The Brookline Survey is eminently satisfactory. It is a business-like document. There is nothing in it that "hits individuals" disastrously. There is no attempt to write a book at the expense of the city. It is a clean cut document built upon facts and not upon theories.

It is valuable for every city in New England. Brookline was for a time one of the most progressive cities in the United States and the superintendent was among the most progressive, and Brookline and the superintendent have been doing some things surprisingly well all the time, but the Survey shows as clear as the day that neither Brookline nor the superintendent has welcomed heartily some of the great movements of the hour. This is especially clear when one realizes that they continue a nine-year elementary course and have no junior high school.

It is astonishing that a community like Brookline has so many old-fashioned buildings and that so many of the universally accepted principles as to lighting, blackboards, etc., should have been utterly ignored.

The best fire protection we have ever known for students at work in the laboratories but absurd neglect of fire safety in several buildings.

The first provision for high school athletics, including swiriming, but a scandalous neglect of school playgrounds for the schools as a whole.

It is probable that most cities in New England, even most cities in our suburbs would be subject to all of these comments. The nineyear course has died hard everywhere in New England and the junior high school has rarely been ardently welcomed. Playgrounds have had to fight hard for a foothold and new notions in architecture have faced a lot of kickers.

It is hardly fair for Brookline to bear the burden of all these suggestions except that Brookline could easily afford all necessary expense of modernization. Think of a little city like Hastings, Nebraska, with a $125,000 junior high, while the richest of rich communities like Brookline has none in vision even.

The Survey staff was quite unusual: Superintendent James H. Van Sickle, Springfield, Mass., director of Survey; Henry S. West, professor of secondary education, University of Cincinnati; Harlan Updegraff, University of Pennsylvania; George Drayton Strayer, Teachers College, Co

lumbia University; Egbert E. MacNary, director of vocational education and practical arts, Springfield; May Ayres, specialist in hygiene and sanitation, New York City; Bertha M. McConkey, assistant superintendent of schools, Springfield; James H. McCurdy, M. D., director of physical training Y. M. C. A. College, Springfield; Wilbur F. Gordy, Hartford, Conn., formerly superintendent, Springfield; Edwin A. Shaw, department of education. Tufts College.

That the staff approached its Survey in an appreciative spirit is evident from its reference to the Brookline community.

Brookline is a wealthy town. In both assessed and real valuation per capita of population it is one of the highest in the United States. She has in recent years been liberal in support of her public schools, one of the most liberal in the State, always ranking close to the top in a table in the State report showing the amount spent per pupil. At teh same time in her amount per $1,000 of assessed valuation of taxable property that has been expended she has uniformly been among the very lowest. She is, in fact, so wealthy that the largest appropriation put upon her causes but the slightest strain.

Brookline is a progressive residential town whose population is increasing more rapidly than the normal for cities of the same population group, a town of wealth and culture, of many eminent men and women, of many leaders, of many unmarried females, of many servants, and hence a town of few children, a fairly large proportion of whom are of foreign birth and of low economic condition; a community which within itself furnishes but meagre vocational opportunities for these children, yet which, being a part of the Boston metropolitan district, may afford for all children a far wider range of opportunity than most cities of its size.

The system is characterized by liberal expenditures, by adherence to the best traditions of school management as regards the respective functions of School Committee and Superintendent as chief executive officer, by the very unusual freedom accorded the teachers, by short daily sessions ending at 1.30 p. m., by absence of hard and fast district lines, by the one-year interval between classes, by whole class versus individual promotion and by small classes both in elementary schools and high schools.

No educational document in many a day is as valuable, as invaluable as this Brookline Survey. It will be cheap at any price for any library, public or private.

It should be carefully read by every school board member in Massachusetts.

EDWIN MARKHAM

BY GEORGE PERRY MORRIS

Edwin Markham "looks" the poet. Whether one saw him twenty-five years ago, as I did for the first time, as he stood talking with the manager of the Literary World in the office of the latter in Boston, or saw him last winter as he repeatedly lectured before "forums" in and about Boston, you faced a spirituelle, idealistic person, albeit of the masculine type. His cranium is spacious,, symmetrical and meeting all the tests of phrenology as applicable to poets, prophets and seers. The brow is finely arched and both broad and high. The dark eyes twinkle, blaze, caress, and are rapt-as the inner mood orders. The nose is large, aquiline, powerful and yet sensitive. The ears are large, well modeled, and set so as to catch the sounds of Nature and of humanity without any appreciable loss of vibrations due to faulty aural acoustics. Head, face, body, mien and manner are of the "few." Seen in a crowd of thousands he would compel the "second glance."

