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it, once more to listen to the music of the loud resounding sea. Was what he thought and learned fantastical? I think not. But the more modern child, alive with the instinct for poetry and beauty, despite the unfavorable character of his intellectual atmosphere, puts the shell to his ear and is struck and awed by its faint yet mighty echo. He runs to his mamma and says: "Mamma, what is that which I hear?" and the mother, with more knowledge than wisdom, replies, "My child, your blood coursing through your veins and arteries from your little heart, as a result of its systole and diastole, sets the shell in vibration, and its vibrations are in turn communicated to the auditory nerve by a membrane called the tympanum and three little bones— the hammer, anvil and stirrups - thence to the brain, where they are transmuted into consciousness." And the child drops the shell. wonder he didn't suppose that he heard any such thing as that, and kicks a chair and bites his baby sister, and is as naughty as a child can be when he asks for bread and is given a stone.

No

How different the atmosphere of the Greek child, who heard in the thunder the voice of Zeus, and saw in the red lightning the evidence of his dread omnipotence-positive and negative electricity can never fill the places of the gods- who looked for a nymph in every fountain and a dryad in each wooded glade. Small wonder that he developed a taste for perfection in form and expression which the genius of a Phidias or a Sophocles alone could satisfy. But with no manner of unfavorable surroundings or attendant circumstances, can you kill the faculties of the human soul. They may be deadened, they may be dwarfed, but they still contain the element of life, they can still be aroused to vital activity. Every child has creative capacity, simply because he has a will.

Such at least is the theory which is proclaimed from our pulpits, however little hold it may have on our habitual manner of thought, and which the most inspiring of our poets and philosophers have sanctioned and spiritually discerned. Experience confirms its truth. Two years and more ago, the definite and systematic study of English by first year pupils was introduced into the Classical High School, at Worcester, by its present principal, Dr. Wight. After a little, the work developed itself substantially along three lines—a careful study of a portion of the works of two American authors; of the grammatical and rhetorical

principles which are most frequently violated by users of English ; and persistent work in English composition.

In some classes the pupils were, and still are, required to write a little every day. The results were surprising. Boys and girls, at the end of a year of such work, wrote better on the average than members of the same class who had never had regular and systematic drill in English. We have had some excellent original production, in which the thought was not only neatly and correctly expressed, but also strikingly and beautifully expressed. That is to say, in some cases we have succeeded in developing style, not in the general run, to be sure, but could the work be maintained throughout the course, I am confident that the majority of pupils could be brought to produce work of genuine literary merit.

This brings the question of method fairly into the field, and I have but a moment for it. So far as my own experience in teaching English is concerned, I am convinced that persistent work in composition is the key to ultimate success; that is the one thing on which chief emphasis should be placed. The themes which I have in mind should have a definite and well considered form; should be carefully planned, and methodically developed.

Every one has been delighted with the inimitable grace with which Mr. Thurber ridicules the set composition, with its introduction, its orderly paragraphs, and the bow and flourishes with which it concludes. But after all, an introduction is merely a beginning, and there are beginnings and beginnings. If you doubt it, study Matthew Arnold's marvelous introductions and then look at the next bit of commonplace criticism which you encounter.

There are paragraphs to be sure, but paragraphs are simply indicative of the orderly and accurate progression of the thought, and thought ought surely to be orderly and accurate. One must finish somehow, and it must be as well to retire gracefully from the stage, if grace be possible, as to shuffle off or jump down. A courtesy is preferable to a grimace. It is easy to laugh at grammars and rhetorics, by whose aid some teachers seek to better the work of their classes in English; but these unfortunate books, it must be remembered, are only attempts to state as the result of empirical research, the principles by which, wittingly or no, the masters of English prose and verse have been governed in their work.

Such knowledge, though imperfect, is yet very valuable. I know that an imaginary pedagogic prudery in the use of English has been made the subject of much good humored reproach, and that Professor Lounsbury refers to "that school master English whose Professors are found in every hamlet and cast a gloom over nearly every fireside."

But one surely might be allowed to remind Professor Lounsbury that there is such a thing as inoffensive precision outside of Rhetorics as well as in them. The cleverness of his remark is only equalled by the difficulty of its verification. I cannot speak for the nation, but there are no school masters of the type referred to in Worcester, and I remember meeting none in St. Lawrence County, New York.

