seven years of age, he might be put at once into the Primary Transition Department, to remain for two years or less according to his degree of maturity; after which he might enter the Elementary Department and proceed according to the regular course.

If he were already unquestionably past the stage of "childhood proper," the stage for the Play School, or Primary Department,— say nine or ten years of age,-when first sent to school, the boy (or girl) might still be put into the Primary Transition Department for a few months for special instruction, if it were not the beginning of the school year, and be there given the rudiments of reading and of number work (if he had not already absorbed them at home), or he might enter the Elementary Department at once if he should begin school at the beginning of the school year. Although his mind would probably be less well developed than the minds of his classmates, who would generally have spent about four years in the Play School and Primary Transition Department together, yet the work of the Elementary Department would be so largely independent of what precedes and follows it that any normal child at the stage of growth corresponding to this department of the school would be able to pursue the curriculum of the department satisfactorily even though this were the beginning of school life for him, and would be able to leave this department for the Secondary Transition Department when he should reach the stage of puberty, even though the lack of early opportunity would probably prevent the education of one who had thus begun school in the Elementary Department from being as thoroughly good as that of his more fortunate classmates.

Let us now consider the case of a boy (or girl) who for some special reason, as ill health in childhood or a life spent in the backwoods, were eleven or more years old when first brought to school, at which time we may suppose him to be wholly ignorant of "the three R's." In this case, if it were not the time at which a class of the Elementary Department were beginning, the boy might spend the intervening months in the Primary Transition Department, but as soon as an Elementary Department class should begin I would put him into it. Further than this, if he should ma

ture early, should enter upon adolescence at thirteen, say, and should be restless and dissatisfied to be working with younger or less mature children, I would then put him into the Secondary

Transition Department, even though he had spent less than three years in all in school, and though he were manifestly inferior in his knowledge of arithmetic, English, etc. to the classmates who remained in the Elementary Department when he was taken out of it.

Finally, if a youth should have had no opportunity for schooling before adolescence, and at fifteen (or, for that matter at twenty), should come to school unable to read and write, I would not only not have him begin in the Primary Department, I would not have him begin in the Elementary Department, but would put him at once into the Secondary Transition Department, having him devote to special coaching in reading, writing and arithmetic, the time spent by his classmates in elective work, and in the English reading course. In two years at most, I am confident,-judging not alone, by the light of psychology, but also by that of history and biography, the normally endowed youth, though ignorant as a savage at the start, would be able to enter upon the curriculum of the adolescent, or Secondary Department with profit. Of course he would not be as thoroughly educated as his fellows, who had had the advantage of a school in each of the lower stages of their development; he would be at an unquestionable disadvantage; his work would as a matter of course be harder for him and would seem more uncouth to his fellows; but nevertheless he would be able to enter upon and pursue a secondary education, and should be set at that, not at primary or at intermediate school work,-because he would be in the stage of development for secondary education.

THE END.

At the time this study was planned few American school authorities would make room at all for what I have called a Secondary Transition department and what some cities (as Los Angeles) call an Intermediate school and others (as Worcester) call a preparatory school. At the time this essay on the Organization of Education took its final form I had succeeded with difficulty in getting a modification of my Secondary Transition department substituted for the usual first year of high school in a western city, and later pushed down into the "grammar school" period of school life. I was influenced by such practical considerations as these to treat this transition department as a short course to be substituted for the usual eighth grade. At the present time I rejoice to know that the conservative presentation I have given to the subject is no longer necessary, and that a number of progressive cities (including my present home, Los Angeles) have adopted a three-year transition department beginning as low as the seventh grade. F. W. S.

A

Some Ear-marks of a University

WALLACE N. STEARNS, FARGO, NORTH DAKOTA |||||||||VARIABLE quantity, through the centuries, the University has come to signify the rounding out of the educational system. There are still many parodies in existence today, shingles hung out, but though full of promise as they may be, are unworthy of the name. The term has often been expressive rather of the ambition and zeal of the founders; here and there resumption of the name "college" has been a recognition of the logic of events. What the American University is to be scarcely yet appears. One may be permitted, perhaps, to conjecture. The brow of a certain hill is crowned with expensive buildings, but there is as yet no University. A company of enthusiastic, trained scholars were provided with quarters in renovated residences and tenements. From the unostentatious beginning graduate study in American was commenced. By their fruits they are known. That was a University.

