''CONFESSIONS'' OF A TEACHER. 627 



cated? We know that friction of opinion is the pioneer's axe that 

 clears the path for progress. And whichever side of a question 

 we may find ourselves upon, we should not forget that " the strong 

 opposition is the balancewheel of all parliaments," in the educa- 

 tional as well as the civic world. 



But is there really a gap in our educational system ? The 

 "bloody chasm" that a few years ago divided two great sections 

 of our country seems to have been chiefly an abstract entity after 

 all. Whenever individuals met in human relations they usually 

 forgot that it had ever yawned between them. We seem to see a 

 multitude of teachers ranged in two great ranks. Bat their hands 

 are constantly reaching out toward each other in friendly aid, 

 and there is therefore no gap between them, scarcely a dividing 

 line. Collegiate schools are studying the problems of childhood, 

 and normal and public school teachers have no intention to rest 

 satisfied with feeble results in the first of their trinity of aims 

 knowledge, power, and skill. The faces of the teachers may be 

 turned toward different parts of the horizon ; but when we lift 

 our eyes upward we are looking into the same boundless sphere 

 of truth and of life, whose mysteries we are all trying to discover 

 and interpret. 



But in a personal " confession " one should not wander into 

 mazes of rhetoric and philosophy. Coming back to my personal 

 bearings, I am strongly reminded of an American gentleman who 

 took an extended tour in Europe. After some months of travel, 

 being a good Christian as well as a tourist, he wrote home to 

 America: "I have discovered that there are just two religious 

 denominations, the prayer-book denomination and that of the 

 l>ra,Yer-nieeting. The more I see of each, the more I recognize 

 that I have a genuine sympathy with both. I can worship with 

 pleasure and with profit in 'churches' and in 'chapels.' But 

 when it comes to Christian work I feel that, however it may be 

 with others, I myself can find my best field for endeavor in the 

 prayer-meeting denomination." 



It is with a feeling akin to his that I write : I have much 

 fellow-feeling with both " denominations " of educational thought ; 

 yet I do not regret that the circumstances of my life have fixed 

 my lines of work more especially with the " denomination " that 

 is in closest touch with the masses of the American people. 



His object being- the systematic exploration of the Franz-Josef Archi- 

 pelago and the unknown seas adjacent, Mr. Harmsworth, it is announced, 

 intends to keep an expedition in the arctic regions till a complete map can 

 be made of all accessible parts of the still undiscovered north polar world. 

 The Jackson-Harmsworth Expedition is spending- its third winter in the 

 arctic regions, and will make another advance in the coming season. 



