488 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



at work in modern society tend to produce average men. What 

 the reform does attempt is simply this to bring the educational 

 process once more into harmony with the Zeit- Geist. Its office is 

 to sweep away customs and practices that were never wise, and to 

 transform those which, were founded in right reason into more 

 modern and available form. This is all that can be done is per- 

 haps all that it is desirable to do. No single reform can be very 

 sweeping, for observe, it is to operate upon a set of conditions of 

 which it is itself a product. Hence it is that the reforms which 

 are the most far-reaching in their results come from outside, are 

 forced upon our institutions and enterprises by those who stand 

 themselves outside of the movement. In our education we have 

 precisely the same spectacle, a curious one surely, if it were not 

 for this explanation. The movements which are to-day innova- 

 tions, and which are looked upon by many of us as reforms, have 

 such an outside origin. The kindergarten, sloyd, manual train- 

 ing, science lessons, and nearly all the features that distinguish the 

 newer education, have not sprung up within the curriculum of the 

 school. They have forced themselves into the school from without, 

 and often after a very long struggle. These readjustments are 

 made only at the cost of considerable opposition and heartburn. 

 They are the efforts to bring the spirit from the past into the pres- 

 ent. It is the attitude of mind which says, I am, not I was. 



Looking at the schools in this way, you will perhaps agree 

 with me that nothing we do in them is in itself commendable, but 

 is only commendable as it serves some desirable end. Good and 

 bad are relative terms. Schools are good or bad in no absolute 

 sense, but solely in relation to the ends which they serve. Schools 

 which were very good a quarter of a century ago might be rela- 

 tively bad at the present time. Bear in mind that the school is a 

 tool, a process, a means, is in no sense an end. 



As a tool, we can judge the modern school only by the manner 

 in which it does its work. And this makes necessary a clear un- 

 derstanding of the work it is to do. It is here that we need that 

 clearness of expression of which I have been speaking. There is 

 no end to-day of discussion on educational topics. We are all 

 reading papers or giving little talks. We come pretty near to 

 realizing Joubert's famous saying, " It is better to discuss a ques- 

 tion without settling it than to settle it without discussing it." 

 But meanwhile the schools must go on, even though the discus- 

 sion come to no conclusion. This multiplicity of discussion 

 serves at least one good purpose. It directs public attention to 

 the gravity of the problem of education. And yet it seems to me 

 that much of the discussion is idle, and must from its very nature 

 continue to be so. The weakness lies in this, that it is for the 

 most part a discussion of methods and of minor riddles. It is not 



