712 president's address — section J. 



the schoolroom will be filled with an atmosphere out of which the 

 pupil will pass to the practical business of life without feeling that 

 he is passing- into a different world. Our educational systems will 

 become responsive more to the spirit of the future than to that of the 

 past. That which is traditional in practice will be brought under 

 rigorous criticism, and be required to justify itself by something moi'e 

 than its antiquity. The rapid evolution of social ideals will demand 

 an equal modification of educational aims and methods. Tlie occupa- 

 tions of the primaiy school, aiming at greater breadth of mental out- 

 look and greater adaptableness of manual skill, will be linked with the 

 technical and trade school as well as with the ordinary secondaiy 

 school. The secondary school and the university will fill a larger place 

 in the educational scheme than at present, opening their doors more 

 widely, with the same freedom of admission that now obtains in the 

 I»rimary school for all those who can benefit by their teaching. If 

 this outlook is at all a correct one, the State systems of education will 

 thus become so intei-Tx^oven with the progress of the nation, and so 

 necessary for the maintenance of its place in international competi- 

 tion, that the education of the people will fill an increasing place in 

 the functions of government. The schools of all grades will be the 

 instruments for national purposes, for the cultivation of individual 

 productiveness and intelligent citizenship, the training grounds for 

 national defence, and the nurseries of the nation's morality. 



