will dismiss their fears for a moment, that this is not a discussion of method, but of what is true of the educative process. With this fact in mind, I am unable to see how issue can be maintained with any proposition that Dr. Harris has uttered.

Pray, what is it to become educated, if it is not to find one's self at home in regions that were before foreign, and consequently unknown? Is the child to live forever with the inanities of the nursery ? What is the binominal theorem to the darlings of the kindergarten, in their little world a mile square? Yet the time will come when superb formulæ will be as simple as a nurse's tale. How? By successive invasions of strange realms, strange as a Greek letter to a three-year-old Polynesian, until they have lost their strangeness because they have revealed to the explorer their kinship to his larger self. And when the soul is no longer confronted by an alien world and challenged to press itself against its mysteries, that soul has reached the vanishing point of education.

And is this to be achieved without constraint or self-repression or submission to the authority of the next year's self? Is there to be no "effacement" of a small individuality in the interests of a large individuality? "Individuality" is a ticklish word to deal with in a "free" country. Was Huxley wrong when he asserted that "the only freedom that I care about is the freedom to do right; the freedom to do wrong I am willing to part with on the cheapest terms to anyone who will take it of me." Is inhibition really to be banished from the educational terminology in the interests of the spontaneity of the child? Of course, when we are sane and not engaged in controversial discourse, we are not going to urge such absurdities, for when inhibition goes we know that a large slice of attention will go along with it. No, gentlemen; I much mistake if every dissenter on this floor today will not be in substantial agreement with the main contention of Dr. Harris when the opportunity for a careful study of what seems to me to be his most delightful and revealing contribution to this aspect of educational thought shall be afforded by the publication of his address.

EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS OF THE YEAR

ELMER E. BROWN, PROFESSOR OF THEORY AND PRACTICE OF EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, CAL.

One year ago the annual report on educational progress was presented to this Council by Professor Hinsdale, of the University of Michigan. I cannot enter upon the similar task to which I have been assigned without first calling up the memory of that great teacher, who in the interim. has been called from this earthly life.

Burke Aaron Hinsdale was one of the most useful and distinguished members of this Council, of which he was president in 1897. His scholarship was notably broad and accurate; his judgment was sane and sure. In the meetings of the National Council and Association we have had many opportunities of seeing how illuminating and conclusive he could be in public debate. His logic was seasoned with genial humor; there was about him a very human apprehension of actualities; he was never a doctrinaire. Some of his strongest work was done in the field of history, and particularly in the history of American education. The last time I saw him he told me, with an almost boyish appearance of diffidence, that he had ventured to think of writing a general history of

education in the United States.

We have great reason to regret that this

project could not have been carried out.

As a member of some of his earliest classes in the University of Michigan, I desire to bear personal testimony to the helpful suggestiveness of his instruction, particularly in his seminary work in educational history. Doubtless many of those here present could tell of intellectual uplift and stimulus received in his class-room. And many more might speak of his personal kindliness. His massive frame was well matched by his broad sympathy and large-heartedness, and his interest in the homely necessary things of life.

It is well that in considering our educational progress we should not forget those who have fallen by the way. Henry Barnard is gone-full of years and of honor; Thomas Davidson, that knightly spirit, preeminent in learning, has been taken, in the very strength of his years; only yesterday came the news that the venerable and honored Joseph Le Conte has passed away in the Yosemite Valley which he so greatly loved; and others, worthy of such goodly company, have passed with them. These men have deserved remembrance of their country and of their brethren. Our forward step is surer that they have lived and

wrought with us.

Now, in making a survey of the year's educational progress, we must try to avoid bewilderment among particulars. We are too near to the facts considered to get any true historical perspective; but already we can see that they are bound up with the general progress of our civilization.

Aside from all things educational, this has been a year of mighty movements. Much has been said about "expansion." In more ways than one, expansion has been the striking characteristic of the past twelvemonth.

Five years ago Mr. McKinley was elected president for the first time, after a campaign which had turned largely on economic questions. Bimetallism had been thrust forward as the best available embodiment of a rising social unrest. But the new presidential term was only well begun when a question of foreign policy overshadowed all things else. The war with Spain was fought, and its success brought forward great international problems, such as our people had not faced before. The congress at The Hague set us thinking of the world-peace and our part in maintaining it for the future; but we now found ourselves thinking. what it meant to be a world-power, and what we should do as a worldpower in the immediate present. The terrible business in China set us thinking fast and hard. We were already a world-power in the thick of the world's affairs. Mr. McKinley was elected for the second time, and the campaign which he won this time was fought mainly on questions

growing out of our new foreign relations. The policy of expansion was approved by the voters; and it has now received judicial confirmation in one of the most important decisions ever rendered by the Supreme Court of the United States. It has been determined that the United States not only possesses the power inherent in all true nations to expand in whatever way she can and will, but that this power may be exercised under the old constitution handed down to us by the fathers.

In the meantime the industrial distresses which found such halfarticulate expression in the campaign of 1896 have been only temporarily obscured. They, too, are growing pains. Before long they must be acutely felt again. For industrial expansion is going along with political expansion, and within the past few months it has advanced at an astonishing rate. Railway combinations, more or less completely accomplished, for the control of lines belting the land from coast to coast, with a pendant of ocean steamers at either end; industrial combinations, steadily increasing in magnitude; and now the United States Steel Corporation, overtopping all the rest, with a capital stock of over $1,100,000,000 and a bonded indebtedness of over $300,000,000—are all in evidence. It is not the mere amount of money involved in these transactions that challenges the imagination, but the tremendous combination of forces and organizations brought into working unity. All of these movements, political and industrial, have kept men straining hard to think thoughts large enough to meet the new situations presented.

