Here it is largely a matter of opinion and on that account I shall deal with it briefly, simply drawing attention to one or two features of the English system which seem to me good. If the ideal of American athletics is the production of a race of highly specialized and highly trained athletes, then they are fulfilling their purposes. They are instilling into American youth such ideas as that the worth of a college lies in the success of its football team, that the only thing that matters about a game is whether it is won or lost, that a good footballer is a better man than a good scholar. These ideas are strengthened by the ludicrous salaries drawn by football and baseball coaches, individuals whose value as members of the human race frequently amounts to nothing. I speak with some feeling on this subject, as in the late '90's there was some danger of England going the same way, a danger which was to my mind mercifully avoided, and which in America has now assumed the dimensions of a national disaster.

It may seem strange for a member of a race which continental nations have ever accused of putting sport before all things, to be speaking thus of American brawnworship. There is, however, a world of difference between sport as practiced in the respective countries. I think that this difference may best be indicated by describing a scene, imaginary but entirely true, in an English village on some afternoon in July. It is a Saturday, and the cricket team of a neighboring village have arrived to play the local stalwarts. They contain among them the Squire's son, who has his "Blue" at Cambridge, the clergyman who played for Oxford forty years ago and still enjoys "a smack at 'em," the village blacksmith who hits the ball out of the ground if he hits it at all, the postmaster, an erratic but terrifying fast bowler and a handful of others, of little skill but boundless enthusiasm. The home team are similarly composed and pin their hopes on a boy home for the holidays from Eton, who is a promising left-hand bowler. Their clergyman also plays for them, though he is not much of a

performer. The captains toss a coin, and the visiting team winning the toss, decide to bat first. Their first pair walk out amid applause from all the onlookers. They start scoring quickly and have knocked up thirty runs between them before one of them falls to the Eton bowler. As he walks back he is loudly applauded by his opponents, who enjoy a nice display of batting, no matter who is responsible for it. So the game goes on, without a great deal of brilliance, with no shouting and cheering, and with the onlookers lying on the grass eating cherries and watching with drowsy but critical eyes.

I can well understand that there is little that is attractive in this description to the enthusiastic baseball fan, who no doubt finds it dull and unexciting, and yet to me it epitomizes all that is best in English sport and all that is worst in American. In England "the game's the thing." It is better to win than to lose, but best of all is a really good game, both sides playing their best for the fun of the thing and for no other reason on earth. One more instance will serve to show what I mean. When the boat races between the various colleges at Cambridge are held, the crews are never trained by members of their own college, but invariably by an undergraduate from another college, who may be rowing in his college crew. It is difficult to imagine a boat race between Harvard and Yale in which the crews were coached by members of the opposition.

It is this kind of sportsmanship which England honors and worships, and no man is held to be of any account unless he can lose cheerfully and win without gloating. When the Cambridge University hurdle team won the shuttle relay at Philadelphia last spring, I heard from Americans every possible reason for this occurrence save the one genuine one, which was that they were the best team.

A number of radical changes in the athletic organization of American schools would be necessary if this spirit were to be fostered in the United States. Specialization would have to be discouraged. The old Elizabethan ideal of the all-round man who could

sing, and portray, and joust and fence, who could write poetry and speak three languages, swim and navigate a ship, would have to be resurrected, and above all the fatuous publicity given to local talent by school, university and state journals would have to be quashed. That all this would be highly desirable and beneficial to the American race, is my profound conviction, and I formed the impression during my stay in America, that many of the natives shared this conviction.

My third and last point is concerned with scholarship. The absence in America of anything corresponding to what in England are known as preparatory schools-schools which prepare boys for the great public schools-means that boys of 14 in America are much less advanced in their studies than boys of the same age in England. For example, during my first term at Bradfield, when I was 13, the book which I was given to study for French was Molière's "Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme" (I was in no way an exceptional boy), while boys whom I taught at Lawrenceville were unacquainted even with the rudiments of the language. This is in no way a criticism; it is a fact, and I am not suggesting that it can be altered. The most necessary and the easiest change would be in the matter of the college entrance examinations. At present none but the most outstanding boys can hope to obtain the necessary number of credits for admission to college in less than five years. They complete their examinations at the end of the term previous to their entering college, where they arrive in a half-baked state of knowledge. During their four years at college they are compelled to cover an immense amount of ground, and for two years at least cannot attempt specialization, thus losing valuable time. In fact, unless they proceed to graduate college they never even begin the kind of work which is being done by Oxford and Cambridge honors students during their first year.