Edwin Markham is the product, fundamentally considered, of youthful influences, habits and ideals, plus the majestic environment of the Pacific coast, and he is a thinker and singer who, though of late a resident of Greater New York, nevertheless stands for quite a different sort of Americanism and humanism than that which is

rampant in the multiracial, polyglot and cosmopolitan centre of population where he now resides. California took him, a native of Oregon, when he was but five years old, and kept him until he was well on in the forties. He farmed, herded cattle, swung the hammer at a forge and lived the life of the open until his intellect craved training and he went to a normal school, after which he taught youth that which he had learned from books and from Nature and from all sorts and conditions of It was in the periodicals of the Far West men. that he first won recognition as a thinker and author; and it is to that section of the country he must be credited. If New York and the East lured him away they never have snared him. He has never become sophisticated by Broadway-or Columbia University.

Edwin Markham is as much of a democrat as Whitman or Lowell was, and with a trace of each, but how differenr! "The Man with the Hoe" and "The Leader of the People" are as near the masses as anything that Whitman penned, but without the "yawp" that the Long Island and Camden sages too often gave, as if purposely to irritate the classicists of the Cambridge-New York school of singers. On the other hand Markham's "Lincoln" as surely as Lowell's portrait of the statesman and humanist in the "Commemoration Ode" discloses that power to make verse the vehicle character appraisal which only

a student of history and of biography and a master of criticism possesses. When the history of the relation of literature to politics during the epoch when Bryan, Roosevelt and Wilson were saving the republic from transformation of a democracy to a plutocracy comes to be written Markham will be rated high as a personal factor in the contest. The same hatred of iniquity and oppression that made R. W. Gilder, the son of a Methodist circuit rider, the poet of municipal reform and saved him from being a "mere man of letters," also persistently spurred Markham into the lists. Like Frank Norris the novelist, David Lubin the economist, and Hiram Johnson the political leader, he grew up in a Cali

fornia cursed with the rule of covetous, merciless and venal corporations, captains of industry and mining kings; and the oath of fealty to the people's interests which he swore in youth and early manhood, he has kept to his "gracious senescence.” No New World Browning has yet had to write of the Pacific coast Wordsworth, any such lament as the Wordsworth of the English Lake Country called forth because of a young radical or progressive turned into a reactionary standpatter.

Edwin Markham is not only a deeply ethical teacher and doer, but a profoundly religious soul. He not only conceives of himself and his art as dedicated to human betterment, he not only describes himself as a sociologist as well as a poet, he not only is author of a book on "The Social Conscience," but he also is personally devout, believes

worship, knows the history of the great systems of religion, and in his fidelity to the historic interpretation of Christianity and the theism set. forth in the Old and New Testaments is far more loyal today than a very large proportion of the clergy of the liberal sects calling themselves Christian, as persons can testify who heard him speak in the vicinity of Boston last winter. Unlike many of the American poets of a generation preceding his, he never has been drawn into the sectarian controversies over the metaphysical aspects of God's being and the sonship of Jesus, which ravaged New England's best cultural life during the first half of the nineteenth century. Rationalism and "higher criticism" and the naturalism of science never have blighted his native aspirations for the divine. The imaginative and emotional treasures of the Bibles of the races have found him appreciative. Jesus, the poet, the teacher through parables, the out-of-door Palestinian interpreter of an immanent God, has had him for a disciple these many years. Consequently while some of his contemporaries old and young have been agnostics, epicureans, stoics, or worshipers of Thor or Astarte, he has been a believer, an optimist and a humanist with spirit dominant over flesh, and an artist superior to prostitution of technique for sordid or carnal ends.

Maine has shown the country something in the way of a real solution for the back-to-thefarm movement for boys in the successful first season of the Junior Volunteers of Maine, which is just closing.

Nearly 1,000 boys have been recruited from Maine cities and towns, mobilized at a training camp which is to this farming army what the new army cantoniients are to our new fighting army, and have been sent out to the farms of the state for long periods of service.

Other states, too, have been doing it. Yes. But not in Maine's way. Some states have sent boys straight from the schoolrooms to the farmers; some have given boys a badge and told them to be patriotic by working on farms all summer at one dollar a day, more and less. Every progressive and patriotic state has been trying to find its way out and every one has had more boys on the farms this year than ever before; and every one should have learned its lesson for next

summer.

In Maine the success key has been the mobilization camp more than anything else, because this has attended to the matter of getting boys physically and mentally fit before they are sent into the service, something as important for farm soldier rookies as for gun soldier rookies.

