of power, and how under it the order and well being of the community are assured.

I would have every youth learn how each legislative branch is constructed, how its members are chosen, and what advantages flow from having two bodies, instead of one, necessary for the enactment of every new law.

I would have him acquire a clear understanding of what is and what is not legislative power, and what limits have been fixed to its exercise. Such knowledge would protect him against many a possible mistake. It is not uncommon for a community to become greatly agitated and ignorantly demand the passage of a law which the legislature has no constitutional power to enact, and which, if enacted, it would be the duty of the courts to declare invalid. Every such attempt is a trial to our institutions to which they should not be subjected, and which they would escape if the voters of the country understood the limitations of the Government under which they live.

I would have a youth in our schools taught the constitution, province, and power of our courts. Thus he would learn to respect the administration of the law, and with that reverence the law more. So I would have him understand the office and duties of the executive, and thus, in view of these several departments of power, be able to form some correct conception of the completeness and value of the government system.

I would have him also observe and study the limitations of power defined in the constitutions, and the declarations of indefeasible rights beyond the reach of government contained in them.

With such knowledge added to correct moral training he would be prepared for good citizenship, and for the intelligent and useful performance of his duties to the public, and for a wise participation in the government itself. It would make intelligible many things in the practical operations of government that to so many are now mysterious and apparently unreasonable. It would convince of its fitness to secure to all equal justice, domestic tranquillity, liberty, and general welfare. would deepen and diffuse a more ardent love of country.

It

I am not alone in these opinions. Many eminent statesmen of the past have expressed the opinion that the Constitution of the United States ought to be a text book in all our schools; and we are told that in ancient Rome the boys were required to commit to memory the twelve tables of the law, the system out of which grew as a germ the immortal code of Justinian, including not only rules for the forms of government, modes of administration, and duties of public officers, but also that body of civil law that in modified condition is even at this day in force over most of the continent of Europe.

Had I time, I might speak of the value and interest of study devoted to the structure of government, considered merely as an intellectual exercise, but I am compelled to forbear.

TECHNICAL EDUCATION AND INDUSTRIAL DRAWING.

Prof. WALTER SMITH, State director of art education in Massachusetts, then read the following paper:

Mr. President, ladies, and gentlemen: The subject upon which I have to address you to-day is that of "Technical education and industrial drawing," a subject which is comprehensive enough to afford interest to the general public, while it is at present the best discussed theme among professional educators. I am aware that this whole matter is neither new nor strange in Washington, for from the Bureau of Education in this city has emanated much of the most valuable information we possess concerning it; and the lecture, recently published, by General Birney, delivered by him before the Washington Art Club, upon a phase of the subject described as "Industrial and decorative art," is perhaps the fullest and fairest presentation of this matter that has appeared on this side of the Atlantic.

Though I hardly expect to present to you much that is new, I may possibly cooperate with you in the diffusion of some new light on an old subject; hoping that thereby additional interest may be awakened, and that in consequence serious consideration may be given to this question, one which has assumed an importance that may be fairly described as national in its character. It may at first sight be considered an overestimate of the matter if it should be asserted that upon the technical knowledge and skill possessed by a nation depend its safety, its wealth, and indirectly its happiness; yet this is undoubtedly true.

It may also be stated that any scheme of education which does not from the first make provision for the gradual acquirement of such technical knowledge and skill, at such times and in such ways as the ages and circumstances of the pupils necessitate, is insufficient and not practical, and in dire need of complete reorganization. Yet that happens to be the case with every scheme of public education administered by city or State authorities in the United States of America to-day.

I could have made that statement in many more words, and so have beclouded its meaning that you would not be shocked by it; or I might have quoted some one else who said it, and thus have shielded myself from the responsibility of saying it. But I prefer to say it thus briefly, in order that there may be no possible misunderstanding of it, and that those who may wish to attack the statement and its author may know the cause of war, the man to be assailed, and where to find him.

For the reason that our schemes of education have been found deficient and not practical, the whole subject of general education is now on its trial before the public; and it requires no very deep study, nor wide research among newspapers or periodicals, or in meetings such as this, to be convinced that this trial will be completed, and a verdict be rendered by the jury.

It is a common thing to hear sensible men say, as it is also frequently

said in newspapers, that for the duties of real life the children in the public schools are not so well prepared now as they were twenty years ago, or even fifty years ago, though they know more and it costs more to teach them; while the silver tongued orator of Massachusetts has stated that under the old district school system, when a boy spent a few weeks in the school in winter and worked the rest of the year on the farm, he got a better, because a more practical, education than he can get in the country to-day.

The trouble about such remarks as these is that they are true; and that it is possible for them to be true reflects great glory on the advance. ment of this country in civilization, and much discredit upon public educators and public education, thus lagging behind the progress and failing to supply the educational needs of the country.

For the true interpretation of such statements is that during fifty or twenty years past the country has advanced faster than its school room education, and, instead of requiring for its citizens now the standard of education which was sufficient then, it needs something more in harmony with the educational standard of older countries, and that is something it does not now possess. That the farmer's boy should be fitted by a few months of book learning and many months of technical training to become a good farmer is the best possible argument for technical education of another kind, to fit a vast majority of the people for practical life who will never become farmers; for, as the school-room instruction represented the boy's general education and the farm labor his technical education, it will be noted that he was preparing for practical life in one vocation from the time his education commenced.

