The boy should stay in the high school until he is eighteen, and then go to the university, or he should enter the college at sixteen and pass forward to the university in two years. The man should begin to take part in the real work of the world at twenty-one, but he should never regard his education as complete, and should for many years, if not always, continue to spend some time in work at the university....

"In my opinion, the university is or should be a group of professional schools, giving the best available preparation for each trade and profession. It is more feasible to give such training than to teach culture or research. These, like the building of character, are not the result of any particular kind of curriculum. Culture comes from daily and immediate association with the best that the world has; and this should be found at the university.

"The chief difficulty in securing the right men for university chairs is the small field from which they must be drawn. When we have a hundred thousand men of university training teaching in the schools, there will be those deserving promotion. When we have more students doing research work at the universities, there will be more men of genius for the higher offices. We should, without delay, introduce the Privatdocent system of Germany." Germany. Е. С. Н.

....

The Definition of Sociology. - The opening article in the Popular Science Monthly for June reproduces a discussion before the Philosophical Society of Washington, on "The Definition of Some Modern Sciences." There was an introduction by Professor W. H. Dall. Hon. Carroll D. Wright spoke on statistics, Professor Roland P. Falkener on political economy, Professor E. A. Pace on psychology, and Lester F. Ward on sociology.

The

Mr. Ward offers the proposition that "in the complex sciences the quality of exactness is only perceivable in their higher generalizations," or "scientific laws increase in generality as the sciences to which they apply increase in complexity." Accordingly, in sociology, the most complex of the sciences, the laws must be the most highly generalized. The wants and passions of men everywhere show resemblances, and are subject to a uniform law of psychic and social development in all corners of the earth. "There is nothing new in 'news' except a difference in the names. events are always the same." Society is a domain of law, and sociology is an abstract science in the sense that it does not attend to details except as aids in arriving at the law that underlies them all. There are many social or sociological laws, but they all may be grouped and generalized into one fundamental law, the law of parsimony. This has been regarded as merely an economic law, but it is much broader than this. It has its homologue in the natural sciences, and is the scientific corner-stone of that collective psychology which constitutes so nearly the whole of sociology. A sentient and rational being will always seek the greatest gain, or the maximum resultant of gain his "marginal" advantage. This refers not alone to pecuniary gain, or temporary or immediate gain. It allows the effectiveness of worthy as well as of unworthy motives, and the "transcendental" interests. E. C. H.

Abolition of the Death-Penalty. -In the Archiv für Kriminal-Anthropologie und Kriminalistik, 9. Bd., 2. Heft, Ernst Lohsing has an article on "Abschaffung der Todesstrafe." Professor Hans Gross, editor of this publication, in its seventh volume had maintained that to put to death anarchists who have attempted assassination is to help them in the direction of their desire to die in the glory of martyrdom, while taking along a mighty companion to the shades. He accordingly argued that, if not for all classes of criminals, at least for anarchistic assassins the death-penalty should be abolished.

Upon this proposition the present writer makes two comments: (1) The criminal has no right to punishment. Punishment is meant to be without the will or against the will of the criminal. Yet, as in the case of tramps who steal in order to be housed and fed in jail through the winter, crime may have punishment as its aim. (2) But if the above suggestion regarding anarchists were adopted, then any murderer who wished to escape the death-penalty would need only to make it appear that he was an anarchist aspiring to martyrdom. The writer nevertheless welcomes the reopening of the question of abolition of the death-penalty. There are cases in which the innocent are condemned. Indeed, as Goldfield remarks, "earthly justice must let fall her sword if she could condemn only in cases of absolute certainty, for witnesses may lie, documents be false, confessions untrue, circumstances misleading."

At the close of this article the editor reiterates his belief that the death-penalty is unjust, antiquated, and dangerous to public weal. E. C. H.

Land and Landscape in the North American Popular Spirit. - While it is impossible to adequately analyze the soul of a people, the task may be simplified by showing the unquestionable influence of the natural surroundings on the mind. The vast political and economical schemes of the American people were suggested to them by the wide area which opened free lands before the immigrant colonists. The imperialistic idea is not of recent origin, but has been working in the people from the begining. It was released from fetters by the War of Independence and was given a new sense of power by the successful struggle for national unity.

Out of the huge enterprises of a continental opportunity has arisen the maker of commercial combinations. To the American "business is art and science, and he devotes himself to it as we do to a scientific work, and he finds therein the poetry of discovery and of solutions of puzzles." The huge in finance is adored, and out of the "golden calf" has grown the mastodon calf.

Individualism is trusted to the extreme limit, even where many weak ones are crushed. In Emerson the doctrine of self-reliance becomes a philosophy of life. Under all the rough and crude aspects of life a real scientific spirit is growing, and in Cooper, Whittier, and Emerson a delicate and spiritual appreciation of landscape which lends luster to the hard struggle of life in the New World. In the sense of humor also lies an evidence and a source of power. In all ways this young people has "grown up with the country" and come to be conscious of its lofty destiny. - PROFESSOR FRIEDRICH RATZEL (Leipzig University), in Deutsche Monatschrift, July, 1902.

