them. Legislation is urged as tho life were passed in a vacuum and resistance were unknown.

Our schools have not escaped this modern tendency. We have been expanding with the rest. We have felt impelled to attempt the complete regeneration of society in four short years, regardless of thousands of years of opposing inheritances. We have been ready to undertake any new project that seemed to be of an educative nature, without considering its relations to other branches of work, or to the amount of unconsumed energy available. Happy and famous is the man or woman who has been able to set the schools a new task, for multitudes have arisen to call him a reformer.

The thorogoing belief in the efficiency of work and of the obligation of all mankind to work owes much to the evangelism of such men as Carlyle and Ruskin. Carlyle preached the gospel of work to a generation that looked for leadership and inspiration to men who had little or nothing to do. His Sartor Resartus, his Heroes, and his Past and Present are full of this gospel. He cries :

The world and all that is in it are the result of work. The great men in history, as well as the great races, have been those who earnestly worked. The old gospel was, "Know thyself;" the new is, "Know thy work and do it." All work is noble; a life of ease is not for any man. One monster there is in the world, the idle man. What is his religion? That nature is a phantasm, where cunning beggary or thievery may sometimes find good victual; that God is a lie; that man and his works are a lie.

Ruskin was almost equally earnest in his advocacy of work; and to precept added action. Many of us have read, with some amusement, of his road-building experiment with the Oxford students. But the young men who took part in this experiment never forgot the obligation he laid upon them, to labor- each within his particular province-with all his soul, with all his strength, and with all his mind.

The world has been greatly influenced by these teachings of Carlyle and Ruskin. In the lives of many of our famous men are to be found acknowledgments like that of Thomas Huxley, published in his recent Life and Letters. In recalling some of the powerful influences which have affected his life, Huxley speaks of the writings of Carlyle, and especially of Sartor Resartus. The idea that "work alone is noble; the doctrine that whatever of morality and of intelligence; what of patience, faithfulness of method, insight, ingenuity, energy; in a word, whatsoever of strength a man had in him lies written in the work he does," has been an inspiration to the youth of the nineteenth century. The renewed interest in Carlyle and his work, shown by the placing of one of his essays on the college reading list, is a happy omen of continued interest in his ideas.

The teacher, like all earnest men, believes in his mission, and has an almost unbounded faith in the efficiency of school work. He, like Carlyle,

may underestimate the strength of the inherited impulses and instincts. he deals with. He has usually been willing to add mountains of work to his own and his pupils' burdens. Any "ology" whatever can find advocates for a place in the curriculum; and too many of them have already succeeded in crowding themselves upon the school. Only a Carlylean temperament could have induced the teacher to attempt the mountains of work prescribed in some of our school programs. It is not strange that he sometimes adds to this another Carlylean characteristic, that of grumbling a little. In his application of the doctrines of Carlyle he has failed to discriminate, to realize that what we want today is not more subjects to work at, but a change in our method of teaching that will be in accordance with Carlyle's doctrine-a change that will offer opportunities for real work.

In the following statement of Carlyle is, I believe, the kernel of modern educational doctrine.

He says:

The knowledge that will hold good in working, cleave thou to that. Properly, thou hast no other knowledge but what thou hast by working; the rest is yet all a hypothesis of knowledge, a thing to be argued in the schools, a thing floating in the clouds in endless logic-vortices till we may try to fix it. Doubt of whatever kind can be ended by action alone. Man perfects himself by working. Destiny, on the whole, has no other way of cultivating us.

In this utilizing of the motor influences, in this return to Froebel's idea of self-activity, we are getting into line with the influences that are moving modern society. We are beginning to believe in the doctrine of Dr. John Dewey, "that the school has no other educational resources than those which exist outside of the schools; that, so far as the principle is concerned, it is simply a continuation of the same methods which are operative in the informal education." The knowledge we get in connection with some activity, some piece of work we are earnestly striving to do, we can cleave to that. All other knowledge is likely to be held in out-of-the-way compartments of the mind, where practical application to the problem of life can never come. We are utilizing these motor influences in many ways in our modern school. The kindergarten, constructive work, and nature study; our manual training, and most of the methods of teaching other subjects, are endeavors to turn motor impulses to use. As Dr. Dewey says:

We are coming to believe that the possibility of having knowledge become something more than the accumulation of facts and laws, of becoming actually operative in character and conduct, is dependent on the extent to which that information is evolved out of some need in the child's own experience and to which it receives application to that experience.

In other words, character-making is the result of doing something, is the result of the formation of habits. Indeed, we are almost ready for Carlyle's extreme statement: "All work is religion, and whatsoever religion is not work may go dwell among the Brahmins. Laborare est orare.

If labor is not worship, the more the pity for worship, for this is the noblest thing under God's sky."

While I am not an advocate of the soft pedagogy that is supported in some quarters, yet I believe that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy; but I also believe that "all play and no work makes Jack a mere toy." I do not believe it is wise to endeavor to have the child believe that the work he is trying to do is play. I do not, on the other hand, believe in the doctrine of drudgery. I do not believe in an ideal of work that regards it merely as a preliminary to enjoyment, as something to be gotten over that enjoyment may follow. I do not believe in the doc. trine that men should bear the repulsive burden of work in order that the remainder of life may be spent in idle enjoyment. I do not believe in a separation of work into drudgery and enjoyment. I do not believe that boys and girls in school should be taught to endure the drudgery of the schoolroom for the sake of any fun that is to follow. I do not believe in setting up a dualism between work and enjoyment, that will debase all work into mere drudgery. I believe that both boys and men, who are not overworked, enjoy the work which they can do well. Froebel taught, first, that the child develops thru creative activity; secondly, that the child is benefited by contact with other children, and is happy in proportion as he is unselfishly employed.

