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With all due respect to the individual men mentioned above, it may be true that no one has the truth, and that no matter how long one man cogitates upon the subject of a liberal education he may be seriously biased.

What is needed, in the opinion of the writer, is an idea of a liberal education (if not accepted, at least seriously considered) that is based coldly upon a study of all the factors mentioned by a large number of thinkers. The factors should be classified, studied and recognized in the construction of a composite definition of a liberal education. Such a method has been suggested by this paper, and such a method has been used (in some degree, at least) in the construction of the Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education. The Cardinal Principles list the main objectives of secondary education as follows:

health,

command of fundamentals,

worthy home membership,

vocation,

citizenship,

worthy use of leisure,

ethical character.

All these objectives should be considered as sub-heads under the appropriate three heads in the composite definition already given. In fact, the composite definition is merely an attempt to produce a connotating statement of all the factors.

In conclusion, and in the light of the above statements, and in contradiction to the above statements, the writer wants to make his own contribution (?) to a definition of a liberal education.* A liberal education should develop in one the habit of postponing conclusions until all the factors of the situation have been taken into consideration. This is not emphasized in the Cardinal Principles, nor is it precisely

From Kilpatrick.

suggested by the other writers as a truly important aim of a liberal education. How many people are there that make up their minds upon an important question purely upon the basis of a black headline in the morning paper, and the strength of their convictions can be measured by the height of the type! How many politicians are there who decide upon important international questions upon the basis of one speech? And how many employers are there who engage service upon the basis of insufficient evidence? The habit is fundamental for every citizen, and should be emphasized and re-emphasized.

And finally, the American High School is fast becoming the people's college. It is becoming the place where young America is educated for the service of the individuals and of the country. It is here that a liberal education should be given; it is here that the all-round citizen should be formed. Can he be formed by memorizing Latin and Algebra? No. Can he be formed by being made a good social mixer? No. Can he be formed by teaching sciences? No. Can he be formed by teaching classics? No. And can he be formed by learning a vocation? No.

It is the function of the secondary schools of America to give a liberal education to the growing people of this land, and it can be done by showing each citizen how to master himself, how to live with his fellows, how to contribute to the material progress of the world, and how to postpone conclusions until all the factors of a situation have been taken into consideration.

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The Question of Teaching English

ZETA COOK MAYHEW, LYNN, MASS.

CHAMIANEJAMMINAR♣ UPERINTENDENTS and principals of schools often find it necessary to ask their teachers the question: "How do you teach English; how do you teach a poem, a drama, a novel, or a short story; what do you mean by 'composition exercise'; and what, in your opinion, constitutes efficient grammatical instruction?"

Had this question, or any single part of it, ever been definitely and perfectly answered by any individual throughout the educational history of the world, the millennium of teaching languages and literature would have been heralded by that answer, and teachers, ere this, would have enjoyed the possession and exercise of a perfect method. However, each crumb of efficiency in the numerous efforts made to give such a solution has helped to smooth the rugged path of the upward toiling procession of weary teachers.

In the first place, the "law of variation," in its very nature of individualism, makes it impossible for any set recipe ever to be devised whereby poems, dramas, novels, short stories, or any other type of literature can be perfectly taught to all children, in all conditions, at all times, and under all circumstances of instruction and environment, even though allowance be made for grade, age, and suitability of selection. The same condition applies to the teaching of the principles of usage, or so-called grammar, and of composition. By this natural law, a law which, in this application, may be more accurately termed the law of individuality, efficiency in instruction demands a certain degree of difference with each successive step; and although a poem may be repeated by the same teacher to the same pupil, natural progress-and we are considering progress as the natural condition-compels a for

ward step in appreciation and understanding. Let it be remembered here that the most backward pupil does absorb some benefit from good instruction, even though it be no more than reading or hearing read a good piece of literature; imperceptible as this may be to the disheartened instructor, it is, nevertheless, truth, and each repetition of right work has its separate and different effect.

No teacher can repeat a course continually, if conscientious and capable, and fail to change as constantly in his procedure. The most efficient teachers openly avow they never "repeat" courses, but give their courses in poetry, drama, novel, et cetera, anew. Happily, for this age, are we being awakened to the fact that the teacher who boasts of his fifteen or twenty years of use of "the same methods," those which launched him upon the ever-changing stream of modern instruction, is being rapidly relegated to the topmost shelf in the darkest corner of the museum of antiquities in the history of education.

First of all, then, it is on this basis of exchange of helpful suggestions that the greatest benefits are derived from the many articles appearing in various educational magazines, as well as from the many well written books on the subject of teaching English, together with the discussions among the teachers themselves.

Secondly, it is just as impossible to fit any set of suggestions, no matter how good they may be, to the teaching of a poem, a drama, a novel, a short story, or to any class, for that matter, whether it be as a type, literature, grammar, or composition, as it is for teachers in general to teach pupils in general by means of any individual recipe or rule.

Great artists have told us that art is an expression of impressions; great writers have called literature life; all of us agree that literature in its highest sense is art, and we define this term, "art," specifically as the expression of truth, and, for the sake of emphasis, it is sometimes added "a" truth to

life, which is, however, repetition of meaning. Life is infinite; each visible form of expression is only a symbol of some phase of Infinity, and whether this symbol be termed literature, painting, sculpture, architecture, or music, it is, on the contrary, finite. The problem, then, is to express the Infinite of thought and experience when we realize only finite implements. Every means of variation which will lend itself to higher unfoldment of interpretation must be commended: the voice, bodily and facial expression, words in their various constructive relations, both grammatical and rhetorical, all these work together to impress truth,-truth which is not to be confounded with fact.

Each piece of literature has its specific message, and no general method can exhaust the good of infinite truth revealed in the innumerable expressions provided for us.

Then to answer the question, how to teach any type of literature, resolves itself for reply, not into specific or final form, but into an adequate and variable generalization, including only such elements as go to make up all poems, all novels, all short stories, or all dramas; that is to say, common characteristics of the type, whatever they may be.

For present purpose, this paper will be confined to the discussion of the teaching of English in secondary schools; however, it must be remembered that the proficiency of any method depends upon the foundation laid in the elementary and intermediate grades. The warfare waged by the secondary schools is an unsuccessful attempt to grind out at the end of four years a class constituted of a group of individuals equally equipped for higher institutions of learning or to make their debut into the world's work and to take up the activities of true citizenship.

Therefore, only a word, by way of connection, can be said in regard to earlier instruction. The child who enters high school with a rich fund of impressions gained through the intimate touch of folk and fairy lands, with the powers to

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