The State Y. M. C. A. offered the camp site, one of Maine's beauty spots on the shore of Lake Cobbosseecontee, at Winthrop Centre; and the Y. M. C. A. offered also the services of three of its head executives, one of whom, O. A. Morton, made a great record in boys' and girls' work in Massachusetts before going into Maine last spring. It was Mr. Morton who saw the chance for the Y. M. C. A. camp to help the farmers. Jefferson C. Smith, state Y. M. C. A. director, one of the livest of live wires in Maine, with friends in every gang of boys in the state, was placed at the head of the whole Junior Volunteer Cam

paign by Governor Milliken. Governor Milliken made getting the money for the camp easy; it was a public safety measure, as he saw it.

So the mobilization camp was started on this plan: One lot of thirty or fifty boys might be recruited in Portland, for example, and brought into camp July 1. For ten days these boys, from shops, stores, schools and corners, would be put through the school of the soldier and the school of the farmer at the same time. Doctors would give them the thorough sort of physical examination. National Guard officers handled the drilling; Maine College professors and instructors taught the theory and practice of farming, with demonstration lessons on the big Y. M. C. A. farm managed by Professor Morton's son.

You may imagine the change in this crowd of boys at the end of ten days or two weeks. In khaki uniforms, marching behind their own military band, following through military schedule having mixed into it the fun of camping in army tents in a pine grove, with time for swimming and camp-fire larks at night, getting hardened to farm work by gradual steps of a few hours or half a day daily on the demonstration farm-they shaped up quickly. The camp instructors could see readily what stuff the boys were made of and the weeding out that was necessary was done before the group was sent away to the farms, instead of leaving it for the farmer to get rid of a boy who is no good to him.

Their training over, the boys are sent away to farms from one end of the state to the other, in groups of twenty-five to fifty, under a supervisor. It is the young men in this supervising role, in charge of the boys in their camps in the farming districts, who represent the state. The farmer deals with the supervisor when there is any complaint. No responsibility for the boys rests with the farmer. The farmer pays the man in charge of the boys and the boys are paid by checks from

the state treasurer, of the same kind and amount as the checks for the National Guardsmen. In many little ways such as this check matter the state impresses the boys with the fact that they are volunteers in a real service for Maine.

Recruiting for the Junior Volunteers, for example, is advertised much as is regular army recuiting, from the same stations sometimes. But the real reason why Maine parents have gladly sent their boys to the Winthrop camp and thence to the farms for three months, more or less, is the high character of the young men who have been engaged by the state for the recruiting and supervising in the fields.

from the mobilization camp all summer, following the same schedule and then departing for "somewhere in Maine" to fight the food battle. A good many of them will be kept in the fields straight through October to harvest the potato crop. School credit is given for the farm work, of course.

The answer to the "does it work?" question is given by the Maine farmers, and the answers of any other party to the undertaking would not be final. The farmers answer in this way: Every last farmer who has had a squad of Junior Volunteers sent him has asked for more. At least that was true when I was at the mobilization camp

ADVICE TO HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

BY FREDERIC ALLISON TUPPER President Wilson, Commissioner Claxton, President Thwing and many other noted Americans are urging the youth of the land to equip themselves with the most thorough education obtainable, in order to be ready to meet the needs of the nation. Many young people, through lack of experience and of perspective, fail to see that our colleges and professional schools are the great highways to success and distinction. And yet a careful study of any standard work of biography will prove most convincingly that college graduates have, as a rule, a much better

chance of success in life than those who have not enjoyed such advantages. It must be evident to anyone who will give the matter careful consideration that the call for more highly educated men and women is going to be greater and greater in this country. Perhaps one of the most thoroughly patriotic things one can do is to educate oneself for public usefulness. Therefore, let no one prevent you from getting the best education to be obtained. And, please, remember that there are no "short cuts" to thoroughness and that "easy" educations are hardest when judged by their results.

If you desire to be a leader get a real leader's education, cost what it may in money, time and downright hard work. Do not be persuaded to enter "blind alley" occupations which start nowhere and end in the same place. Avail yourselves of the unsurpassed advantages placed at your disposal by the liberal citizens of our great city. Prepare for long years of usefulness. By promptness, regularity of attendance and fidelity to every duty, be a real American, and so, not only avoid a life-time of vain regrets, but also

return in some measure all that has been done for you by parents and city. With every advantage and every opportunity there goes a corresponding obligation, namely: To do one's best.

SUPERVISED STUDY

BY SUPERINTENDENT: T. A. MOTT
Seymour, Ind.

For the purpose of extending the opportunity for supervision of study and of increasing the time for study by the pupils in school a new plan of study and recitation was put in operation in the Seymour Junior and Senior High School in the fall of 1914. The school day was lengthened so as to include six full one-hour periods for combined recitation and study.

