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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVIII. No. 451. 



supported by taxation and they are as free 

 as the grammar school to all. It is not be- 

 cause the people are poor— that excuse 

 would cover but a small per cent, of the 

 absentees. It is not because they have not 

 ample brains and average common sense. 

 A small percentage are undoubtedly stupid, 

 but some of the stupid, as we all know, 

 find their way into the high schools and col- 

 leges. These two reasons, poverty and 

 stupidity, are the reasons generally given, 

 but the great bulk of the absence from 

 secondary schools has still to be explained. 



In my judgment the best word to explain 

 the non-appearance of over fifty per cent, 

 of boys and girls in our secondary schools 

 is 'incompatibility.' There is a lack of 

 harmony. The school does not give what 

 the pupils want. 



Now do not jump to the conclusion that 

 hecause the boy does not want what the 

 school has to give he is altogether unreason- 

 able and low-minded. He wants, as Emer- 

 son says, 'an education to things.' He sees 

 the world at work around him and he 

 knows that he mvist work, and he wants an 

 education that will enable him to work 

 intelligently, efficiently and to his advan- 

 tage. If he is conscious of capacity, the 

 school must convert it into faculty. The 

 school must help and not hinder him. He 

 cares not for authority, has no respect for 

 traditions, and ancient history does not 

 interest him. He wants the latest news; 

 he respects what is in force to-day ; he must 

 see with his own eyes ; he himself must un- 

 lock the doors, and with his own hands 

 unbar the gates of the future. He be- 

 lieves that Robert Ingersoll told the truth 

 when he said that, "Much that is called 

 education simply unfits men successfully to 

 fight the battle of life. Thousands are to- 

 day studying things that will be of exceed- 

 ing little importance to them or others. 

 Miiich valuable time is wasted in stiidying 



languages that long ago were dead, and his- 

 tories in which there is no truth." 



And when those boys who must make 

 their own living and build their own homes, 

 and those who icish to make their own way 

 in the afPairs of the world, turn away from 

 continuous literary studies, even the liter- 

 ary world approves their choice. It would 

 be the height of folly to go into the streets, 

 the shops, the factories, the stores, the 

 offices, the fields, the gardens, the stables 

 and the general loafing places— to go into 

 all the places where fifty or sixty per cent, 

 of the boys from fourteen to seventeen 

 years are found, and, if we could, bring 

 them all into school and teach them Latin, 

 Greek and mathematics, as I was taught 

 till I was eighteen years old, as though we 

 expected them all to go on to college, and 

 become literary or professional men. 



Said President Wilson, of Princeton, in 

 his inaiigural address : ' ' The college is not 

 for the majority who carry forward the 

 common labor of the world, nor even for 

 those who work at the skilled handicrafts 

 which multiply the conveniences and the 

 luxuries of the complex modern life. The 

 college is for the minority." 



The average secondary school, if it pre- 

 pares pupils for anything, prepares them 

 for college ; and since the college is not for 

 the majority, the secondary school is not 

 for the majority. "What then is there for 

 the majority? If they are to have sec- 

 ondary education at' all it mi;st be some- 

 thing different. 



The curriculum must be broadened. It 

 must touch modern life, modern conditions, 

 modern forces, modern responsibilities. As 

 Huxley expressed it: 'It is folly to con- 

 tinue, in this age full of modern artillery, 

 to train our boys to do battle in it equipped 

 only with the sword and shield of the 

 ancient gladiator.' Sir Lyon Playfair 

 changed the figure in protesting against 



