subject be taken up in its practical and philosophical sense. With that end in view the Committee have invited Prof. Davidson to open the subject this morning. He has given much and deep thought to it and his subject is,

THE NEW EDUCATION.

In advocating a New Education, as I am about to do, I pronounce, by implication, an unfavorable judgment upon the old. If this were satisfactory, no other would be required. In order to make clear to you the defects of our present system, let me begin by laying down three educational principles, to which I think none will object:

(1.) Every faculty of the human being ought to be considered in any complete scheme of education, and every such scheme ought to be a unity.

(2.) Education ought to be a preparation for all the relations of life.

(3.) All experience of whatever sort, contributes to educate, whether we like it or not.

Now, I maintain that, in our present education, every one of these principles is disregarded, and that therefore, a New Education is necessary.

I shall divide what I have to say into two parts. First, I shall treat, in some detail, of the defects of our present education. Second, I shall try to show how an education, taking full account of the three principles above laid down, might be realized and made universal. The major premise in all I shall say is Education is preparation for life in all its relations.

I. THE DEFECTS OF OUR PRESENT EDUCATION.

A perfect system of education ought to extend to every human faculty, regulating all its actions, and should form a preparation for all the duties of life, so that these may be performed in the best manner and with a view to the highest ends. Now, the human faculties may be classified variously and with various degrees of minuteness; but for the purpose of education they may be divided into the cognitive, the affectional and the active faculties. The cognitive faculties are the senses and

the intellect; the affectional, the emotions and aspirations; the active, the physical energies and the will. A true education must direct attention to all these faculties. It must train the senses to accurate observation; the intellect to logical reasoning, and especially to estimating the relative value of all objects presented to it; the emotions to purity and harmony; the aspirations to the distribution of affection in accordance with the intrinsic worth of things, as recognized by the intellect; the physical energies to vigor, endurance and ready obedience; and the will to complete submission to the intellect and the trained aspirations. Nay more, all these faculties must be trained in such an order as shall ensure their working in complete harmony, each performing its proper function, none rebelling and none playing the despot. Further still, these faculties must not only be all trained, and trained to order and harmony; they must also be trained with reference to all the relations of life, religious, social, political, economical, etc. Lastly, they must be trained to the full extent of their activity, never being allowed to act wrong, carelessly or disharmoniously. To recapitulate: a true education must (1) educate all the faculties; (2) it must educate them harmoniously and in order; (3) it must educate them with reference to all the duties of life; (4) it must educate them continuously.

Now, I maintain that our present education does no one of all these things.

In the first place, it does not educate all the faculties, but confines its efforts almost exclusively to a portion of the cognitive faculties, mostly the intellective ones. Of recent years,

to be sure, an attempt has been made to educate the senses, in the earlier stages of their development, by means of kindergartens and object lessons, and later on, by the study of physical science; but only a small number of young people are reached in this way. As to the other faculties, hardly any serious attempt is made to educate them. What, for example is done for the emotions and aspirations? How many teachers have even an idea of how these could be trained? The Greeks, who did so

much in the way of education, knew that the true means for training the emotions was the fine arts-not so much practice in producing works of art, as familiarity with, and comprehension of them, after they were produced. But in our education the fine arts have almost no part at all; and what little they do have is not calculatued to influence the emotions deeply. What school or college thinks of systematically using the great works of art-of sculpture, painting, poetry, music, etc. -as a means of training the emotions of children to fix themselves upon the proper cbjects, and not to be dazzled by mere outward seeming?

