the teacher herself had the name of the truant school changed to "special school," feeling that her work was to save the boys, and that it was a contradiction of her efforts to send them out from a school the very name of which implied disgrace. The boys themselves call it "the boys' school." Some boys who have left this school and gone to work come back whenever they have a half-day at liberty; they are specially apt to appear on manual training days. Here, as elsewhere, boys have to be passed on from the school as rapidly as possible, as there are others waiting to be sent. Many teachers have just one boy who is incorrigible; if all these could be weeded out it is felt that it would have a marked effect upon the discipline of the schools in any city. So far as the effort is being made, it has such an effect.

A very wholesome family spirit seemed to pervade the residential truant school at Syracuse, N.Y. It happened to be recess time when the school was visited with the city superintendent of schools, and the children showed every sign of welcome to the superintendent, whom they saw approaching from the school windows. There were nineteen boys in the school, mostly committed by the superintendent with the consent of the parents, only the very refractory ones being taken to the court. Strangely enough, the lady in charge said she had no trouble with the discipline. In answer to a question as to how she managed it, she said, "Let the boys answer." "This gentleman has just asked how it is we have no trouble with the discipline here: how is it?" Various answers were given. "You give us lessons." "You keep us busy." "Work, Ma'am." "We sing a great deal." By way of illustration they sang "Oh how we love our happy school."

The boys took great pleasure in saying a number of mottoes, the teacher having the tact to allow them to give such as appealed to their own minds. As a result some were marked by real arab humour, " Do not trust a pigeon to carry grain"; "Don't try to fool the teacher." It was a noteworthy fact that the principal's own little boy was sitting with the others in the class. Some sad indications of poverty of opportunity come to the surface under conditions such as these, showing that many of the children are really happier in the truant school than in their own homes.

In the Worcester County Truant School, Oakdale, the humane spirit is so marked that the normal students have used it as a practice school. At the head of it is "a man of immense ingenuity, and absolutely bottomless faith."

Toronto has two residential truant schools-one for boys, the

other for girls, arranged on the cottage plan and situated abou six miles east and west of the city. The consciousness of responsibility and self-government is stimulated as far as possible. In addition to these schools there is one in the city itself for children who are neglected by their parents, and who would become vagrants, and some of them thieves, if not taken in hand. Soup is supplied by a charitable institution near the schools, and the teachers have a fund wherewith to buy bread. Some of the mothers are charwomen, others have work away from their homes, and the children would often have no dinner if it were not provided in this way. In the same school there is a room for licensed newsboys and bootblacks, who are obliged to attend for one session of two hours daily. When this school was first started, a philanthropic association offered to provide the building if the board of education would supply a teacherthe best man they had for the purpose. The superintendent said he did not know a man who would not try to control the children by coercion, but he knew of three or four women. One of these was appointed. The boys come in when free from their work, say "Good morning" to the teacher, get what they want for use, and set to work. The boys keep themselves in order: "If you were going to try to keep one of them in order," said the superintendent, "you would have your hands full." Several interesting stories of the success of patient discipline were told by the superintendent. One of the great events of the year, for instance, is the Christmas tree, on which are hung gifts (as many as fourteen hundred) made by the boys for their parents, grandparents, and friends; the boys themselves buying the material. Old people have been seen with tears running down their cheeks in the pleasure of finding a gift for them.

If space permitted one would be glad to tell of schools partaking rather more of the nature of reform schools than of truant schools pure and simple. Amongst the most admirable moral training schools of America are the Sockanosset School for Boys (with which is associated the Oaklawn School for Girls), near Providence; the Boston Parental School, at West Roxbury; and the George Junior Republic. Men of really missionary temper are at the head of these schools. Mr. Butterfield, of the Sockanosset school, works with his boys at the forge, shares their lives and by living near to them is able to lift them up in manhood until many of them go back to their old surroundings as forces for good; one of them, now twenty-one years of age, is in the life-saving service at Lock Island, on the very spot where he was reared, and where he had been committed for vagrancy; others are clergymen; one of the Oaklawn girls is a school teacher in her old home, another is on the staff of the Oaklawn school. These are selected instances, but they serve to show how fruitful a right principle may be in the hands of earnest educators. On the day these schools were visited Mr. Butterfield was rejoicing over his first gift of pictures, which were to add the grace of decoration to one or two of the well-kept rooms.

Almost as remarkable in its way is the Boston Parental School

which seemed to be more of a truant school than Sockanosset that is, boys are sent to it for less serious offences. The new principal replaces one who had been at the head of a school for criminal boys, and who brought with him old-fashioned prison methods. The present superintendent is a young man, a keen educationist, who has recently studied in Germany. He believes in the policy of trusting the boys and keeping faith in what is best in them to the very last. He is succeeding admirably upon these lines.

