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be taken into account. In this case the guaranty of the public against risk is perfectly feasible, as experience has satisfactorily proved. This guaranty consists of six distinct provisions :

1. A thorough professional training of teachers in normal schools suited to their destined functions. This is necessary as the primary guaranty against the appointment of teachers without the requisite qualifications. And it is evident that the State could afford a more liberal expenditure for the education of a teacher who is to serve the public thirty or forty years than for the teacher who is to serve only three or four years. Only a small fraction of the teachers now engaged in the service are graduates of normal schools, there being no one State that has not recoiled before the task of securing to the whole body of teachers a professional education, and this is because of the very great number of teachers which teaching as a temporary employment necessitates.

2. Another guaranty should be provided by a system of examining and certificating teachers by experts wholly under the control of the central authorities; and, besides, the local certificate, the only one, with few exceptions, now issued, does little for the establishment of the standing and reputation of the holder. But a certificate granted by the central authority, and valid throughout the State, would create a professional rank and standing which would elevate the status of the holders.*

3. As a third condition requisite to the permanent tenure, probationary service must be provided. The candidate must not only have his certificate, but he must prove his capacity by actual service in teaching, before he

*Provision has been made for State Certificates in a few of of the States.

can claim a definitive appointment. The period of probation should not be less than two years, and it might well be three or four. The judgment on the result should be rendered by one or more approved experts. If a further guaranty against failure is deemed expedient it may be obtained by an examination at the end of the probation, bearing especially on the practical work of the school-room.

4. As to the choice to be made among candidates thus prepared, the most judicious method appears to be for the superior school authority to nominate three or four candidates, having regard both to seniority and merit, and that the election from this list should be left to the local committee.

5. Provision for a suitable hierarchical situation for the teacher. Such a situation would comprise a competent supervision and the other means requisite for stimulating the teacher to the best efforts, by recognizing his worth and rewarding his merits; and such a situation would also comprise the necessary machinery for administering just and salutary discipline in cases of delinquency. In France the hierarchical situation is so well contrived that the young man of talents, entering upon his career as primary teacher in the remotest mountain hamlet, may hope to reach, by well-earned promotions, the principalship of a metropolitan school, or to become director of a normal school, or even inspector.

"It is the function of a good administration," says the eminent Belgian publicist and educator, De Laveleye, "to seek by fixed rules which science indicates to ascertain merit, and to class individuals according to their aptitudes; then there would be an end of solicitations, of subserviency, of intrigues, of protections, of favors, of injustices." And this is the paradise for which the teacher prays.

He wants to feel that he owes his position to his merit, and not to favor, and to be sure that his efforts will be appreciated and recompensed. It is perhaps in vain to hope that the public school teacher's path may be strewn with roses, but hitherto it has been too much hedged up with briers and thorns; but the supreme misery of his lot is to be judged by incompetents. This would necessarily be mitigated by the better supervision which the permanent tenure would require.

6. A retiring pension is requisite not only as a security for old age, but as a means of rendering practicable the retirement of the aged and fatigued public servant, without reflecting on his reputation or abandoning him to destitution.

These six conditions are logically involved in the full and complete application of the principle of fixity of tenure. Moreover, they are at the same time the means of producing an equilibrium of risks and of authorities, which experience has proved to be indispensable to the most efficient, economical, and harmonious working of a school system.

In every point of view this reform in our system seems to me fundamental in its importance; all others are but secondary, subordinate, accessory. It may seem to the

timid to be a bold undertaking, but it is not more bold in the present circumstances than was the project of State normal schools, or the project of a State Board of Education fifty years ago. Every epoch has its peculiar task. This reform I verily believe to be the task of the hour for the friends of educational progress. Public sentiment is now everywhere drifting in this direction. In the powerful movement which has been begun to reform the civil service, I plainly see the dawning of a new and

better day for the public school and the public school teacher. The press is daily teeming with arguments for our cause; for the principles of a good civil service are essentially the same as the principles of a good educational service. Hence the achievement of the civil service reform will prepare the way for this reform. The spoils system and the annual election are twin barbarisms, and with the abolition of the former the latter must go.

But permanent tenure is not to be brought into successful operation by a single legislative act. This radical reform must be reached by a series of steps. Initiatory steps have already been taken in various quarters. It is worthy of mention that, at the late session of the Massachusetts Legislature, the chairman of the Committee on Public Service offered to include the teaching service in the provision of the civil service reform bill reported by his committee. This reform must begin practically in the cities and larger towns. Teachers have their duty in connection with this task. Everywhere they should pour in their petitions and memorials upon the legislatures, throughout the country, and do their share of the work in creating public opinion which shall demand this reform.

XV.

MANIFEST DESTINY.

The Destiny of the English Race of America and of the

World.

BY JOHN FISKE, LL.D.

[ABSTRACT.]

The manifest destiny of the Anglo-Saxon race is a fruitful theme for many Fourth-of-July orations, but there is also a philosophical and historical side to this interesting question. I would, however, prefer to call it the race, English; for, like the Englishman of England, the American may have absorbed many foreign elements, but is as essentially English to-day in political habits and aptitudes as were his ancestors in the days of DeMontfort, Hampden, or Washington.

Looking first at civilization, we may premise that it means primarily the gradual substitution of a state of peace for a state of war. This change is the condition precedent for all other kinds of improvement that are connected by such a term as "civilization." The next step is the union of sinall political groups into larger groups for common protection, without sacrificing local independence. But, in order that the pacific community may be able to go on doing its work, it must be strong enough to overcome quarrelsome or barbarous neighbors. Hence the most pacific communities should have the greatest military strength, peace obtainable only through war

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