We believe that the preparation for college should be made more, rather than less, exacting than now, even at the cost, if necessary, of putting the age of entrance one or two years forward, and that the faithful prosecution of the most difficult and disciplinary studies should be required of all who expect a full degree. The system of elective studies must, of course, be allowed, to a greater or less extent, and this must be a matter of discretion, to be determined by each institution for itself; but it is especially unfortunate for the cause of learning and for university credit, when the arrangement is such that a student may be crammed for college, then glide through by an election of easy studies, and, with moderate proficiency in these, pass out as an alumnus, with university honor, and a diploma that he can scarcely read. We fear that the tendency is in this direction, particularly in the younger colleges, which naturally strive for numerical success, and whose poverty consents, if not their will. In strong and well-established institutions there could be, for such dereliction, no adequate excuse.

Now we contend, and it is the point which we would make, that especially in the West, where the natural tendency to superficialism is strongest, and where the "practical" and immediately useful are unavoidably too much in the ascendant, it becomes the most urgent duty of every educator, and especially of every institution that aspires to the name of university, to keep the standard as high as possible, to encourage the best scholarship, and not yield too readily to the outside pressure of popular praise and blame. To educate the man to the highest attainable degree, and not merely to sharpen the tools with which he works, is the end which the university should hold most steadily in view. In the "Great West," what we most urgently need is thoroughly-educated men. We have already, in every department of life, enough charlatans, and sciolists, and dogmatists, and ready-made statesmen, and self-made practical men, who can give no reason for the faith that is in them; with here and there a native-born genius who rises above the necessity of training, and builds bridges or rules the councils of men, as if by inspiration. But the demand for well-educated men, in every sphere, is felt more and more every day. Whence are they to come, if not from our colleges and universities? If these consent to the broadening but shallowing tendency of the times, how shall a thorough education be obtained? If the salt have lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted? Take heed, lest the remainder of the quotation be fulfilled!

Let the method and curriculum be what they may, but let thorough scholarship and the best development of the whole manhood be continually held in view.

But now, is it unjust or captious to say that not only in the progressive West, but in the conservative East, the university is threatening to become a great laboratory, where not only bachelors of arts, but doctors and lawyers and divines and scientists are made in the quickest possible time, at the least possible cost, with the smallest possible preparation, and with as little wear and tear of intellect as the nature of the case permits.

Think what it is to admit to a university medical college a callow youth, with a second-rate grammar-school education, without either classical or scientific training, with a range of studies before him enough for ten years' intelligent and faithful labor, and at the end of two nominal years, but really of

eighteen months' random study, during which a dozen courses of lectures have been heard and not more than half understood, and at the close of which a quasi-examination is passed, to confer upon him the degree of Doctor of Medicine; which, under such circumstances, is nothing but a university license to practice vivisection and experimental chemistry upon credulous men and their more credulous wives and their helpless children! Such are some university medical schools.

The LAW used to be regarded as a learned profession, and the lawyer was recognized, ipso facto, as a gentleman and scholar. Now, university circulars proclaim that for entrance into their law departments "no examination is required," and no conditions except a fair English education, which some times means wonderfully little, and does not always include good grammar and correct spelling. But upon this narrow foundation, two sessions of lectures, with almost no direct instruction, are expected to build up sufficient legal knowledge to constitute a lawyer, as things go, and scores of self-conceited attorneys at law and ambitious embryo statesmen are let loose upon an unprotected world. Perhaps it may be said that so long as there is a demand for such lawyers and statesmen a supply will be found; but I doubt the wisdom or the necessity of the university's becoming the agent in such questionable work. Rather should it hold up the legal profession to its proper dignity, by elevating the standard both of admission and graduation, so that no one can become a university bachelor of laws without being a well-educated man. There will be ignorant and illiterate lawyers enough without university help. In the same manner, the SCIENTIFIC SCHOOL Should be held up by university strength, and kept from becoming the receptacle for immature, loose-grained students who lack industry or ability to become any thing else. The university scientific department should be so organized and conducted that its graduates may rank, in a fair comparison, with the collegiate, both as to mental culture and attainment. It would be still better if the technical or professional course could be added to the college education, for then we should have scientific men whose practical results would bring no disappointment; but if that can not be done, as a rule, at least let a thorough English education, with a competent knowledge of Latin and German, be required for admission, to be followed by the three or four years' course of recitation, and lectures and laboratory practice; so that no graduate shall be sent out, as many now are, almost ignorant of his own language and quite ignorant of all others. For the sake of science itself, this should be done, not less than for the common interest; for the mere specialist is generally a narrow-minded man, who can not do even his own work well.

