It is a fact, recognized by all teachers, that there is need of more skilful and more enthusiastic teaching of all subjects. Great progress has been made in this direction during the last ten years. The progress is found in classical instruction as well as that of other departments. The classical studies are taught in a broader and more human way. "Throughout the course," as one has urged and the advice has been already taken at least in part, "opportunities should be seized of indicating the historical and literary significance of the works read their relation to great events in the history of mankind and the great products of modern literature."

Emphasis has been laid upon these humanistic studies, not only on account of the characteristics which the writers we have quoted find in them, not only because they impart vigor of intellect which we need today, but also

because private schools are considered, although there may be no sufficient ground for it, the chief strongholds of these subjects and it is well that we should give reasons for the faith that is in us. In doing so we believe we are doing something for the secondary education provided by these schools throughout the land.

The curriculum, however, is not given over to these studies. Including Latin and Greek as they do, the private schools in their courses attempt to give a generous preparation for life. They follow in a general way the lines laid down by Matthew Arnold in his theory of a liberal education. Foreseeing a further development of the struggle between realists and humanists than had occurred in his time, he urged a combination of both aspects: "The ideal of a general, liberal training is to carry us to a knowledge of ourselves and the world. We are called to this knowledge by special aptitudes which are born with us; the grand thing in teaching is to have faith that some aptitudes of this kind every one has. This one's special aptitudes are for knowing men— the study of the Humanities, that one's special

aptitudes are for knowing the world and the study of nature. The circle comprehends both, and we should all have some notion, at any rate, of the whole circle of knowledge. The rejection of the Humanities by the realists, the rejection of the study of nature by the humanists, are alike ignorant. He whose aptitudes carry him to the study of nature should have some notion of the Humanities; he whose aptitudes carry him to the Humanities should have some notion of the phenomena and laws of nature. The prime and direct aim of instruction is to enable a man to know himself and the world. Such knowledge is the only sure basis for action, and this basis is the true aim and office of instruction to supply. To know himself, a man must know the capabilities and performances of the human spirit; and the value of the Humanities, the science of antiquity, is that it affords for this purpose an unsurpassed source of light and stimulus. It is a vital and formative knowledge to know the most powerful manifestations of the human spirit's activity, for the knowledge of them greatly feeds and quickens our own activity; and they are very imperfectly known without knowing ancient Greece and Rome. But it is also a vital and formative knowledge to know the world, the laws which govern nature and man as a part of nature. This the realists have perceived, and the truth of this perception, too, is inexpugnable."

In sympathy with this sane view of education the curriculum is a comprehensive one. There are included in it not only the traditional subjects: mathematics, classics, science, history, modern languages-one finds there also music, drawing, manual training. These appear in the course as either integral parts of it or as electives-they are pursued also out of school hours by those who have peculiar talent for them.

There is provided also some instruction in hygiene and physical training. It is hardly stretching a point to include among academic influences athletics, when they are pursued in a rational fashion and not merely with a view to success in interscholastic matches. The great games of football and baseball today, and rowing also, require a grasp of the theories and a promptness of decision which are often effective in awakening the powers of a dormant intellect.

When we have placed the aim and theories of our plan in the most favorable light we must in all frankness acknowledge that we fall sadly short in our performances. "The European boys," writes an American lad of thirteen, "are way ahead of us. I have been corresponding with a French boy and he asked me in his last letter whether in America we had made any great progress in our view of international relations." It is a fact, much as we regret being obliged to confess it, that the English schoolboy is one or two years ahead of ours and that in the upper classes of the English public schools they do work in classics, and in science as well, that is on a level with that of our Sophomore and Junior classes at college.

It is not that the American boy is less capable than the youth of Europe or England; there are serious defects in the home and academic influences.

If they are to increase in learning and intellectual power our boys must begin their real education earlier. By twelve years of age a