The purpose of a University is three-fold-investigation and research; instruction at the University site and by extension; publication and propaganda. A university is not a home nor a refuge nor an elemosynery institution. Every man on the staff should be a producer, a student, a scholar. If the time of productivity has ceased, then the professor should be one whose activities have brought honor to the institution and increased range and usefulness to his department of learning or else he should be one whose life has grown mellow with time, his judgment saner by experience, and his presence a benediction and a stimulus to younger men. Agassiz, Gray, Dana, Winchell, LeConte, and scores of scholars attest the value of a life that never dies. The Faculty do not own the University. It is too large a heritage to hand over to any one class or generation of men. The professor is the servant of the Institution, and to it owes ever and always his best endeavor. The American scholar has not come to his own. He has realized but some single phase of his true self. An apostle of truth the scholar should urgently seek where truth is to be found. As one

who has realized the moulding power of wisdom, he should show a life thus moulded. Students should not only behold a prodigy of information, they should feel the superb manliness, the power of a genuine life, and the matchless finish of a sound culture.

A University professor approached his president for an advance in salary, urging that his paltry three thousand and more was too beggarly a pittance for his family. In that same university the Alumni met to celebrate their beloved Alma Mater, and on conclusion sent the bill, some two hundred dollars or less, to the University comptroller for settlement. And the latter case is the logical outcome of the former. A University recently sent a plea to its graduates begging funds for its starving faculty. And yet the assistant professors at that time were receiving on the University showing, eighteen hundred dollars, more than the average business man has for the support of his family. If the simple life should be exemplified by any one, it should be practised by University instructors before the thousands of young folk whose habits are still in the forming.

Around every live teaching body there gathers a company of those to be taught. These students are the seed of a better generation. Learning, devotion to their cause and calling, and the shaping of a right manner of life are all part of their great discipleship. But the University can not wait to mould society by such indirect means alone. Every member of the staff is a unit in the social order. There is no partition wall between the Town and the University. As the man of wealth gives of his means, so the scholar gives of his learning and wisdom. Through University extension the great mass of people are to be reached and leavened. Public taste must be trained: appreciation of the best things must be inculcated. It is the writer's experience that the public is eager, ready, and though chargeable sometimes with lack in judgment yet always reasonable.

The third form of activity is the printing press. To put the price of needed books above the purse of any class of people is to rob those people and so far fall short of the University's mission. The University is incomplete without a University Press, affording an opportunity to be heard to every man with something to say, and bringing learning within the reach of all who really desire it. A University Faculty is a study, often a conundrum. With all

their attainments they are still human, and training often makes them only more intensely human. One man is elated by a success and is prone to think more highly of himself than he ought, or at least more highly than others are wont to think of him. Others, to quote a statesman's view of a modern hero, are "disagreable but effective." To marshal the forces of a University, keep them in combinations that are harmonious, keep them all busy, and all the time to promote peace,—is a task calling for consummate generalship. A successful University president is a veritable captain of industry. And it is his glory if he can build up a company of productive scholars who with power to discover and formulate knowledge combine the love of dividing it with their fellows occupied in other pursuits.

II.

For such an aggregation of talent and efficiency, a strong material equipment is necessary, something like the accompanying plan plus, of course, such landscape and achitectural features as each several case permits. This is a University. The buildings should be of fire-proof material, massive, simple yet imposing, of harmonious architecture and adapted to the use intended. The main buildings would be cheap at a half-million each, the library and chapel should cost each at least a million. Each of the latter two crowns a group, each group complete in itself. The library dominates the approach: the chapel dominates the whole as religion (not theology) has dominated history. Add space and depth to this campus and we have an effect that could not be otherwise than magnificently imposing.

About this centre might be grouped the residence colleges, each three-fold with its dormitory, refectory, and chapel for family prayers. Herding students in huge barracks has anything but a cultural influence-like stacking eggs in a crate, each in its little cell isolated from every other. The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge have beyond all else given their students ideal homing facilities and are largely responsible for the home idea to which Englishmen as a rule so tenaciously cling. Exclusive some might say, yet from these surroundings went forth the Oxford Reformers, Methodism, Wiclif and Lollardism, Toynbee Hall, and other move