It is one thing to train the foreman of a work-shop or the assistant railroad engineer; and quite another to make a scientific man. The former work may do for the preparatory or special training school, but should not satisfy the university. Let it dispense with this department altogether rather than lower its own dignity and usefulness by giving its honors to overgrown' schoolboys and ignorant men.

As for the work of popular instruction, especially in practical science and art, for which there is now such general and eager demand, the university should every where provide for it, in all our large cities, by systematic courses

of free lectures, to be delivered by the ablest men, who should be generously paid for their labor and made to feel that it is an important part of their whole service. No better method than this could be adopted to give the whole community the resultant advantages of the most profound research, and at the same time keep the university itself in close sympathy with the public mind. In this vein of thought other like suggestions might be made, tending to popularize and utilize, without lowering, the university. But my limits are already past, and we must come to a close.

Of the "sacred profession" and the proper preparation for it, we do not speak, except to express the wish that universities had the power to require of every theological student, in addition to a good general education, to spend two years in the scientific school. It would teach him how to interpret the laws of nature, which are the laws of GOD, and open his eyes more clearly to understand the wondrous things of the written word, as the revelation of the same Infinite mind.

But in whatever direction the educational work may lead, the western educator should remember that thoroughness and completeness are the great ends to be attained. All our dangers lie on the other side. There is no danger in the West of holding the standard of education too high.

The one difficulty is, and I do not know how to remove it, that the course which we here recommend requires such a degree of independence upon popular favor and temporary success, that every western university, to accomplish its best appointed work, should have an "Aladdin's lamp" to light it on its appointed way.

Universities are proverbially expensive "machines," if we consider only their direct and visible results, and for their support we must chiefly look to those who are in advance of the prevailing thought of the times. This is true even in old and mature communities. But where the educational supply must be made to precede or create the educational demand, the few who have faith must also enjoy the rare privilege of working for the many who have it not.

Faithful and thorough work will, however, "pay" at last, and honesty is the best policy for educators as for other men. Let us deserve success, working not only for the present but the future, and the practical West, because it is practical, will soon understand that the best education is both the wisest and cheapest, in the end.

Mr. A. J. RICKOFF, for the committee appointed to consider some change in the time of future meeting of this department, reported that when we adjourn, we adjourn to meet in Washington-at the call of a special committee to be appointed for the purpose-some time next winter.

This report was discussed by Messrs. BINFORD, of Richmond, Va.; WILSON, of Washington, D.C.; SHORTRIDGE, of Indianapolis, Ind.; BULKLEY, of Brooklyn; and WICKERSHAM, of Harrisburg.

This report was accepted.

Voted, that the board of officers for the ensuing year be the above-named committee.

The following paper, written by Mr. WILLIAM M. BRYANT, Superintendent of 24

Schools, Burlington, Iowa, was, in the absence of the writer, read by Mr. J. H. BINFORD, Superintendent of Schools, Richmond, Va.

LEIGH'S METHOD OF TEACHING READING.

It may, I think, be assumed that whoever has the responsibility of general conduct of affairs in any department is especially liable to the error of overindividuality. And this liability becomes energic and positive in precisely the same degree that the department is complex and that its complexity is imperfectly understood. The department of school organization and management is, beyond question, one of extreme complexity; and it is commonly granted that this complexity is yet very imperfectly understood. In no proper sense, therefore, can there be surprise at the great diversity of plans of organization and management. Under the circumstances, radicalism is inevitable, and conservatism must be of the most persistent type if its characteristics remain unchanged. Hence the widely-divergent extremes. A part of the profession agree that too little prominence has been given to analytic methods; and, in asserting the value of analysis, seem to others to ignore the merits of synthesis. And, upon the whole, misunderstanding seem rather increased than diminished by discussion.

