Youmans in his extreme tendency to decry all classical learning. There are minds capacious enough, as the Inaugural Address of Mill shows us, not only to attach their due worth to both of these forms of mental training, but also to appreciate the important place which both ought to receive in the broad and multiform culture demanded by modern life.

The question between classical and scientific education is in the way of receiving a happy and permanent solution. Intelligent advocates of the former are ready on their part cheerfully to admit such general propositions as these:

That the completest discipline of the mental powers, and the symmetrical development of the whole mind for the practical work of life, require the use of mathematical and of scientific as well as classical studies; and that, in any thorough system of culture, each and all of these should have an appropriate and honored place.

That on the side of knowledge as well as discipline, mathematical and scientific studies do furnish equally with the classics an indispensable contribution to that information of the mind-that wide and varied acquaintance with truth which is as essential to true culture as the soil is to the maturing of the living plant.

That in such times of material improvement as those in which we live, both the discipline and the knowledge imparted by studies of the former class are rightfully becoming more and more prominent as constituents in a sound and liberal education; and that in the progress of mankind toward the highest material civilization, such specific culture as the sciences afford will be still more highly prized, and become more and more vital as an agency in that symmetrical development of the individual man, through which alone such progress and such civilization can be sustained.

And surely there are few advocates of scientific as distinguished from classical education, however earnest or engrossed in their special pursuits, who are not prepared on the other hand to admit:

That among all the sciences which occupy human attention, the science of language, considered in the broadest sense, is second to none in its capacity either to arouse, train, perfect the mental powers, or to impart such information as the ripest culture requires.

That a thorough acquaintance with the classic literature is not only an essential element in all comprehensive knowledge of lan

guage, but is of vital importance in its bearings upon scientific study in whatever field; and that the exclusion of that literature from our systems of education would both rob our culture of one among its brightest charms, and prove an irreparable loss to true science even in the most material directions.

That in this age of utilities and of progress in all that concerns a merely physical civilization, such training and such knowledge as classic literature affords, possess a special value in their relations to a broad and harmonious culture; and that all who prize such culture more than they prize any specific department of science, are alike interested in preserving such knowledge and such training at whatsoever cost.

So long as such general principles are recognized on both sides, and are being carried to their practical results, the issue between scientific and classical education is of no greater moment, as Herbert Spencer remarks, than the question whether bread is more or less nutritive than potatoes; or the inquiry, humorously suggested by Mill, whether a tailor should make coats or trousers. The real point to which investigation should be directed, is the point of adjustment-of philosophic, proportionate, fruitful combination. To array these methods of culture in attitudes of hostility, and claim for either a supremacy purchased by the degrading of the other-to found institutions based exclusively on either, or frame systems of training in which the one or the other is ignored, is a sin of which genuine scholarship can never be guilty. The attempt to decry either, or create odium against either on whatever ground, is a grievous offense against true culture. How shall the classics, the modern languages, the metaphysical and the material sciences be so harmoniously adjusted and combined, that each shall contribute its full part to the development of mind and heart and will, and shall in due measure nourish and endow the soul for the great task of life? This is the grand inquiry which all sound scholars are now pausing from partizanship, from controversy, to consider and to answer.

Every reader of the Inaugural Address to which allusion has been made, must have been profoundly impressed not merely with the breadth of view and the eminent learning disclosed, but likewise with the genial and catholic spirit everywhere manifested. It might have been expected that, at least in his own department of Logic and Metaphysics, that remarkable man who does equal honor to English schools and English politics, would have betrayed something of the partial enthusiasm so natural in

those whose lives have been spent in some special sphere of scholarly labor. But even here the genial catholicity, that springs inherently from a truly liberal culture, does not forsake him his mind is large enough to contemplate other studies with equal interest, and his grand heart comprehends and embraces all with equal affection. Let his example stimulate us to similar attainments! Columbus, O.

E. D. M.

SCHOOL PROGRESS.

These are doubtless times of wonderful activity. The energies of our people which the late rebellion has almost stimulated into fierceness, do not seem to find sufficient scope in material enterprises, but are expanding into all the moral and intellectul channels that underlie and permeate society. Into none of these has the energizing tide flowed with a fuller stream than in that of education.

