368 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the world than the world needs. So far from feeling concerned at 

 this widespread discontent, we should rejoice that it exists. There is 

 nothing so blighting to educational enthusiasm as smug satisfaction 

 with what is or what has been; there is nothing so stimulating to 

 educational effort as a realizing sense of present imperfections and of 

 higher possibilities. 



As to the curriculum of the higher schools and colleges, the prob- 

 lem is really not what studies shall be inserted and what omitted, but 

 how shall we make it possible for the student to get that culture, 

 efficiency and power out of his studies which his development requires. 

 This is really a question for psychology to answer. Well may we ask 

 of our universities with their psychological laboratories and their 

 sensitive apparatus for measuring mental reactions : Will psychology 

 ever accomplish what phrenology once promised but has never per- 

 formed — the determination of a young student's capabilities and of the 

 line of work he ought to pursue ? 



As to the elementary curriculum, surely we shall not go far wrong 

 if we apply to each study and even to each detail of each study these 

 four questions: 



1. Is this study or this exercise well within the comprehension of 

 the child ? 



2. Does it help to adjust him to the material and the spiritual 

 environment of the age and the community in which he lives? 



3. Does it combine with the other studies of the curriculum to 

 render him more efficient in conquering nature and in getting along 

 with his fellows, and thus to realize ideals that transcend environment ? 



4. Does it accomplish these objects better than any other study 

 that might be selected for these purposes? 



If these questions are answered in the affirmative, we may rea- 

 sonably conclude that the study or the exercise in question is an im- 

 portant element in education for efficiency. Examined from the 

 view point established by these questions, every study will assume an 

 aspect very different from that which it bears when taught without 

 a well defined object. Take drawing, for example. Drawing may 

 be so taught as not only to lay bare to seeing eyes new worlds of 

 beauty, but to lead to that reverent appreciation of nature and the 

 reapplication of her lessons to daily industrial art which is the way, 

 as Euskin has said, in which the soul can most truly and wholesomely 

 develop essential religion. 



Again, take the teaching of agriculture. While our soil seemed 

 inexhaustible in fertility as in extent, the need of such teaching was 

 not felt. Now, however, we are obliged to have recourse to lands that 

 produce only under irrigation. The rural schools have added to our 

 difficulties by teaching their pupils only what seemed most necessary 

 for success when they should move to the city. The farms of New 



