cide what classes shall be called upon to perform exercises and in what studies. They may direct the teacher to conduct the examination or may conduct it wholly themselves, or they may combine both methods. In fine, they may dismiss the teacher for the hour and pursue the examination in his absence. Should any scholar misbehave himself or prove refractory or contumacious to the committee while they are engaged in examining the school, it is presumed they have an authority to suspend, to expel, or to punish on the spot, in the same way that the teacher may do in case of like misconduct committed against himself. (10th Reps., p. 183.)

(3) Fixing the course of study carries with it the power to decide, to a very large extent, the methods of teaching. In a certain grade, which corresponds to a certain year of school, and which is designed to prepare pupils for the studies of the following year, certain studies must be taught in general in a definite way; and the power which organizes the school must be able to insist that this particular work shall be done by the teacher. But it would be exceedingly unwise to exercise such a power except in a general way. To destroy the individuality of the teacher by minute and detailed directions is to hinder him and injure the school.

(4) The selection of school-books also enables school officers to give, tone to the school and color to the teaching. Suppose, for example, that a text-book is selected in political economy which strongly advocates protection because the school officers favor that view; and suppose the teacher is a strong believer in free trade, so much so that he regards protection as a moral wrong, a kind of robbery of the many to enrich a monopoly. He cannot conscientiously follow the teaching of the school-book provided for his class; he must then refute the teaching of the book, and thus in effect violate the regulations of the school, for which he would be likely to be discharged; or else he must do violence to his conscience, commit what he regards as a wrong, in order to retain his place; and in this case he would prove himself unfit to be a teacher.

Here comes up the question, How far has a public school the moral right to give instruction in any branch of study involving questions upon which the community is not agreed? Such questions may arise in the teaching of zoology, where, for example, the doctrine of evolution may point to an origin of man not in accordance with the commonly ac cepted understanding of Scripture; and in the teaching of English history the question may arise whether Mary Stuart was a murderess or a saint, whether Elizabeth was a most wise, patriotic, and virtuous sovereign or a malignant and vindictive persecutor and curse. To exclude all such subjects as may give rise to differences of opinion is to deny the right of the public schools to conduct the higher education, and even the secondary, and thus practically to debar a large portion of the community from the privileges of this higher training. To enforce through the text-books and the teachers the teaching of opinions held by the majority of a community as represented by the school officers is a kind of oppression of the minority.

The object of schools is education, culture, and not the propagation of any one set of opinions, the development of the powers and not storing pupils' minds with the opinions and thoughts of older people. The true course on such questions is, then, not to exclude the studies, and not to control the teaching of them in any particular channel; it is rather the duty of the officers and of the teacher to present the oppo. site views, and to lead these advanced pupils to reason themselves upon the question at issue, leaving their conclusions as much as possible to their own natural judgment later in life. In this way only can the honesty and the fairness of the teaching be justified when they come to maturity in the minds of the pupils.

(5) The authority to send pupils to any particular school involves the power of the officers to promote pupils who are not qualified. What is the teacher to do in case this happens? He can do nothing but submit and leave the officers who are guilty of a wrong to the inevitable retribution which overtakes all wrong-doing. In such a case the retribution will come from an awakened and outraged community, if there be a wrong. There may be cases where it is the best for all concerned to advance a pupil to the higher grade though he is not fully prepared.

(6) May a teacher punish a pupil or require of him, with the approval of the committee, any duty which the parent has expressly forbidden? The answer to this question appears when we consider what the school is for. It is not alone for the individual pupil but for the community, for the good of the whole. Now, if one parent may interpose his wishes and his opinions with authority another may do the same. This would remove the direction and control of the school from the regularly constituted authorities, the officers elected by the majority and the teacher whom they appoint, and vest the real control in individual caprice. The right to dictate does not rest with the parent. If he is dissatisfied his remedy is to secure a new set of officers.

(7) But the more arbitrary the authority with which the highest suc cess of a system of public schools makes it necessary to invest school officers, the more discreetly this authority should be exercised lest it become oppression, and so defeat its own aim. It is a great thing for a parent to surrender into the hands of a teacher so much of his own authority and control over his children as he must in order to the maintenance of an effective system of public schools; and when, by the laws, the support of the schools becomes a public tax, and either attendance upon them or else the additional cost of private schools is made compulsory, an extreme limit has been reached in the curtailment of a parent's natural rights. Hence, so far as it may be done without positive injury to the school, the preference of individual parents ought to be respected and granted.

CONCLUSION.

These extensive powers and the corresponding duties in conducting public school education are vested in school officers and teachers by the

laws and from the necessities of the case, since education is a public concern under our republican institutions and indispensable under our form of Government. It will be noticed that the principle of local control is everywhere recognized. This is the wisest and most beneficent feature of the system. The county and State boards of control are chiefly useful in stimulating this local interest; and whatever the authority and the duty of the teacher or the school officer, of whatever rank, that authority is best exerted and that duty is best performed when it secures and works with an intelligent active interest in the community, the parents, and the pupils; and without this co-operation all other agencies are comparatively powerless. Paul may plant and Apollos may water; from that source comes the increase.

Paul is State assistance ad libitum; Apollos is national aid ad nauseam; the Divine Spirit which gives life and growth must be found in the local interest.

This is not a grace-of-God Government, with all power and wisdom inherent in hereditary rules. Neither is it an aristocracy, in which the best rule. In a democracy like ours foolish councils will sometimes prevail, but the exercise of the folly works its own cure. The people get sick of misrule after a while, and they rise in their might and reform or revolutionize-and we have no grace-of-God system of education. It is what the people make it. There are no hereditary school officers or teachers endowed with all wisdom. Power does not proceed from above downwards in education, as it does not in our Government. If teachers buy their places, and school trustees sell out, as has been said here, the best cure for a community, where that is possible, is to let it go on-the more of it and the ranker the better-and the sooner the evil will be cured.

