VIII.

EDITORIAL.

The controversy between Mr. Francis E. Abbot of Cambridge, Mass., and Professor Josiah Royce of Harvard University, is the literary cause célèbre of the year. Mr. Abbot objects to a review of his work, The Way out of Agnosticism, that Professor Royce published about a year ago in a prominent philosophical journal. The facts in the case may be gathered from the somewhat acrimonious correspondence on the subject that has appeared in the columns of The Nation. Besides much that is only personal and local in Mr. Abbot's attack on Professor Royce, there is one point that is of wider significance and that should not be permitted to pass unnoticed. University professors, who have not had their attention called to the matter, will be surprised and amused to find Mr. Abbot assailing their Lehrfreiheit. He appeals to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University, whom he designates" the employer," against the literary expressions on a technical point of their "employee," and hints that the academic disciplining of Professor Royce would be grateful to him. This sort of thing is expected from the political partisan and the religious fanatic, but not from a student and teacher of philosophy in this day and generation. The chair of philosophy must be as untrammeled as the chair of mathematics or the chair of physics, and the occupant is responsible to no one for his scientific judgment and opinions. Morever, Corporations and Boards of Trustees do not constitute colleges and universities. They simply hold the purse-strings and appoint the staff of instruction; and in many institutions the latter function is more nominal than real. By no stretch of the imagination can a financial and supervisory board, particularly of a university that owes allegiance to no political party or religious sect, be held to have any control over the professional opinions of the professors. Mr. Abbot has mistaken the century. As for Professor Royce, his well-known reputation as a thinker and teacher needs neither comment nor defense.

Criticism of a different sort is being directed at an equally well-known teacher in another field. A member of the Cook County (Illinois) Board of Education-Mr. Charles S. Thornton-has presented a report to his colleagues that severely arraigns Colonel Francis W. Parker's administration of the Cook County Normal School. The writer is very definite and precise in his statements and in his array of evidence in support of them. His report has an appearance of candor that lends it weight. On the other hand, there seems to be a tone of concealed hostility to Colonel Parker in it, and the fact that it has been widely circulated by the author arouses one's suspicions that its apparent fairness is not real. Some of the practices that Mr. Thornton describes are, if true, not in good taste, but they do not imply educational inefficiency by any means. A school may celebrate its principal's birthday, and still be a good school.

The main charge brought by Mr. Thornton is that the work of the pupils is desultory and careless, and their habits idle. and inattentive. Examples of work done in composition, arithmetic, and geography are cited in support of the statement. Mr. Thornton goes even further. He writes: "The failure of the pupils is marked upon the very work said to be done in this school. They have no clear and definite ideas, even upon the topics supposed to be especially studied in this school, and they do not possess the habits of mental action. which will enable them to investigate new subjects. They could not represent in thought the forms they had molded in geography, the boxes they were asked to construct, the conditions of the problems they were to solve, or the things which they had heard, seen, and read. They could not point out likenesses in the continents they had studied again and again. . . . . To ask people to support a school simply because it claims to give some mysterious, indefinable, unexplainable power, which forever strangely fails to manifest itself, savors rather too much of Madame Blavatsky for the modern spirit of scientific investigation." This is strong language, and coming from a public official it will have an undoubted influence, unless it can be shown to be inspired by malice or igno

Colonel Parker's name and reputation are very dear to thousands of American teachers, and they have faith to believe that he will meet these new criticisms satisfactorily.

The annual report of President Low of Columbia follows closely upon that of President Adams of Cornell, which was discussed last month. The main impression left by President Low's survey of the year is that a long step forward has been taken toward creating a metropolitan university of the first rank. The famous College of Physicians and Surgeons, which for many years has been in nominal connection with Columbia, now enters the university on an equality with the other faculties, and sends representatives to the University Council. The teaching of law has been raised from the semi-popular plane of the apprenticeship system to that of the scientific and really university study of jurisprudence; and the retirement of the veteran and honored professor of law, Theodore W. Dwight, has been made the occasion of a complete reorganization of the law faculty. The Union Theological Seminary, which is one of the very few institutions in this country where theology is studied scientifically, has also entered the university, though in an indirect way and one which does not affect its separate endowments or its separate board of trustees. The new Da Costa professor of biology, Mr. Henry Fairfield Osborn, is also to be curator of mammalian paleontology in the American Museum of Natural History, and the professors of botany, chemistry, and geology are to be permanent members of the board of control of the new botanical garden for which provision is being made.

