the description of business purposes will not result in the sa ing of time and getting of better results. And others have said that business men are born, not made. It is true that the great magnates of the present are men who have foreseen great opportunities and have seized the same. Your ancestors and my ancestors made it possible for these managers to accumulate great fortunes by large land grants, and exclusive franchises which are crippling many of our cities of today. And we, who are of the present, must develop men who are some day to deal with these managers and perchance become managers themselves. The problem they are likely to confront in future life, can, with much interest, be discussed in classwork.

The importance of commercial work must be recognized when we take into consideration the fact that in 1802, 73 per cent. of the graduates of Yale College entered what was called the learned profession, and 17 per cent. filled business positions, while in 1902, the proportion was reversed.

In the classroom the impetus is given which will relieve business of the monotony of its routine and raise business above the mere machine. Heretofore the commercial classroom has been accused of being a place in which the boy is prepared for business, in order that he might devote more of his time to recreation outside of the office. Now, he is taught to surmount the mere details of office-work and get a broader view which enables him to enjoy the modern business transaction. Courtesies he must extend to others in the classroom are like courtesies he must extend to business men upon the street, and here should be developed the professional courtesies which lawyers and doctors extend to one another.

The lad who enters West Point is no braver than his fellows, but years of constant teaching that personal honor is all important and his experience, in unfaltering courage and unswerving fidelity to duty, instills into his being a quality which makes him a braver man in the face of danger and makes him more certain in carrying out his orders without counting the cost to himself.

A person, given a similar education in honesty and elements of professional courtesy in business, would have great strength to resist temptations which so often lead to ruin and disgrace. In individual instruction we should discover the special aptitudes and powers of the individual. We readily see by close contact with the individual student, his special views on any one problem. We readily gain the information as to whether it is original or borrowed. If wrong conclusions have been reached, we can more easily return to planes. of equality and agreement and build up the framework necessary to the solution of our problem. This is often quite opposite to the method pursued in classwork, where too often the development of the mind is quite lost sight of, and the problem under consideration becomes the all-absorbing theme. Or again, in classwork, the instructor too often thinks of the learned presentation of his subject without considering the power of application on the part of the student.

In our individual instruction, we are able to earmark what must be known

by letter or number, and can designate in similar manner what the student knows. We then have our base of operation clearly in hand and can proceed to teach him what remains to be known. This can better be done in individual than in class instruction, as what our students know in regard to subjects in hand varies quite markedly, because they have not had the same preparation. We must always guard against the teacher becoming too important a factor in gaining what remains to be known. We should always bear in mind the thought expressed by Philip of Macedon, when he presented his son to Aristotle as a pupil. He said, "See that you make yourself useless to my son."

In our individual instruction, we are getting at the root of what we are to think and reason about later on. Have your thinking first and plenty to think about, and then establish principles to guide in drawing conclusions. We should cultivate a healthy curiosity and classify the results of our observations; then reflect. Some one has said, to have ideas is to gather flowers; to think, is to weave them in garlands. Weaving and thinking should be synonymous. In individual thinking we can teach more with an eye on our pupil, and not merely on the work he is turning out. We can train him to set labor above whim, to develop the less promising parts of his mind as well as the most promising parts, to make one talent ten and two talents five, to get enjoyment out of overcoming difficulties.

We must not confuse individual instruction with information gained at first hand only. He who would gain knowledge in this way alone, would be returning to the savage stage. We should gain power by the experiences of others whether we get this experience from the printed page or by word of mouth, so contact with minds opens new avenues of approaching subjects under consideration and our view-point is broadened. Whatever gives the mind a larger view increases individuality.

To give each person in the world the net results of the experiences of all his educated fellows is the object of education. Man can live over again the experiences of others without suffering their rebuffs and disappointments. The uneducated man cannot do this.