Educational references and great teachers, inspired with a noble ambition to really improve the schools, arise from time to time. But they are not like a great central dynamo, to send the current to the little arcs or incandescent ribbons in every room. They may be gasometers. They rather resemble the sunlight whose beams start into life the seeds long slumbering in the earth. Those seeds are the individual local interests.

The President called upon Dr. B. A. Hinsdale, of Cleveland, Ohio, to begin the discussion of Dr. Marble's paper.

Dr. HINSDALE: Mr. President, I wish to say in the beginning that I have listened with interest and satisfaction to this strong and clear presentation of the subject that Superintendent Marble has given. I do not know what may have been the experience of others who have listened, but the subject has been so brought to my own mind that I have obtained views and glimpses of it from new angles and from unfamiliar points of observation.

I shall not, if you please, wander very far from the lines that have been drawn in the paper in the remarks I am to make, but shall call at

tention to two or three things that have been presented, largely for the purpose of emphasizing them and their applications, and partially, also, for the purpose of extending them in one or two particulars. It seems to me that the most suggestive and fruitful thought presented in this paper, so far as its consequences and applications are concerned, is the thought that since the mediaval times there has been a process of dif ferentiation going on, educationally speaking, the result of which has been to strip the teacher or educator of certain powers and rights and duties which at one time belonged to him, and to give these to a new educational functionary, so to speak, who represents the State, the public interest, and the public authority. I think there can be no question as to the soundness of this position I should say, generally speaking, that, as compared to those who, in mediaval times represented that business side of affairs, the teacher is relatively less than he was, and that those who represent the business side of affairs, as compared to the teacher, are more than they were. I think there can be no doubt as to the fact that such a process of differentiation has been going forward. Our attention was also called to the fact, which seems to be an im portant one, that whereas the duties and powers of school officers, who represent the public, are defined in statutes, in laws, and in law books, the powers and duties of teachers for the most part are not defined in the statutes or in the laws. They come down to us from the past by tradition, and they rest to-day very largely upon a basis of usage and of custom all over the land. I suppose it is so all over the world, or in civilization at all events, meaning by that expression the European civ. ilized world. It occurs to me that that fact is a very much more important one than it is possible for some of us to suppose. I take it to be a fact. Every one who has read the school laws of the various States knows that very little indeed is said in the laws about teachers, about the teaching corporation, so to speak; whereas the powers and duties of the managing corporation are very definitely written out in the statutes. The way of putting that seemed to me very happy when Mr. Marble said that whereas the duties of school officers rest upon a basis of positive law, the duties and powers of teachers are to be drawn or inferred from what in a large and general sense we might call a sort of "educational common law." I take it that this is a very fortunate circumstance. There is a marked difference between the duties and powers of school officers and teachers. It is a vastly easier thing to define the duties of school officers than it is to define the duties of teachers. I know, as a matter of course, that boards of education go far beyond the Legislature in ordering that this thing shall be done and that that shall not be done, but their ordinances lie largely in the field of things that are formal in their nature and do not reach to the heart and character of teachers and of education. I take it that it would not only be a diffi cult thing, but an impossible thing, to sum it all up and to define in the statutes what teachers are to do in the carrying forward of schools, and

I think we have reason to congratulate ourselves that the law makers have permitted themselves to leave that part of the work, considered as a whole, alone, and have not attempted to define or limit the duties and powers of teachers to any considerable or appreciable extent. I think this is a fortunate circumstance, growing out of the very subjectmatter, as compared with the subject-matter of the other branch of the discussion. I think there is another reason why it is fortunate that the matter is left in that shape, and that is this: I take it that it is far easier to change public opinion, public sentiment, far easier to change ideas and notions and sentiments and to give a new motive to what we may call "tradition," the educational common law, than it is to take the educational statutes and change them. I know it is sometimes an easier thing to change a statute than it is to change public sentiment, but I take it upon the whole that it is easier to go forward, to make progress, owing to the fact that the powers and duties of teachers rest upon a basis of common law-I take it that it is easier for us to go forward than it would be if we had all these things written out in an educational book of chronicles, so to speak, so that a great body of tradi tional law and of book legislation had to be affected and ch anged before particular things might be wrought out to our satisfaction.

There is another conclusion that follows from the generalization which has been presented in the paper, namely, since the powers and the duties of teachers repose for the most part upon a basis of common law, they will differ with the cultivation, with the intelligence, with the civilization, so to speak, of different communities, and the result is that the common law as respects these matters in one State, while it is to a great extent the law in another State, is not so throughout, and not only so, but the common educational law of one' State, of one locality or section of the State, is not by any means what it is in another locality or section. To some extent this is probably a misfortune, but there is a great deal of reason, I take it, to be found for congratulation in the fact that it is so. Let me illustrate: In the State of Ohio the Legisla ture says that school boards shall choose all text-books, and from a legal standpoint superintendents and teachers are not recognized in this matter. From one point of view it is difficult to conceive of greater absurdity than this.

My understanding is that in the colleges of the country, governing and controlling boards of trustees and the like, never burden themselves with the text-book question. That is left for the faculty, and not only so, but it is practically left to the head of the teaching depart. ment to manage. Now, there are probably reas ons, very grave and weighty reasons, why the Legislature ought not to give the teachers of a city or locality the power to choose their text-books. I am not going to enter upon this argument further than to express this opinion; but there comes up a question, the question how far shall teachers and superintendents be recognized in this matter? How much influence,