C. R. H.

The Value of Human Life. - In the Popular Science Monthly for June, Marshall O. Leighton concludes that courts of law have given such careful scrutiny to the value of the individual to his family, measured by economic productiveness, as to yield trustworthy results; that these results are corroborated by common observation and statistical reasoning; and that the pecuniary value of a life is subject to the same economic laws that apply to the more vulgar commodities. According to these principles the average life rises from an economic value of $1,000 soon after birth to a maximum of nearly $8,000 soon after the age of twenty-five, and thence declines to half the latter amount at the age of sixty. Such results have a curious interest, based as they are upon the decision of courts. E. C. H.

THE AMERICAN

JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

VOLUME VIII

SEPTEMBER, 1902

NUMBER 2

A NEW FACTOR IN THE ELEMENTARY-SCHOOL CURRICULUM.

PREVIOUS to the invention of the printing press there was no elementary school. The education of children was provided by other agencies, among which the family was most important. The elementary school, as a separate institution, originated in the democratic movement that swept over western Europe during the closing years of the Middle Ages and the centuries immediately following. Its function, at first, was not to take charge of those phases of education previously attended to by the family, but to supplement the work by supplying the child with tools made necessary by changed social conditions. The practical education supplied by the family was now found to be insufficient. A demand arose on the part of the people for the opportunity to learn how to read, write, and compute simple arithmetical processes. In response to this demand the elementary school arose, and the three R's long reigned supreme.

But times change. The needs of one age are not identical with those of another. As a consequence of this fact, the institutions organized to meet the demands of one age need constantly to adjust themselves to changing conditions in order to render to society the service that is due.

Stupendous changes have taken place in society since the organization of the elementary school. Revolutions in the industrial and political world have transformed the entire social fabric. The school has felt the action of the new forces and has recognized, in a measure, the validity of the claims represented by each. The scientific spirit, so strong during the last decade, has made itself felt; and we have, in addition to the older geography, the elements of nearly every physical and natural science. Political forces have extended throughout the length and breadth of the land, and appear in the elementary curriculum in the form of civics, political history, and lessons in patriotism. Increasing wealth and leisure are making it possible for art to flourish, and in many quarters it now occupies an important place in the elementary curriculum. The rapid growth of cities, which has attended the development of the factory system, has crowded people together as never before. The consciousness of social responsibility that has been developed in the process is making itself felt, and appears in the school in the demand for a place for the study of social conditions and means of amelioration. The commercial spirit that dominates the age operates to place an emphasis upon the more utilitarian aspects of life. The manual-training movement, which originated in northwestern Europe in the desire to preserve, through school instruction, the technique that was threatening to disappear, has extended to this country, and, under the combined influence of utilitarian and educational forces, has been added to the curriculum. And, finally, educators have become conscious of the fact that there is a deeper significance in the simple house industries in which all children formerly participated than the practical result obtained; and they are beginning to demand an opportunity for the child to participate in industries that have been transferred from the home to the factory. In spite of all these new and vigorous forces, tradition is still powerful and clings to a Middle-Age formalism with a tenacity that would do credit to a better cause.

It is not strange that for several years the subjects corresponding to such diverse forces as these just enumerated should fail to find in one another mutual support. There has not yet The lack of unity

been time for the reconciliation to be made.

has been felt in many places, and attempts have been made, both in theory and in practice, to supply the need. Many tendencies in school practice indicate that the time is ripe for more organized effort than has hitherto been possible. There is less tendency than formerly to occupy children with mere "busywork." There is an increasing eagerness on the part of teachers of all grades to avail themselves of any opportunity by means of which they can substitute for isolated activities occupations vitally related to the content studies of the period. Teachers of manual training are groping about in search of some clue to the problem of how to co-operate with teachers of other subjects and at the same time preserve the integrity of their own work. The same tendency is manifest in the desire to illustrate the content studies by means of various forms of hand-work. Such tendencies as these, although promising with reference to the temper of the times, are superficial and temporary in their effect. They furnish no principle by means of which to unite head, heart, and hand in a process sufficiently broad and far-reaching in its effects to be truly educative.

The many attempts of educational philosophers to discover a unifying principle need not be reviewed at this time. They serve to suggest that, theoretically at least, the need of such a principle has long been felt. Experiment has added the weight of its evidence toward the same end. Many noteworthy contributions have been made. But, in spite of all these, the curriculum of the elementary school, except in specially favored localities, is in nearly as confused a state as ever.

During the past ten years the attention of the educational world has been focused upon the work of Professor John Dewey. He, more than any other educational philosopher, embodies the spirit of the new age and finds a genuine reconciliation of conflicting forces within the educational process itself. His work thus stands in marked contrast to previous attempts at unification which have sought a principle of unity in some one phase of the process or from some external source. His analysis of the educational process as to its form and its content is, perhaps, the most remarkable contribution that has yet been made to