earnest, and thus help to keep up the standard of discipline and efficiency. The private schools seem able to be much more rigorous than might be expected, in consequence of the high standard set by the public schools. They generally require parents to pay the fees for a whole year on the entry of a pupil; they, with other educational institutions, demand "certificates of honourable dismissal” from pupils who come to them from other schools. They seem also indifferent to the withdrawal of girls who cannot or will not keep up with the class. The principal of one private school in Baltimore which prepares for College, informed the writer that seventeen pupils had withdrawn between September and April, because they found the Latin too difficult. It is, of course, impossible for a stranger to judge of this matter fully in a few weeks of observation; the above remarks are only put forward tentatively. Difference of national characteristics and of public sentiment affect school discipline very largely. We were informed by the Professor of Ethics at one of the great American Universities, that it was an American principle to leave the individual perfect freedom of choice, and that this was the only way to train young people to true morality and self-control. Even if, under this system, some of the weaker members succumbed to temptation, it is considered better to allow this to happen than to restrain all, and thus make it impossible for them ever to learn true self-government.

In accordance with these ethical principles, the system of prizes is banished; there are in some schools

a few special prizes, but there is nothing corresponding to the system prevalent in many English schools. Marks are used to some extent in most schools, but the best authorities seem to disapprove of what they term the percentage system, i.e., the estimating a scholar's position by the percentage of marks obtained. They prefer a scale of credits by letters (A = very good, B = good, and so on), similar to that used in the detailed individual reports of our Cambridge Local Examinations. Again and again we found a superintendent expressing this view in his report. Dr. Brooks, of Philadelphia, says, "to train a pupil to recite for a recitation mark, is to give him an absolutely wrong idea of education, and tends to destroy his taste for study and knowledge." The superintendent of Ann Arbor says, "I believe no pedagogical principle is better established than that the most fruitful motive of a student's efforts is internal-not external-interest in the subject matter of study, rather than the teacher's will, honour prizes, or high per-cents. The normal condition of mind growth is freedom-voluntary activity. More-' over, the good teacher will do her best work under conditions of freedom-freedom as to methods, quantity of subject matter presented in a given time, form of pupils' acquisitions, and all the details of inciting and impressing her pupils. I trust we are for ever done with the repressing influences of the examination for promotion. I deem it worthy of mention here that the High School (as well as most of lower grades) has abandoned the percentage method of recording standings, using

F

instead only four grades of scholarship, denoted by letters. We have long observed that many pupils are accustomed to rate themselves by their percentage record, rather than by their conscious power and attainment. We believe that artificial incentives of any kind are likely to break down the ethical spirit in youth which is the chief element in genuine character and high attainment. Scholarship honours in some degree seem inevitable in school management, but they should never be regarded by pupil or teacher as the highest motive of study."

The teacher's estimate is considered by some authorities the best criterion of a pupil's progress. "The examination paper still attacks learning on its intellectual side, the marking system on its moral.” 1 Some schools send home monthly reports to the parents in a book, keeping a counterfoil in

their own register; the Cambridge High and Latin Schools, and the Brearly School, New York, have excellent forms for this purpose, concise, simple, and clear.

There is a very strong feeling against examinations among American educators. The principal of an excellent High School told the writer that he considered them the "bane of teaching "; the superintendent of Philadelphia, in his last annual report, strongly deprecates any encouragement of the examination system. The superintendent of Cambridge (Mass.), takes the same view. "After an added experience of ten years, I would state

1 G. N. Palmer in Andover Review, Nov. 1885.

positively that I do not believe in written examinations, the results of which are to determine, or to be a factor in determining, the fitness of pupils for promotion. These examinations set up a low and alluring end for study-the attainment of examination marks—and they dissipate that natural desire for knowledge, which is the source and inspiration of all true learning and of all real joy in study." 1

2

Even promotion examinations given by the teachers themselves, or by the superintendent, are considered injurious by many of the most eminent authorities. Thus the public High Schools do not send in their pupils for University examinations such as the Harvard examination. Although this is an excellent examination, only 69 girls, nearly all from private schools, have passed it since 1881. Its syllabus, we may add, somewhat resembles that of the Matriculation Examination of the University of London, but it is probably not quite so difficult, as it can be taken in two parts.

The public High Schools prepare for College to some extent: this means that their students have to pass a matriculation examination somewhat below the standard of the Harvard examinations. Even in this matter, however, the feeling is so strongly against examinations, that many Colleges admit,

1 This speech is quoted by the Cambridge superintendent from Dr. White, Cam. School Report.

2 Boston Report, pp. 18, 19, 25, 26. Washington Report, p. 34. Forum, Dr. Rice (March, 1893): "Regular examinations for promotions are now looked upon as unscientific pedagogy."

"on certificate," as it is termed, from good schools. This system originated, we believe, in the University of Michigan: we give some account of it in Chapter VI. It means that a College recognises, as an exemption, a certificate from the principal of a good school that his pupil has satisfactorily gone through a certain course, including the subjects required for matriculation.

There is a very strong divergence of opinion on this point among American educators; those who approve of it consider that the teacher, after knowing and working with a pupil for years, is a better judge of his fitness for College than an examiner who has read a few papers. On the other hand, so great an authority as President Eliot, of Harvard, considers the certificate system essentially bad.

"The method of admission on certificate which has grown out of this relation between State Universities and secondary schools is so full of perils both for the schools and the university, that Harvard University has no desire to enter on any such policy.": Harvard refuses to admit "on certificate," and so does Bryn Mawr, one of the most distinguished of the women's Colleges.

1

As we have noticed in Chapter I., in speaking of the High School Board of Minnesota, and the Regents of the University of the State of New York, there is a tendency to introduce examinations in the State system, as a means of securing

1 Annual Report of the President to Treasurer of Harvard University, 1891-1892.