athletics; in the other to too much attention to outside work. Yet these failures were reported by this college to the College Entrance Certificate Board and the high school in question was warned for doing poor work in mathematics. It is evident that if this college had been compelled to report in detail the cause of these two failures, the board could not, with justice, have counted the failures against the school. I have it on good authority that students often fail in college because they do not hand in their themes or other work on time. Such failures are reported to the board and are counted against the schools at which the dilatory students have been prepared. It is, however, rather difficult to see how in such cases the preparatory school is at fault. Detailed reports of such cases to the secretary of the board would probably reduce, to a considerable extent, the number of failures for which the high schools are now held responsible. The lazy, but capable boy who goes to college and fails because of his laziness and dilatory habits finds it very convenient to come home and charge his failure to his poor preparation. The general reports now submitted to the high schools by both the colleges and the Certificate Board make it difficult to tell who or what is responsible for the majority of the failures. The secretary would devise a simple system of reports that would give definite, valuable, and much-needed information on this point, both to high schools and to colleges.

The inspector should, furthermore, make it his duty to visit the best schools as well as the poorest, to the end that he may know when to advise young teachers to go to see the best teachers at work. One great fault of high school teachers is that they are altogether too little interested in improving their work. Few of them do any school visiting that is really worth while. One reason for their failure to visit more lies, perhaps, in the fact that they do not know where to go to be sure of spending their time with profit. The high school inspector with his wide knowledge of schools and teachers, could do much good by sending teachers to such schools as would be worth visiting. In just this one line he could render great service to the high schools. There is nothing that can help weak teachers more than observing the work of strong, loving teachers.

Such an inspector as we are asking for would, of course, be a

man who would command a good salary, larger probably than the colleges represented by the board would be willing to pay. There are, however, more than three hundred schools on the approved list, each of which could well afford to pay fifteen dollars a year toward the salary and expenses of an able secretary. The fortyfive hundred dollars thus secured would be sufficient to maintain the office in a fairly substantial manner, and the colleges should be willing to furnish the secretary with ample clerical assistance. If the colleges of New England really want to help the high schools of New England, they can do so in no better way than by co-operating with the high schools to make this office of high school inspector the connecting link between the two sets of institutions.

Some one will probably raise the objection that one man could not visit all the high schools in a year. The answer should be that it would not be necessary. His work at first should be with the weaker schools and with a few of the best. The latter he should visit, as has been indicated, that he may know where to send inefficient teachers for aid and inspiration. In time he may visit all the schools, but those that need him least should have his visits last. He should also be able, in case of need, to send superior teachers to visit those of less ability for the purpose of observing the work of the latter and of helping them by sympathetic criticism. Most school-boards would gladly pay the expenses which such a visit would entail.

There is not time to discuss the many other ways in which a competent high school inspector could help bring about a real educational system here in New England. It requires no deep insight to be able to see that the work he could do sorely needs to be done here and now.

Turning to still another phase of the subject, the board could render great aid to high schools by inducing the colleges which compose its membership to make the courses of the first semester of the freshman year more uniform. It does seem as if uniform entrance requirements should prepare for uniform courses in colleges, so long as the work in these college courses is counted for or against the preparatory schools. The diversity in the courses offered at present during the first semester in the colleges represented on the board is striking. Two years ago a small high school

sent students to Brown, Dartmouth, Smith and Wellesley. At Brown the students began with a four hour course in algebra; at Dartmouth, with a three hour course in trigonometry; at Smith, with a course in solid geometry; at Wellesley, with a three hour course in solid and spherical geometry, together with a one hour course in higher algebra. Of the three students who went to Wellesley, all passed the course in solid and spherical geometry, but two failed in the one hour course in higher algebra, the third passing it with credit. Because of the failure of these two girls in this one course the preparatory school received a warning in mathematics. If, however, these girls had entered either Smith or Mount Holyoke, the same work that they did at Wellesley in geometry would have enabled them to pass their mathematics for the first semester, and the school would have been given a fairly good rating. Both these girls were good, faithful students. With a uniform college course I feel sure from their record in the high school, that with the teaching one ought to find in our colleges, failure in any subject on the part of either would have been unnecessary.