But it has pleased the Supreme Power that in the development and consolidation of this country we should not all become or remain farmers. The products of the soil are the raw materials of the industrial arts, and it takes more people to convert those raw materials into useful objects for a civilized community than it does to produce the original materials from which the objects are made. We are changing our occupations from being largely agricultural to manufacturing, and have thus outgrown the educational facilities which may have been ample for the youth of this nation in the days that are past.

It is from this cause that we are justified in describing our present education as deficient, inasmuch as it makes no ample provision for the technical knowledge and skill required by the people engaged in trades and manufactures. The literary part of our education, which fits for mercantile life and the professions, has not retrograded, but advanced, until it monopolizes nearly all the precious time of youth; while the needs of those destined for the trades and manufactures are ignored in our schemes of education, left high and dry without aid or comfort, until the name of the native-born American mechanic is a synonyme for want of skill and his work for something that will not last.

There are exceptions to this rule, as to every rule, as in our mechan

ical and labor saving machines; but where it is not true we shall find that men have become tasteful or skilful in spite of their lack of opportunities, and not by means of the opportunities which their education should have given them.

The gradual decay and final extinction of apprenticeship to trades in this country have the credit of being responsible for much of the lack of. skill among workmen, but it does not account for their want of taste. As a substitute for apprenticeship it has been proposed to establish trade schools, in which the projectors assert that by constant practice under an instructor for two years a youth will become a better workman than by an apprenticeship in the regular way for seven years. I can hardly believe that to be true, for there is something which comes from the experience of making objects in a workshop carried on in the regu lar way of trade that no hot-house culture in schools alone can give Yet I should like to see the experiment tried, whether instruction, carried on for a few months only, can be made a substitute for apprentice. ships which prepare people for the work of a lifetime.

It seems to me that the true remedy is to introduce the elements of industrial knowledge and skill into the public schools in such a manner that it will assist and not obstruct general education; and then, when the boy leaves the grammar school to begin his wage-earning life, we should provide technical schools of art and science, where, during his evenings, he can learn the theory and thereby improve in the practice of his daily work. This is the only way the mechanic or artisan can be reached, and it is the way he is now being reached in all the skilled countries of Europe. He has to support himself during the interval between 12 or 14 years old and 20 years old, and if we offer technical education to him in day schools only, in that period when he must be at work and cannot therefore avail himself of it, we offer it only to the children of the wealthy in the name of the mechanic. There are agencies enough already for the education of professional men, and their future employment will pay for any investment which their parents may make in their education.

What is now wanted is that the needs of the mass of the people should be considered, and that the most neglected of all, the mechanics, should have a fair chance given to them out of the public funds, of which they are the principal producers.

That a great reform in this direction is necessary seems to be the opinion of all educators whose experience and observation have been extended beyond the immediate surroundings of home. How to make this necessity evident to the public, and bring it about without injury to that which is good in present schemes, is the problem of our day. This is preeminently a period in which to take a broad survey of the educational field, especially from the economic aspect, and incidentally, also, from the standpoint of progress.

The times are hard; commercial and financial distress presses heavily

in every direction, and the necessity for economy holds in its relentless grasp every item of public expenditure, which it is subjecting to the most rigid scrutiny. All this is auspicious. Economy is the parent of honesty, and it is the best possible good fortune that the system of public education of this country is receiving a thorough economical purging. It is not from any lack of education that complaints are being made, and the question therefore arises, whether the education is of the right sort, and whether the people who most need it obtain what they want. And true economy, which is always far seeing, cannot afford to be niggardly. The farmer does not regard the outlay on his seed corn as an extravagant expenditure so much as a necessary investment; for he remembers that "there is that scattereth and yet increaseth, and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, and yet it tendeth to poverty.” Let us see to what extent this educational scattering is carried on and 'what comes of it.

In the Eastern, Middle, and Western States there was expended last year the sum of about $70,000,000 for public education. What was this vast sum expended for, what were the results aimed at, and what did the public get for its money?

These are practical, common sense questions, and their consideration is pertinent in a meeting like this. Nor can we blink the issues they involve; for, in face of such an expenditure, the people who are toiling with their heads or their hands, and who in these distressed times are straining their utmost to make both ends meet, surely have a right, in face of such heavy taxation, to ask what it is all for, and to see if they are really getting their money's worth.

Every educator should welcome these inquiries. Certainly it behooves every one who is engaged in directing the features and in administering the provisions for maintaining public education carefully to study the subject in the light of present experience. From such a study he will be able to answer these inquiries intelligently, and also be able, during this period of depression, while the economical knife is being laid so closely to public expenditure, to direct public opinion so that no harm shall come to necessary and fundamental features of public education. I am free to state that there has been a great deal of sentimentalism about this subject. Because it is, perhaps, the most important and indefinite single subject with which a community or a state has to deal, it not unfrequently happens that it gets straddled by theoretical hobby riders, who make of conventions such as this the Epsoms or Jerome Parks wherein pet theories are made to show their paces.

Being a specialist myself, I know that I run the risk of being considered one of these self same hobby riders; but I repel the insinuation, for my interest in the whole subject of national education is infinitely greater than my anxiety for any detail in it.

It is true that I am engaged, professionally, in promoting one particular branch of education. At the same time, I wish to make the