EDITOR'S TABLE. 



705 



jects is given in detail. Under tlie 

 bead of miscellaneous are included sucb 

 further subjects as the several institu- 

 tions bold important for admission to 

 college. The common element here is 

 English grammar, but neither Yale, 

 Princeton, Columbia, Brown, Dart- 

 mouth, Williams, Amherst, Trinity, 

 Michigan University, Vassar, Smith, 

 nor Johns Hopkins, requires a shred of 

 scientitic preparation of any kind, un- 

 less school-geography is allowed to pass 

 for science. Harvard requires some 

 acquaintance with physics and either 

 chemistry or botany, and Cornell in- 

 cludes physiology among the prepara- 

 tory studies. By all these leading 'and 

 influential collegiate institutions, which 

 arrogate to themselves the prerogative 

 of conferring a "liberal education," 

 the study of Nature is absolutely left 

 out in the early period of study, and 

 nothing worthy of the name of science 

 is recognized or required, when the 

 foundations of intellectual character 

 are being laid. There is one everlast- 

 ing grind in grammar — Greek gram- 

 mar, Latin grammar, English grammar 

 — until the mental habits are formed by 

 verbal studies ; and then when the stu- 

 dent enters college he is oflfered some 

 restricted liberty of taking up scientific 

 subjects. 



Undoubtedly, the great issue of sci- 

 ence against the classics is made up 

 and to be met here. The continuance 

 of the system of discrimination against 

 modern knowledge, and in favor of 

 dead languages, is not to be tolerated. 

 The college premiums on old studies 

 condemned by the common sense of 

 mankind, and doubly damaging in early 

 youth, must be withdrawn. Those in- 

 stitutions can not too soon take meas- 

 ures to get out of the way of the im- 

 provement of the lower schools. It is 

 becoming more and more obvious, as 

 shown by the current discussion of the 

 subject, that there is urgent necessity 

 for a readjustment of the relations of 

 the higher and lower systems of in- 



TOL. XIIV. — 46 



struction, and in evidence of this we 

 quote the following instructive pas- 

 sages f rom]an excellent article by Mr. R. 

 li. Bowker, in the " Princeton Review " 

 for January, on " The College of To- 

 day " : 



This brings us face to face with the at proa- 

 ent difficult problem of the relations of the 

 college to the general education out of which 

 its curriculum must proceed. It is noticeable 

 that while there has been much activity in 

 the improvement of the higher education, and 

 much progress, following the suggestions of 

 Froebel and Pestalozzi, in primary education, 

 the immediate education remains much where 

 it was, and blocks the road in the middle. Our 

 common schools are still " grammar-schools," 

 although, as has been noted, educators are in 

 agreement that "grammar," as such, is the 

 one thing that should not bo taught until the 

 very highest grades are reached. And the 

 colleges can not do their proper work, nor can 

 an approximately correct curriculum be put 

 into practice, until many features of the 

 middle schools are not only reformed but 

 revolutionized. The scheme of the proper 

 education, following the child from its first 

 lessons, should be developed in view of two 

 chief conditions: the order in which the 

 natural development of the mind fits it for 

 the reception of successive studies ; and the 

 practical fact that, since the number to be edu- 

 cated decreases each year beyond the early 

 years, the essential subjects must be pre- 

 sented early in the course. Happily, these 

 two conditions largely coincide. The pres- 

 ent curriculum of the middle schools has de- 

 veloped from the practical recognition of this 

 last condition, in ignorance of the first, but 

 through much misconception as to which are 

 essential subjects. It is, of course, important 

 that every child should be taught to speak, 

 to write, to read, to figure, correctly ; but it 

 is now known that the child learns correct 

 speech, for instance, chiefly through itsobserv- 

 ing faculties, by imitation, and not through 

 its reflective faculties, by study of grammar. 

 The child develops through tlie what, tlio how, 

 the why — first the fact, next its relations, 

 lastly its causes ; and yet the lower schools 

 will be teaching the laws of grammar, and 

 leaving the facts of nature, as the elements 

 of botany, for which the child-mind is hun- 

 gering and thu-sting, to the advanced student 

 The college professor of the natural sciences, 

 for instance, should find the foundations laid 

 for him when the student enters college, 

 whereas now he [must b^^ at elementary 



