a symphony or learning to bake a pumpkin pie. The test is, however, not: Did the student get the mental discipline? but, Can he read and enjoy Virgil? Can he play the symphony? Will some one eat the pie? And because people rarely care to read Virgil because almost none of the thousands who study Latin ever can or do read Virgil, therefore, in so far as they are concerned, studying Latin has no purpose and cannot be defended as mental discipline.' Being a firm believer in the theory of mental discipline, this statement of Dr. Flexner's does not give me pleasant thoughts. My own experience in the case of Virgil shows me that I was one among those who read Virgil unknowingly. To this day I am sensitive over the translation of the passage "of that dark urn that held the remains of Aeneas' nurse"-but it has given me a wonderful sympathy with the girl who in the account of the funeral rites in honor of Palinurus remarked that "that brought on the hot drinks." Yet, as I look back upon that Virgil class I see a teacher of great enthusiasm, with much imagination, which qualities have a faculty of permeating nearby individuals, and I learned to have a respect for duty, and fate and perseverance, to love the sea, flowers, bees, to pity poor Dido-many things I learned which I cannot tell those who advocate utility first and foremost.

I must quote old Cato again. He was having a heated controversy and I imagine was worsted, from the following remark: "We are not contending on equal terms; you are accustomed to hearing and using bad language, whereas I am unused to hearing it and unwilling to use it." So we Latin teachers are not careful enough to have a supply of utilitarian arguments and to use utilitarian methods in our first and second year class work. We must reserve our cultural arguments and cultural methods for third and fourth year work when they may have some effect. The reasons that seem to us most vital cannot be impressed upon the general run of Freshmen and Sophomores nor upon their utilitarian mothers and fathers.

As I look upon the case, if we have taught the first two years of Latin well, I think we have given the greatest good possible to the general student. We have, unknown to them, taught the philosophic basis of both Latin and English grammar; they have become acquainted with most of the roots that form the basis of the

60% of English words; they have had incomparable mental drill in association, discrimination etc. which can only be secured from the study of a highly inflected language. We have done this and much more; but all minds are decidedly not meant for the future pursuit of the subject. If from our beginning classes we have 20% to 25% in our Senior classes can we ask for much more under our compulsory school age of 15 to 16 years? Aren't we holding our own and could any other four years course keep, under our elective system, a greater number? I think not. Our school holds a record for such a per cent. Perhaps I am over satisfied, but my experience with human life has led me to think we must not expect too much.

The first thing to stimulate a desire for more Latin is I think unquestionably a good, wide-awake teacher. If such teachers are needed anywhere they are needed in the classical department. The greatest possible advertisement is an active, inventive up-to-date man or woman. A slow, solemn and worn-out teacher in a Latin classroom is a sure sign that the language taught is "dead" for a fact, in influence and results. Would that superintendents would think of this and thus help out the cause! The very fact that an individual of scholarly attainments and progressive character handles the subject proves its worth. We are too prone to act on the theory that the sanctity of our subject protects us and explains us rather than on the assumption that we ourselves are the subject's best advertisement. Up-to-dateness seems inconsistent with our backward view. Time has never dulled the lustre of the great laws of life, they are ever bright and new as when the world began. We Latin teachers must stand for the beauty and joyousness of early thought and life as pure Greeks, not with a defeated air acknowledging, much to our sorrow, that "great Pan is dead."

Another great source of influence is the use of classic art. If the Latin department were allowed one-half the money spent upon the physics or chemistry laboratory or upon high school athletics each year, what an advertisement we would have for our department! All high school pupils are pure Missourians. They see the high school letters and hear the cheers, they handle the acids and apparatus, but Latin is the intangible,—no fun, only the mill that grinds, the teacher the upper mill stone and they the lower.

In my own school we are fortunate in this line and, I know it has had its effect. Our halls contain quite a collection of casts and pictures. There is stately Minerva on her pedestal, the long Parthenon frieze, Venus-de-Milo, Apollo, Hermes, great and pathetic Homer, Zeus with his ambrosial locks, a beautiful Amazon, stern Caesar, placid Virgil nearby, whom one student reported as Caesar's wife (but he's learning), Niké untying her sandal; all in plaster. In pictures the list is long,-Cicero and Catiline in the Senate, the Coliseum, Parthenon, Hadrian's tomb, a Reading from Homer, Greek Girls Playing Ball, Roman Chariot Race and many more. The classics are still living in our halls, however dead they may be in our Latin recitation rooms. But there also are well selected pictures, slabs and busts. The constant sight of these things is making for good. Our school holds an unusual record for students entering college and it is not all attributable to college athletics.

