spiration from the "glimmering landscape", which enables him with Bryant to gather a lesson of faith from the water fowl, or with Holmes, the lesson of spiritual growth from the Chambered Nautilus-I say, that school which so trains the child will do infinitely more in the way of developing in him both heart culture and mental acumen than the school which goes outside the child's reach and his needs for its subject matter.

Civilization is a farce if, to give the child cultural training, we must revert to the past for material for our school curriculum. Not long ago Dr. Woodrow Wilson sarcastically remarked: "I am not yet convinced that four weeks training in stenography can result in the same amount of culture and discipline as four years in Greek." Exactly, and neither will four weeks training in Greek accomplish so much in these lines as four years training in Modern Economy and Business Methods. The statement needs no proof that there are many people untutored in books. and classic lore whose culture and mental acumen are just as pronounced as many others whose only claim to culture lies in the fact that they are master of many books and many tongues. It is notorious that some of our crudest and greenest men are catalogued among the great scholars.

There are classic examples of what I am driving at. Out of the West when the nation was going to pieces came. Lincoln, its deliverer, untutored in the classics, unburnished by contact with scholars, unpolished by the influences of eastern drawing-room society.

When the crisis came Phillips, Greely, tanton, Seward, Cameron-all were passed by for a man whose sinews of body and mind had been hardened by the uses of adversity; a man into whose life nature had poured the grand harmonies of wailing forests, rushing rivers and storm-swept prairies; a man who knew not the spirit of a dead past, but that of the breathing, pulsating, seething, tumultous sixties.

The issues of that crisis and the subsequent appreciation of him who decided them speak more eloquently than word of pen that social officiency is not monopolized by the classically trained.

But they say that such men are great in spite of, rather than because of their lack of formal training. I rather believe that they rise to preeminence because of the superior quality of the stuff on which they feed mentally. They were educated to utilize the forces and facts with which they were to have to do later. Concentration, not on dead issues, but on the vital issues of the hour, made Lincoln the savior of his country. The same principles, when finally incorporated in our American school systems will make both self-helpers and efficient contributors to the happiness and well being of others. Teach the child first how to live out his physical life, and give him the power and disposition to help others; then allow the circle to widen into other realms.

The process is logical and experience has demonstrated its practicability. They build the superstructure first who proceed along any other line.

It affords me pleasure, you may be assured, to discuss with you the important question of what should be expected of beginning high school in English, from the point of view of of the high school. At the outset it will be helpful if we may all understand definitely what the exact nature of English is, and what its objects are. For the purposes of this discussion I will define English to be the study of the thought and form of our mother tongue for the purposes of interpreting the expressed thought of others, of expressing effectively own thoughts, and of forming a taste for the best that has been thought and expressed. The main objects of English work, according to the Report of the Committee of Ten, are three first, "to enable the pupil to understand the expressed thought for reading." In brief, the result expected in English work is triple: understanding of others' thought, expression of own thought, and taste for literature. And this triple result is expected in certain measures of all boys and girls in the course from the primary grades to the close of high school. Of course, certain definite things should be expected of the boy or girl at the end of the fifth year in the elementary school, and certainly better results at the end of the sixth

or seventh year. Now how much of this triple result in English should be expected of beginning high school?

On this subject I wish to offer some suggestions which I think I am as anxious to make from the point of view of the teacher as I would be from that of the ordinary citizen or business man. The few main conclusions that for some time have seemed to me most important have been reinforced by some live up-todate statistics taken on the present condition of the English of the students in the Wichita High School. The teachers of the department in Wichita just recently made an estimate on the condition of the English of each individual pupil in the work.

The statistics taken may be classified, keeping in mind the triple purpose of English, under three main divisions. (1) Ability "to express own thoughts." Under this head statistics were taken on the following points: spelling, punctuation, awkwardness, sentence structure, details of paper (paragraph, margin, etc.), clearness, unity, tense forms, agreement in number of verb and subject, and invention. or imagination. (2) "Interpretation or understanding of expressed thought of others." And (3) "Taste for literature." The points taken under these last two heads are indicated by the items, oral reading and literature.

The statistics taken on all these points, as to the class of Freshmen

I

entering the high school, show some interesting and significant facts. think I can very profitably give the figures, in a summary of the estimates for the entering class. Now I have for some time had a conviction, which I anticipate here, on at least one qualification for the student entering freshman high school English. That conviction will be deep and abiding with me and urges expression on any proper occasion. that if a marksman is aiming to hit a target he should use a bullet and not a paper wad or a blank cartridge. I say, the boy or girl leaving the eighth grade for the high school should be able at least to write a good sensible sentence and begin it with a capital letter and put some kind of a mark at the end of it.

It is to be hoped

Let us see what the actual facts are according to the statistics. In spelling, examples of common errors were tew for two, speach for speech, indure for endure, and track for tract, and sider for cider. The results showed that 25 per cent out of the beginning English students are very bad in spelling.

In punctuation and capitalization, 36 per cent of the class were very bad. Many of the class had the comma fault, and many were unable to punctuate to any satisfaction, an ordinary letter. Poor spelling and poor punctuation were generally companion faults.

About 14 per cent were awkward in expression and 12 per cent were faulty in sentence structure. These pupils were generally observed to have difficulty in thinking clearly.