Other movements have taken place, under the influence of such industrial and international readjustments, and some of these have been of very great significance. One of them may be mentioned more particularly. I refer to the rise of a new South. The division of 1861 lasted in some sense till 1898, when the nation, without regard to sections, went into the war with Spain. Northern Republicans had stood in an attitude. of tutelage toward the South; southern Democrats in an attitude of protest toward the North. Now the southern states are simply proceeding to work out their own problems in their own way, as northern and western states have done. Some of the results may be bad in the South, as they have been in the North and in the West; but the ultimate outcome will surely be for good.

Enough has now been said to remind us that the past year has been marked by far-reaching changes in our national life; and that these changes are the accompaniment of accelerated growth, of increasing complexity of internal and external relations.

In such a milieu American civilization has been making its way onward during the year just past. Religion, philosophy, science, art, literature, polite society, medicine, jurisprudence, engineering, invention - all the great capital interests of human life have felt the tremendous stir that is still going on. Such a time of sudden enlargement has in it

much of good and much of evil, sorrow and joy all mixed together. But it is mightily exhilarating to live in such a time, and to do even the smallest thing toward making the better part overbalance the worse.

With such accompaniments education has been making its way. The opinion of mankind has continued to give it an honorable place. Education has been seeking to keep itself in working adjustment with the expanding life of other human concerns. It has endeavored to discharge a growing responsibility for making the better part triumph over the worse. The most of the year's happenings and movements, which we have to record, will be found in some sort of connection with this progressive adjustment to new conditions.

One further fact should be noted here, the fact that, in the social expansion of our time, educational interests are expanding, not only actually, but also relatively. It is evident that social progress is becoming more and more largely dependent upon educational progress. The responsibility resting upon our educational institutions is already beyond any parallel in the history of the world, and what it is to be we cannot at all foresee.

Now, let us consider a little more particularly the kind of educational progress that the past year has seen. The development and consolidation of American industries have been accompanied, not only by enormous accumulations of wealth, but also by enormous gifts on the part of the accumulators of wealth; and these gifts have taken more generally the direction of contributions to educational inst itutions than any other. It appears from such statistics as are now at hand that the gifts to educational institutions for the year 1900 amounted in the aggregate to not far from $23,000,000; and the gifts to libraries not directly connected with schools, to about $3,000,000 more. These statistics relate to gifts of not less than $5,000 each, which were made, became operative, or were completed during the year 1900, and do not include the ordinary contributions of churches and other denominational organizations, nor public appropriations, local, state, or national.

Mr. Carnegie, of course, has been one of the largest contributors to this enormous sum. Mr. Rockefeller, who has been similarly distinguished, both as an accumulator and as a giver, recently proposed, at the convocation of the University of Chicago, that cheers be given for Mr. Carnegie, whom he described as one "who has given away more money than any other living man." In fact, Mr. Carnegie's recent career is profoundly interesting. He had doubtless done more than any other one man to bring the steel industry of this country up to the point where the next step was the formation of the United States Steel Corporation. He had proved himself one of the most successful accumulators that this country has ever seen. At this point in his career, in accordance with a well-considered theory of life, Mr. Carnegie brought his operations as an

accumulator to an end and entered upon the very different occupation of a distributor. It takes a high degree of versatility to achieve equal success in these two very different parts. But Mr. Carnegie has made a very promising beginning in his new rôle. He has made a gift of $5,000,000 to be used for the benefit of the employés of the companies with which he was connected in Pittsburg and its vicinity. The income of a large part of this sum is to be used for the maintenance of a system of pensions to employés, but another large part is to be devoted to the maintenance of libraries and other purposes essentially educational. is well known that Mr. Carnegie has made numerous gifts for the erection of library buildings in various cities of this country. How many such buildings he has erected it would be difficult to say. His most magnificent performance in this line is the proposal to establish sixtyfive branch libraries in different portions of New York city, at an estimated cost of $5,200,000. As in the most of such instances, this gift is conditioned upon action by the community which receives the benefit. New York is called upon to provide sites upon which these branch libraries may be built. There can be little doubt that the sites will be provided and the buildings secured in due time. The latest news of this sort is that this beautiful and hospitable city of Detroit has been similarly honored.

Up to April 1 it was estimated that Mr. Carnegie's gifts had reached the sum of $30,000,000. Since that time he has been in Europe, where his visit has been signalized by the gift of $10,000,000 for the promotion of university education in Scotland. It is understood that the income of a portion of this fund is to be used in defraying the expenses of capable and needy students in the four Scotch universities. Another considerable proportion is to be devoted to the development of university instruction, especial stress being laid upon scientific, economic, and historical studies. Provision seems to have been made for the especial encouragement of graduate students and advanced research. So far as we can judge from the accounts that have come to us, Mr. Carnegie has provided for the effective administration of this gift, and has not limited the administrators unduly as to the objects to which the funds may be applied.

The recent commencement season has called forth the announcement of numerous gifts of great importance to American colleges and universities. Among the most notable of these is that of Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan to Harvard University, of $1,000,000, to be devoted to the promotion of research in the field of applied biology, that is, more particularly, of biology in its relation to medicine. Harvard received in the course of the academic year, in addition to this gift, somewhat more than three-quarters of a million of dollars. Brown University has completed a fund of $2,000,000, which she has been raising with large assistance from Mr. Rockefeller. Yale University, preparatory to the celebration of