In addition to this, every observing person knows that the idea of
drudgery during youth and manhood, with idleness and ease in old age
as a reward for the drudgery, is an illusion. In Tennyson's "Ulysses" we
see pictured the old hero's ennui at the prospect of a life of ease, and of his
longing to continue the work in which his manhood had been passed :
I am become a name;

For always roaming with a hungry heart.
Much have I seen and known- cities of men,
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honoured of them all
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,

Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.

I am a part of all that I have met;

Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'

Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
Forever and forever when I move.

How dull it is to pause, to make an end,

To rest unburnished, not to shine in use,

As tho' to breathe were life. Life piled on life

Were all too little, and of one to me

Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,

A bringer of new things; and vile it were

For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this great spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge, like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

Much of the irksomeness of labor is the result of a belief that all work is drudgery, to be hastened thru with as soon as possible. As long as we attempt to separate work into drudgery now and enjoyment later we shall have people asking whether life is worth living. If we can arouse in our young people the instinct of workmanship thru our manual training and other constructive work; if we can make them feel that labor well done is noble, much of the irksomeness will disappear. If our young people can be made to feel the moral obligation upon every member of society to work-to produce something- they will be better citizens. If they can be made to feel the supreme necessity of becoming interested in their work, they may expect happiness. If our notion of leisure is that of the Greeks, that leisure is only time and opportunity to prepare for the doing of a higher grade of work, the world will be the better for it.

DISCUSSION

SUPERINTENDENT E. H. MARK, Louisville, Ky.-I am interested in this particular subject and very much in accord with the positions taken by the reader of the paper. I especially like that part which says this is a working world. I believe in work, and work in school. I believe in the kindergarten, but I do not believe in carrying kindergarten work into the eighth grade and the high school. We are not getting full results from the energy we expend, because of our failure rightly to appreciate a proper application of work. Only about 20 per cent. of the energy spent in school is effective. We must not make the mistake of bedizening in order to make it appear that we are really working. We attempt sometimes to go outside of the old-fashioned ways, and I am of the opinion that this is not always wise. I believe in the old-fashioned ways, and that some of the things we are now doing would be less objectionable if we had not deserted the old ways of performing them. Boys and girls need to learn to do a few things and to do them well. They should also learn that there is dignity and joy in work.

EDUCATION AT THE PARIS EXPOSITION

HOWARD J. Rogers, DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION AND SOCIAL ECONOMY FOR THE COMMISSIONER-GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES TO THE PARIS EXPOSITION OF 1900

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen:

One of the sad inflictions which follow in the wake of a great exposition is the individual who is always talking of it or lecturing on it. But, in spite of my desire to escape this fate, the invitation of your president was worded so graciously, and a public expression of the obligations of the United States commission for the loyal support of this association so manifestly due, that I felt constrained to accept.

I wanted also to retract, or modify, a statement made before this association two years ago at the Columbus meeting. In outlining the

plans for the United States exhibit I said that we had no national system of education; that we had forty-five systems, with a few territorial annexes thrown in. While in a strictly literal sense this is true, practically it is not. We have today in the United States a greater unity and similarity in courses of study and methods of administration than exist in any other country in the world, with the exception of France. The result of the rigid system of uniformity which enabled the French minister of public instruction a number of years ago to boast that he could look at the clock at any hour of the day and tell what every school child of France was doing, is still in evidence. But the United States educational exhibit at Paris, if it served no other purpose, demonstrated beyond question that the only differences in our educational methods are those of local emphasis, which do not affect the general tendency and unity.

Had the labels over a portion of the work of Boston or New York been interchanged for those of Denver or St. Louis, no one not having a knowledge of its local touches and coloring could have detected the difference. The plan of our exhibit, which placed the work of similar grades side by side, irrespective of localities, brought out this similarity in a most convincing manner. It was the cause of much comment on the part of foreigners and of much surprise on the part of Americans. An impression, more or less well defined, has undoubtedly been in the minds of educational people that this similarity existed, but it had never before been so strikingly demonstrated. We attributed the cause, in our explanations, to two sources: first, to the United States Bureau of Education; its control over the states is purely advisory, but so wise has been its administration, so valuable the information which it has collected and distributed, and to such high renown has it attained under its present commissioner, that its influence as a harmonizing, directive, and unifying force is most powerful; and, secondly, to the National Educational Association, whose meetings are the great clearing-house for educational ideas in this country. There is no need to dwell before this audience upon the value of this association as a common ground for interchange of thought, comparison of methods, forming of acquaintanceships, and promotion of confidence. Yet the magnitude of the organization was puzzling to foreigners and its formation the subject of much inquiry.

The place of education at the Paris exposition was theoretically all that could be desired, but practically there was much that could have been improved. Not yet at an international exposition has a building adequate been devoted solely to education. In Paris, in the Palace of Education was joined the exhibit of the liberal arts, Group III. Space was granted to each nation for both groups together, and the division between the groups left to the commissioner-general of that nation. As a consequence, while most of the exhibits were in the gallery, many were