country "for fifteen years or more." He expresses surprise that the plan has not been generally adopted. Why not?

The main reason is that most teachers do not like it and cannot do their best work under it. At first blush (and I suspect the New York schools are in that condition) it would seem as if a teacher would be charmed to be allowed to select one particular subject on which to devote all her time and energy. Miss A, we may suppose, selects arithmetic. Miss B selects grammar, Miss C selects geography, Miss D selects reading, Miss E selects spelling, etc., etc. But experience proves that after Miss A has taught decimals to six or seven classes during the day, the subject loses its fascination for her, and the teaching becomes lifeless. Miss B points out the difference between a verb and an adverb pretty vigorously to two or three sets of children, but at the fag end of the session she has not the enthusiasm that she began with. Geography is an interesting subject to Miss C-in moderation only. After Miss E has corrected six or seven sets of spelling papers per diem she feels a perhaps not unpardonable weariness. If Miss A could take up the philosophy of mathematics; if Miss B could discuss comparative grammar and Old-English usages; if Miss C could branch out into geology or political economy—under these circumstances specializing would be the soul-filling and soulsatisfying occupation that it is with a University professor. But the elementary teacher is dealing with immature minds and must stick to the barest and simplest rudiments of the subject. As soon as the novelty wears off, departmental teaching becomes an intolerable bore.

Another very important consideration in the teaching of small children-a consideration which departmental systems overlook-is the personal element: the direct and continuous personal influence of a superior, mature mind on the immature mind. What counts in teaching small children is not the amount of information packed into the child's skull, but the personal influence of the teacher. Your genuine teacherthe teacher that is fit for a teacher-instinctively makes a careful study of the personality of the forty or fifty little people entrusted to her care for ten momentous months of their life, at a period of their development when their minds are

wax to receive and marble to retain impressions. By tact and discretion she comes to know their little personal peculiarities, their home surroundings, their limitations, their strong and their weak points. Spending five hours a day in intimate personal companionship with her children, she comes to know them almost as well as do their own mothers. Indeed in many schoolrooms there is a close resemblance to the family relationship. The law says-and sound pedagogy says the samethat the teacher stands in loco parentis to the child in school. It is this homelike relationship, this family relationship, this paternal relationship between the immature mind of the child and the mature, disciplined, trained mind of the teacher that is so valuable in teaching. This character building, this allaround development, this precious intimate human relationship is lost in departmental teaching as applied to small children. The error consists in attempting to apply methods, suited to University conditions, to conditions totally different. The fact should be frankly recognized that a child is a child, and that his best development and growth are attained by treating him as a child while a child and not as a mature human being. Departmental teaching overlooks this.

Nor is there any apparent necessity for this much-vaunted specializing in teaching the rudiments of a subject to small children. In order to be a teacher, in Chicago at least, a person must have graduated with high rank in a first-class high school, must have passed thru the Normal School (or done equivalent work in education elsewhere), must have served successfully as an apprentice, doing occasional substitute work-all under the eye of principal and superintendent. If successful thus far, she is then given a temporary certificate to teach, and, later, a permanent certificate-provided her work is decidedly successful. She has taught, time and time again, under expert supervision and rigorous criticism-and has taught successfully-every subject in the elementary school curriculum. Miss A who teaches in an elementary school, for instance, may be of a mathematical turn of mind and may not be a profound student of languages. In a high school or a university she might develop into an entertaining and profound instructor in mathematics, but it is absurd to suppose

that she does not possess enough knowledge to teach the elements of grammar to small children in an elementary school. Under such circumstances the need of university and high school methods (that is, departmental teaching) is not apparent for small children.

It is sometimes maintained that departmental teaching enables a really brilliant teacher to extend her influence more widely over the school than she could if confined to one set of children, but it is submitted per contra that in scattering her influence abroad so prodigally, it is dissipated and lost in the general shuffle; that the most brilliant teacher will lose her freshness and inspiration in too frequent repetition of the same subject day after day; and thereby becomes perforce a very mediocre teacher. What wearies her is the sameness of the topic, not the sameness of her audience. Concentrating her efforts on one room, she could retain her freshness and inspiration by that constant change of studies required by the curriculum. Such a room as that would be a model for the rest of the school.

It is sometimes claimed, on the other hand, that the baleful effects of an incompetent teacher are disguised and concealed, if spread over a number of classes. This may be true, but, rightly, there is no place in the public schools for an incompetent teacher. It would be better to confine her to one room where the fact of her poor teaching would be before everybody's eyes. Responsibility is thus easily located. Confronted thus with the indisputable evidence of her own ineptitude, she could see her own faults-when pointed out to her -and she would have at least a fair chance to improve.

Principals of elementary schools who have previously been specialty teachers in a high school, sometimes favor the departmental system even to the extent of introducing it from the fifth grade upwards-choosing perhaps the methods most familiar to them personally. Other elementary principals, ever on the alert for something new, because new and untried in a certain school, introduce the system. especially when the fad seems to be favored by someone high in authority. And there are conceivable circumstances in which, to meet an unexpected emergency or deficiency, a partial and modified adaptation may be profitable.

In Chicago the policy is to concentrate on each principal the responsibility, within well-defined limits, for the welfare of the one or two thousand children intrusted to his care. He may adopt the departmental system or not as he likes; he has entire freedom in this respect. At present these children are not suffering from the brainfag and worldweariness apparently so prevalent in New York. They still retain the normal child's exuberant vivacity and wholesome tendency to harmless mischief, nor has it been found necessary to let them travel about the building in search of fresh emotional impressions.

The fact that the New York system is adapted to that city proves that the condition of New York children and the ideals of New York teachers are decidedly different from-and unsuitable to the rest of the country.

CHICAGO, ILL.

E. L. C. Morse

VII

REVIEWS

The management and training of children—BY WILLIAM J. Shearer, A.M., Ph. D., Superintendent of schools, Elizabeth, New Jersey. New York: Richardson, Smith & Co., 1904. 287 pp. $1.50.

The book contains some 280 pages of open type, and is easily read. The subject is popular, as it appeals to the many parents and teachers of the land. The author seems to regard it as new. In his Preface he says, "Upon almost any subject which one can imagine, no matter how unimportant, many excellent books can be found: yet a diligent search thru the libraries of even our largest cities will fail to disclose any book of practical suggestion to parents on the management and training of their children."

Is it possible that such works as Rosmini's Method in education, Rousseau's Emile, Pestalozzi's Leonard and Gertrude, Preyer's The mind of the child, Spencer's Education, Kate Douglas Wiggin's Children's rights, Hopkins's How shall my child be taught? Kirkpatrick's Fundamentals of child study, and a hundred more, have not found their way into the "libraries of even our largest cities," or, if they have found their way there, that they are not regarded by Dr. Shearer as offering practical suggestions? Most people would regard the whole library of pedagogy as pertaining to the management and training of children.

The book is divided into forty chapters. These chapters are catalogued in the beginning pages under various headings and sub-headings. A glance at these headings and sub-headings gives one the impression that the author's object was to see how many different headings for chapters he could think of, rather than to show clear discriminations in topics and logical treatments of those topics. For instance, one chapter is entitled, Responsibility of parents, and gives as its first sub-heading, A terrible responsibility.