Each one-hour period is divided so as to give thirty minutes for recitation and thirty minutes for study under the direct supervision of the teacher in charge in all subjects except so-called laboratory subjects.

All pupils are urged to study at school as much as possible. A large study room is open and quiet during the entire day and for one hour before the opening of school in the morning with a teacher in charge.

After three years' trial the faculty accepts the following propositions to be true:

That economy of time in pupils' study is as important as economy of time in any other field of human activity.

That there should be given to all pupils in high school large opportunity for study under the most favorable conditions in the school.

That the best methods of study in each subject should be taught the pupils by the teacher of each subject.

That many pupils lose a large part of their time by improper methods of study.

That many so-called poor students are poor in their work because they do not know the best methods of study and not because they are deficient in mental power.

That there is more waste of time and of energy in study or attempting to study than in any other phase of the school procedure.

That there are right methods of study in getting a lesson in Latin, in mathematics, in history, etc., and that teachers should give instruction in the best methods for the study of each subject they teach.

That in all true teaching class instruction should be supplemented by much individual direction and guidance. That class or mass teaching by itself proves ineffective in many cases because it employs arbitrary group standards suited to average or superior students and is not adapted to the individual capacities found in every class. The true school must adopt methods of efficient individual instruction which will at the same time preserve all the advantages of class organization,

The allotment of time in the daily program to each teacher for the supervision of study in his classes means a change from purely mass teaching to a method recognizing individual differences in pupils and providing for each student in

struction when needed to make his work efficient and economical. It means the teacher shall have large opportunity to direct the study of each student and to give training in how to study, how to think, how to organize, and how to apply; and moreover to give the student power to initiate and the ability to direct his own thought.

Supervised study means working with the pupil and not for him. It means the teacher is primarily one "who assists pupils in school to make progress in their studies."

Where supervised study is attempted the teacher must assume a new role. He no longer is one who merely governs, assigns lessons and hears them recited. The teacher must now be regarded as a director of study.

Students should be trained in conscious. methods of study-not one but many. They should know when particular methods of study are most effective.

It is possible to train pupils to organize their ideas in proper relation and sequence.

Strong motives are the first condition to intensive study. Teachers must endeavor to set up living incentives for the study of the subject, and for the study of each lesson.

In all subjects pupils should be led to distinguish what is essentially important from what is only relatively so.

HERBERT C. HOOVER

BY HENRY M. HYDE
[Chicago Tribune.]

What sort of a human being is Herbert C. Hoover? So long as the war lasts Hoover will have more to say about what we all eat and what we pay for it than anybody else. Hoover will be an uninvited guest at every American dinner table. He will be a steady boarder for the period of the war in every American home.

Everybody knows something about what Hoover has done. Books have been written in praise of his work as head of the Commission for the Relief of Belgium. The story of his business career has been told, with its last chapter, prior to the war, locating him in London as mining engineer with branch offices in New York and San Francisco and mining interests scattered over half the world.

But what about Hoover the man? What does he look like, talk like, act like? What are his pet amusements, what are his chief faults, how are we all going to be impressed by him when he walks into every dining room three times a day until the war is over?

It isn't easy to give any clear idea of Herbert C. Hoover. There is no single conspicuous feature to hang the picture on. If Hoover only had long, red whiskers, if he wore his hair long or had acquired a monocle or an English accent during his long residence in London, the job would be easy. But he possesses none of those accomplishments or adornments.

He is of medium height and his figure is square

and sturdy. He is smooth shaven, his face is broad, rather than long, and his features are straight and regular. He looks younger than his years, which are only forty-three. He has a thick thatch of brown hair and he has not even begun to show the slightest signs of becoming baldheaded.

I'm afraid one would not turn to look twice at Hoover in a crowd. If he did he would conclude that here was a well dressed, well-to-do, good looking young American business man-his nationality could not be mistaken. He looks, too, like a western man-which he is-and not at all like a Quaker-which he also is, by inheritance, at least.

Chatting with Hoover, one needs listen closely, for he talks in a tone a little lower than that usually used in conversation. That is not an affectation. There is no affectation about him. His chief characteristic, perhaps, is directness. He seems to know exactly what he wants to do and to have a good idea of how to get it.

And he talks straight to the point. It was direct, straightforward talk, in his low voice, that Hoover used in persuading arrogant German generals and haughty dignitaries of the British foreign office to permit him to buy, ship and distribute food for the Belgians across barred waters and through lines of battles.

So far, Hoover has been a distressing puzzle to the cynics of Washington. When a new man comes down to the national capital the first question they ask is: "What is he after?"

In the case of Hoover they know it is not money. His salary and that of each of his chief