666 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and secular ; it popularized itself in the United States so directly with 

 the people that the various State governments, recognizing that the 

 beneficiaries — who at first were of the class that, wweducated, would 

 have become a charge to the nation — grew self -helpful, were im- 

 bued with the desire to extend educational advantages. Under the 

 sway of popular enthusiasm large sums of money were appropriated ; 

 schoolhouses were erected at public expense in all large cities, and in 

 almost every village. 



The primary thought of the founders of the new schools was lost : 

 this consisted merely of giving a groundwork of education for pupils 

 to build upon. Grammar and normal schools, as well as universities, 

 arose throughout the land. College text-books were multiplied seem- 

 ingly without end, and from them everything within the ken of human 

 understanding was attempted to be taught. Instead of the original 

 plan of three or four years being the average length of school-life for 

 wow-professionals, children were entered at five years of age and left 

 as young men and women graduates. 



This system of book-cramming, which was not only without sci- 

 ence, but was founded upon neither experience nor observation, was 

 followed by the most unsatisfactory results. The exclusively scholas- 

 tic knowledge which was imparted unfitted the common people for the 

 exigencies of actual working-life. This guidance of theocratic, feu- 

 dalistic, and merely scholastic teaching did not result in any adequate 

 social, moral, and intellectual improvement. Is it not time, then, that 

 Science and Art shall assume control of the free schools of America, 

 and convert them into halls of industrial and practical education ? 



PEEHISTOEIC KUmS IN SOUTHEEN COLOEADO. 



By HENEY GANNETT. 



FEOM the southern and western slopes of the San Juan Mountains, 

 in southwestern Colorado, stretches far to the south and west a 

 strange country. It is a country of plateaus and canons — of plateaus 

 whose surfaces are flat and unbroken for miles on miles ; as far as one 

 can see, the country presents a monotonous level, but is cut here and 

 there by deep, almost impassable, canons. As we recede from the 

 mountains, these plateaus, which are there covered with pinon pine 

 and sage, become more sterile, and finally vegetation ceases, except in 

 isolated spots, and the surface is bare rock or drifting sand — a very 

 Sahara. 



The Eio San Juan heads in the southern slopes of the San Juan 

 Mountains, and, flowing at first south, at a distance of about fifty miles 

 turns west and keeps this course generally to its mouth. It flows 



