132 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XX. No. 500. 



.arithmetic on a practical common-sense 

 basis. 



Although manual training figures in the 

 program, the interpretation put upon the 

 term seems to be very different from that 

 which is usual here, drawing commonly 

 counting as manual training. In some of 

 the schools, where space permits, woodwork 

 is introduced into the upper classes for 

 boys, and cookery and needlework for girls. 

 The belief in such work is evidently grow- 

 ing ; but at present the schools are undoubt- 

 edly behind ours in promoting it and even 

 more bookish than ours in their tendencies. 



The nature study lessons I Avitnessed, 

 when not specifically botanical or zoological 

 and scientific in character, were eminently 

 superficial and worthless. 



As all classes attend the common schools, 

 these can not be compared directly with our 

 elementary schools, but must be thought 

 of in connection both with these and with 

 all other types of preparatory schools. 



There are two striking features in them 

 — the air of refinement due to the attention 

 paid to dress, especially by the girls, the 

 preponderating element in most classes; 

 and the attitude of familiarity assumed by 

 the class towards the teacher. Distinc- 

 tions such as poverty or occupation might 

 well condition even in a democracy are 

 scarcely perceptible. In America the 

 teacher does not seem to be regarded as the 

 natural enemy of the boy — as a person to 

 be circumvented. The method of teaching 

 which appears to be generally adopted in- 

 volves, as it were, the constant exchange 

 of opinion between teacher and pupil— not, 

 as is here the case, either the communica- 

 tion of information to the class by the 

 teacher or the mere wringing of what is 

 supposed to have been learnt from the 

 pupil by the teacher. The method has 

 both its advantages and its disadvantages. 

 It develops that readiness of address which 

 characterizes young Americans and leads 



children to give their opinions freely— far 

 too freely many think — on all sorts of sub- 

 jects ; and it encourages cuteness. But it 

 imposes a very heavy burden on the teacher 

 and operates against close study and con- 

 centration of attention. In American 

 schools there is no enforcement of discipline 

 by means either of penalties or of prizes. 

 Children are put on a footing with 

 grown-up people and treated as young 

 republicans. 



How, then, is discipline maintained^ Is 

 it always 1 Perhaps the average American 

 boy has not such a fund of animal spirits 

 as the English boy — he is sprung from a 

 tolerant race and from an early age tends 

 to ape the behavior -of his elders more than 

 the English boy does. Certainly one great 

 cause of good behavior is the presence of 

 girls along with the boys. On the occasion 

 of my former visit, I discussed with one of 

 the chief inspectors in Washington the rea- 

 sons why the system of mixed classes had 

 been abandoned there and then resumed. 

 I learnt that one of the possible reasons 

 was that it had been found difficult to keep 

 the boys in order when alone. But un- 

 doubtedly the chief hold teachers have on 

 their classes is consequent on their main- 

 taining the interest of the pupils. Many 

 of my colleagues on the commission— not 

 teachers— in fact, expressed the opinion on 

 more than one occasion that the teaching 

 was most interesting. But looking below 

 the surface, I did not feel satisfied with all 

 that I witnessed. Whilst every teacher 

 will admit that it is necessary to create 

 interest, we all know that it is not always 

 possible to maintain this at bursting point 

 and that in school, as in the world, unin- 

 teresting work must be done sometimes; 

 that, in point of fact, it is most important 

 to acquire the art of doing uninteresting 

 work in a serious and determined way. 

 The American system seems to me to be one 

 which imposes a fearful strain upon the 



