O COLORADO COLLEGE STUDIES. 



laws for the f2:rowth of the soul, which have been discovered 

 ■ by the world's great teachers, he ought also to believe that 

 the violation of these laws in the training of children must 

 react on the moral as well as on the mental life of those who 

 can least afford to pay the penalty. The destruction of in- 

 dividuality brutalizes a nature, and there is constant danger 

 of this where mere system is conspicuous and becomes the 

 controlling element. It is exceedingly difficult for an in- 

 structor to hold the interest and develop the enthusiasm of a 

 pupil after an appropriate amount of time has been given to 

 any one subject; and although it is true that the teacher is 

 the most important factor in connection with the system, and 

 that sing-song recitations and pure memorizing will, under 

 any condition of affairs, produce unscientific results, yet the 

 best teacher is influenced by the system under which he 

 teaches. There can be no doubt that many children who 

 j)ass through the long years of continuous school life lose in 

 some degree the quality of spontaneity, and that the loss of it 

 is accountable for the lack of some of those finer sentiments 

 that have always been the glory and the beauty of human life. 

 No discussion of the moral problems of the public school 

 system would be satisfactory if reference were not made to 

 what has, perhaps somewhat exaggeratedly, been called '• the 

 pauperizing tendency of the public school system." Free 

 tuition has led to free text-books, until the principle has been 

 clearly laid down that the state must furnish, without charge, 

 to all its children whatever education they desire. Especially 

 in the West has this been carried to its logical extreme, and 

 the state university is asked to provide the highest special 

 education not only without charge for tuition, use of build- 

 ings and apparatus, but in some cases with free rooms that 

 are furnished and warmed at the expense of the state. In 

 other words, it is claimed that no money equivalent should 

 be given for the benefit received and the service rendered. 

 Parent and pupil can take from the state, but, except what 

 the pupil may return through his better preparation for 

 citizenship, nothing is to be given for that which has been 

 bestowed; and with large numbers of persons there is no 



