phrase, è̟nì ñaideía, for culture, while secondary or more special training is eì тexvý, for an art or trade. To reach this conclusion the learned commission have been obliged to give to the word art or trade a very unusual scope. It is held to include the interpretation of a literature or a science, the making of a picture or a book, the practise of a plastic or a manual art, the convincing of a jury or the persuading of a senate, the translating or the annotating of an author, the dyeing of wool, the weaving of cloth, the designing or the constructing of a machine, the navigating of a ship or the commanding of an army.1 I am able to see in this definition and description only an elaborate begging of the question. The very name secondary implies that it has reference to a primary or elementary education that comes before it. This elementary education I define as that general training in the elements of knowledge that is suitable for a pupil from the age of six or seven to the period of adolescence. It is ordinarily organized in eight or nine grades, each occupying an academic Nine grades are too many and are distinctly wasteful. To spend so much time on these simple studies leads to that arrested year. The secondaryschool programme of study development which is so often the bane of the elementary-school period. I have never known a child who needed more than six years' time in which to complete the elementary course, and I have known but few who have, as an actual fact, ever taken longer than that. An eight-year course is certainly ample for any community, and children should be given every encouragement and every opportunity to cover the elementary studies in even less time. The plan of studies in the elementary school is pretty much the same the world over. It is most clearly and concisely stated in the French decree of January 18, 1887, which defines elementary education as made up of the elements of morals and of civics; reading and writing; the study of the French language; arithmetic, including the metric system; history and geography, particularly those of France; objectlessons and the elements of science; the elements of drawing, singing, and manual training; gymnastics and military exercises. In the nature of the case all this instruction will deal with elementary and simple notions only, and, psychologically speaking, it will lay much emphasis upon sense-perception and the imitative instinct. The nature of the child-mind requires that. Yet it is the gravest of errors in early teaching to suppose that sense-perception is itself incapable of analysis and that no thought-process is involved in it. Kant long ago said that all knowledge is judgment, and Doctor Harris has clearly shown the nature of the judgment that is implied in the activities. of sense.1 It must not be supposed, therefore, that between the mental activities of the child in the elementary school and those of his fellow in the secondary school there is a great gulf fixed. Quite the contrary: the two sets of activities are alike in kind, and differ only in quality and in the explicitness of the processes involved. What is hidden beneath the surface in the mind of the child from six to twelve comes more and more fully into consciousness in the child from twelve to sixteen. There will, therefore, be an easy and gradual progression from the earlier stage to the later one, and it is a hopeless and unjustifiable undertaking to attempt, as is sometimes done, to draw a hardand-fast line between them. adolescence The marked characteristics of the pupil of Charactersecondary-school age are due to the fact that, istics of as Rousseau puts it, we are born twice; the first time into existence, the second time into 1Psychologic Foundations of Education (New York, 1898), chaps. IX, X. life; the first time as a member of the race, the second time as a member of the sex-in other words, they are due to the phenomena of adolescence. The physical and mental effects of this epoch in human life begin earlier and last longer than is sometimes supposed. They dominate the entire secondary-school period. Rapid growth and increase of nervous and mental energy mark these years. Emotions, vague and disordered, displace the placidity of earlier life. Ambitions, yearnings, desires are formulated crudely and for the first time. Introspection begins and a morbid self-consciousness is not infrequent. The future, hitherto almost unthought of, becomes of great interest and importance, and overshadows the present. Abnormally intense religious experiences and reflections are common. The old and familiar tasks, occupations, and games no longer suffice; the soul seems to overflow, as it were, and demands new and more difficult problems to occupy it and to absorb its activities. The higher thought-processes, until now latent, exhibit themselves in a variety of ways, and more formal and elaborate chains of inference supersede the reasoning from one particular instance to another that is so characteristic of the little child. secondary studies These facts point directly to the essential Charactercharacteristics of secondary-school studies. istics of They must, in the first place, be comparative school and reflective in character in order to provide food for the newly discovered intellectual capacities; in the second place, they must be and continue to become more and more difficult, in order to occupy and develop the augmented nervous and mental energy that now presents itself; and in the third place, the tendency to introspection and analysis must be satisfied by the disclosing of the inner connections and deeper reasons of the subjects taught. When these three conditions are fulfilled then, and only then, is secondary education being carried on upon a proper and a scientific basis. No amount of rearranging or reviewing elementary studies will make a secondary-school course. The characteristics to which I have just referred must be present in order that a secondaryschool course may be worthy of the name. A foreign language, ancient or modern, no matter at what age it is begun, is a secondary study because it invites and compels comparison with the mother tongue and a more or less reflective analysis of the two vocabularies and the two sets of grammatical and syntactical forms. Algebra is a secondary study because |