Again, as to the aspirations, the affections of the pure intelligence, what is done for them? We must say absolutely nothing. Nay, the very means, the only means, whereby they could be retained, viz.: religion. is rigorously excluded from many schools. And what is sadder still to reflect upon, so perverted is the religion of our time, for the most part, that it had better be excluded from all. And yet religion is one of the very first essentials of education. But it must be a religion based, not upon tradition and faith, but upon science and art and philosophy, and actual experience, carefully interpreted. I am very well aware that I am touching here upon one of the most tender and important questions of the present day. I know that many people shrink from the notion of a religion without faith and tradition, a religion resting on science and experience. Many are not aware that, in exchanging a religion grounded on faith for one grounded on science, we are merely exchanging the results of a narrow, closed and almost childish experience, eked out with imagination and desire, for the results of a boundless, ever-widening, intelligent experience. I have no space at present to discuss this question fully; but I am sure that those of us who have ventured to make the exchange do not regret it, knowing how much more satisfactory and inspiring, how much mightier in its sanctions, how much more truly reverential the religion of science, and of loving work in accordance with science, is.

By religion alone can the aspirations be educated and enabled to reach out to the divine. Every faculty in our nature is developed by exercise, in reference to its special object. Aspiration is the religious faculty, and can be exercised only through religion-through the effort to rise to ontologic union with the first principle of the universe, by all the faculties of soul and body working in harmony,-any system of education that lacks the religious element, the training of the aspirations, lacks the most important of all elements, that which combines and gives meaning to the whole. For religion certainly contains the meaning of life, if it has any meaning.

We often wonder why our public schools, with all the money, attention and labor that are expended on them, produce no better results than they do, why they fail to send out earnest men and women, above selfish greed and corruption, and leave the tone of society low and frivolous. And yet there is no reason for wonder. Until life is possessed with the earnestness of religion, until men's first and highest endeavor is to place themselves in blessed union with the first principle of things, life must be low and frivolous. I know well that it is impossible to introduce the dogmatic, unscientific religion of the present day into our schools. It has to be treated as a dangerous charlatan, both in politics and education; but that only proves how sorely we need a scientific religion, which shall not be dangerous.

Once more, what is done by our education to train the physical faculties and the will? Almost nothing. It contains no system of hygiene, no system of gymnastics, no system of manual training, no discipline calculated to enable pupils to pursue with readiness the path of duty, however disagreeable to them. The consequence is that many of our young people are allowed to eat and drink things and contract habits highly prejudicial to their health, and so either cut short or embitter and confuse their lives. Think what Carlyle suffered for want of attention to hygiene, and how much the world lost in consequence! For want of gymnastics, the bodies of young people

often remain either undeveloped, or so inharmoniously developed, as to be perpetual obstacles to them in the performance of duty, and to cause them much uneasiness. A body well trained through a whole life is almost exhaustless in its power. Think how much Mr. Gladstone's energy is due to his careful physical training! For want of systematic discipline of the will, many young people grow up vacillating and timid in action, unable to carry out what they feel to be their duty, and consequently very unhappy. There is perhaps no worse, and certainly no more destructive, kind of unhappiness, than that which comes from the sense of not having the courage to perform one's duty. It may seem, at first sight, that it would be difficult to devise a systematic discipline for the will; but that this is not the case, I shall show further on.

So much for the failure of our present education to educate all the faculties. I come next to speak of its failure to educate them harmoniously. This, of course, follows directly from the other. There can be no harmony in an education which extends to only a portion of the faculties. But even the partial education now given is, in a remarkable degree, a thing of shreds and patches, without any clear aim. Whole trees of knowledge, some of them the most essential, are neglected, and branches of next to no importance gravely insisted on. Even our schools, colleges and universities do not belong to one system, or grade naturally into each other. Even in the city of New York, there is no provision whereby a boy can pass from them into any university. This confused and disconnected character of our instruction is chiefly due to our want of any clear notion of the aim of education. Formerly education was adapted to the mediaeval, pessimistic, contemptuous view of this life, and sought to prepare men to abandon it and turn to another. At present, it is being slowly adapted to the modern, melioristic, hopeful view of this life, which holds that the way to the higher life lies through the performance of all the manifold duties of this. But the transition has not yet been completely made; we have not yet become