domestic economy, art instruction, etc., claim a large portion of the time. Formerly one meager course of study was offered, now the introduction unler wise supervision of the elective system into the high schools is preparing the way for opening to the college and university students ficlis of knowledge which have been before closed except to the special investigator.

There is a wide difference of opinion as to the advisability of such a course. Many claim that the elective system has no place in secondary schools. That it results in one-sided development-a disadvantage far greater than the benefits accruing from early special investigation. On the other hand, there are many educators who maintain that the elective system ought to be introduced still more extensively. They hold that the progress of humanity depends on fostering the talent that menbers of the race posress. This difference of opinion leads naturally to a difference in the conception of the function of secondary schools and of the curricula requisite for its realization.

A discussion of the function and curricula of the modern high school would be incomplete unless intro luced by a brief historic survey of its predecessors. Europe derived many of its educational traditions from the Orient, and courses of study for secondary schools were in process of evolution across the

Atlantic Main long before the United States became "The land of the free and the home of the brave". Our secondary schools first followed the European traditions, but they in turn have cut loose from the East. "Westward the Course of Empire takes its sway," is true of education too.

Since secondary education depends upon instruction received in primary schools and in turn prepares for higher education, it becomes necessary to take cognizance of both these fields, especially in the historic survey of ancient and medieval cducation where it is difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins.

We shall see that the development was not a continuous one. It does not resemble a perfect inclired plane like the one at Callao, Peru, nor the spiral roal leading to the summit of Pike's Poak. It rather resembles one of our magnificent transcontinental railroads climbing the Rocky Mountains, now with a sharp upward gradient, now descending into a valley where its altitude is but little in excess of its former place, then a slow incline, etc. We have not yet reached the summit. Will it ever be reached?

Chanter 1.

Types of Ancient Educational Ideals.

Value

of

study

ing

Educa

tional

Ideals

of

other

Great

Nat

In order to solve some of the great problens in secondary education now confronting America it becomes necessary to use the lamp of experience accorded us by a study of the educational aims and ideals of great nations, past, as well as contemporaneous and how they endeavored to attain them. Though it is conceded that it is questionable whether there is anything peculiar in the aims and practices of these nations which is directly aplicable to American conditions; that each nation, like an individual has its own instinct, genius, and missions; that it must educate itself in its own way and for its own ends in conformity with the educational ideal of its civilization, yet such study is valuable. Its value lies not in the adoption of ais and ideals of Persia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Germany or England, nor in the imitation of agencies employed there to realize them. It lies in deducing from their successes and failures valuable lessors for our guidance; in properly comprehending the educational factors which have contributed toward the progress of humanity; in selecting from these those permanent essentials upon which the

ions.