While the diversity in the work in English for the first seinester of the freshman year is not so marked, perhaps, as that in mathematics, it is marked enough to suggest the need of improvement in the line of greater uniformity. Let us glance at the work in English for the first semester in several of the colleges. Brown offers a course in rhetoric and composition with lectures and recitations upon the principles governing prose style, together with prescribed reading and themes. At Dartmouth the work includes "an introduction to the study of rhetoric with the preparation and criticism of themes," while at Amherst, exposition is stressed during the first semester. The course at Smith calls for the principles of formal rhetoric with emphasis on the principles of exposition, together with theme writing which shall give practice in simple, natural expression. At Wellesley, exposition, description and narration are all studied during the first semester, and weekly themes are required. At Mount Holyoke, expository composition seems to be stressed, with a good amount of time devoted to a course in voice training. While these courses have some elements in common, they are diverse enough to render it possible for a student of only ordinary ability.

to do good work in a college where the stress is upon formal textbook work, while another student who has done much better work in the high school may fail in a college where the stress is placed upon work demanding more originality. It is altogether right and just for the high schools to ask the colleges composing this board to get together and decide upon fairly uniform courses which shall be offered to freshmen during the period of probation. The courses should be mapped out in some detail and printed copies of them distributed to secondary school teachers in order that they may know definitely what is to be demanded of their students after they reach college. We hear a great deal about the superiority of the scholarship of the German student over that of the American youth of the same age. Not a little of this superiority may be due to the fact that in the German gymnasium teachers, for instance, of obersecunda, which corresponds to the last year of our high school course, know exactly what is to be required of their students in unterprima, which corresponds to the freshman year of our colleges. If high schools are compelled, as they now are, to prepare students for diversified required courses, it must necessarily result in a scattering of effort on the part of teachers, and in a poorer quality of work on the part of students.

Again, it would be an aid to the smaller high schools if the board would bring the fact to the attention of its different members that these high schools are the training ground for the college graduates who have elected teaching for their calling, either temporary or otherwise. All these graduates that I have engaged during a long period of years have had strong endorsements from college professors to the effect that they had done well in college and were able to teach satisfactorily certain high school subjects. I feel sure that few teachers are ever hired in these smaller schools unless they have such endorsements. I do not refer to endorsements in the form of the general testimonial given to the candidate himself, but to the confidential opinion written either to the teacher's agency, or to the college information bureau. It is sometimes rather discouraging to those in charge of high schools to find that the colleges apparently take no notice of the fact that in criticising the work of the high school they are in reality criticising their own work. I know of a high

school that was criticised for its work in English by a certain college when the work criticised was being done by a specially trained graduate of the college who had excellent endorsements from members of the faculty. This criticism was somewhat unjust, for this teacher was an excellent one, and I am confident that any pupil she certified was well prepared to meet the requirements of any reasonable course in English.

Would it not be possible for the colleges composing this board to maintain a list of accredited teachers whose word the colleges individually and collectively, would be willing to stand for? Every year this list could be increased by having each college send in the names of such of its graduates as it was willing to endorse as high school teachers.

The board would say to the high schools "If you will engage these teachers we will be willing to accept without question, such pupils as they are willing to certificate as prepared to do college work." If this could be done it would be one of the best ways of helping especially the smaller high schools, for they would then feel that the colleges were assuming a little of the responsibility in providing the means for efficient college preparation where now they assume none of it. If the colleges had a larger part in furnishing the teachers, they would be compelled to think a little more carefully about the preparation of the teachers they are sending out to do the work in the high schools, and by thinking twice they would be compelled to consider their own part in preparing these teachers. In his recent book, "The Training of Teachers for Secondary Schools," Brown tells us that probably not more than five per cent. of the teachers in high schools have adequate pedagogical training, or would be able to meet the requirements laid down in the report of the Committee of Seventeen on the professional preparation of high school teachers.*

He further says: "Upon colleges and universities there rests a peculiar responsibility in this matter. If the state has already adopted a satisfactory standard in the certification of high school teachers, the burden of providing the necessary training falls upon these institutions.

"If, on the other hand, the state has not adopted a satisfactory standard of training for the certification of high school teachers,

*Training of Teachers for Secondary Schools, Brown, p. 233.