My suggestion for remedying this very real evil, is that an examination should be devised which the normal boy would be capable

of completing at least one, and if possible two years before he went to college, and that having passed this, he should have finished with college entrance forever. He would then have one or two years more as the case might be, at school, during which his general studies would be reduced to a minimum, and he could concentrate on whatever subject interested him most, or whatever was most likely to be useful to him in later life. The old C. E. E. B. system could easily run concurrently with this, but would be employed only for the more backward boys. This would mean that the colleges would receive every year a certain number of boys who had learned already how to work by themselves, who had begun to take a personal interest in their work for its own sake, and who had already tasted something of the joys of original research. They (the colleges) would of course have to adapt their system to the new conditions, allow specialization at a much earlier period than is now the case, and even ultimately introduce some such scheme as the Oxford and Cambridge Honors and "Pass" Degrees.

I am fairly certain that the difficulties besetting such a plan as this could be easily surmounted. Among the sixty-odd American boys whom I had the pleasure of teaching for a year, and among the very much larger number whom I knew with some degree of intimacy, I found no indications of a lower mental caliber than that of English boys. In some ways the American boy presented an easier problem. He was less shy and reserved and capable of much greater enthusiasm when his interest was aroused, and he was much more willing to regard his master as a friend instead of a kind of regularly recurring oppression. It is true that he was less cultured and more backward for his age, but these two weaknesses would be counteracted by the system suggested above, and what the boy lost in general information, he would gain by concentrated study of a particular subject, in mental activity, powers of thinking, and that passionate love of learning which is learning's sweetest reward.

Having seen this plan working, and working successfully in England, at Bradfield where I was once a boy (with all those despotic powers), and am now a master (with very much smaller ones), I can speak with some confidence about it. Its only weakness is when a boy's interest in his special subject is not sufficiently aroused to prevent him from taking advantage of the opportunities offered for slackness. In such a case there is danger of his running to seed, and becoming a disappointment to his master, his parents, and himself when he reaches

college. The implied responsibility of the master who is supervising his studies is very great, and all necessary precautions should, of course, be taken.

It is perhaps impertinent for such as myself to offer such suggestions as these at all, and I do not propose to add to my sins by developing them in detail. At the same time, knowing how much England has learned from America, and how valuable my visit was to me as a teacher, I venture to set down these few observations in the hope that they may be useful to others.

I

F THERE is any cordial agreement among practical school men on the subject of rating teachers, the heartiest is probably to the effect that the whole proposition is a desperately puzzling, prickly one to handle. Nobody gainsays the importance of distinguishing between good work and poor in the teaching field. Everybody admits, in theory at least, the desirability of being able to foster efficiency and eliminate waste. But when almost any group of administrators meet to decide in detail what constitutes real efficiency in teaching, how to measure its components, and what correctives to adopt when work falls below a reasonably satisfactory standard, then the bearings of the conference machinery begin to grate and the sparks to fly. Heat melts the insulation between reason and emotion and a high tension current stalls the mechanism in a general flareup.

Perhaps some deep student of behavioris

tic psychology can explain why it is so difficult for a convention of experts to discuss a new subject of vital concern to all and make a cool decision on the merits of the question. Why do not the exponents of one doctrine examine with gratitude and consideration new light from the other camp as a welcome contribution toward a possibly wiser and better adjusted solution of the problem? Why, as the opposition strengthens its case, should the other party resort to noise, ridicule, catch phrases, anything to blind and silence an opponent and win a spurious triumph for a weak position?

Human nature is much the same in any situation. Feeling runs deeper than reason. Logic finds its wonted application as a weapon with which to confuse an opponent's case and justify one's own wishes and prejudices. A half-conscious longing for ease, peace, approval or personal gain, on the one hand, or conflict, mastery or revenge, on the

other, may be more persuasive than the most flawless of arguments. So common is it for an individual to rationalize his own prevailing emotional tone, whether progressive or reactionary, hopeful or pessimistic, negativistic or coöperative, mild or strenuous, outright or compromising, selfish or altruistic, that his acquaintances can confidently prophesy his probable reaction to almost any situation, though he, no doubt, regards himself as beautifully openminded and judicial.

So decisive a part sentiment plays in judgment that we shall hardly expect 100% agreement on anything as laborious and as thankless, as full of political dynamite and as avoidable as the rating of teachers. And in addition to subjective, temperamental difficulties to be met in arriving at an agreeable working policy, there are genuine obstacles to be overcome in pursuit of a scientific measuring system that will meet all the valid arguments that can be raised against it. Conscious of serious difficulties in the making and administering of an equitable rating scale, the objections to be met from those rating and those rated, can we expect to wade through a mass of conflicting evidence and opinion to a rational, common-sense decision and from a mass of faulty devices construct one that will be tolerably helpful and useful?

