ciently high. The highest teaching ability is always at the command of a board of education that will honestly look for it, and that is willing and able to pay the requisite price. Other things being equal, men and women will seek that employment which gives them command of the largest amount of the good things of this life.

Unfortunately, the objections to the merit system of grading teachers' salaries are practically insuperable. It opens wide the door to favoritism of the most flagrant kind. The power that determines salaries is generally devoid of the special knowledge needed to determine degrees of merit. In private business, the matter is very different. There, the self-interest of the employer forces him to use his best ability in grading the salaries of his employees. He has every possible opportunity to discover what their merits are, as well as the special knowledge required for the purpose. A board of education has neither.

For this reason, it has been found necessary to establish schedules of salaries. In some places, salaries are increased according to length of service; in some places, according to the grade taught; in others, they are determined partly by one and partly by the other consideration. In a few cities the maximum pay in primary grades is the same as the maximum pay in grammar grades, but in most places it is much lower. It is in accord with the best established business practices that a beginner's salary should start at a certain point and advance with a fixed increment each year until a maximum is reached. But it is not in accord with sound business principles that there should be so great a difference as we sometimes find between the maximum salary in primary grades and the maximum salary in grammar grades. There is no difference either in the amount or in the character of the work to justify the discrimination against the primary teacher. It may be somewhat harder to manage children of twelve than to manage children of seven, though even this is doubtful; but, if it be more difficult to keep order in a class of older children, the difference is more than compensated by the fact that the teacher of younger children has usually a much larger number under her care. Boston has set a good example in making the maximum salary for all grades, except the three highest, the same. This maximum-$816 per annum-it is safe to say, is the highest average salary paid for primary teaching by any large

city in the country. The time has arrived when all large cities must raise the salary schedule at least as high as that of Boston, or else fall steadily behind in the educational race. The reason is obvious. It cannot set a high standard either of scholarship or of professional attainment. The teaching force is recruited almost exclusively from local sources. Local influences will inevitably prevent the establishment of a high standard for entrance to the teaching profession, so long as the compensation finally attainable is so low as not to justify elaborate preparation. Few men will undertake the expense of a systematic course of training for their daughters, if the ultimate compensation will barely suffice to keep body and soul together. Low salaries have had more to do with preventing the general spread of professional training for teachers than any other single cause. Hence, low salaries have done more. than anything else to keep the standard of instruction low.

The argument against reasonably liberal salaries-that the supply of competent teachers is greater than the demand-is now heard in boards of education less frequently than in former times. In the first place, the avenues for lucrative employment that have been opened to women, are now so numerous, that many of the ablest among the graduates of our high schools no longer look to teaching as a means of livelihood. The vast development of secondary education in the shape of high schools which this country has witnessed during the last ten years, has itself attracted to these institutions many of our ablest and best educated women, who would otherwise have found their way into the primary schools. The young man or young woman who desires to teach prefers to take a college or university course and prepare himself or herself for high school work rather than to go directly from the high school to teach in a primary grade. Nor is this all. The medical profession and journalism are every year attracting a larger number of gifted and cultured women, who twenty years ago would have become teachers; while commercial pursuits, such as type-writing and book-keeping, are drawing away thousands who, with proper training, would make excellent instructors. It has come to pass that the great majority of public school teachers are women; and there are very few women who would not prefer teaching in a high school, or even the longer hours of business vocations, to controlling the restless spirits and breathing the vitiated atmosphere in a

primary class-room. Hence it happens that the supply of competent teachers is no longer greater than the demand, if, indeed, such were ever the case. On the contrary, there is probably not a large city in the country that is not experiencing great difficulty in obtaining the requisite number of trained teachers.

