of the required time, his coveted degree, and sometimes receiving the degree because he was a member of the class and not because he exhibited the proficiency that merited it.

This class reliance is an evil of the system, and in a great measure accounts for the "incorrigibly idle" that are so often complained of in some of our institutions, and besides it not unfrequently happens that what students regard as a college honor involves an entire class in a violation of authority, and subjects the good and evil alike to serious discipline, an evil that results wholly from the existence of the class. On the contrary, the elective system teaches self-reliance and develops individuality. The student is taught self-reliance in the fact that his success depends on himself alone. Time will not help him, the class cannot aid him. At his final examination nothing but his own cultivated intellect and the product of his own acquisitions can assist him. Success or failure in college, as in life, will depend on his own energy and industry. This education of selfreliance, of freedom from artificial aids of class, we regard as one of the chief merits of the elective system.

Under a proper organization this system admits those young men-who by reason of limited time and means desire to prosecute some special subject of study,-on terms of equality in college life, and does not force them, as is the case when special subjects only are elected to occupy, according to college conventionalism, a mortifying position of social inferiority. It receives them in the body of the students on terms of equality, and awards them the honors of the college in any special department in which they may exhibit superior attainments. While under the prescribed system a Faraday could not have been admitted to the Freshman class, under the elective system he would have been honored as a student for his special attainments.

It is concentration that gives power, that gives the ability to perceive with definiteness and accuracy. And him we regard as educated who though he may not have been trained in languages or mathematics, can sharply define the line that divides his knowledge from his ignorance. True education is the knowing much of something as well as the knowing something of many things. And any system we regard as so far incomplete that while expending all its energies to give the multa fails to inspire the mind with that desire that will only be satisfied with the multum.

The power given by concentration in education is well explained by BAIN: "After a certain number of acquirements in the various regions of study," he knows "nothing that occurs is absolutely new; the amount of novel matter is continuously decreasing as our knowledge increases, * our facility in taking in new knowledge improves steadily, the fact being that the knowledge is so little new that the forging of fresh admissions is reduced to a very limited compass."

7. Again the effort to subject all minds to the same mental discipline in conformity with the prescribed restrictive system is in violation of a principle which affects the individual and the State. "For the individual," said the President of Harvard, "concentration and the highest develop. ment of his own peculiar faculty is the only producer. For the State it is variety not uniformity of intellectual product which is needful.”

Here is an irrefragable argument in favor of the elective system, and against that organization that imposes uniformity of mental training and instruction. The educational wants of the individual and the State are not the same. The full development of the individual requires unity, that of the State variety. It is this system that encourages that unity of development gained by prosecuting a department of knowledge for which there exists a natural aptitude. "Concentration," says EMERSON, "is the secret of strength in politics, in war, in trade, in short in all management of human affairs." And in education, we may add, this secret is not to be disregarded. It is not breadth of culture that gives power so much as depth. It is not surface cultivation but subsoiling that stands the drought. Veneered material, though beautifully polished, will not stand the wear of solid oak.

MILTON'S oft-quoted definition of a complete and generous education, as that which fits a man to perform skilfully, magnanimously, and justly, all the offices both public and private of peace and war, we regard as a theoretical conception impossible of realization, existing only in the imagination of a poet, a learning-something-of-everything theory that never has been and never can be accomplished. We would modify MILTON's definition and define a generous education to be that which fits a man to perform skilfully, magnanimously, and justly, one of the offices, either public or private, of peace or war.

It is thus only progress in the world has been made, thus only by concentration can the full power of the individual be manifested.

After the reading of this paper the Department adjourned until 3 P. M.

3 o'clock P. M.

At the suggestion of Prof. E. S. JOYNES, the Secretary of the Department, Dr. NOAH PORTER'S paper on the Class System, read by Dr. TAPPAN at a subsequent time, is printed here as it was practically discussed under the general question involved in Prof. BROUN's paper.

THE CLASS SYSTEM.

By the Class System as contrasted with the Elective System is meant a fixed curriculum, as distinguished from a course of optional studies. I cannot suppose that any educator would object to the use of classes in school, or college, or university. As we can neither understand nature nor control nature till we classify individual objects, so we can neither understand man nor train man, till we avail ourselves of the common likenesses and sympathies by which man is organized into society and made to instruct and stimulate his fellow-man. Science is impossible till classification begins, and education whether in the family, the kindergarten, or the school, begins only when like is brought to its like through the in

structive guidance of parent or teacher and the quickening excitements of children of nearly equal attainments. From the half-articulate lispings and the expressive gestures of two infants whom chance brings together for an hour to the exciting encounters of two intellectual giants like SAMUEL JOHNSON and EDMUND BURKE, or BEN. JOHNSON and WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE, man is continually educating his fellow-man; like with like.

These thoughts may seem to be irrelevant commonplaces. I introduce them because not a few theorists in education seem in a measure to have lost sight of the important truth that education is necessarily social, in consequence of the very current reiteration of the truth that individual tastes and adaptations should be chiefly regarded in our educational arrangements. We ought never to forget that if men are to be educated they must in some sense come into communication with their kind and share in a common intellectual and moral life.

I do not deny, nor would I in the least depreciate the importance of what is called Self-Education. I should also be one of the last to undervalue the truth that skill and success in a teacher are tested by his sagacious insight into the individual peculiarities of his pupils and his masterly control over them, but I cannot forget that in order to either he must bring them under the influence of the common life of their kind—and that unless he does this education is impossible. Even when a single child is given over to the undivided influence of a single teacher, it is only as the pupil is brought into active sympathy with other minds-through books and an actual or imagined community of fellow-beings like himself that education becomes possible.