Class instruction tends to the development of the student as a part of a unit. It is an integral part in which the student participates in the making of the unit. The class and this individual are counterparts of each other, and not the opposite extremes as one might suppose. The unit of thought of the class is not the individual thought or the aggregate thought. We may agree on a certain subject under consideration and differ on another subject. This brings out the natural resistance as well as the mutual dependence, rivalry as well as sympathy. Unity of a class or society is not fixed, it is ever growing, thus we see we must have differences and likenesses in order that we may have growth.

The student must be able to adapt himself to conditions which do not agree with his ideas, because we must not only fit our students into existing condi

tions and institutions, but must fit men to make existing conditions and institutions better. He must learn to stand in opposition to his fellow-men, because, in all classes we have rich and poor, good and bad, ruler and subject, religious and irreligious, conservative and radical. No individual understands himself when alone. It often takes an opponent to develop in man and reveal to his consciousness, the best or the worst that lies within him. Thru opposition we come to recognize and develop the manifold possibilities that life contains. As the struggle in the flame in the candle, gives light and shows the result of combustion, so in life the struggles are indicative of opposing influences with advancement definitely marked. The other man in the class, the other class, the other school, has a positive share in the life of every student and this rivalry or active opposition instead of weakening the student, should develop him.

Again, adaptation should come as the result of class instruction. In practical life the job has to be done and the man must adapt himself to it, or lose it; and in practical life, all but trained men are going to have a hard time. Besides adaptation, and habits already spoken of, class instruction teaches the student punctuality, regularity, and observation of order. All essentials of the individual, if he wishes to succeed.

In our individual instruction, we are not always sure of results, and as impression and expression are counterparts and beget one another, we should cultivate the two together. In classwork, expression will tend to clearness and definiteness of thought. While looseness and inaccuracy in the use of words, lead to indefiniteness and lack of clearness of thought. Thus must we combine classwork and individual instruction in order that we prepare the student for his future problem.

As truly as we must cultivate patriotism in a soldier, humanity in a physician, self-denial in a missionary, love of beauty in an artist, in exactly the same way, must we secure the aptitudes for commercial affairs, a desire for work, the love of order and economy, the spirit of enterprise, clearness and judgment— all essential qualities in a good business man.

DISCUSSION

THOMAS H. H. KNIGHT, junior master of Girls High School, Boston, Mass.-In discussions of this kind I observe that there is a great temptation to wander away from the main point and to enlarge upon themes which have nothing to do with it. We are not at present concerned in the glorification or defense of commercial education; we are simply to discuss one phase of it, and since it is my province to introduce the discussion on this paper, I shall ask that each one who speaks shall confine himself to the topic.

In this discussion there are at least two classes of persons whom we can easily spare: First, those who are getting along well enough with present methods and who have not the time nor the inclination to take up with anything new. Then there are the radicalsthose people who take such extreme views that they can see no good in the other side. I do not mean to deprecate enthusiasm nor positiveness of opinion, they are the things which mark the pioneer who forges ahead of the rank and file and calls upon the rest of

mankind to follow him into new fields; but the rank and file must follow slowly if at all; the ground must be looked over carefully if disaster is to be avoided.

The question of individual instruction has been before us for some time and because it tends to discredit the old-fashioned recitation period it has been seized upon by some of the restless spirits who are hungry for reform. These people have been telling us with great insistence that the pupil is an individual and should be treated as such, that our education-methods, whereby all pupils are run thru the same mold, are all wrong. They love to borrow figures which cast opprobrium on present methods—we hear much of the "lock-step," "marking time," etc. They never by any chance refer to classwork as "teamwork" or compare it to the precision of an army corps. They lose sight entirely of the fact that the individual will always be one of a class, that his activities must be circumscribed by the activities of others, and that. the more perfectly he has learned to modify his own ideas and to supplement those of others, the more successful he will be in life.

On the other hand the extreme adherents of class instruction characterize the whole movement for individual instruction as a fad, and to them "fad and failure" is an alliterative jingle which pleases the ear and satisfies the judgment. We have it on what may be considered good authority that it was carefully tried in Kansas City and abandoned. It has been denounced as uneconomic in time and energy, in short it has been shown that the whole system "hasn't a leg to stand on." But as I said in the beginning, it seems to me we should eliminate discussion on the general merits of the two systems. I take it that we are just plain people who are trying to get together to see if by an exchange of views we can improve by ever so little the work we ourselves are doing in our own classrooms.

