`here to-day and attempt a practical solution of it, he could do it in some such manner as this. In the first place he would put in the academy and the college the very best men that could be found for the positions. He would then advertise throughout the state of New York that here was an institution that was conducted on the old college lines. Pupils could enter the academy at 11 or 12 years of age. By 15 they would be ready to enter college. They could go through Colgate college in four years more, so that at 19 those of them who wished to engage in business could do so at that age. Those who wished to pursue university education could enter some of the large universities of the country.

I believe therefore that we can not coordinate our existing academies with the colleges without diverting them from the end for which they were instituted. It seems to me that the problem can be solved here as in Germany and England by the institution of special preparatory schools, and the wealth of this country, which to-day is flowing by hundreds of thousands into university and college funds, might flow into the academy treasuries as well.

So far as the other question is concerned, the coordination of colleges and universities, I shall scarcely venture to say a word. It seems to me that this is a question which must be handled with great delicacy, because we are solving a problem which does not exist in any other country of the world, I think we must wait partly for the healing effects of time and partly to get a little more light than we have to-day on the subject. To my mind it is not a question of coordination of colleges and universities, but the coordination of colleges and preparatory schools which must exist for the sake of preparing students for the college.

Prof. Monroe Smith - When anybody indicates disapproval of the method in which most of our administrative officers are appointed, he is commonly told that the existing system is "American." When anybody suggests that appointments be taken out of the hands of the politicians by means of competitive examinations, he is met with the statement that such a system is "Chinese." Similar arguments appear when we endeavor to improve our method of voting; that also is declared to be something specifically "American," and the state ballot is stigmatized as "Australian." It was such a misuse of patriotic argument, I suppose, that led Dr Johnson to speak of patriotism as the last refuge of scoundrels. Dr Johnson, who was a hot-tempered man, doubtless went too far in this general

ization; but I think it may be safely said that the use of the patriotic appeal frequenty indicates a lack of other and more logical arguments.

In such discussions as the present, it is often said that the American college is something specifically American; and it is commonly implied that because it is American, it is beyond criticism, or at least that it is incapable of improvement through any changes suggested by the experience of foreign systems. We might surely grant the premise without accepting any such conclusion. But for my part, I deny the premise. I deny that the American college is in its main lines anything specifically American. The American college stands now in a stage (or rather in several distinct stages) of an evolution through which the higher educational institutions of Europe have already passed. The higher institutions of Europe were at first distinctly preparatory schools, like the colleges first established in this country. Like our colleges, they rested upon ecclesiastical foundations, and were primarily designed to prepare their students for a course of theological study. In Europe, as the result of a long process of development, some of these schools have raised and broadened their work. They have undertaken to cover the whole field of professional study, and have occupied besides the whole field of the highest non-professional education. The work which they used to do has been thrown off upon preparatory schools. The slightest study of the evolution of the European university will show that there is nothing novel, nothing peculiarly American, about the American college, at least in its main lines. It simply represents a stage of evolution; and to ask us to pin ourselves to a stage of evolution is preposterous.

A generation ago the American college was fitting men for many other professions than the clerical, but it was still simply a fitting. school for the professional schools. Hardly anything more was attempted, and there was no university in this country at all. University work was represented by scattered professional schools and a great deal of university work was not done at all. Then all the neglected subjects began to crowd themselves into the college course. The result was a total change in the character of the last years of the college, until the American college has come to be something that is partially gymnasium and partially university.

Senior year in most colleges resembles part of the philosophical faculty of a German university, both in studies covered and in methods adopted. This is why the demand that we should cut the

American college in two is a logical one. Specially logical is the demand that those colleges at least, which are capable of university work, should throw off their lower classes and devote themselves exclusively to the work of the university.

But while this course would be logical and in accordance with the whole trend of educational evolution, it does not follow that it would be expedient at the present time. Under existing conditions we need, I think, a longer evolution. We must draw the line as care

fully as we can between gymnasial work and university work; but I think it a little soon to decide just which institutions can become universities; nor do I think it advisable for even the stronger colleges at present to throw off their earlier years. I think things have got to go on for a while as they are going. If the smaller colleges are absolutely unable to stand the rivalry and competition of the institutions that are able to give more advanced work, then I suppose there will be such a coordination between the colleges and the larger institutions as Dr White has outlined.

