Doctor Holmes sums up the possibilities of applying her methods in America under the following statements: Our people are not as homogeneous as are the people of Italy. Temperamentally we are less responsive to sense impressions, but we have more imagination and a greater fund of nervous energy with less docility. We have more initiative and more power of invention. Our children would be apt to be freer and under less restraint in the handling of the material. They would be apt to take some of the steps provided by the didactic material more quickly and, if left to themselves, to omit some of the steps altogether. But this material should make a strong appeal to interest and should develop attention and concentration because of the spontaneous nature of the method used with it and the greater freedom of choice permitted by the method-each child being freely permitted to choose the material he desires to work with. Our shorter hours and longer vacations would not be, however, so favorable to the best workings of the system. We also have already achieved many of the things for which Doctor Montessori has been striving in Italy. Personally," Doctor Holmes says, "I should like to see the kindergarten and first primary grade as they now are reconstructed according to her principles, using her materials, but keeping the morning circle and the story, many of the songs and games, and some of the occupations, especially the clay."

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Continuation Schools.

Wisconsin's new school law (referred to in last year's "Annals") embodies a well-defined effort to train all the boys and girls of the State into skill in at least one occupation. The proper working out of this law should do away with the unskilled labor which is so unprofitable to the individual and such a poor thing for the State. The law requires the industrial training of all between the ages of 14 and 16 in "continuation schools" to be supported partly by local taxation and partly by State aid. A State Board of Industrial Education has been provided, and in every town of 5000 or more there must be provision made for industrial education. In smaller places there may be a local

board of industrial education, composed of the superintendent of schools and 4 members appointed by the school board of the place, 2 of these members to be employers and 2 of them skilled laborers, to "maintain industrial, continuation, and evening schools." The petition of 25 persons qualified to attend is all that is necessary to secure the establishment of any special type of continuation work in these schools.

The German and Swiss laws are followed in requiring every employer of minors between 14 and 16 years of age to allow them 5 of the 48 hours of labor each week for instruction, and this instruction must be carried on for at least 6 months in the year. This time must be allowed without any decrease in wages. The course of study "must include English, citizenship, sanitation, hygiene, and the use of safety devices, and such other branches as the State superintendent and the State Board of Industrial Education shall approve. Valuable provisions are also made for apprentices under 18 whose work may not exceed 55 hours a week, 5 hours of which must be allowed the apprentice for instruction in the local industrial school or in a manner approved by the local or State boards of industrial education. Besides, the indenture must contain an agreement that the employer will teach the apprentice the whole trade as it is carried on in the shop where he is indentured, and the agreement must also specify the amount of time to be spent at each process and at each machine.

THE TESTING OF THE SHOP.-There are two important and perfectly natural results of the form of continuation school work in which students spend part of their time in the shop doing real work under actual economic conditions. These are made clear in a recent report of the workings of this coöperative plan as it is carried on by the University of Cincinnati. Dean Schneider, who was a pioneer in this work in America, shows in this report that not only does the shop quickly detect the weak points in the student's character and development, but it also shows up many of the defects in the teaching he is receiving. At least this is true in so far as it has a bearing upon the practical testing which he will receive when he takes his place in the field of productive labor. "We learned the first year," he says,

" and have had it verified each year since, that the shop will spot a yellow streak in a man before the university even suspects it.

An attempt to sneak through spoiled work is never a great success there. We, at the college end, soon find our work under scrutiny and criticism from a source that does not hesitate to scrutinize and criticise. We are brought face to face with the failure of a university department as we never are in our four-year courses. A student, let us say, has finished successfully his work in physics. Some day he does a fool thing in the shop which indicates that he knows very little about the subject. When you confront him with the fool thing, and with the fact that he should have known better because he had been taught the theory governing it, you find his grasp upon the theory to be very feeble." In other words, the shop affords a testing of the teaching as well as of the taught, and no doubt will, as the coöperative plan becomes more common, have an important bearing both upon courses of study and upon the thoroughness with which they are taught.

The High School.

