natural ability and skill with highest efficiency. Education must be directed in such manner as to give, in the least possible time and in the most effective way, at least a preparation for the duties of daily life, while, at the same time, so far as is practicable without interference with the more imperative work, training the scholar to become a good citizen, and to enjoy the intellectual side of existence.

It is in recognition of this view of our duties that we are beginning to see manual training, and a trade-school system, incorporated into the common school system of education of every civilized country, and technical and professional schools and colleges taking their place beside the older institutions of learning. From this time on, he who would accomplish most in either of the departments of skilled industry or in either of the branches of the great profession of engineering, must combine scientific attainments with experimental knowledge of facts and phenomena, mechanical ability, and good judgment and taste ripened by large experience in business and familiarity with the ways of the world. It is only when manual training and trade-schools are found in every town, technical schools in every city and colleges of science and art in every state, so united in a system that shall insure to every one the privilege of learning the scientific basis of any art, and of laboring in every or any branch of industry, as to make certain a recompense for all the zeal, intelligence, skill and industry that the worker may exhibit, that the professions will attain their grandest development, science and art find closest and most fruitful union, and that the citizen may enjoy to the fullest extent all that he may rightfully demand in his pursuit of all that life and liberty can offer him and the most perfect happiness that can come to man. The highest skill, the most reliable labor and the most admirable artistic talent are to be obtained only by systematic cultivation, and the new features of modern education are those which are directed to the object above outlined.

A complete scheme of education aiming at the development of the powers of the mass of the people and the securing of the greatest possible prosperity of the nation must include the manual-training school for youth, the trade-school for those proposing to fit themselves for successfully pursuing industrial pursuits, and the technical and engineering schools in which the scientific development of the constructive professions is aimed at. In the first, young people are to be taught the use of tools, in the second the arts of carpentry, weaving, blacksmithing, stone cutting, and other industrial arts, and in the

third, the greatest of all arts, that of contriving methods of turning the powers and processes of nature to the uses of man, and of inventing and designing all the mechanism, apparatus and structures needed in the work. The highest department of instruction, and that in which the greatest of all the institutions included in the system will take part, is the thoroughly scientific training and education of students with a view to preparing them to take advantage of all new discoveries and inventions, to thus keep themselves in the front rank among those who do the great work of the profession; it will also, while giving instruction to the ablest and best students, supply to the technical schools and colleges of the country, well taught and talented instructors, able investigators and skillful administrators, and will aid by scientific research the development of every industry, and furnish a nucleus about which may gather the great men of the nation capable of instructing not only the youth who may come to their lecturerooms and laboratories, but the legislators and executive officers of the government whenever they may be called upon to deal with any one of the innumerable questions affecting the national weal through its industries. This is the position which it is desired that Cornell University shall take, through her technical departments.

Experience has shown that systematically planned and carefully conducted schools of science and of the arts are vastly more efficient in the education and training of young people than any workshop or mill can possibly be. In them, every operation may be thoroughly taught and the learner may be familiarized with every detail without loss of time or strength on the part of either teacher or pupil. It is such a system, incorporated into the educational scheme of every European country that has given them, notably in the case of France and Germany, such rapid growth in productive power and prosperity and which has, for a time threatened other nations with such serious competition. It is now recognized as an obvious principle that in order that a nation may prosper under existing conditions of competition and cheap transportation of materials and products, the people must be so much better educated in the principles, and trained in the practice, of the arts in which they compete with other nations that their marketable productions may be introduced into the markets of the world, competing both in quality and price with all that may be there encountered, and yet the producers may receive better remuneration for the day's work by their ability to make a day's work more productive through the exhibition of greater skill, or the invention of

better machinery, and by the exhibition of finer taste and better knowledge of art.

The modern systems of technical education are directed towardsthese vitally important ends, and it is perfectly evident to every intelligent citizen that the prosperity of the nation is, for the future, to be dependent mainly upon the success and rapidity with which this system is introduced throughout the land. Where there is to day onesuch school as has been described, a hundred are already needed. It is difficult to realize the rate at which foreign nations are advancing in this direction, and how rapidly our own country is being distanced. It will demand the most earnest thought and the most energetic action on the part of those entrusted with the work of developing our educational system to prevent a very serious, if not disastrous, competition from abroad, within, probably, the next generation. It is fortunate that the change has progressed in our own country even so far as it now has, and that its continued progress is assured.