One means of extending interest in the classics has been sadly neglected. The ancient history classes should be taught by the Latin teachers. This is beneficial both to the teachers and to the pupils. First and second year Latin teaching is especially hard work. The Latin teacher is enabled to bring more of the human element into her work when thus constantly in touch with history. This is proven by practical experience. The shortness of our recitations precludes most historical work in our first and second year but a wide-awake teacher, fresh in historical knowledge, can bring an enthusiasm to her work unknown to the regular Latin teacher. It is needless to say that this enthusiasm heightens the interest of the pupil many fold. But the Latin teacher gains her greatest hold in her history class. Most high schools require

ancient history in the second year correlative with Caesar. To have its best effect the history divisions should be based upon courses thus giving the Latin teachers the Latin pupils. Here we find real correlation. Now there is time to clothe the dry bones. The study of the life of the people who used the language makes the language a real medium of thought, not a machination of symbols. My experience has been that Latin pupils who have studied ancient history under Latin teachers generally continue the Latin work. Here is a great chance for the use of the lantern with

slides. Caesar and his wars become actualities, not a mere system of subjects and predicates. The glory of Rome is seen and the pupil realizes why this language may be worth studying. The teacher who teaches the language should surely teach the history. Too often the regular history teachers miss or lack a true appreciation of ancient life in a general preferment for modern and American history. I should urge every Latin teacher to request an ancient history class for his own good and for the good of Latin in general.

Quotations from Cicero, Virgil and other Latin authors from a frieze on my blackboard are changed quite often, one at a time, and interspersed with short colloquial phrases. The younger pupils are made curious and often memorize the Latin and its meaning. Latin quotations are inserted in the high school paper. The baling and selling of the waste paper in the school is in the hands of the Latin pupils. We thus secure a revenue not to be despised, for our art collection. Our ambition is to have one of the best art collections to be found in any high school. We discuss what we shall buy, write descriptions of our possessions in this line for the school paper; bridges are made. But what Caesar class does not make bridges! The whole idea should be activity-growth! We too must be modern, must add our activity to the thought and life of the school. Latin pupils should be urged to be on the debate teams. Prove that Latin drill work does make for clear thinking and expressive thought. The only way to create a desire for more Latin is to make the Latin department an active, not a passive force to show our wares and their excellent points, not to passively rely upon the merit of a subject which having lasted 2000 years, we conclude must therefore be able to stand for itself and blow its own horn. We, its teachers and exponents, must do the blowing if we are to keep pace with this advertising age.

The Physical Diagnosis of Backward Children

By ROBERT MACDOUGALL, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY. *ONTAIGNE'S saying: "We have not to train up a

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soul, nor yet a body, but a man; and we cannot divide him," has frequently received a one-sided interpretation, though the very point of his splendid aphorism is that this reciprocal relationship should be read in both directions equally. The fortunes of soul and body are inseparable. A sound mind cannot exist in partnership with a diseased nervous system. Disorders in the one are either reflected in the processes of the other or arise from interruptions of its normal activities.

When the point of departure is the bodily condition we read these signs with facility in both hygienic and therapeutic problems. In health this attitude is expressed in our recognition of the value of physical culture. It is the strongest plea for systematic training of the body that it helps in the harmonious development of the whole man. In disease it prompts us both to alleviate the mental troubles which such disorders entail, and to seek for the sources of functional disturbances in abnormal conditions of mind. The final significance of health and disease can indeed be stated only in terms of consciousness. Illness is a problem because it either causes discomfort or limits activity; and the maintenance of a tone of vital well being and the capacity for full and spontaneous reaction upon the world lies at the root of all therapeutics. Nevertheless, in so far as the treatment is medical, it is immediately concerned solely with the establishment of those conditions of physical well being upon which healthy and happy activity depends; and the physician takes into account the mental condition of his patient only as a possible furtherance or hindrance in the attainment of that object.

When the point of departure is the mind and the problem concerns the treatment of its disturbances, or the maintenance of proper hygiene in health the recognition of the interrelation of mind and body has but recently become an accepted principle of