but charged with the gravest potentialities," and that, once the ability to read has been acquired by him, this power should ever afterward be directed to his future happiness and growth.

It is curious to observe that the ordinary school reader has not utilized the most inviting field for the commencement of this important work. For, standing just outside the threshold of the school, awaiting in vain a proper grading by the bookmakers, is a vast array of valiant heroes of every age, from Hercules to "Little Lord Fauntleroy," whose deeds and personalities are more real and enduring to the average child than any of the creations of Homer or Shakespeare can be to their elders. When we consider the great amount of this material, and the world-wide territory it covers, ranging from the story. of Polyphemus to Alice in Wonderland, it is passing strange that our bookmakers should have so completely ignored the educational value of wonder inhering in every child, and neglected such golden opportunities for the enlargement of their sympathies and the elevation of their ideals.

After a course of reading in selected classics to be continued through the third reader grades, the child will then be ready for the more mature forms of literature. For the first time the great world of books is now before him, and the success or failure of our efforts will depend upon the literature with which we make him first acquainted, as well as the means we employ in introducing him to it. I confess to having little sympathy with those educators who do not distinguish between meat for strong men and milk for babes, and who thus fail to recognize that literature written for adults is not always literature fit for children. Nor, on the other hand, can one with any literary conscience indorse the books usually placed in the hands of children. To say nothing of their character as literary productions, the constant perusal of books dealing with juvenile deeds and childish thoughts is enfeebling, if not destructive of the pupil's ability to climb to greater heights later on.

What middle course is there, then, that children can pursue

with profit to themselves? In discussing this difficulty in a former paper the present writer, as a result of his personal experience in directing the reading of children, offered a suggestion which he now repeats: "It is true that our great works of literature were written mainly for adults; but, by the exercise of a wise pedagogic judgment and a nice literary taste, it is possible so to adapt them by compression, expurgation, and pruning, as to be able in most cases to find in them a complete, continuous, and interesting narrative, virile and invigorating; abounding, if needs be, in romantic adventures, in startling experiences, and in thrilling incidents; containing all that is fascinating in trash without any of its deleterious qualities; in short, the only sound and wholesome reading matter for children." It is interesting to note that the present editor of the Atlantic Monthly, in discussing the problem from the point of view of a litterateur, has made practically the same suggestion, "Not literature made to order to suit certain states of the juvenile mind, but those parts of existing literature selected in a wise adjustment of means to end that is the solution of the problem of gradation."

Within these limitations it is possible to apply the principle of grading to complete works of literature, so as to bring most of our literary masterpieces within the comprehension of children, and at the same time to avoid the petty and emasculating scheme of grading that has been the boast of more than one widely advertised series of readers. In this way it would be practicable, within reasonable limits, to give to children. what are virtually entire works of an author, and thus do away with the mangling process which has heretofore been our only means of introducing school children to any specimens of real literature. "The continuous reading of a classic is in itself a liberal education; the fragmentary reading of commonplace lessons in minor morals such as make up much of our reading books is a pitiful waste of growing mental powers. Even were our reading books composed of choice selections from the highest literature, they would still miss the

great advantage which follows upon the steady growth of acquaintance with a sustained piece of literary art.”

With such a scheme of reading carried on in the schools under the direction of earnest and sympathetic teachers, our public schools will experience a new birth; the growth of a broad and generous culture will be commenced and the foundations of a discriminating, national taste will be laid. Under these elevating influences there must come a greater reverence for authority, a nobler sentiment of obedience, and a quickening of the spiritual life of the people, always the truest inspiration of the purest patriotism, and without which no nation can long exist.

GRAMMAR SCHOOL No. 82,
NEW YORK CITY.

GEORGE E. HARDY.

IV.

RECENT SCHOOL LEGISLATION IN THE

UNITED STATES.

To write anything like a comprehensive or intelligent résumé of the legislative action of the different States in the field of education is clearly a task of peculiar difficulty. Many school laws are enacted each year which are of great local importance, but which may attract not the slightest notice beyond State borders. Each State has its own local conditions which obtain in no other State. Differences, social and economic in character, show themselves in divergences of institutional development, and this is especially true of the educational history of our American commonwealths. We cannot fairly interpret either the spirit or the expediency of statutes unless we know something about the conditions with which the statute-makers have to deal. Few, even of those whose word is authority on such matters, would profess accurate knowledge on the various points of individuality in each of the fifty school systems under which the educational interests of our States and Territories are administered. Hence it would be idle, even if space permitted, to present in these pages a digest of all recent school laws, many of which have an importance purely insular, so to speak, and often entirely incomprehensible to the outsider. My present purpose is merely to attempt to trace the trend of legislation of the past two years upon a few questions of interest to educationists throughout the country.

SCHOOL FINANCE.

If a complete history of the finances of the American States shall ever be written, it is hardly too much to predict that its most interesting chapters will be those devoted to an exposi tion of the origin and development of the school tax and the school fund, not merely because these form the principal ele

ments in the fiscal problems of many States, but because it was in these American governments that public elementary education first claimed recognition in a treasury budget, and here that legislators were first called upon to administer funds raised for purely educational purposes.

That our older State governments have nearly all, at different times, seriously blundered in the management of this important trust is generally admitted. In the new States of the West we may now observe the founding of finance systems. The South, also, may be said to be in her day of educational beginnings. Will old errors be repeated under new conditions? The question is one of profound interest to every American who thinks much on the future of his country, for great populations in years to come may be affected by action taken now.

Since the passage of the Ordinance of 1787, the educational interests of our great Northwest have been very largely identified with public land policy. This is as true to-day of Washington and the Dakotas as it ever was of Ohio. Note the conditions under which these new governments begin their careers of statehood: In addition to the customary two sections of land-the sixteenth and the thirty-sixth-in each township, which are to be reserved as the basis of permanent school funds, they receive also five per cent. of the proceeds of all public land sales made by the government within their limits from the date of their entering the Union. Provisions for the management of these school lands are contained in the constitutions of the several States, supplemented by acts. of the legislatures. A summary of the regulations adopted by North Dakota will show the tenor of all.

A board of university and school lands is created, consisting of the governor, the secretary of state, the attorney-general, the State auditor, and the superintendent of public instruction. (In Washington, the State school land commission includes only the secretary of state, the auditor, and the commissioner of public lands.) To this body is intrusted the sale or rental of all educational lands, and the investment of funds arising therefrom; but constitutional and statutory provisions closely