The principal

two cases seemed to be about the same. difference would be that the second mother, instead of abandoning her child to the elements, would have attempted a personal policing of the entire western coast, but never once have said, "You must not."

We Americans love the word freedom. We love the thing itself for ourselves and every one else. We have had a deep-seated conviction that the way to make any people competent to take up the responsibilities of perfect liberty is to give them full swing and let them work out their own salvation. We tried the plan with rather doubtful success in the case of the colored freedmen. Something has made us hesitate when we came to the same point with the Filipinos. We seem to have arrived at the conclusion that the intelligence of the individual has something to do with the amount of self-government which he can exercise with advantage to himself.

Scarcely any one, unless it be the enthusiastic authoress already referred to, is prepared to maintain that children do not possess at birth the full intelligence of manhood. Is it helping on the process of "development," to leave a child, unaided-or untrammeled if you will-by all restrictions, to formulate for himself the laws of his action? Do not children so beginning life, remain restless, dissatisfied, non-contributing members of society-merely grown-up irresponsible children, seeking their own present gratification, as they did in their childhood? When the helplessness of childhood is gone, its weaknesses are no longer appealing. Under favorable circumstances, when there is good inheritance and real potentiality in the character, this system certainly may produce highly individualized personalities. But does this exaggerated straining after individuality help, in the end, to produce efficient citizens? A very long time ago some one described a well dressed man as being so dressed that no one could tell, half an hour after meeting him, what clothes he had worn, so perfectly were they suited to the man and the occasion. If we adopt Carlyle's meaning of the word "clothes," and let it

cover all external appurtenances which body forth the real nature of the man, the above definition might easily refer to good breeding as well as good dressing. With a falser taste, as it seems to us, the recent fashions have exercised their ingenuity to jolt our jaded attention into observation of the passer by. Is not a good deal of the talk about individuality, of the same piece? The individuality which is worth while comes of itself and exists without cultivating. The successful citizen finds himself confronted, each moment of the day, with problems which involve his responsibility to the community. Only hermits escape social obligations. How can this highly developed ego, this individuality marked with a circumflex accent, this product of perfect freedom, who has never learned during his infant. and growing years that his personal liberty is bound in on. all sides by equally imperative rights of others how can he, a man grown, regard himself in a balanced relation to

others?

We may dislike the word obedience if we will and avoid the word compulsion as if it meant something heinous, but in the last analysis we have to bow in obedience all thru life to forces stronger than we, and yield to compulsions crueler than any which parents or teachers could enforce if they were disposed to cruelty. Does it make life easier for us if we have never learned to obey? When we must yield, do we yield more happily because we never knew the meaning of the word authority, or learned to recognize or respect such a person as a superior? Our divorce courts. are full of people who find the adjustment of minor personal relations some of them how minor-too severe a tax upon their adaptability. Are they the children, grown up whose childhood knew no restraint, and whose "development" was unretarded by a crippling sense of obligation to others? Has the sequel shown that that way, after all, lay the road to happiness?

Those who criticize our public school in this matter are divided into two classes who hold exactly opposite views. on the subject. On the one hand is a very considerable:

number of educators for both sexes who hold that the superiority of their institutions consists in the rigorous training of their pupils, the sharp oversight given them, and the consequent increased efficiency of the output. There is no denying that they produce commendable results. Our West Point graduates are examples of the successes. The failures we lose sight of. It is interesting to observe that preparatory schools of this nature are often chosen for boys and girls both, by not only those parents who have themselves used the stricter methods of home training but by those as well who feel that their own methods have been lax and who wish the school influence to correct and supplant the home influence.

The other class of educators make their boast of the freedom and spontaneity of the work done, in their schools, the individuality cultivated, and the normal "development" of their pupils. At present these schools seem to be more popular, these methods more sought. Personally, we have never known a single instance where parents who felt that their methods of home training had been too strict, chose such an institution to correct the mistakes which they themselves had made.

When our public schools are adversely compared with schools of the first type we can only say in self-defense, that this high standard of efficiency is usually maintained at the cost of a good deal of weeding which is not practical in the case of a public school. Obviously the purpose of a public school is to educate the public, by and large, just as they come to us. A standard which is too high for the average is too high to make the school's working influence as wide as it should be.

Those who criticize the public school system as being unelastic, repressive and hence damaging to its victims, offer us two remedial theories. The advocates of one theory regard all children as naturally good, bright, industrious, desirous of ali that is best and only waiting a chance to be helped to acquire it. Would to heaven this were true! If there are exceptions apparently it is the fault and failure

of the teacher, who has been requiring something unreasonable or unjust, or whose methods have perverted the natural tastes of the children. People who express such views should reflect that the children who come into the public school come from every possible variety of home, from parents of every shade of social standing and moral perception with as various ambitions and ideals as the infinite variety of human lives. Certain forebears of ours starting out in the garden of Eden with a clean slate and no damaging precedents, came to grief in a short time because of mistaken inclination. Is there reason to expect that the children of today, whose lives are checkered at birth with all sorts of inheritances which God alone can understand, will do very much better? "Thou shalt," and "thou shalt not," came early in our history, and the burden of proving that we have outgrown the need of such mandates seems to rest with those who assert that we have.

The second remedial theory is, not that children are perfect, but that real teachers are endowed with miraculous power.

"Do not expect the child to study a lesson or a subject which he does not like. Make it so interesting that he will like it and there will be no trouble about his getting it," cries some one, and considers that he has said the last word on the subject.

To our mind there is something uncanny, not to say occult and unholy, in the assumption that a teacher's power extends to the actual creation and absolute control of the likes and dislikes of her heterogeneous protegés. Let us suppose, for the moment, that the task is humanly possible, are we doing the child a kindness in performing it? We are told that Johnny, for instance, is not mathematically minded. He detests arithmetic and likes natural history. We should not, in cold blood, insist upon his learning the multiplication table. We should "make that easy for him," and let him investigate the fascinating subject of caterpillars, instead. It is urged that thus we may be helping an Agassiz to begin his life work. It is our private opinion that if

Johnny is going to be an Agassiz it will take something more than the difficulties of the multiplication table or high school algebra to stop him. The very process of overcoming these difficulties will help him to remove real obstacles which present themselves. It is easy to point to the financial vagaries of Daniel Webster or the domestic incompetence of Coleridge as examples of the Pauline doctrine that we have gifts differing, and from that draw the conclusion that children can not all be run into the same mold. It is true enough that they can not be, and should not be. We have guarded against that by the introduction of an increasing variety of courses in both high school and elementary schools. Grasping the fundamentals of a common school education can hardly be called being put into a mold. We forgive our great men their failures rather than admire them for the same, and several thousand men fail because of a deficiency where one succeeds in spite of it.

Probably we can all easily recall several men and women of our personal acquaintance whose success in their chosen line has been seriously hindered by inadequacy in some common school branch which, perhaps, seemed unimportant or uninteresting to them in school days. But worse than inadequacy in any given branch is the habit of carelessness and shirking which this method of shunning the difficult fosters.

If Johnny is persistently enough taught to follow the line of least resistance, the logical result will be that he will not only acquire a distaste for any line of work, but that he will become incapable of wholesome mental exertion, simply because of never practising it. Is this fortifying him to meet the problems of life? Would it not be an infinitely better preparation to say to him, "Johnny, I know that you do not like to do this, I am sorry. But you know that it is the thing for you to do. You deserve a great deal more credit for doing well something which you do not like to do, than something which you do like. Let us see how well you can do this."

Unfavorable comparisons are often made between the