Of the George Junior Republic and its novel system of providing actual social and industrial conditions, and applying them to the reformation of city arabs and committed youthful offenders, it is impossible to write adequately. The whole scheme is a practical rewriting of man's social history. The government is handed over to the citizens, who have their president, police, judge, and very real prisons. There are boys and girls in the Junior Republic; all attend school during part of the day, and all work for their own living, receiving "junior republic" currency, paying their own rent and taxes, and buying all they need at the "junior republic" stores. University economists are following the course of events, problems of industry and currency and broad sociological questions being dealt with as they arise in a fashion which makes the small farm republic a miniature State. To talk with the newly-elected president, and to enter into his keen appreciation of the responsibilities of office in selecting officers for the republic, and in maintaining the honour of the "junior" State, was to have at least a glimpse into the characterbuilding forces which are at work. There are other institutions for boys which might be referred to, if space permitted, such as the House of Reformation on Rainsford Island, Boston Harbour, to which an enjoyable visit was paid, the Farm School on Thompson's Island, the Tombs (prison) School, New York. What has been said may perhaps suffice to show that the new spirit of discipline which is so clearly traceable in the public schools is not confined to them, but is permeating the whole of American education, including even that of the criminal classes. However great the need of moral improvement, there is a daily growing belief in its accomplishment by humane meanshumane not merely in the sense of abstinence from severe methods of discipline, but in a profound appreciation of and interest in child life and child nature.

CHAPTER XX.

THE EDUCATIONAL PRESS

The wide influence of educational periodicals, from the Educational Review, edited by Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, and the Pedagogical Seminary, edited by Dr. G. Stanley Hall, to the small magazines issued by an elementary, a truant, or a reform

school, is difficult to estimate; at any rate, until one has first realised the keenness with which American teachers read about. education. In addition to the periodicals issued by educational publishers, there are State papers, some of which are subsidised by a State, and magazines published by universities (for example, the Manual Training Magazine, published by the University of Chicago). Many normal schools also have special papers, which, like the Record of the Borough Road Training College, circulate amongst past and present students; and many cities have local educational papers. In these papers, one and all, the moral aim of education is kept constantly in view. The School Journal, published in New York and Chicago, is one of the best known of these papers, and its pages constantly contain articles on or references to character-making as one chief purpose of the school. School and Home Education, a monthly magazine, is full of similar references. Some of the daily papers give a portion of their space regularly to educational matters. As one example of this, the Commercial Advertiser of New York has a special educational editor, and this column is as constant a feature of the paper as the commercial news. The public attention given to education is in itself a moral fact of considerable weight; but the special question of moral education in the schools the meaning of discipline, the social life of the school, the training of character -forms so large a part of the Press articles and references that their influence upon school practice must be very widespread. One of the recent issues of the New York Teachers' Monographs was entirely devoted to school discipline and moral training, and contained articles on the subject by many of the ablest American writers on education; and the last annual supplement of " Educational Foundations," a useful monthly compendium of the history and theory of teaching (also published in New York), was a specially authorised reprint of Mr. J. L. Hughes's "Mistakes in Teaching" (largely taken up with matters of discipline) and "How to Keep Order."

In drawing up his report the writer has been greatly helped by the fact that so much current literature, full of cognate topics, lay at hand. To certain individuals, schools, and publications he is specially indebted; amongst the first are Dr. W. T. Harris, U.S. Commissioner of Education, whose assistance from first to last was invaluable, Mr. J. L. Hughes, Inspector of Schools at Toronto, Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler and the staff of Teachers College, Mr. Ossian Lang, Mrs. Ella Young (Chicago University), the principals of the Chicago Kindergarten College, and several members of the Board of Superintendents of New York city: the Ethical Culture Schools of New York city, the schools of Minneapolis and Peoria, and a cluster of interesting institutions at Worcester (schools, normal school, and the Clark University) were specially suggestive and helpful: also the reports of various State and city superintendents, especially of the States of New York and Massachusetts, and the cities of Washington and Cleveland, gave a valuable insight into existing phases of educational opinion and progress: the new was seen in

process of displacing the old in Dayton and Cincinnati; and at Chicago, crowning the turmoil of the city's life, is a great mass of earnest educational questioning and endeavour in which the moral and religious training of children has a very prominent place. H. THISELTON MARK.

October, 1900.

(Revised October, 1901.)