Buckingham's questionnaire showed that 90% of the superintendents consulted declare teachers should be rated; 84% think salary should depend to some extent on rating; 77% have definite rating schemes in operation. Among the purposes to be served by some form of score card or rating scale are (1) vocational guidance for prospective teachers; (2) guidance for students in training; (3) a basis for selection of applicants for teaching positions; (4) an aid to the improvement of teachers in service; (5) to determine promotion; (6) to fix salaries; (7) to determine transfer; (8) a basis for outside recommendations; (9) to determine fitness for evening or summer school classes.

Many reasons are found to justify some

kind of rating plan. (1) A score card represents a clear-cut standard of achievement. (2) The necessity for making a defensible rating forces a supervisor to find out what his teachers are doing in important lines all over the field and so cover many departments of work that would otherwise be ignored or neglected. (3) An all-round rating leads to the eradication of small defects in otherwise perfect work. (4) Low marks in certain cases are a legitimate and deserved warning to teachers lacking in ambition and pride. (5) Rating furnishes grateful evidence that faithful work of a routine nature, seldom mentioned otherwise, is noticed and appreciated. (6) Rating promotes the stimulation which comes from competition. (7) Rating arouses the satisfaction in success and annoyance in failure which is fundamental to learning and progress. (8) It broadens teachers' standards of success by calling attention to points often neglected. (9) Rating furnishes a measure of supervision, since it is the business of supervision to further improvement in the particulars rated. (10) Ratings made as part of regular routine when no immediate need exists are more reliable as measures of teachers' work than data collected in an emergency. (11) Rating makes possible the pooling of many independent judgments -those of several different persons, or of the same person on several occasions. (12) They are often a basis for satisfactory adjustment when supervisory officers disagree or when teachers appeal from their judg ment. (13) General impressions are often modified and corrected when studied in detail, following an outline.

Not a few objections, some of them serious, are made against rating, at least according to the forms commonly employed. (1) There is great divergence of opinion as to what constitutes merit. One supervisor, for instance, might prefer a new method handled poorly to an old one handled well or vice versa. (2) Injustice is inevitable in some cases. (3) The validity of the marks vary with the ability of the supervisor to do the work he is rating. Rating systems

sary.

(17) Scientific rating waits for great future improvements and developments— definition of teaching ability in terms of changes produced in children; formulation of standard tests for measuring these changes, and so on. It is unlikely that the devices so far constructed will ever afford a valid and reliable method of measurement. We need to carry our investigation on in new directions.

Ratings cause friction between teachers and supervisors. (7) When kept secret they breed suspicion. When shown they wound and upset many on the upward road, who need all possible praise and encouragement. (8) Judgments are personal guesses rather than scientific measurements. (9) Even the better teachers do not support the plan. (10) Boards do not accept ratings. (11) Scores differ with the individual's rating, proving that they are inaccurate and wrong. Undue weight given to one element of a topic, by an enthusiast in that particular, influences the whole rating. (12) They tend to make the teacher a machine, teaching what her superiors want, rather than what the pupils need. (13) Ratings do not fully consider pupil achievement which is the just basis for judgment. (14) Rating schemes make no provision for the temperament of individual teachers-as over-opinionated, self-satisfied, over-sensitive. Supervisory devices should not be used without some regard for their effect on the individual. (15) It is impossible to summarize ratings. How much skill in objective presentation would compensate for low moral standards in a teacher? How much thoroughness in drill will make up for flagrant neglect of heat and ventilation? It is like trying to average pounds of potatoes and kilowatts of electricity. The quantities are totally unlike and cannot be added. (16) When the point is reached where dismissal is contemplated, the evidence of incompetency afforded

So much for objections; what can be done to overcome them? What if teaching does not lend itself to accurate measurement! Neither does a large piece of standing timber. Does a lumberman refuse to make a price for it because he cannot measure every tree and limb? Well, of course he does not. He may do a little measuring here and there, but for the most part he relies upon judgment, which may be right or may be wrong, but in either case is infinitely better than no estimate at all. Mistakes are serious but not fatal. Producers measure actors, directors measure managers, patients measure practitioners and congregations, preachers, often by very cruel and clumsy standards, and pay them, sometimes a great deal and sometimes very little. cannot be denied that there is a good deal of heartache and more or less injustice, but on the whole is it not wholesome and fortunate that patrons are able to make some distinction tion between merit and incompetence? If the public service is notably lacking in the spirit that makes industry active and enterprising, it is probably lack of distinction between efficiency and inefficiency. The movement toward the use of score cards for rating the work of teachers is an attempt to put the estimation of their services upon a more just and scientific basis. and to make merit rather than patronage and favoritism the foundation of their advancement.

It

Assuming that our work is to make as good a rating form as we can, while the perfect one is still in the sky, what are the principles that our scheme ought, as far as possible, to meet?