The demand for such teachers was never so great as at present, and it is constantly on the increase. The curriculum cannot be confined to the "Three R's." The time has gone by when "hearing lessons" could be regarded as teaching. Scientific methods of teaching all the standard subjects are now a sine qua non. Moreover, drawing, manual training, natural science, are all slowly but surely effecting an entrance into the school-room. Your untrained or inexperienced teacher is as incompetent to teach according to scientific methods or to deal with the new subjects of the curriculum, as a hod-carrier is to run a steam-engine. Boards of education, though slowly, are beginning to recognize the fact that this is pre-eminently an age of specialization, and that above all other walks of life the teacher's calling requires special preparation.

Trained teachers must be obtained. For the teacher without training and without experience, salaries cannot be made too low. The trained teacher, or the teacher of experiencethat is to say, if the experience has been good, and not, as it very frequently is, bad—should receive a salary that will enable her to live as befits a member of a liberal profession and to pursue the means of culture, without which she will almost necessarily retrograde.

A large city cannot do better than to follow the example of Boston in two things: First, to require that all teachers shall either have professional training or successful experience; and, second, to place salaries at such a standard that the supply of such teachers will at least equal the demand.

BROOKLYN, N. Y.

WILLIAM H. MAXWELL.

VI.

EDITORIAL.

There is a distinct movement in this country toward the elevation of the standard of admission to the professions of law and medicine. The superficial and inadequate instruction that is given in all but a very few professional schools, has so far attracted public attention that the legislatures are busy passing laws instituting state examining boards and providing that a professional diploma or degree shall not, of itself, be a license to practice. This is a wise and proper way to fix an acceptable minimum requirement; but when this has been accomplished, the duty of the great universities of the country has only begun. It is their function to teach law and medicine scientifically to students equipped by previous training for such work. For a university to content itself with being a mere adjunct to the state examination, is to forfeit all claim to public respect and confidence. The university teaching of law and medicine is not for the purpose of manufacturing as many practitioners as possible, but to furnish to the country scholarly and well-trained physicians and lawyers. This cannot be done by any institution that has an eye single to the fees to be collected from its students or that encourages students to divide their attention between their professional studies and some other occupation, gainful or not.

There are many successful professional men who write and speak atrocious English, and whose ignorance of the subjects that form part of a college education is profound. They are not creditable representatives of the intellectual life of America, and it is high time that some courageous university took the lead in cutting off the supply of such individuals. It is not possible now, nor will it be for some years to come, to insist upon a college education as a prerequisite for admission to the practice of law and medicine. Public sentiment is not educated up to that point. But there is no reason why a university should continue indefinitely to admit to its professional schools, students who would be denied entrance to the freshman class

of a college. At one or two of the larger universities there. are already enough college graduates enrolled in the professional schools to make a creditable showing, even if all others were excluded. At the Harvard Medical School last year out of 304 students, 156 held literary or scientific degrees. At the Harvard Law School, 102 of the 153 students entering were college graduates. At Columbia College, for the decade between 1880-90, the proportion of students in the Law School who held preliminary degrees was 44 per cent., and in the Medical School it was 35 per cent. Harvard and Columbia, therefore, would have large schools of law and medicine, even if none. but college graduates were admitted. It is their duty, as it would be to their honor, to take this forward and upward step.

Pending this important advance, another is in a fair way to be realized. The Johns Hopkins University has received about $280,000, toward the fund of $500,000, that is to endow a medical school open to women on the same terms as to men. Miss Mary Garrett of Baltimore has been the most liberal donor to this fund, and, aided by committees of women in various parts of the country, has been largely instrumental in securing the large amount already obtained. This episode affords another instance of the fact that a university which keeps in contact with progressive educational thought, can always secure the funds necessary to carry out its well-considered projects.

England is in a state of excitement over the proposition of the Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Goschen, to employ the treasury surplus for the purpose of abolishing the fees now charged to pupils in the elementary schools. The official proposition is that after September next elementary education shall be free. To Americans this does not seem very startling, but the Briton looks at it through other spectacles. Not only does it run counter to his national traditions, for England has been the last civilized country to appreciate the importance of elementary education for the whole people, but it is involved with the question of religious teaching and the Established Church. The Church schools now occupy a privileged position, and one which they will not surrender without a struggle. The Liberals will be sure to