All of this is very significant, and will be so recognized by the country at large. New York, from its very size and importance, has become the seat of many educational institutions of more than doubtful character and value. That its real representative before the world should be a large and strong university, free from all sectarian bias or control, is a postulate. Columbia, inspired by a new energy, can and will, if liberally supported by the wealth and intelligence of the community, reach such a position in the near future. Its two hundred and twenty officers of instruction and seventeen hundred students-over thirty per cent. of whom have already had a college education or its equivalent-constitute an army in themselves. It goes without saying that if private generosity and large-mindedness will do in America what government aid does in Europe, New York will one day rank with Berlin, Paris, and Vienna as a great university city.

Superintendent Sabin of Iowa has completed his programme for the February meeting of the Department of Superintendence, and it is of a character to attract a large attendance of superintendents and college teachers. The topics to be considered are the rural school problem, the public library in its relations to pupils and to workingmen, the duty of the State toward children of kindergarten age in large cities, the means to accomplish more work in the ordinary school period, the teaching of history and literature in grammar grades, the function of the State university. An important paper on this last-named topic is expected from President Angell of the University of Michigan. Dr. Selim H. Peabody is to speak upon the Educational Exhibit at the Chicago Exposition, and Commissioner Harris will open a discussion on the educational congresses planned for the same time. The Comenius celebration will, as already announced, form part of the programme, and there will be an evening devoted to manual training in the lower grades.

The Brooklyn Board of Education has recently adopted a measure with regard to the licensing of teachers that cannot fail in time to increase the efficiency of the teaching force. Hitherto, under the regulations of the Board, the lowest grade of certificate has been granted to those who passed an examination in scholarship, and in scholarship alone. No knowledge of principles of education and methods of teaching, no professional training, no experience in teaching, has been required. It is true that the certificate thus granted was good only for a year's trial, and might be canceled at the end of a year, in case the holder's work was not satisfactory; it is true that the possession of this temporary certificate entitled the holder to a year's training in the city training school for teachers; but it is also true that comparatively few of the licentiates sought the professional work of the training school, and that the great majority of the teachers appointed in the primary grades had neither experience nor training. So long as wouldbe teachers could obtain positions even at the lowest rate of remuneration, the majority of them failed to realize the necessity for professional training. Thus it came to pass that each year the ranks of the teachers were recruited chiefly by persons of fair scholarship indeed, but without professional train

ing or experience, and that the work of primary teaching was, in large measure, in the hands of apprentices. In future, however, all this is to be changed. The new rules require that, hereafter, licenses of the lowest grade, good for one year's trial, shall be issued only to those who, in addition to passing the superintendent's examination in scholarship, present evidence of successful experience in teaching, or who graduate from a training school. Those who have not had the required experience before taking the examination in scholarship, and who do not care to attend the city training school, may obtain it by rendering substitute service in the city schools; but in all cases the work must be satisfactory to the city superintendent before even the license entitling the holder to a year's regular employment as a class-teacher is issued. Thus three great safeguards against the entrance of ignorance and inefficiency into the schools have been established: a searching examination in scholarship, the testing of capacity to teach by substitute work or in the city training school, and a final test during the first year of regular appointment. The plan is far from perfect-it is a combination of the cadet system of Chicago and the training-school system of Boston-but it is so far in advance of previous methods that the action of the local Board of Education is certainly worthy of high commendation. As its adoption was accompanied by a substantial increase in salaries, it is not unfair to assume that Brooklyn has realized this truth-high scholastic and professional attainments may, by chance, be obtained under a low schedule of salaries; they can be insured only under one that is high.

The time has almost passed when it will be possible to change in any essential particular the arrangements for the Columbian Exposition at Chicago, and yet no adequate provision has been made for Education. Agriculture, horticul ture, viticulture; machinery, electrical appliances, and mining; every conceivable means of producing material wealth—all are amply provided for. Huge buildings are to be erected in honor of the various departments of the nation's material progress; millions of dollars are to be expended in glorifying Wealth. But one whole side of our country's life, that marvelously active and complex educational organism that stretches from the kindergarten to the university, is simply