information. The time has come when the students of educational practice must again single out those elements of knowledge which are most significant in their bearing upon human living and must give to every college student an acquaintance with these. Our knowledge is not a great chaos of disconnected sciences thrown together like a pile of bricks and education is not properly the throwing of a few such bricks at innocent and unsuspecting heads. Such knowledge as we possess and may acquire is capable of understanding as a whole, as a system in which each has significance and value for every other. It is from this point of view that we must endeavor to recover the bearings which have been lost since the inrush of the "new knowledge." From this point of view we must again define what those things are which a man must know in order to live intelligently. And these insights must be the prescriptions, the required subjects of the college curriculum.

Now I know that against any such proposal violent opposition, criticism, and ridicule would arise. It will be said that we are trying to return to a dogmatism from which we have had happy escape. To this I would reply that it is the function of an age of criticism to lead us to a new dogmatism, and further, that practically at least, it is better to have some notion of the direction in which you should go than to wander round at random wherever personal caprice and chance impulse may lead. It will be said such a program would lead to inevitable conflict, jealousy, and misunderstanding between the departments of the college. To this one may reply that the presence of such jealousy is not the only ground for the criticism of our departmental organization. In the interests of general education it must be said that our college instruction is far too much dominated by the special points of view of the special subjects, and far too little by the consciousness of the educational problem as a whole. It is time for us to see that a boy who knows nothing but mathematics, or nothing but biology, or nothing but philosophy is not educated; nor is a boy who knows a little mathematics, a little biology, a little philosophy, and a little of a lot of other things. There is a principle at stake which sometimes finds expression in the statement that the teacher is more important than his subject. But the principle lies deeper; it is

the principle that every genuine teacher is engaged in the task of giving a fundamental and essential insight into human living. It is by this common aim that each one of the special subjects must be tested. Our present educational task is to make this testing intelligent, to found it on a principle.

Now it is not my purpose today to attempt a formulation of the principle in question, and on the basis from which we started this would seem to imply that I should hardly try to specify what the schools can do in preparing the students for the work which the principle is to define. It seems to me, however, that even from what has been said, one or two deductions may be drawn, and these I should like to mention in closing.

In the first place, it would be good for our work if every boy might come from the school with intellectual faith, with the conviction, gotten from his teachers, that knowledge pays. If only the teachers did not feel it necessary to justify each subject on the basis of its value for this or that specific practical end; if it were the dominating belief of every teacher that in the interests of life in the large it is worth while to be intelligent, then some of our difficulties would disappear. I do not object to the question "What is that good for?" if only the measures of value are right. But I do object to the measuring of every school and college subject by petty and subsidiary interests. I do crave the large and devoted intellectual enthusiasm which rests on the profound conviction that it is better to know than to be ignorant, better to be intelligent than to be stupid.

And secondly, I wish that students might be sent to us with a more highly developed capacity for obedience. It is very good to cultivate individual judgment, individual interest, and a sense of personal self-direction. But it is equally important and more fundamental to develop in students the power to do what they are told to do, in the way in which they are told to do it, at the time prescribed, and just for the simple reason that somebody who has the right to command has required that the task be done. The high school age seems to me the time for giving this lesson. It is a time for a growing sense of one's own powers, but it is also a time for seeing that there are other persons who from greater experience and further study can see farther and more truly

than can the pupil himself, and that toward these teachers the proper attitude is one of willing and intelligent obedience.

Finally, however, a liberal education may be defined, it is essentially different from a technical education and from practical endeavors. Because of this difference it demands a different type of preparation. Whatever the cost to college and school, the college cannot ignore its obligations to see to it that boys are not allowed to enter upon its work until they have had proper instruction in the proper subjects to fit them for doing the work successfully.

In a word, then, the preparatory school and the college are engaged in a common task. Together we must work out our new ideal of culture and must labor for it. In this work I think the college has a right to ask that the school shall not direct its efforts to other ends, or at least that it shall not substitute such ends for those which college and school have in common. In such a spirit as this the university and this association seem to me to be working today.

What Constitutes Preparation for College From the Point of View of a High School Principal

PRINCIPAL CHARLES F. HARPER, CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL,

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SYRACUSE, N. Y.

T IS not difficult to find the cause of the frequent charges of dictation and domination brought against the colleges in their relation to high schools. The history of the growth and development of the high school is, to a large degree, the story of the continued attempt of the college to control the entire work of preparatory pupils. Frequent increases in the number of prescribed subjects and portions of subjects, each prescription good in itself, have made a total quantitative requirement so large that little or no time is left for the school to do the things demanded by the community.

In early days, when work was abundant and money was scarce, most of the boys and girls found plenty of opportunities at home to obtain vocational training, and became proficient in the ordinary arts and crafts without much schooling. College educated men, however, were needed in every community to enter the learned professions. As the people believed in the doctrine of mental discipline, they considered cultural education the ideal preparation for a life of usefulness where learning was fundamental. Influenced by this ideal, they founded colleges and planned courses of study which would give the desired mental training. They also established schools to prepare for college, and, as one might expect, in planning courses of study, the work of the school was made a part of a continuous cultural education extending from the lowest grade in school through the senior class in college. Under such conditions, naturally, the first schools were dominated by the colleges and were but preparatory schools for the colleges.

As early as 1638, however, there were indications which seemed to show that the relations between schools and colleges would not always be so close or continue so harmonious; for certain people of New Haven, in discussing education, said that a school of learning must be established to give their children such an education as would prepare them for college or best fit them to serve both church and civil state. As the demands of the state have gradually broadened, the function of the public school has changed from preparation solely for college, to preparation to meet the immediate needs of the community which supports it. During the last century, especially, the organization of society has undergone changes which have deprived the home of the opportunities it used to afford young men and women, "To learn by doing" the ordinary household arts and crafts, and which have made it impossible for institutions of learning to exist simply to impart what was formerly called culture. Today, thought, the making of facts live for the benefit of society, is the real end and aim of education. Some subjects, which are not directly related to the needs of life, will always be retained to meet the demands for subjects and methods which stimulate the desire for further study and prepare students for it. High schools were first started to furnish all people with more than the rudiments of an education, and their courses of study, as well as those of the college, should be arranged as if students were to receive no further formal education, but, on the other hand, the fact must not be overlooked that each is an intermediate step in educational progress and that the real difference between the work of the high school and the work of the college lies in the progress from a study of the elements of subjects in the former to advanced courses in similar subjects along higher lines in the latter.

During the early days of the high schools, when the attendance was small, before the people had fully grasped the possibilities for training good, capable citizens, the college was permitted to determine, for the most part, what subjects should be taught; because the public as well as the teachers were eager to have their pupils take as high rank in college as those entered from the best preparatory schools. Courses of study,, equipment, and teaching force were used to assure the success of the few preparatory pupils in meeting entrance requirements, without any regard to

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