THE ETHICAL PROBLEM OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 7 



The pride of its friends is that it is a great system of 

 education. Mention has already been made of the value of 

 the element of continuity in a course of study, but there is 

 also a difficulty connected with it that cannot be ij^nored. The 

 fixed schedule of study is fixed for all; the long courses are, 

 with few exceptions, unmodified for the slow or the quick 

 minds. The only reply the writer has been able to secure to 

 the question, "What can be done to remedy thisf'' has been, 

 " There is no escape from it, except in a few cases where very 

 unusually bright children are promoted more rapidly than 

 the others." The time taken for many children of more than 

 average ability to comi3lete a subject is unreasonably long; 

 but the nature of the child must bend to the system, the system 

 little or not at all to the peculiarities of the pupil. Now, 

 nothing is more important, in creating and preserving 

 " unconscious rectitude,"' than the element of spontaneity, 

 and there can be no doubt that many children who pass 

 through the long years spent in the public schools lose in 

 this respect rather than gain. The kindergarten is obviating 

 this danger somewhat; but wherever there is a suppressed 

 mental life there must exist, in some degree at least, a sup- 

 pressed moral nature: there is a logical connection between 

 the inflexible system that holds a responsive, sensitive child 

 in its grasp for years, and mental reactions that too often 

 develop into moral weakness, and occasionally into vice. 

 This tendency is, no doubt, not entirely the fault of the 

 system, as a hard-and-fast system, but in a large degree of 

 those unscientific methods which merely tax the memory, 

 stunt rather than develop the reasoning faculty, and usually 

 make the child unhappy, and sometimes morbid. President 

 Eliot has shown that there is a waste of time in the student 

 life by keeping pupils too long on subjects that should be 

 covered in a much shorter period. But this loss of time has 

 a more important bearing than the one which he considers. 

 The attempt to save time is important; the attempt to save 

 the moral nature is far more important. The destruction of 

 interest and enthusiasm in a child has more than an intel- 

 lectual significance; it interferes as well with his moral de- 

 velopment. If one believes that there are certain definite 