Such a pedagogue is as much a myth as the loquacious barber, the terrible enfant, and the plain girl from Boston. These, with the school master, furnish materials for the pleasantries of newspaper men and Professor Lounsbury, but they are as non existent as Don Quixote's Dulcinea. Barbers are silent men, children are seldom embarrassing, and school masters—well, their English is rarely above reproach of any kind.

A direct and persistent study of English, whose only view is the improvement and perfecting of one's self in the language, is the sole method by which any permanent and decisive attainment in English can be gained. It is a favorite doctrine that, so far as form and expression go, English can be taught sufficiently as a part of the general work of a school, because in all classes pupils, when they speak and write, speak and write English. To an extent this view is sound, but only to an extent.

Exclusive of the studies which deal with English specifically as such, the curriculum of the average secondary school comprises ancient and modern languages; mathematics and a little of most of the sciences; history, with civil government and perhaps political economy; and, it may be, a touch of mental and moral philosophy.

Just how much is likely to be accomplished for the advancement of English by these? By the study of the Classics and of language in general, much, did not the demands of grammar and syntaxdemands which are legitimate, nay, more, inevitable - make it impossible to devote much time to the perfection of translation. Bright pupils, who are willing to work hard and who strive for

excellence and finish in their English renderings, find the classics of exceeding value in acquiring proficiency in the vernacular. But for the mass of pupils, such study does little in behalf of English. As regards the work, both oral and written, in all the other branches there is, as it appears to me, one decisive objection to their being either efficient or sufficient aids in the improvement of written or spoken English, except in so far as the general increase of mental power derived from their pursuit conduces to that end.

It is this. In these studies the thought is so largely independent of the particular language in which it is couched, it so overshadows in importance the form of words which embody it, and it requires from the immature pupil who is endeavoring to state it such unqualified attention to prevent its eluding him completely, that he cannot give to his language that care and consideration which language demands if it is to be used to the best advantage.

Neither does the nature of the subject warrant such extreme care and consideration. The average pupil, unless he learns a demonstration in geometry by rote, inevitably states it in dubious English, since the matter so wholly absorbs his attention that there is nothing left to bestow upon the form. It is, in fact, absurd to expect that a boy or girl can state and explain Ricardo's Theory of Rent in unquestionable English, either on examination or in recitation. Those studies which are not directly literary and whose thought is new and difficult of apprehension, from their very nature afford little scope for developing facility and grace in the use of the mother tongue. Such studies afford an opportunity for applying literary principles which should have been learned and practised elsewhere, to wit: in the definite study of English and its composition; they cannot properly be made instrumental in acquiring these principles. In them literary tools may be used and sharpened, but not made.

Still further, it is not enough to be learned, or to think both clearly and profoundly, in order to write well. Kant, with his verbal rather than mental difficulties, and Hegel, with his camps of hostile followers at the centre and on either wing, sufficiently demonstrate this.

A few months ago a prominent New York publisher said, in reply to a remark of mine relative to the high grade of his books;

"It is the hardest thing to find men who know their subjects and can write about them well. A good style in a professor is very unusual."

It may as well be recognized first as last, for at last it is sure to be recognized, that good English is neither an incident, an accident, an efflorescence, nor an indirect result; it is an acquirement, gained, as are all other acquirements, by direct and unremitting effort in its immediate direction, that is, along lines of study in which the expression is so inevitably a part of the thought that one cannot exist without the other, which is a poor way of saying, along distinctly literary lines.

The substance of the whole matter was summed up by President Eliot when, at last year's meeting of the New England Association of Colleges and Preparatory Schools, he remarked, "I have an impression that the only way to learn to write is by writing; and he might properly enough have added, not by writing geometry examinations - thus one would learn to write geometry but by writing on themes which afford at least the possibility of literary art. Thus one learns to write anything.

METRIC WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.

PROF. JOSEPH V. COLLINS, STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, STEVENS POINT, WIS.

A curious thing developing out of the use of standard time in this country has been the refusal of large numbers of towns to give up their local time, usually that of some neighboring city, and replace it by standard time. It merely illustrates the ultraconservative spirit present, in such matters, in the minds of the masses, and shows the difficulties in the way of the general adoption of a uniform system of weights and measures. It is to be sincerely hoped, however, that just as the railroads secured for us a uniformity in time, so, some new and potent influence will come into existence to force the adoption in this country of the metric weights and measures now so widely used by other nations of the world.

The French Commission, appointed in 1790 to devise a system of weights and measures, consisted of LaGrange, LaPlace, Monge, Borda and Condorcet, five as eminent men as ever brought in a scientific report. One of the most difficult questions which they set

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