13 per

cent showed very poor form as to the details of written work, such as mar

gin, paragraph, handwriting, etc. About 30 per cent of the entering students were unable to write with clearness. The paragraphs and themes of fully 31 per cent lacked unity.

Among grammatical errors, one of the most typical was the use of wrong tense forms in connection with the irregular verbs. Confusion of the tense forms of such verbs as sit and set, lie and lay, and misuse of principal parts of such verbs as see were very common. About 22 per cent were very poor in tense form. Another frequent grammatical error was the lack of agreement in number of the subject and verb. About 14 per cent of those entering were weak in this respect.

On imagination or inventiveness in original composition, about 25 per cent were marked good in their work.

Estimates on the pupil's power to interpret thought expressed by others and on his taste for literature were made under the heals, "reading" and "literature." Under the item, "reading," the cases marked with "lack of expression" or "monotone" amounted to 20 per cent of the class. Those who showed "lack of life" and indistinct articulation were 23 per cent. About 50 per cent of the class was markel good on oral reading.

Under literature, 5 per cent were classed as excellent, 30 per cent good, 38 per cent fair, and 26 per cent very poor.

A general summary of the condition of the English of the class showed that 24 per cent were good, including a few excellent students, and 35 per cent were fair; while the poor and indifferent amounted to 40 per cent of the class.

A careful comparison of the condi

tion of the entering class with the condition of the upper classes reveals the fact that a few of the difficulties in English which beset the student on entering the first year high school, survive to considerable extent all the way through the upper classes. The most common of these faults the statistics show are in spelling, punctuation and capitalization, lack of clearness of language, lack of coherence and unity in discourse, and failure or inability of the average student to appreciate and enjoy literature.

All these facts go to show in a reasonable way that the English of the average student entering high school is unsatisfactory in one or more of the three main phases of the work. The average student is either short in interpretation, in expression of his own thought, in his taste for literature; and possibly, it may be, in all three of these. The data produced earlier in this discussion and I think observation, too, will show that there are a few weaknesses or English ailments that may be practically negligible and that will cure themselves provided we look after the dominant or more serious malady. It is observed that among the most flagrant and persistent troubles in English are spelling and punctuation, lack of unity and coherency in composition, lack of clear understanding of what is read, and inability to appreciate literature.

Now it is a dangerous thing to fix too high an ideal in English. If Coleridge and Southey never realized their Pantisocracy, we can not expect of frisky freshmen, entering to their minds, the perilous realm of the high school, 100 per cent. nor even 90 per cent English. It would be better

to set a lower standard, that is practical, that can be reached, in spelling and punctuation, in unity and coherency of composition, in ability to interpret what is read, and let, as we must, the standard for the appreciation of literature be the talent, the insight the genius that is mostly given of God alone. But should not more be expected of beginning high school English than 70 per cent in coherency and unity, than 74 per cent. in appreciation of literature?

The exigencies of the English work to my mind, demand a positive insistence upon a few fundamental things. The question recurs, just how much. English should be taught by a given time? Under ideal conditions of instruction, where the bright and dull pupils might be cared for separately, that would, of course, all depend on the pupil. But the ordinary school is confronted with a rather hard situation. tion. In the same classes are those who show capacity for grasping rhetorical principles. On the other hand to a large number of pupils who are bright enough in the sense of possessing keen faculties, such elementary problems as spelling and punctuation present apparently unconquerable difficulties. Then, too, there are the dull pupils not good in any subject. Under the present system these groups are lumped together and given. the same training. As long as this "squad" system of classes remains, at least one thing should be done. The attempt should be made to teach a few fundamental things well, things which the pupils will, every one of them, not only know about and around, but outside, inside, upside, downside, thoroughly and intenseively. The public

is the burden of its purpose. About things in which the teacher is interested? Certainly not, but rather about his own interests,. the results of his own experience, observation, and reading. Whether it be oral or written composition, the thing he should be able to do is to say or write something of his own. Perhaps if it is lower down in the grades, what the subject is does not matter much, and how he may say it may not matter much. Let the pupil, on subjects of his own, get to expressing himself. Then, when he gets to the high school age, what should he have acquired from experience? He should have a desire to write about the beautiful things he sees, the right things he does and the inspiring things that he reads.

of us,

And so much bad in the best of us
It hardly behooves any of us
To speak ill of the rest of us."

But how often we do hear of so and so who has no conception of punctuation, no logical arrangement of language. His vocabulary is overworked and stilted, with much slang. The spelling is a source of disgust and his sentence structure lacks rhetoric. As to handwriting he evidently imitates. the miserable scrawl of Daniel Webster, and feels that the more ineligible his writing the higher the order of intellect back of it.

It is in the province of composition and rhetoric, therefore, that we must get the most definite bearings. Now the purpose of composition is to help the pupil express himself clearly and accurately. To express himself that

The growing importance of oral composition cannot be overlooked. "Speech making," says Thomas Wentworth Higginson, "is a condition of American life and government." "In these days," says Ex-Premier Salisbury, "whether we like it or not, power is with the tongue, power is with those who can speak." And Gladstone declared, "All time and money spent in training the voice and body is an investment that pays a larger interest than any other." In life, talking is more important than writing. At the end of the eighth year the boy or girl should have had a few lessons in talking from the floor at his seat on subjects of current interest. In this oral work, will begin a self-confidence and an interest in things which will touch every-day life closely. With such a start the Freshman in the High School will not be entirely at sea in the beginning of public speaking, which I