It will be scarcely questioned that in public institutions of education, considerations of economy require that pupils of equal capacities and attainments should be taught in classes. We all recognize the truth that in the wayside school the first advance is made from chaos to kosmos, when the children instead of saying their lessons one by one are gathered into groups. It is now universally conceded that in this way they can be more effectually taught and excited by their teacher, and at the same time may instruct and inspire one another. The establishment of graded schools from the primary to the High School is acknowledged as essential to the efficiency and success of any system of Public Schools. This involves a fixed curriculum, with all the attendant disadvantages, as of large classes, excessive and wearisome routine, and failure of the highest conceivable adaptation to the diverse capacities, tastes, and attainments, of individual pupils.

What is true of Public Schools is true of all those elementary schools which prepare for colleges or business life. It is acknowledged universally that certain studies are essential to an elementary education, and these studies are insisted on, by common consent. The curriculum varies somewhat with the circumstances of individual pupils, and the cultivation of the community. More or fewer studies are taken up into this curriculum, but as fast as society becomes organized certain studies are inserted as absolutely necessary to a school as distinguished from a college or university education. These constitute the fixed curriculum and are taught to classes at assigned periods of time, with regular examinations.

The same method is followed in our Schools of Law, Medicine, Theology, Science, and Technology. All the so-called professional schools and the majority of our Schools of Science and the Arts recognize very distinctly the truth, that certain studies are essential to the successful profession or practice of the Science or Art for which the school is a preparation. In many cases the State seeks to guard the door of the profession or guild. In every case the community not only consents but demands that fixed courses of studies should be prescribed, covering definite periods of time. Most of these studies are appropriate to the university, so far as the university is distinguished from the college, and yet the sentiment is gaining if possible a firmer hold of the public, that in these schools the class system with a fixed curriculum should be rigidly enforced. Those schools which under any specious pretence shorten the time of study, or abandon the classification of their pupils, are visited with severe and well-merited criticism. Harvard University has recently made itself conspicuous and honorable by introducing into its School of Medicine, several features every one of which is a re-inforcement of the class system and fixed curriculum, which it has seemed to repudiate, if not to abandon, in the Academical Department. The weight of opinion seems to be more and more fixed, and more and more distinctly expressed, in favor of a complete and definite preparation for every department of public activity by a course of prescribed study extending through a definite term of time. I do not forget that very many persons in our country have become not only eminent, but pre-eminent in every one of the professions-as also in every sphere of civil and military service, without a technically-professional training, but I cannot be mistaken when I assert that the more eminent such persons have become the higher is their appreciation of the importance of such a training. Nor can I be mistaken in asserting that as our civilization becomes more advanced the more rigorously will the requirement be enforced, that no man shall be entrusted with the responsibilities of public service, who cannot give proof that he has made those studies and undergone that discipline which are formally expressed in a fixed curriculum prescribed for a definite period.

It would be silly and pedantic to insist that no man shall be admitted to the responsible posts of professional or public service who cannot produce his diploma from the High School or the College; the School of Science or of Art-although it is not impertinent to notice that such a requisition or its equivalent has within the last two generations lifted Prussia from the meanest to the proudest position on the Continent of Europe. I would insist, however, that if we are to maintain a high standard of special or professional culture in this country, our special schools of training must prescribe a fixed curriculum of study and appoint a definite period of time for its prosecution.

If these views are just, they will have prepared us to understand and rightly to determine the question before us. We assume that no one will question, for the reasons already given, that the class system and the fixed curriculum are essential to the best working of professional schools, on the one hand, and public and academical schools, on the other. The question before us is, whether a similar system should be applied in a

course of college or university training. This question in our view is nearly identical with the question whether such a course of training shall be retained in our country at all. Unless such a course of study and discipline shall be made permanent and honorable by a fixed curriculum and a prescribed term of years it can have no recognized place in our educational system. Unless the class system can be retained, no place will be reserved in our country, for that higher general culture, which has hitherto been assigned to our Colleges and Universities, intermediate between the High School and the Academy on the one side, and the professional or technical school on the other. That the introduction of the elective system into the colleges would tend to this result is manifest from most of the arguments that are used in favor of this system-such as that the student has thereby the opportunity of selecting those studies which will be of the greatest service in his future life; or for which he feels the strongest interest, or toward which he has a prevailing inclination; all of which arguments imply that the value of the college course depends on its relation to the special line of life which the student expects to pursue.

We contend that education of every kind, whether general or special, has a higher aim than to qualify a man for any sphere of practical or professional life; that aim, is the culture of the man who is to practice the art or fill the profession. The wider is the culture and the more liberal is the training, if other things are equal, the more complete will be his fitness for his special occupation, provided he superadds to this genera! culture, the requisite professional knowledge and skill. We contend that as the elementary education of the Academy or Public School, introduces the pupil to that knowledge of language of man, and nature, and computation, which is deemed requisite for his individual and social life, there is ample room and imperative need for an enlargement of this general knowledge of language, computation, science, literature, and history, for as many as are to be leaders and guides of their fellow-men, in the special spheres of public and professional life, we contend that this higher college and university training should be prosecuted before they enter upon their appropriately-professional studies. It is true that all study whether general or special is more or less disciplinary. It is true that a professional and technological curriculum involves culture, but it is also true that every description of special training requires for its best effect that enlargement of elementary knowledge which is furnished by the studies usually assigned to the college or university. If now, such studies are rightly conceived to be necessary they should be prescribed as a fixed curriculum. But such a curriculum implies that those only can enter upon it with advantage who are prepared by previous study. This implies an entrance examination or its equivalent. For the reasons already given, if students are equally well qualified, instruction and training can be imparted with greater efficiency and profit if they are gathered into classes. It cannot be expected that all the members of any one class should be equally gifted, or equally industrious, or equally enthusiastic, or equally well trained. If the classes are large and there are striking inequalities of capacity or industry in their members, the