The writer of this paper says there is some good to be found in both systems and I think we agree with him. It is to be regretted, therefore, that he has not offered out of his own experience some practical suggestions for co-ordination of individual and class instruction. We are ready to follow him in his contention that they should be combined in some way, but how is this much-desired consumation to be reached? I hope as the result of the discussion which it is my province merely to indicate that we shall get some practical answers to this question.

The problem before us is the pupil. His tastes, inclinations, and capabilities are not greatly different from those of hundreds of his fellows. With all our limitations how are we going to effect the highest function of education which Dr. Harris says is to "open the windows of the soul" so that the pupil may interpret correctly the experiences which come to him in life. If a combination of individual and class instruction will help us to do this, by all means let us have it. Some practical suggestions made by Mr. Collins of the Stevens Point Normal School are:

1. The setting apart of consultation periods to assign extra work to strong members and to aid weak ones over difficulties.

2. Conferences at the end of the recitation period.

3. Individual instruction during part of the hour; either at the beginning or end.

4. Chalk and talk, in which all members of the class work on the same problem with pencils while one student talks at the board.

If anyone can give observations based on practical experience with any of these or other similar methods it would be a very valuable item in this discussion.

THE RELATION BETWEEN GENERAL AND COMMERCIAL

EDUCATION

JAMES M. GREEN, PRINCIPAL OF THE STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, TRENTON, N. J. In some parts of our country, especially in New Jersey, we have what might be termed an epidemic of commercialism in education. The microbe has so worked upon our educational system that there are many who seem to

think that if a man is to follow any commercial pursuit, in reality or hypothetically, he should at a very early age take up special studies and of a narrow order.

We have a great many schools that call themselves business colleges, and which offer courses of study that are the inverse of college in that they are most elementary, narrow, and mechanical. The representatives of these so-called colleges canvass in automobiles, on bicycles, in railroad trains, by mail, and in every other way for pupils to come to them who have not gone farther in a general education than the third year of the grammar school. These pupils are deluded into the notion that these schools have some patent open sesame to business or commercial life, whatever that may mean, that does not call for the study usual to the general courses.

We also have, in connection with a large number of our academies or high schools of four years' courses,short courses called business,or commercial courses that may be taken in two years, and for which, in a number of instances, the diploma of the school is given. In a good many places this diploma is received with the feeling that its holder is quite as fortunate, from an educational point of view as the one who contemplates some other line of occupation is in holding the diploma of the four years' course.

The popularity of these special commercial courses, including commercial arithmetic, commercial geography, commercial history, etc., is due parfly, I think, to the impractical selection of subject-matter in these subjects in the general school courses, and partly to the idea on the part of a good many men that equipment for business does not depend so much upon the development of the general judgment as upon the learning of a few things well and then 66 getting behind the counter."

It is in protest to this condition of things, and with the hope of laying some emphasis on that kind of education which is general and yet supplies the demands of the usual commercial man, and also calling attention to some branches which are now regarded as commercial but that do not apply to the commercial man more than to any other man, that I have undertaken this place on your program.

Any intelligent discussion of courses of study must involve the understanding of the purposes of education in the fuller sense. To educate a man is more than to teach him to do one, two, or three things. We may teach a horse to stand on his hind feet and pull a bell-rope with his teeth, or a dog to jump thru a ring and turn a somersault, but we would not consider either of these animals educated in any human sense. Education is the development of all of the proper powers of the man to the highest practical degree. Reduced to common. terms, this means the development of his powers of reasoning and judging and thinking on the ordinary problems and occupations of life, his ability to take his part among his fellow-men, and know and understand the ordinary problems as they present themselves, with their natural solutions.

We classify our education as general and special. General education is that which is essential to everyone, no matter what occupation he intends