civil-service reform is assuredly gaining ground, as it seems that the remedy for these evils will lie along the line of the principles advocated by the friends of that reform. We cannot if we will, separate our local self-government from the government of States, nor the government of States from the national Government. The influence of Washington extends down into the humblest school districts throughout the entire country, and I had this in mind when suggesting this subject as a suitable one for discussion at this time, and I still hope that the result of our discussions and our deliberations on this part of the programme will strengthen those here at the national Capital who are standing by the cause of civil-service reform. Now I have the hope that the discussion that may follow will result in bringing out of this body of school superintendents views favorable to this organization to which I have referred, the American Institute of Civics, that stands by us, and stands by the principle involved in the merit system, and to this end, Mr. Chairman, I will now close.

Mr. Manly of Ohio, and Mr. Butcher of West Virginia, the next speakers on the programme, not being present, the president introduced the Hon. B. S. MORGAN, State superintendent of West Virginia, who said:

Ladies and Gentlemen: I assure you that I had expected to take but a very little part in this discussion.

I saw the programme was full of able speakers, and I understood that other gentlemen were prepared with a great deal of fullness on this subject, and so I proposed to content myself with being a listener, but as a worker in this great cause of education, I deem it my duty to add a word of approbation and commendation to what has been said in regard to civil-service reform and the public schools. There are a great many people who do not believe in civil-service reform, many of each political party who do not so believe. I have no doubt in my mind that the extent and true nature of civil-service reform in its application to the administration of our Government is but very poorly understood. What is civil-service reform as understood by the reader of the newspapers to-day? I think he would gather this idea: that civil-service reform is simply to test the fitness of an applicant to hold office under the Government by certain intellectual and moral tests, by his ability to answer a reasonable per cent. of a given number of questions prepared by a board of examiners upon certain branches of knowledge. We can all readily see the importance of intellectual qualifications to hold certain positions, but it is very difficult to convince a great many people that the fitness to hold office should be determined by these intellectual tests and not by political principles. Admitting that civil-service reform is right, admitting that it is the true principle of the administration of our Government, is it not doubly applicable to the administration of our educational institutions? A large part of a clerk's duty in

one of the Departments is almost mechanical now, but if, as has been asserted by the honorable gentleman preceding me, civil-service reform is already gaining ground with reference to the discharge of these simple clerical duties, ought not a similar reform in regard to the administration of our educational institutions be doubly applicable and worthy of the approbation and approval of all educated people everywhere? The teacher in the public school, the principal of the high school, the superintendent of the city schools has something more than mere mechanical, clerical duty to perform. There are certain duties that can only be estimated and measured after long years of trial, only be measured by special qualifications to discharge those duties. If, after the test of a trial, after the test of experience, it is found that the individual who presides over the educational institutions of city, county, township, and State possesses these qualifications, would it not stand to reason that the principles of civil-service reform should govern his selection and retention, since they are applicable to a greater extent than in the discharge of some mechanical duty? Civil-service reform, it occurs to me, has an application to the educational work of the country in three respects. A very brief examination of the educa tional systems of any of the States will prove that it had an humble beginning, and that the State superintendent in a large number of them is tacitly understood, when elected, to hold his place until there is sufficient cause for his removal; while the teachers are not expressly told so, yet it is fully understood that they will hold their po sitions until there is cause for removal. These facts evidence the beginning of a profession; that is, the beginning of a true professional character in the work of education. I find in a Maryland county adjoining my State that the teachers are elected to teach in the public schools, and it is understood that they will hold their positions indefinitely, and they cannot be dismissed except upon thirty days' notice, and no teacher can be discharged or resign his position except upon such notice. There the professional character of school-work is thoroughly recognized.

If there is anything base in the public school system of the country it is the prostitution of it to political, partisan ends. Now, I believe in party; I do not believe in divorcing politics from education; but that a principal of a school or superintendent of a city or county is qualified to discharge his duties because he holds to a certain political faith is all wrong, and I am glad to say that there is a sentiment prevailing that it is not a true test. I think we see evidences that civil-service reform is applicable to teaching in three aspects: First, in regard to the examamination of teachers; second, in regard to tenure of office; and third, in regard to the unification of educational work.

Now, a word in regard to the certification of teachers. The work of the public school teacher, I mean outside of the large cities, is a preca rious sort of work, and it is not even of a semi-professional character.

The public school work in my State, and in a large number of other States, is a sort of recruiting ground for all other professions. There are no fixed limits or standard of qualifications which a man or woman must reach to be called a "teacher," as the physician qualifies himself for his work, or the lawyer, or the minister. There is nothing of that kind. There are no limits or professional standards, and without these fixed professional standards we cannot have a profession.

The bright young man or woman just from the normal school or college has, perhaps, a better chance than if he or she had fifteen or twenty years of experience, and I have known of teachers from the academy or normal school passing a better examination than the teacher of ten years' experience. There is no distinction between that inexperienced teacher and the experienced professional teacher. I say that our methods of certification of teachers are defective from the fact that there is no recognition of experience, special qualifications, special fitness for the work; that the principal test, the general test the country over, is simply intellectual qualification and nothing more. Of course, teachers must have good general moral reputation, but I mean that the intellectual test only is applied, and it is so applied that there is only one grade of success. If we could have true civil-service reform in the certification of teachers there would be several grades.

