delights of English literature, to the joys of good reading? We must go somewhat farther. In late years, there have come to Harvard College a considerable number of Chinese students. At a dinner given to Ex-Governor Montague of Virginia by the Southern Club, a rather select group of young Southerners in Harvard College, the Governor made some allusions to the color-line; so when I had my chance to speak I remarked, "We must reconsider the color-line business; for we have men of a new color in Harvard College, and they seem to be people of remarkable capacity in English as well as in other western subjects." Later the president of the club said, "I should like to add something to what President Eliot has said about these Chinese. I sit between two Chinamen in Philosophy 6, and those two fellows can both take better notes in English of the lecture given in English than I can, and when it comes to examinations, I borrow their notes." That is the highest testimonial one student can give another.

It does not follow, ladies and gentlemen, that the coming into our schools of large numbers of the races we call alien is going to make more difficult the teaching of English, except indeed at the very outset.

There is another and much more important change in our schools. This is the public desire to send the children, while in school, in the different directions which they are to take later in life. That is a policy never thought of in the high schools of the country until comparatively recent years. The high school course was held to be a cultural course, adapted pretty well to everybody. That is no longer the thought about even the high school course. We perceive a serious change in the needed courses of study in the schools, and in their recognition of variety of faculty and difference of direction in the pupils themselves. How ought that to affect the teaching of English? As has been mentioned twice in these papers of today,-only by giving it a more important place. The fewer the cultural subjects in American schools, the more importance must be attached to English literature and English composition.

Still another change has come over the American schools quite within my memory. There is less driving. The driving was always unsuccessful, never produced any real interest in literature or in scholarship, never really made the boy or the girl who was

driven a more promising person for the future in relation to English literature or art. The driving was unsuccessful; but it was the spirit of the schools. Now there is much less attempt at driving. What has taken its place? The attempt to lead, and inspire, and interest. That is an enormous improvement; but it is an improvement that involves a very considerable change in the teaching of English in general, the language as well as the literature. We have to make use of methods which interest the children themselves. Now those methods abound. There are plenty of them. We heard just now an excellent description of an interesting method which depended for efficiency on motives within the children themselves. We must place more reliance in teaching English and English literature on the things which awaken emotion, stimulate interest, prove to be enjoyable, and result in giving the children some power of entertaining other people, of giving enjoyment. That was the marvel in the presentation of "The Prince and the Pauper" which I saw in the old Bowery of New York-the enjoyment of the children in their work. Three sets of actors were appointed for each play staged; in order that more children might have the enjoyment of entertaining a thousand of their kindred and friends who made up the audience at each performance. The house was always packed at ten cents a seat; and the enjoyment of the audience was great. To be able to give such pleasure is a great advantage and incitement for any child. We must try to give our pupils some little power of literary expression, in order to give them this joy in performance, in work, in achievement. Committing to memory beautiful pieces of literature for recitation before an audience, acting charades, and reading aloud with vivacity and expression, are good means of instruction. A teacher who has gifts in any of these directions can enlist some pupils in such exercises through their imitative faculty. We must try to make the children enjoy literature, just as we want adults to enjoy literature; in the hope of implanting in their minds the love of reading.

These, then, are the great differences which we perceive in our schools, and the consequent changes to be made in the discipline and methods of the schools. But as we listened to the papers this morning, did we not say to ourselves, "One of our troubles is that we cannot differentiate enough in the schools; we cannot give

enough individual instruction?" We cannot address straight to the individual boy or girl the teaching which fits him or her; for the towns and cities will not appropriate money enough to pay for individual teaching. It is impossible for a young woman with sixty-five, fifty-six, or forty pupils before her, to give individual instruction. Perhaps with not more than forty she can give a little attention to individuals, but not with sixty-five or fifty-six. Until we lower that standard of the number of pupils before a single teacher, the best instruction in English literature will not be practicable in our schools. Until we dismiss the notion that there is such a thing as "an average child," we cannot teach any literature well.

In regard to the perception of literary excellencies, children differ infinitely; and children in the same family often exhibit extraordinary differences. I have repeatedly seen in families in which I was very much interested the impossibility of addressing the same instruction in English and in literature to all the members of the same family group. The differentiation must get down to the individual before we can obtain the best results. Of course, the same is true in the right teaching of many other subjectsmedicine, for instance. All medical teaching is now addressed straight to the individual, and none other is good for much. It is particularly true in regard to inspiring the love of reading and then gratifying the desire, that the individual must be studied. I hope this suggestion does not seem to you too hard. I hope it does not seem undemocratic, to use the word which Dr. Lowell used. Democracy is not equality; it does not involve any equality whatever, not even that equality of opportunity which I notice some eminent statesmen are much in the habit of dwelling upon. There is, indeed, no such thing as equality of opportunity, because the value of an opportunity depends entirely on the ability to seize it, and the ability varies infinitely. In reality, the democracy has more interest in developing the diversities in children, and matching these diversities within the public schools, than it has, or ever has had, in any doctrine of equality.

The prospects with regard to good teaching of English literature and English composition seem to me clearly encouraging. I trust that we have got over some of the early objections made to teaching English literature at all in schools and colleges. When

I said that English literature was not taught at all in American schools forty years ago, I ought to have added that this best of literatures was not taught in American colleges forty years ago. We have gained immensely during the past generation, and we are going to gain a deal more; because the English language is going round the globe, and English literature is the supreme literature of all time.

"The Common Schools "

BY SUPERINTENDENT M. A. CASSIDY, LEXINGTON, Kentucky.

T

HE most beneficient guarantees of the Constitution of this Republic are:-"The promotion of the general welfare and the security of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."

It will be noted that the welfare is to be general, and that liberty is to be perpetuated.

The

benign results belong, by right, to no class nor are they of fixed duration. The one is to be as common as the life-giving air, the other coextensive with time. Thus are two of the greatest earthly blessings vouchsafed to us and our posterity by the supreme law of the land-the welfare of all the people and the perpetuity of liberty.

It would have been both unwise, and unworthy of our ancestors, to have offered these beneficient guarantees if there were neither hope of their attainment, nor provision made for transmitting them to posterity as a common heritage. Popular welfare would have been a pleasing dream and the perpetuation of freedom a de lusion. But they not only saw that these blessings depended upon general intelligence and efficiency; they made provision for them by making education common.

These guarantees of the general welfare and lasting liberty seem beyond human vision and must have been by inspiration. There was no precedent for them in all history. From the beginning of government until the making of our Constitution, only the classes had been seriously considered. There had never been a governmental attempt to promote the general welfare. The welfare of the classes was ever the prime consideration, and it never entered the minds of the rulers to extend it to the great common people. Their welfare was unthought of, and for them liberty was deemed dangerous. But the welfare of the classes was all important. They were ever the governors; the masses were the governed. They were the officers in war; the masses were the soldiers. They were clad in fine array and fared sumptuously;