the vast majority of its pupils ask for, and endeavoring also to prepare to the best of its ability the elite of its pupils for the secondary school. It has been suggested that secondary studies should be introduced into the three higher grades of the primary school, but this smattering of secondary studies would probably have, on the whole, an unhappy effect on the majority of primary school pupils.

Other teachers advocate the commencement of the secondary school course at twelve years instead of fourteen years of age. It is universally acknowledged that fourteen is a very late age for the pupil to begin secondary studies, and this late age undoubtedly accounts for the very superficial knowledge of real secondary studies that the average high school pupil possesses on leaving school. This late age of beginning and the short course of the secondary school-viz., four years— make a comparison between the attainments of the American secondary pupil with the secondary pupil of other countries unfair.

This system affords a sharp contrast to the systems of France and Germany. Indeed, as purely instruction machines there is hardly a comparison possible, and the product of the French or German system, looked at from the point of view of intellectual attainments, is far superior to the product of the American school.

Yet as a preparation for life—as a place for the development of character and the growth of individuality-who will decide between these schools?

It is true that the pupils from the high schools often have but a poor knowledge of the subjects of instruction; nevertheless, they have preserved the natural curiosity and acquisitiveness which children always take to school but rarely bring away with them, their physical stamina has not been lowered by excessive mental toil, the school games have developed their muscular powers and nourished their self resource, and they leave school, not indeed cultured citizens, but with a certain mental alertness; finally, during their school life they have not lost touch with the life outside. They go into the throng with ready wits, keen senses, and

a complete consciousness that the victories of life are in front, not behind them.

Their intellectual taste has not been satisfied but only sharpened by school life. They lack knowledge, but they have not lost the desire for knowledge, and they have acquired a certain power of securing knowledge for themselves. In fact, to the American, school is the beginning, not the end of education,

THE AMERICAN SCHOOLBOY.

BY LUTHER H. GULICK.

[Luther Halsey Gulick, director of physical training in the public schools of Greater New York; born Dec. 4, 1865, in Honolulu, Hawaii; graduated from the medical department of New York university in 1889; has been secretary of physical training in the International Committee of the Y. M. C. A. since 1887; 1900-03, was principal of Pratt Institute High school; in 1903 he became president of the Association for the Advancement of Physical Education as well as director of the physical training of the public schools of Greater New York; he is the author of Physical Measurements.]

From October to December, 1903, a commission of educational experts from England visited and studied the educational conditions of America. No one subject of their report has been more generally commented on by the public press than that which refers to the effects of our large number of women teachers. In order that I may be perfectly fair in considering these criticisms, I venture to quote them with some detail. My quotations are taken from the Reports of the Mosely Educational Commission to the United States of America, London, 1904. I have selected the statements from these reports as voicing the particular criticisms which we are to consider, because nowhere else have these criticisms been more fully or concisely made, as well as because they have attracted such widespread attention. It is not my aim to consider merely the report of the Mosely commission as such. I take this report because it stands for the whole subject. Professor Henry E. Armstrong, Ph.D., LL.D., F.R.S., says:

"Most of us who are conversant with school work were struck by the distinctly low average of attainment in the American high schools. To what is this attributable? In part probably to the conditions which prevail in American life, but in large measure also, I venture to think, to the prevalence of mixed schools and the preponderance of women teachers.

"Admitting that it may be possible, even desirable, to bring up the two sexes together in the early years of school life, I venture to think that we must sooner or later come to admit that it is wrong to do so during the later years, if the object be the development of a virile man. To put the matter

in very simple terms, it seemed to me on the occasion of my former visit-and the impression was confirmed during my recent visit-that the boy in America is not being brought up to punch another boy's head, or to stand having his own punched in a healthy and proper manner; that there is a strange and indefinable air coming over the man; a tendency toward a common, if I may so call it, sexless tone of thought. "But if coeducation be bad in itself, it becomes infinitely worse when the teachers are mostly women; they should rather be men mostly. Nowhere is the claim on behalf of women to equality with men put forward so strongly as it is in the United States. Nowhere, I believe, would it be found to be more disproved in practice, if carefully inquired into. Women have sought in recent times to prove that they can compete successfully with men in every field; they claim to have succeeded, but the claim cannot be allowed, I think. They have shown-what it was unnecessary to show-that they are indefatigable workers; and they have shown that they can pass examinations with brilliant success. But what has been the character of the examinations? Almost invariably they have been such as to require the reproduction of learning, not original effort. History records but very few cases of women with any approach to originality; it proves the sex to have been lacking in creative, in imaginative power. Those who have taught women students are one and all in agreement that, although close workers and most faithful and accurate observers, yet, with the rarest exceptions, they are incapable of doing independent and original work. And it must be so. Throughout the entire period of her existence, woman has been man's slave; and if the theory of evolution be in any way correct, there is no reason to suppose, I imagine, that she will recover from the mental disabilities which this has entailed upon her within any period which we, for practical purposes, can regard as reasonable. Education can do little to modify her nature. The argument is one which women probably will not, perhaps cannot, appreciate. No better proof could be asked for, however, than is afforded by the consistent failure of women to discover special wants of their own-they have always merely asked to have what men have, to be allowed

to compete with men. Domestic subjects have been taught in the most perfunctory manner possible."

This quotation gives an excellent summary of the general point of view of the gentlemen of the Mosely commission.

Before proceeding to the consideration of the facts themselves, it is interesting to note that the critics do not think that woman's nature can be changed by education, but that man's can be, for Professor Armstrong says: "Education can do little to modify her nature."

Professor Armstrong evidently appreciates the force of social heredity in the case of boys, but not in the case of girls. This is to me an exceedingly interesting example of taking the two horns of a dilemma alternately, according to the point to be made.

Let us now examine the facts in the case. I draw my data from the schools of greater New York, because in New York city many of the problems of education are discovered in their most acute form; it is our largest American city, as well as because it has borne the brunt of especial criticism. In New York are seen the results of many conditions, such as congestion, which are not as yet equally apparent in smaller cities. To what extent is it true that the female teachers preponderate in the elementary schools?

We all agree that the teaching of children during the first few years of school life should be by women. The teaching of girls all through the elementary school should be by women, and one half of the instruction of boys should be by women. To accomplish this result in New York there would be needed 9,463 women and 810 men. As an actual fact New York city has 9,565 women and 708 men.

It does not appear, then, that the assumption that these boys are being effeminized because of the excess of women teachers is a true one. They may be becoming effeminized, but if they are it is not because of the preponderance of women teachers in the secondary schools. I have not been to the pains to get together the data with reference to the proportions of men and women teachers in the colleges, for these are at present attended by less than 2 per cent of our population,