DEVELOPMENT OF PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOLS.-The following statements, from the Bureau of Education at Washington, indicate the encouraging growth of public high-school education: "The private secondary schools show a healthy increase—an increase of 25 per cent in attendance since 1900; but the public high schools have actually doubled their attendance in the same period. In 1890, 40 out of every hundred high schools were private-to-day there are only 16 private secondary schools for every 84 public high schools. In 1890, 32 per cent of the pupils were in private high schools and 68 per cent in public; to-day only 12 per cent of the pupils are in private secondary schools. The people have shown their appreciation of their high school in the most direct way possible-by supporting it unfailingly and generously. They have faith enough in it to pay high sums of money year after year that the high school may do greater and greater work. Industry, technical ability, home-making, together with the essentials of a cultural

education, are being taught our boys and girls in the splendid high schools of to-day on a scale never dreamed of in the civic life of any nation before our time."

The faith of the people in the work being done in our public high schools should of itself be a sufficient answer to the occasional hostile criticism that is heard. Secondary education at public expense is winning its way because the people realize what it has meant in the evolution of higher standards of American citizenship.

THE OPPORTUNITY OF THE SMALL HIGH SCHOOL.Under this title the Commissioner of Education for Massachusetts, Doctor David Snedden, has indicated, in the School Review for February, what he believes to be the proper lines of work for the smaller high schools of the country. As in Massachusetts 40 per cent of the public high schools have fewer than 4 teachers and, taking the country as a whole, the greater number have only 1 or 2 teachers, the nature of the work attempted by such a small faculty is a matter of grave importance. Manifestly such high schools should not attempt the full curriculum possible in larger schools, and they must always decide between instructing in a few subjects, with the possibility of doing good work in them, or attempting more with almost absolute certainty of dealing more superficially with each thing attempted.

Doctor Snedden points out that these small high schools usually have a few pupils who are preparing for college, and there is a strong temptation on the part of the school to place most of the emphasis of the work upon them, because their admittance to college is a creditable thing which the public of the community can easily grasp and appreciate. None of the other standards and ideals of secondary education can have much weight with the small high school, because "Its teachers are almost of sheer necessity followers, not originators;" and they have their hands full in seeking to meet the very specifically formulated requirements imposed by the colleges. Thus restricted in its scope, it is undoubtedly true that the small high school has largely failed to serve, as effectively as is ideally possible, community needs as represented in the large majority of its pupils for whom a higher education is impossible. While

he admits that such subjects as Latin, algebra, ancient history, physics and the like, play an important part as the tools of a higher education, presented as a means of college preparation they can have less value for those not going to college than other subjects that should be introduced for their benefit. The conviction is slowly spreading, he says, that the traditional program of the small high school is, for those who do not reach college, a relatively futile affair when viewed from the stand-point of any one of the three possible aims of secondary education,-namely, vocational efficiency, civic capacity, and personal culture.

Doctor Snedden says he has a growing conviction that the following should characterize the small high school:

1. It must remain primarily a school of liberal, as contrasted with vocational, education; simply because effective vocational education in any field is practicable only under specially prepared teachers, special equipment, and specially arranged conditions.

2. On the other hand, every small high school should maintain work in one or more lines of practical arts, but avowedly with reference to the possible contributions of the subject to the valid ends of liberal or general education. Manual training, household arts, agriculture, and such commercial studies as typewriting and elementary bookkeeping, can be made valuable factors in this liberal or general education scheme. They will also make valuable contributions to vocational ideals; but neither the pupil nor the community should expect, from the few hours per week that can be devoted to these subjects in these small schools, that genuine vocational skill or capacity can be developed in them.

3. While the necessary and valuable function of preparing the few for college must receive recognition, these schools must remember that, for the great majority of their pupils, preparation for the cultural and civic life of the community is supremely important. Nor are the two aims to be fulfilled by the same means and methods; for the college student must learn to use tools of knowledge that the others will not need.

4. Especially should such schools care for the needs of the large number of boys and girls who will leave at or