But science and technical studies will never, and should never, displace the older departments of education. As the one is needed for the material welfare of the country, the other is essential to its intellectual prosperity and to the cultivation of the real scholarly spirit and to the growth of the æsthetic side of life, of all that makes the possession of wealth really desirable.

When the new system shall have become fully developed, it may be hoped and fully expected that it will be common, if not customary, among those who pursue science, and study the profession, engaged in construction, to secure, first, the broad and liberal culture of the older schools before entering upon their purely professional studies.. It is this feature which Cornell University is especially well prepared to introduce and to encourage. Here the line of work will lead into and through the general courses and on into the professional schools.. Knowledge, discipline, training in all the humanities, may, and should, precede the final special preparation for the special work chosen as the means of doing most for the world and of acquiring fortune.

European nations have been for many years, for a century at least,. steadily, systematically, and intelligently, carrying out the policy above outlined, and the only way in which to compete with them is evidently to adopt a similar policy, with even greater care, and with,. if possible, more effective methods. Technical and trade education have for so many years been a part of the French and German system of aiding manufactures that we may expect it to require many

years to equal, much more to distance them in the race. The effect has long since been felt in the importation of skilled artisans and engineers from those countries, to do work demanding peculiar expertness coming of such scientific training. We have taken up our work in this direction none too early. It is a matter of congratulation that Cornell University was planned with a view to the effective promotion of the needed work.

METHODS-SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE.

DAVID KINLEY, JOHNSON HIGH SCHOOL, NORTH ANDOVER, MASS.

"Method" seems to be the educational hobby of the times. Educational journals are full of methods in grammar, in geography-in every branch. Books are written on methods of teaching in general and every subject in particular.

There is danger that, in the strength of the current, principles will be lost sight of. In fact, signs of narrowness and empiricism are already on the increase. A pupil in a training school recently told me that she had learned thirteen methods of teaching numbers up to ten! Of course any method is better than none. But not every method will yield equal results in the same time, or at the same cost, as economists would say. Not every method conforms to the law of parsimony. It is desirable then to keep clearly in mind the principles on which methods should be built.

A method of teaching a branch may be developed as responsive to the condition, physiological and psychological, of the pupil. Such methods adapt the material of the subject studied to the needs of the pupil, without regard to the logical arrangement of the subject itself. They may or may not coincide with that arrangement. For "that which is last in actual attainment is [often] first in logical importance." Such methods may be called subjective.

On the other hand, the method of teaching a branch may be derived from the orderly development of the subject of study. Such a method of presentation I call objective. It may be a scientific development, in which case it may coincide more or less closely with a subjective method.

Finally, a method may be only a "pretty scheme," adopted because it is complete, or symmetrical, or used by other teachers. Then it is empirical.

In other words: In the formation of a subjective method we must ask: first, What are the facts of mental development? and second, How may the matter in hand be adapted to these facts? In preparing an objective method, we must ask: first, What is the logical order of this branch of study? and second, From what fundamental principles must we start to enable the pupil to see the relations of the parts of this subject of study, and to grasp it as a whole?

The subjective method coincides with mental growth. It is analytic and inductive. The objective method is synthetic and deductive. The former reasons from experience to principles, "from the concrete to the abstract;" the latter from principles to experience, "from the abstract to the concrete."

Subjective methods assume no development. They are, therefore, the ones to be used with children. Hence the young teacher I men. tioned as having learned thirteen ways of teaching primary arithmetic was unfortunate. There are not thirteen modes of mental development. The New Education is right, then, in maintaining that kindergartens and object teaching properly form the beginnings of education.

But with pupils of high schools and academies, one might sometimes advantageously employ objective methods. I find it refreshing in my own work to forget for a while the pursuit of "facts, observations, inferences," which form the gospel of the "New Education," and, starting my pupils with some fundamental principle to which they all agree, or which is the result of previous induction, lead them through its application to what must be the facts of experience.

While it is true that the prime object of education is to discipline the mind, the secondary object, that of learning, ought not be crowded out altogether. We study Latin and Chemistry not only for discipline, but to learn Latin and Chemistry. It is conceivable that for this secondary purpose, at least, objective methods may be more prolific of results than subjective. I doubt whether in some subjects-Ethics, for example-the inductive method can be employed at all successfully.

To speak of teaching Latin by the "philological," or by the “linguistic," method, is simply to say that prominence is given to one