the origin of their arts, printed language and laws from that country. Their written language was introduced in the year 700 or 800, and at the same time the Buddhist religion, which also came from China, was introduced, the priesthood of this religion filling the same place in Japan as the priests of the middle ages did in the education of Europe. The Japanese nation early began to feel an interest in education, and a national university was established at an early date with a view of education. This lasted until the fall of the Tycoon's Government. From 1600 until 1868 education formed one of the principal objects of this government. |