EDITOR'S TABLE. 



413 



and his people have been trained into 

 thorough familiarity with the concep- 

 tion as an all-interpreting principle in 

 both theology and politics. Yet evo- 

 lution is only the expansion and full 

 scientific elucidation and wider sweep 

 of application of the idea of progress. 

 Nor is there anything now in evolu- 

 tion more fatal to orthodoxy than there 

 was a generation ago in the first vague 

 divergence from the old rigid dogmatic 

 systems in recognizing a progressive ele- 

 ment in religion. Mr. Beecher and his 

 people have been themselves evolved 

 into their present position, and might 

 furnish an object-lesson in the law of 

 development. There will probably be 

 more trouble in accepting the newer 

 name appropriate to the later stage of 

 growth than there has been in assimi- 

 lating the underlying truth. 



We congratulate Mr. Beecher on his 

 intrepid course, and his determination 

 to bring his pulpit into harmony with 

 those revelations of science that a rere- 

 shaping the thought of the age ; and 

 we commend his example to the nu- 

 merous clergymen who give their pri- 

 vate assent to evolution doctrine, and 

 then go on promulgating the old beliefs 

 from desks sacred to antiquated error. 



SPREADING IT TOO THIN. 



At a meeting of the Massachusetts 

 Teachers 1 Association, held a short time 

 ago, President Eliot, of Harvard, spoke 

 in strong terms of the unsatisfactory 

 character of the great majority of the 

 so-called high-schools of the Common- 

 wealth. Out of a total of two hundred 

 and twenty-eight such schools, seventy- 

 two only had as many as three teach- 

 ers, and the whole together sent only 

 one hundred and ninety-nine students 

 to the colleges of the State during the 

 year 1884. The simple fact, President 

 Eliot states, is that the majority of the 

 schools are not fit to prepare youths for 

 matriculation at college, though in the 

 general system of public-school educa- 



tion that is a recognized part of their 

 function. " It has been the policy of 

 the Board of Education," wo are told, 

 " to encourage small towns to establish 

 high-schools in order that as large a 

 percentage as possible of the popula- 

 tion may have a school higher than the 

 grammar-school within easy reach." 

 That policy has been so far successful 

 that over ninety per cent of the popu- 

 lation nominally enjoy the privilege in 

 question. The result, however, is a 

 thinning and impoverishing of the edu- 

 cation just in proportion to its exten- 

 sion. Seventy-five of the high-schools 

 are maintained in towns of less than 

 five hundred families. Nearly half of 

 the whole number existing have less 

 than sixty pupils each. President Eliot 

 naturally calls for such a change in the 

 law as may enable two or three or four 

 smaller towns to establish a joint school, 

 and employ in rendering it really effi- 

 cient the funds which now are more or 

 less frittered away upon the mainte- 

 nance of two or more weak and ineffi- 

 cient schools. He also suggests that 

 the colleges should meet the schools 

 half- way by establishing liberal sys- 

 tems of options, so that no student need 

 be debarred from the higher advantages 

 that the colleges afford by his inability 

 to pass an entrance-examination in one 

 or two subjects in which he feels no 

 interest, and which he has no ulterior 

 intention of pursuing. 



We call attention to this matter be- 

 cause we have reason to believe that 

 the practical evil which the President 

 of Harvard describes is not confined to 

 the State of Massachusetts, but is wide- 

 ly prevalent throughout the country at 

 large. It is a result, no doubt, of our 

 democratic ideas, and of the local jeal- 

 ousies which, it will hardly be ques- 

 tioned, democratic institutions bring in 

 their train, that we try to bring to every 

 man's door what we bring to one man's 

 door. The thing can only be accom- 

 plished, however, at the expense of a 

 marked deterioration in the article sup- 