Prin. W. E. Bunten - I believe that the patriotic argument is not the last resort of villains. I do believe that we have or should have an American system of education. Of course it began with systems brought to us from the old country, and if we have not a new and complete operation of the American system, we at least have one in process of evolution. We suppose that each department of the school, college and university has a specific work to do and does that work. The high schools and the academies are to-day in close articulation with the grammar schools, and it does not seem to me to be an impossibility to have the schools and colleges in as close articulation. The trouble is that every college in the country wants to be a university and relegate all the drudgery of education to the lower schools. No doubt it is pleasanter for the college faculty to have to deal only with minds already highly trained, but this is not the proper work of the college. There has been a tendency for the last 10 or 15 years to throw back on the secondary schools the original work of the college, while the colleges attempt to be universities. I think we ought to take one step backward here and let the colleges resume the work proper to them.

We of the secondary schools have a definite work to do. We know that there is no more intelligent, earnest and devoted body of men in any vocation of life than are the men who constitute the faculties of our various colleges. I only plead that they shall do the

proper work of the college and not expect of us more than we can do. I protest against throwing so much work on the secondary schools.

We ought to have an American system of education. Our resources are too vast for us to be dependent in any particular on any country on the face of the globe. Certainly we ought not to be dependent on Germany or France or England for any part of our education.` We have the means to make our educational system complete. We have the wealth, we have the libraries, with the exception, perhaps, of musty old manuscripts, and certainly the American brain is not inferior to the European. We lack the element of time, but this does not present any insurmountable obstacle. What we need, I believe, is that this great nation with its vast resources should furnish every facility to its scholars for pursuing the highest investigation, just as it can easily do. And then I think we need a stronger Americanism among the scholars themselves. It is "English, you know," to study abroad, and perhaps it is still necessary; but this necessity should soon disappear. I hope the time will soon come when there shall be no subject so abstruse, no force of nature so hidden that it can not be investigated by American scholars in American colleges and universities.

Prin. H: P. Warren, Albany academy - The prepatatory duecation of a child may be divided into three periods of four years cach. The first period, -the primary stage, should complete the mastery of the elements of number and of English. This should precede the study of foreign languages. A bright, earnest boy can accomplish this at 10, the average boy at 11, the slow boy at 12.

The next four years is the lost period in the school life of the American boy who is to have a liberal education. It is given as a rule to geography, history, grammar and arithmetic, studies of which a good knowledge can be gained incidentally if a more rational source of study is pursued during that period. In place of these utilitarian studies we propose that his time should be devoted to Latin, French and German (conversational work and exercises for the most part) number and simple applications of the same, inventional geometry and simple English classics. For recreation teach the elements of the sciences inductively, geography and history.

The third and last period should include the critical study of the grammar of the ancient languages, French and German, a large translation of the same, a thorough course in physics and chemistry

Such a

and the usual course in pure mathematics as far as calculus. course would prepare a bright boy for admission to the junior class at Yale college at 18.

The advantages of such a course are:

1 It is a natural and logical order. The study of language would monopolize the time of a boy. Forms, inflectional and idiomatic, and pronunciation, the drudgery of language, are mastered with delight in boyhood when the eye is keen and the ear accurate; the study of structure or grammar naturally follows; later, a large and critical translation.

Mathematics are kept in the background. Inventional geometry and number, with simple applications, have a minor place in the course until the mind can grasp algebra and the intricacies of geometry; their study may then be pursued intelligently and rapidly. Science is taught inductively at first; later, a knowledge is gained of its mathematics.

2 Preparatory work should be finished where it is begun, in the preparatory schools and not divided between the school and the colleges. The first two years in most colleges is a pitiful waste of time for students well prepared, and a pitiful scramble after the unattainable for those ill prepared. All subjects taught primarily for their value as discipline should be taught by masters selected for their ability to teach; forms, things, facts, principles, should be mastered in the preparatory school; investigation, comparison, generalization, is the work of the higher school, call it college or university.

The eastern colleges have made their work for the last two years substantially elective; they await a movement all along the line in the preparatory schools, to make elective the work of the first two

years.

3 There is a saving of two years in time in the education of a boy. This is a matter of importance but of less value than the other considerations.

In brief, the American boy runs to waste between 10 and 14; he is engaged in work that is no part of a liberal education. The training I suggest uses economically and intellectually that period. It but follows substantially the course pursued with such marked success by nations which lead in education.

Pres. G. Stanley Hall I certainly have no solution of this problem, and my only excuse for taking even three minutes of the time of the Convocation is this: I am one of a number of gentlemen