however, progressive in spirit, and, in the main, worthy of the prominence accorded them in educational circles. An inspector in one of the States in which High Schools most abound, says: "Of the High School men of the State, with rare excep tions, all the more striking by contrast, I cannot speak too highly. They are scholarly in tastes and habits, gentlemanly in bearing, cultivated in speech, and thoroughly devoted to their work. I esteem it a privilege to have made their acquaintance. To be in their presence and under their instruction for a series of years is a rare good fortune; and coming, as it does, at that critical period of life when the boys and girls are just creating their ideals of character, it fitly crowns the beneficent influences exerted by the public schools."

The most thorough work is undoubtedly done in Latin. Here the aim is to lead the pupil to observe the form quickly, to distinguish minute differences, through the form to discern the relation, to select the probable from among the possible relations, and finally to clothe the newly discovered thought in the best English words and idioms. This process, calling for close application and unceasing intellectual alertness, results in a true culture. In recent years sight-reading has been given a prominent place in classical instruction, to the immense gain of the pupil. But there is still much plodding in the narrow paths of grammatical drill, without a glance into the more inviting fields of derivation, history, mythology, and colloquia. The modern languages are taught mainly by reading and translation, but practice in conversation is on the increase, and the number of schools in which French or German is habitually employed in the class-room, after the first few weeks in those subjects, is not now small. There has been a most salutary revival of interest in the English language and literature within the past decade, resulting both in the extension of the time devoted to the subject and in marked improvement in methods and results. The best schools now require this study in some form throughout the course. Two tendencies prevail: on the one hand to magnify the art of composition as compared with grammatical analysis; and on the other to cultivate an ac

quaintance with good literature, and a love for it, instead of memorizing historical facts about books and their authors. Much remains to be done, however, before the High School will send forth its graduates equipped with facile pens and ready tongues, able upon demand to use the mother-tongue with accuracy and grace.

In science studies modifications of the experimental method are driving from the best schools the former practice of memorizing text-books with the accompaniment of illustrative experiments. Costly apparatus in natural philosophy and chemistry is being replaced by laboratories more simply fitted with sets of implements by which objects and specimens may be observed and tested by the pupils themselves, who then are trained to record their observations, to draw inferences, to generalize, and, finally, to express with accuracy the results they reach. Similar work is done in botany, zoölogy, and geology. But a vast number of schools are yet inadequately equipped for genuine scientific work, and too many teachers have not yet been taught how to secure such work from their pupils. Scientific study in the High Schools is further weakened by the absence of elementary instruction in natural science in lower grades, and by the undue amount and variety of work usually imposed on teachers of science. Mathematics is universally taught in the three forms of arithmetic, algebra, and geometry. In the first, the aim is chiefly to keep the pupil familiar with numerical processes and to train him in rapid computation. In this the schools are not more than fairly successful. Algebra is, better taught and by its severer demands furnishes a valuable discipline. In geometry, attention is commonly confined to plane figures. A marked improvement is taking place in methods, resulting in superior intellectual growth on the part of the more robust minds, but leaving the duller half with little gain. The memorizing of printed demonstrations is giving way before the solving of original problems and the working out at sight of unstudied theorems. In some few schools practical applications are made in surveying. Increased attention is being given to

history, especially in its application to the science of government. The main reliance here is yet upon the reproduction of the text of compendiums of history, but in a few schools teachers use these as mines from which they lead the pupils to draw the materials, and by self-activity to combine them into finished products of historical knowledge. Frequently the study is made objective by an extensive use of pictures, maps, and other helps, and is broadened in sweep by collateral reading. Recitations are devoted not only to the testing of the content of the pupil's mind, but quite as much, by well-selected topics and well-planned questions, to the cultivation of aptitude in discerning historical relations. The study of civil government naturally attracts American boys, who in two or three years will find themselves complete citizens, and scarcely less interests their sisters. Much is done here by object lessons in the législative halls, council chambers, and court rooms themselves, whither pupils are taken by their teachers to observe the processes of government in actual operation.

On the whole there is a positive tendency to secure in High School instruction the cultivation of the mental powers, and only incidentally to store the memory with facts. The results secured are directly proportional to the scholarship of the teacher and his skill in making the most of his material and opportunities. Those engaged in the work gather some comfort, however, from hearing the men and women of the colleges assert, as they do with earnestness, that they find the instruction in the secondary schools better done than that of the elementary schools.

HIGH SCHOOL,

NEW BEDFORD, MASS.

RAY GREENE HULING.

IV.

THE EDUCATION OF THE WILL.

All education is, in a sense, education of will. Of course, for scientific exactness, we distinguish will from other activities of mind, and we may for convenience here assume the ordinary psychological division into intelligence, emotion and will; but it is an elementary commonplace of psychology, that, though these activities are distinguishable in thought, they are not to be treated as if they were usually separated in mental life. Will is therefore not to be conceived as an activity in itself, capable of being isolated from intelligence and emotion. In such isolation it is an unreal abstraction, it is merely the abstract concept which physical science finds useful for its purposes under the name of force. As a concrete reality, will is active intelligence stimulated by emotion: or, as it may equally well be described, it is active emotion directed by intelligence.

But whatever may be the general relation of intelligence and emotion to will, there can be no doubt of the practical relation into which they are brought in educational processes. The education of intelligence is an exertion of will in directing intelligence to particular objects; the education of emotion is an exertion of will for the suppression of feelings that are inimical, and the stimulation of those that are favorable, to the well-being of man. All education is thus, in a sense, education of will.

But this very fact implies that will is not to be conceived as a force working in vacuo. It must have material to work upon -an object to be willed; and such object or material can be obtained only from intelligence and emotion. Moreover, education does not consist of sporadic, transient acts, that are performed without connection in any rational plan, and without leaving any trace behind. It aims at creating those tendencies which we call by such names as faculties, capacities, dex

terities, habits; in a word, it seeks to develop a power of performing, without effort and even without thought, actions. which at first can be performed only with deliberate attention, if not with painful fatigue. But for this power, life would not only lose all its pleasantness, it would cease. If after performing an action a hundred times it required as much. effort as at first, no man could get through his day; he could not meet the most essential wants of hourly existence. This power forms the supreme reward of our educational labor; that is to say, all the excellence developed by education, is of the nature of habit.

But if will is merely an abstract potentiality until it has received its material from intelligence and emotion, it may be asked whether there can be any special education of the will. To answer this it must be observed that, ordinarily in education, we give prominence to the intelligence or emotion which is to be educated. Then the education is intellectual or emotional; it is a habit of intelligence or of sentiment that we are seeking to cultivate. But we may also abstract from what is being educated, and reflect on the educative power-the power that directs the education. We may inquire how that power is itself to be educated, so that it may be applied promptly and effectually to any material of intelligence or emotion. Such an education of the will places the copestone on the whole educational building. It determines the character which forms the guerdon or the doom of every man for character, as we are reminded in the often quoted saying of Novalis, is a completely formed will.

To get at the processes by which this result is attained we must clear away various scientific problems which are connected with the process, but need not be allowed to complicate the educational problem itself. For educational science does not require us here to go beyond unquestionable facts. It requires as its data merely the fact of voluntary action and the fact of habit, comprehending of course the process by which habit is formed. We do not require to go beyond these facts into the theories by which they are explained in any department of science,