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culture are the supreme and ultimate earthly end and purpose of life.

This view reveals the fatal defect in that philosophy of education which regards man as a grand physical organism, born of physical nature and reaching up to—nothing; that makes a complete human life rest upon the broad base of bread-winning activities, and taper upwards through parental, social, and civil duties to mere esthetic gratification and enjoyment; that makes the material forms and conditions of civilization more important than civilization itself. Such a view of life subordinates the soul to the body and reverses the ends of human existence.

A complete life is rather a truncated cone, resting on the smaller base of physical being, and lifting itself by widening sections of nobler activities until it fills the circle of the soul's highest wants and loses itself in the infinite perfections of its Maker. In a true philosophy of life man is broader and higher than his physical conditions and needs.

In my excursions into the country, I often pass two trees which stand as opposite types of human life. One springs from the ground daintily with a vigorous trunk, but with no visible roots.

All its branches grow away from the earth with increasing vigor, and its spreading top opens widely to the sunlight and the shower. It uses the earth, but grows toward heaven. The other tree not only strikes its roots deeply into the earth, but it sends out great ones upon the surface. Its lowest branches are long, luxuriant, and drooping, but the upper branches be

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come shorter and shorter and less vigorous, until they end in a dead top. It grows green and vigorous towards the earth, but dies toward heaven!

Having thus found the chief and subordinate ends of human existence, we have also found, as a consequence, the prime functions of education, and we are now able to state them in the order of their true subordination. The first and highest function of school training is the development and culture of all man's powers and faculties in due harmony and equipoise. The second and subordinate function is to impart a knowledge of those facts and principles which are practically useful for the purposes of guidance. The first aim is discipline; the second knowledge.

Likewise each of these functions sub-divides into two. The disciplinary function includes (1) the perfection of man's higher nature-the developing, purifying, and beautifying of the soul; and (2) the nurture and perfection of the body. The acquisitive function includes (1) the acquisition of knowledge needed for the proper discharge of life's higher duties; and (2) the acquisition of information useful in promoting physical health and well-being, that is, "in getting a living."

We thus reach an exhaustive statement of the aim and purpose of school education—a statement that places man above, and yet prepares him for his life's work; that neither exalts him into an ethereal region of serene repose to be satiated with what Arnold calls "sweetness and light," nor trails his man

hood in the furrows of life's toil. It unites man to nature, to society and to God-to nature that he may discover her laws, utilize her forces and enjoy her munificence; to society that he may eradicate its evils, improve its condition, and receive its protection; and to God that man may be sustained, guided, purified, and saved.

These comprehensive functions of education give two criteria to determine the value of a school study. 1. What is its value as a means of mental development of soul culture? 2. What is the value of its knowledge for the purposes of guidance in life's work? A branch of study that meets the first of these tests is to be preferred to one that will only meet the second; and a study that meets both is of assured value.

In the application of the first of these tests, two facts should be considered, to wit: 1. A school course should train all the mental powers in due harmony. This is the more necessary because the work of life may afford them very unequal activity. Most occupations, when pursued continuously and intensely, groove the mental activities, and result in narrow, lop-sided men. The mind needs a broad preparatory culture to enable it to resist this narrowing tendency of life's business. 2. The disciplinary value of knowledge depends largely upon the method of its acquisition. Knowledge admirably adapted to the right exercise of the mind, may be so taught or acquired as actually to enervate and deaden its powers.

In the application of the second criterion, the utility of the knowledge acquired, a careful distinction must be made between those empirical facts and details which are best learned by experience, and those general facts and principles which can guide and fructify experience. The knowledge necessary to make a boot or a coat, to shoe a horse or build a house, is to be acquired by learning the art, just as a boy must learn to swim. The artisan must serve an apprenticeship, and our schools can not be made workshops for this purpose. It may be true, as Froude claims, that "every honest occupation to which a man sets his hand, would raise him into a philosopher if he mastered all the knowledge that belongs to his craft," but this method of making philosophers is hardly practicable in our schools. A school in which tailors, weavers, carpenters, shoemakers, etc., are each taught the "knowledge that belongs to his craft" would be a curiosity. Let us try to set such a school in motion.

Here are fifty children representing the different trades. What shall be done with them? In order to instruct them in common, we must teach them common knowledge. Grouping the knowledge of their several crafts, and eliminating that which is not common to all, we find that the quantities, are, as arithmeticians say, prime to each other--the common factor certainly does not exceed a unit. The only alternative is to put the representatives of the different trades into separate classes, thus organizing a tailors' class, a shoemakers' class, a carpenters' class,

a masons' class, a hostlers' class, a cooks' class, a nurses' class, etc.; and, as each class is to be taught practically, it must be supplied with appropriate tools and materials. The hostlers must be supplied with horses, the nurses with babies, etc. It need not be added that such a scheme of education as this is utterly Utopian. The truth is, the knowledge directly and specially used in the different trades and pursuits of life, can receive but little attention in a course of general education, and for the sufficient reason, that such knowledge has a special application and is not of general interest and utility. Besides, all experience shows that an education dwarfed to the facts that concern a given occupation defeats itself. Special preparation for given pursuits needs to rest upon a general preparation for all pursuits, and the more comprehensive the general culture the more fruitful and useful the special training. This remark does not exclude branches of study, or drawing, which are useful in nearly all pursuits, and which are also a valuable means of culture.

Moreover, were it desirable to narrow every one's education to the groove of his future calling, such a plan would not be feasible in this country where the child is not necessarily born into the occupation of his father. Here the different pursuits stand with open doors, and neither the child nor his parents know which he will enter, nor how long he will remain. How many Americans find themselves at forty in those callings which guilded their boyish day-dreams, at fifteen? This one fact is sufficient