Truth, evidently, is desired; but a truth is not likely to be any the more clearly set forth through contending whether one or another of its phases is the more attractive - especially upon the tacit assumption that proven superiority of the one is practical annihilation of the other. So it is that, through years, it may be, of unobserved toil, some quiet worker is sure at last to ascertain the precise relationship of part to part, to adjust these into a symmetrical unit and, upon presenting his results, to occasion wonder that what now is so simple and transparent should before have seemed so involved and incomprehensible. Such workers are genuine benefactors and deserve the special gratitude of those who are confronted on every hand by a multitude of such problems.

There must, however, be some crucial test of results: and, in the department of education, that test is the recognized facts of mental growth.

Doubtless much of the heat of discussion, whether analytic or synthetic methods are superior, is attributable to over-hasty interpretation of the admitted fact of succession in the development of the mind's capabilities. There is, indeed, succession: but the succession is relative rather than absolute, and the question whether this or that method is best adapted to develop one or another faculty, as if that were the only faculty susceptible of development during childhood, can not be otherwise than seriously misleading. The truth might be stated in some such way as the following:-All the forces of any individual mind begin developing at the same time; but a part of these become conspicuously active before others have taken up any save the feeblest movements of their evolution. But it is a manifest and radical error to suppose it therefore sufficient that the development of sense-perception (for example) at one time, and of reflection at another, be favored. It is to be remembered that while perception and judgment may at any given stage be very unequally active, they are yet both active in some degree—that, though the judgment is feeble, it exists and, so far from being ignored, should be systematically and assiduously cultivated. In short, all the powers of the mind must grow concurrently, and any plan which

omits provision for the improvement of any one of these powers at any stage of education is essentially deficient.

We have now to apply this test to methods of teaching reading—having especially in view elementary work.

The reasons for giving, during the first years, a maximum of time and attention to this branch have been so often stated that it seems unnecessary to make more than the merest reference here that they may not seem to have been wholly overlooked.

We are, then, to consider in what way elementary lessons in reading may be so managed as to serve at once the purposes of cultivating the powers of discrimination, of identification, and of retention. Children have, at the usual age of entering school, a considerably developed capacity for acquiring knowledge of forms, but have very slight capacity for determining whether any given object is calculated to serve this or that purpose in any new combination. To learn to distinguish between the forms that go to make up a written alphabet is therefore a task presenting very little practical difficulty to the mind of a child four to seven years of age; and yet this task is often prolonged through weary months, the forms themselves presenting no property calculated to excite the child's interest, and the teacher making little or no effort to enliven the work by means of associated ideas. Thus far the alphabet is a series of meaningless forms with an arbitrary name attached to each.

Suppose, however, that each character represents one and only one sound. The child may then be taught to associate the sound with the name and both with the form, until either will suggest one or both the others. A gleam of meaning now lights up the form, which not only has a name but also represents a sound—a sound which the child can utter—which, if uttered by others, he can identify as belonging to the form; and he is delighted on being allowed to prove his power of recognition by singling out this form from among others on chart or blackboard.

But there is a wide discrepancy between the supposition just made and the fact as regards the English alphabet: and it is well to note the educational confusion which is the inevitable outgrowth of this discrepancy. The facts are familiar. Not only have we but twenty-six characters to represent forty-four sounds, but it also happens that each of a number of these sounds of spoken English is represented by two or more characters in the alphabet of written English. So that, not only have we usually to judge which of two, three, four or five, but often which of six or even seven sounds is represented by a given letter in a given case; and that, too, without any fixed principles upon which to base the judgment! It is a hopeless case, even for the adult-as we confess every time we turn to the dictionary to learn, by means of the clumsy phonetic system there used, the sounds belonging severally to the very familiar characters of any new word.

I need not dwell here to prove, what is but too manifest, that with so imperfect an alphabet the inferring of sounds from relative positions of letters requires an exercise of judgment wholly beyond the power of the child-mind, and that every time the child is led to deduce, in appearance, the pronunciation of a word from the names of the characters which go to make up its written form, he is put upon exercise in the most vicious logic-namely, the