PAPERS PRESENTED AT GENERAL SESSIONS 59 



period of years in such a way that he really begins to get 

 into the subject and thoroughly masters at least the 

 fundamentals of it. As the pupils advance, the instruc- 

 tion of the brighter and more apt ones becomes less form- 

 al and they are taught to rely upon themselves and in a 

 limited sense to direct their own efforts. Particularly 

 able students may be allowed to spend the last year on 

 two or even one favorite study, and through it all there 

 is a constant insistence on mastery of anything attempt- 

 ed and a desire for thoroughness which cannot be com- 

 pared with anything with which we are familiar. 



Xow the product of this system will appear on first 

 sight to be rather narrow in his training to the average 

 American. Let us look at him more closely. He has ac- 

 quired a good knowledge of the Greek and Latin lan- 

 guages and at the same time a knowledge of these peo- 

 ples, their philosophy and their history; he, even on the 

 average, has had more mathematics and has it more 

 thoroughly than the average sophomore in our colleges 

 or universities; he can read French with some comfort; 

 he has a good knowledge of the history and literature of 

 the English people, and further, he speaks precise, cor- 

 rect English and writes in a clear, often bright and force- 

 ful style. If he has elected some natural science in place 

 of the classics during his last two or three years, he has 

 had usually the equivalent of two years of science of col- 

 lege grade. What is perhaps most valuable of all, he has 

 cultivated the habit of reading and has learned how to 

 study and how to think. 



If I have analyzed the situation correctly, the applica- 

 tion of the "fact-education" idea has reached an extreme 

 with us from which we must soon return or our secondary 

 education will become little short of a farce. I quite agree 

 that a "broad foundation" is a desirable acquisition, but 

 so far have we pushed the idea that the result has ceased 

 to be a foundation at all. It has become so thin that it 

 disintegrates (if it ever were integral) into a mass of de- 

 tached units, a hopeless hodgepodge of half remembered 

 and undigested facts. Even in the best schools when such 

 an array of material has to be absorbed in so short a 

 time, much thought or digestion of ideas is precluded. 