Those who had the good fortune to be engaged during the last season as laborers in the institute field, could not fail to be struck with pleasure at the alacrity with which teachers collected from the most distant points-as well from the obscure rural district as from the bustling town-to gather up with eagerness such crumbs of information of a better way of performing their work as might fall to them from the tables of those who had been blessed with larger privileges. Such a spirit can not but be gratifying to every worker in the good cause. When we see the teacher lifting himself up to a higher plain from which to take a wider lookout, we feel assured that the elevation of his school must follow. Yet how many such teachers, with their loins girt about with new truths, and their hearts aglow from looking on the nobler side of their profession, have returned from these institutes to have their strength exhausted and their spiritual fires quenched by the indifference, or, worse, hostile opposition of the community in which their labors lie, to their earnest and honest strivings toward a better performance of their work.

At one of the institutes held last summer, this question was proposed for discussion: "What do our schools most need?" In answer to it, a friend declared his convictions to be that what was most needed was not so much better books and school-houses,

wiser, nobler, and more earnest teachers, (though the value of these could scarcely be over-estimated,) but that, toward which we have as yet done comparatively little, the arousing of the public mind to the transcendent importance of our public school system and the education of our youth. And he maintained his position with such eloquence and logic as could not fail to carry conviction to every hearer.

There is yet an indifference in regard to this whole subject of education, which does not fail to astonish and perplex those living at the great educational centers. Nothing does more to clog the workings of our noble school system, than the frequent and total incompetence of those chosen to carry its provisions into effect. School districts where, on account of backwardness in educational matters, there is most need of the services of its wisest men, are oftenest cursed in this way, though our larger towns and cities do not always escape. A young candidate stated to the examiners before whom he had appeared for the purpose of obtaining a certificate, that the district in which he expected to teach the coming winter had had no school for four years, and that two out of three of its directors could neither read nor write. Yet this district is not a score of miles away from the metropolis of the State. The directors of a district lying within sight of the same city, sent up to the examiners for the county a strong recommendation of a common drunkard, knowing him to be such, asking that he might be given a certificate, as they wished to employ him in their school. In an adjoining county, a lady, and one of the best teachers in it, had insisted that all her pupils sufficiently advanced, should write compositions. The son of one of the directors rebelled against the imposition. The board was called together, and in solemn conclave resolved that composition is a useless thing, and should not be taught in their school. Another teacher, not far distant, is in danger of being dismissed, because he has had the presumption to attempt to vary the treadmill round for some of his more advanced pupils, by introducing them into the mysteries of Natural Philosophy,—the community in that enlightened region having sagely concluded that instruction in anything beyond the common branches in our schools is undoubtedly illegal. It is much learning that has made them mad. Another case: A young teacher, having caught the Oswego or some similar affection, attempted in one of our rural districts to teach the alphabet and primary reading by the sound method. Whereupon the patrons of the school arose as one man

to put down the new-fangled method, and to declare their faith in the spelling-book of their fathers. Of course the enterprising young teacher was compelled to take refuge from the storm under the old conservative shelter.

But instances of this kind might be multiplied almost indefinitely. These are enough, however, to indicate some of the discouragements that the enthusiastic young teacher is likely to meet. Nothing has been said of the humiliation that conceited ignorance in authority is so prone to heap upon the intelligence and refinement that lie above it, and which is not unfrequently looked upon as a personal insult. It has been omitted because it is hardly possible to speak of it, without exhibiting a warmth of feeling that might look like indignation.

You have already decided against the sub-district system. With this decision I most heartily agree. But the question still returns: How are we to get the best men-not all men of learning necessarily, but men of good common sense, liberal views, and feeling the importance of their work-to control our schools? I see no other way of doing this, except in the way my friend in the institute proposed doing it-by exciting in the whole community an educational revival. And one of the most effectual means of bringing this last about, it seems to me, will be by county supervision. If this should be adopted, of course all the county superintendents would not be just such men as the judicious could desire to see in such a position-some of them, it might be, would be just such men as ought not to be in it; yet, very certainly, the majority would be competent and faithful; and might we not venture to hope that another Samuel Lewis or Horace Mann would, in the course of time, arise among them to leave the record of his benevolent labors upon more than one generation? We may not be able to persuade the people to eschew politics entirely in the selection of these superintendents -I would that we might-but we may persuade parties to present their very best men for the position, so that whatever party might succeed in the election, the schools would be assured of a competent officer.

Ought we not, then, to push forward county supervision?

J. H.

THE Michigan State Convention adopted a clause for the new constitution requiring a public library in every township, and one or more in every city.