480 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIV. No. 352. 



to encourage this evolution of a better feel- 

 ing, a more intimate acquaintance, a mu- 

 tual respect, and a common zeal for what- 

 ever is broad and high and fine. 



While we may for many reasons congratu- 

 late ourselves on the decided change of 

 front we have achieved in education, we 

 must not be blind to the fact that much re- 

 mains to be done. We must still devise a 

 scheme of secondary and higher education 

 for a stage of progress in which secondary 

 and higher education may become approxi- 

 mately universal. As Sir Walter Besant 

 put it, the twentieth century must not only 

 ' ' open up all intellectual careers to lads 

 [and lasses] who are capable, clever and 

 ambitious, but we must have a system of 

 education broad enough and elastic enough 

 to include the children who are destined 

 for crafts, industries and arts of all kinds ; 

 one that will make them good citizens, not 

 ignorant of their civic rights, and alive to 

 their civic duties." 



I do not at all assume that we have yet 

 discovered the true system for universal 

 secondary education. The manual-train- 

 ing high school with its opportunities for 

 training and culture along many lines, in- 

 dustrial, commercial, civic, artistic and 

 literary, seems to come near the ideal, but 

 it is by no means generally accepted, and 

 when accepted it is at once exposed to seri- 

 ous dangers. 



In our most advanced communities only 

 a small minority of children enter upon the 

 secondary stage of education. In my own 

 city of St. Louis, only about one boy in 

 seven takes a course in a school of high- 

 school grade. In many communities the 

 proportion in secondary schools is greater — 

 in others it is less. There must be some rea- 

 son for this; either the training and culture 

 are not what they ought to be or our people 

 are so ignorant that they do not know the 

 value of education. I will not admit that 

 poverty offers a sufl&cient explanation. In 



either case, it is evident that we have much 

 to do and much to learn. 



Of the dangers to which the manual- 

 training high school is exposed, I have 

 spoken elsewhere at length. I will at 

 present only refer to the strong tendencies 

 of ' practical ' people, who are more inti- 

 mate with the old system of apprenticeship 

 than they are with the art of education, to 

 introduce the teaching of special trades. I 

 think we shall be able to stem this unfor- 

 tunate tendency, but it is well to be fore- 

 warned that we may be forearmed. The 

 advocates of the introduction of trade work 

 make three serious mistakes : 



1. They assume that the graduate of the 

 manual-training school is unfitted to enter 

 an industrial shop to advantage. 



2. They would begin trade work with 

 pupils who are too young. 



3. They do not realize that only about 50 

 boys in 100 are so constructed mentally and 

 physically that they can and ought to learn 

 what are known as the industrial trades. 



In my paper already referred to, I have 

 at some length defended the natural right 

 of a boy to the privilege of choice of occu- 

 pation at an age of some maturity and after 

 a training which enables him to substitute 

 a rational judgment for a boyish whim. 



In this connection, I fail to endorse at 

 least one feature in the Eeport of the Ad- 

 visory Committee of the Carnegie Technical 

 School. The full report was published in 

 Science for July 12, 1901. For a variety 

 of excellent reasons, the Committee reaches 

 the conclusion ' that some new kind of 

 preparation for the work of life must be 

 introduced into the school training of both 

 boys and girls.' It then proceeds to out- 

 line a technical college, a technical high 

 school and an artisan day and evening 

 school, which are to meet this demand. 

 Here we have a clear recognition of a 

 twentieth-century problem and an attempt 

 to solve it. 