The teacher ought to have some recognition of his intellectual qualifi cations, and there ought to be special recognition of professional experience, because there must be, in order to make a teacher, intellectual qualification, professional qualification, academical training, and there must also be actual experience in public school work. So far in our examinations we do not separate these, and there is no recognition paid to these distinct qualities that fit the teacher for his work and really make him a teacher. I think, if we could get some sort of civil-service reform applicable to the certification of teachers it would go much towards helping to make it a profession and not simply an avocation.

The president next introduced the Hon. W. N. BARRINGER, of Newark, N. J., who said:

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: I feel somewhat out of place in attempting to talk before so many of you, many of whom I know are so much better fitted to discuss this question than I am, but as the gentlemen who have preceded me have stated this fact, that we are not able to govern ourselves, that the elective principle, of which we have boasted so much and so long, and about which we have said so much to the people of the world, is a failure, and all that we have said and done for the last one hundred years in the line of self-government, in the line of exercising the right of suffrage, in the line of the sovereign power of the people to select proper rulers and officers, seems, from what we have heard to-night, to be a failure. I am not prepared to accept this altogether, though I can see that there is some trouble in

that direction; and yet I am not prepared to say that we should shift the responsibility from the elective to the appointing power, or that we should gain very much if we did so. I should at once want to know who appoints the appointing power, and I am afraid that when we should get back to the foundation we should find that if the foundation be not pure, the system will not be pure, and that we shall be no nearer our purpose than we were at the beginning.

We trace all of our success and power back to the people. There I stand, and there I propose to stand. I do not propose to run because I see a little difficulty, like a man's hand.

I propose to face that difficulty. I never knew a difficulty of any kind to be overcome by running away from it, but I have known many a difficulty to be scattered and overcome by facing it in a manly way. Now, the trouble appears to be that there is a little loss somewhere of a sense of duty. There is your trouble, ladies and gentlemen, a little loss of a sense of duty; that is, when a man is elected to a position, instead of endeavoring to find out what his duty is, and with a good loyal heart and a strong fearless arm to perform it, he is seeking for place and for power and spoils. I understand that, and you understand it, too. Now, I propose to make two or three inquiries. do not care about your answering them to-night, for I do not think you can do It is a good thing sometimes to carry a question in our minds that we cannot answer immediately. It is good exercise for us to have tough questions, and to wrestle with them, so that our intellectual and moral fiber may gain power by using strength. Mr. Chairman, how is it that this people, which has been growing up for a hundred years past, has fallen back in its sense of duty; that it has not got that stern, rugged sense of duty that nerved so many of the earlier generation and helped it to perform its duty?

so.

Well, I have been looking about a little as a superintendent of schools in New Jersey for the last 10 years, and I have been watching the course, and the scope, and the methods, and the sentiments that govern . and modify the work in our schools, and I am not sure but some of this lack of a sense of duty arises from some of our methods and some of our ways of bringing up the young people. Not many days ago a principal said to me, "How is it that we cannot have teachers that are able to perform the work? Here is So-and-so; she cannot write well enough to teach the subject properly. Here is another not sufficiently versed in arithmetic to do the work as it should be done to teach her classes." I immediately inquired further into the matter, returned to him, and, looking him in the face, gently but firmly said: "How is this? What did you do for that teacher when you had her? She came from your school. You took her from the primary school. She has been trained in the primary school under your care and management, and she has gone through all of these places under your hands, and yet you say at this late day that she cannot write well enough to teach. What were you doing all these years?"

He looked down at the floor and made no reply. That was some weeks ago, and he has said nothing about it since, and probably never will re-open that case.

After fifteen years of the hardest kind of study in this school work, I have found out everything but the right thing. One day when I was busy with a class of boys, and their manliness would now and then assert itself, I said: "Why, I have found out what a boy is good for." The problem was solved. "He is good to make a man of." The girl is good to make a woman of, nothing else under God's heaven can you do with her; then I said to myself, my business is not to make officers, school commissioners, presidents, lawyers, physicians, not even to make preachers of the Gospel, but to make men and women, honest, upright, pure, and righteous. Out of these you can make anything you want. You can make teachers and school commissioners and presidents, who will not profess civil-service reform, but who will practice it, whether we aid them or not. Why? Because they are civil service all the way through; they were made so in their training. Now, as we go back into our schools let us see, when we meet our teachers, when we examine them and promote them, if we cannot appeal to their sense of duty.

The next speaker on the programme was Thomas P. Ballard, of Columbus, Ohio, who was introduced by President Young.

CIVIL SERVICE AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

Mr. BALLARD said:

The consideration which prompts our political scientist to urge the reform of the civil service is the commanding necessity at this time of the development of the functions and powers of our executive systems. It is no doubt true that we have neglected, more than other countries, the study of the science of administration. In our national growth hitherto, as a number of writers have shown, we have been chiefly concerned with acts of legislation-framing constitutions and drafting codes of laws. It may be difficult enough to make laws; it is a greater task to enforce them. Shakespeare says, "I can easier teach twenty what 'twere good to be done than be one of twenty to follow my own teaching." This is as true of the State as of the individual. The national civil service, of which the President is the head; each State civil service, of which the Governor is the head; and each municipal civil service, of which the mayor is the head, need, much more than in the past, to be strengthened at the hands of the people. The political problems of the immediate future appeal for solution more to our administrative than to our legislative system. There is urgent demand for us to learn how to enforce laws that protect the sacredness of the ballot, that restrain intemperance and gambling, that preserve public rights involved in our railroad, telegraph, and other corporations; how to maintain the supremacy of law