istic features of American education. The earlier chapters give some account of the organization of the public school system, of the Public High Schools, and of private Secondary Schools. Chapter IV. is devoted to the method of teaching in general, and to the teaching of Mathematics, History, and Science in particular. Chapter V. deals with Women's Colleges, and Chapter VI. with the University of Michigan. Chapter VII. gives an account of Physical Education in the United States, and Chapter VIII. discusses co-educatiou.

The final section, or conclusion, is an attempt to summarise such information as is, in my opinion, most worthy of attention in England. In the Appendix will be found a few statistical tables.

It is difficult, and indeed almost impossible, to express adequately my thanks to those educators in America without whose co-operation my work would have been in vain. Everywhere the credentials from the Gilchrist Educational Trust, and from Dr. J. G. Fitch, procured for me the most kindly welcome, and the most unwearying guidance and help. Even after returning to England I received a considerable number of educational publications; while, again and again, during my visit, men and women engaged in the full current of professional work turned aside to give me hours of their time in explanations and interviews.

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I must, however, endeavour to make some special acknowledgment of the debt I owe to Dr. Harris, the United States Commissioner of Education. The Bureau at Washington was the first institution I visited there I received most valuable advice from Dr. Harris as to my further course of study. The books and pamphlets placed at my disposal were of the greatest service to me, more particularly his own works, as the following pages show. The statistics are drawn almost entirely from his reports. To his influence I owe my first clear conception

of American thought on educational matters, and of the lines along which I should work.

To the authorities of the Universities and Colleges also I wish to express my sincere thanks, more particularly to President Eliot, of Harvard, President Angell, of the University of Michigan, General Francis Walker, President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and to the Presidents and Officers of the Colleges I visited, for their hospitality and help. Dr. James McAlister, of Philadelphia, and Colonel Parker, of Chicago, Mr. J. G. Crosswell and Dr. Leete, of New York, gave me much information and guidance on the more purely educational questions; while to Professor George Palmer, of Harvard, and Mrs. Alice Freeman Palmer I owe more than I can

well say.

No one can be more conscious than the writer of the many shortcomings and faults of the following pages. The subject is one of great difficulty, needing the undivided attention of years—not months—of labour. It has been written in the intervals of professional work by one whose best energies must be devoted to the duties of a teacher. Under such circumstances the writer would plead for some measure of indulgence, especially for possible inaccuracies in matters of detail.

S. A. B.

NORTH LONDON COLLEGIATE SCHOOL FOR GIRLS.

the United States.

THE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION.

THE extraordinary enthusiasm for education shown by nearly all classes and sections of the community in the United States is the first fact to be taken into consideration in any discussion of the subject. This feeling, in some sections of the country, rises to the dignity of a conviction-a belief. It shows itself not only in the newspaper press, the reviews, and in the general public interest in educational questions, but in the respect paid to teachers, and even to school houses, and most of all perhaps in the most practical way,-in the enormous sums devoted to educational purposes, both by public bodies and private individuals. To realise this fully, it is necessary to travel in America, to visit the magnificent and costly buildings-occupying often the most important sites of the cities-to know something of the social life of the country, and to study its current literature. It is easy, however, to quote a few illustrations, practical-perhaps mercenary—but of the most common kind.

B

Harvard University at Cambridge has received on the average, for the last twenty years, £80,000 per year in gifts. Last year it received £88,000; the University of Pennsylvania records £40,000 in gifts during the same year. The sums spent by the local authorities on the public school system are also large, as may be seen in the chapters that follow. It may be noted that even in the Western State of Kansas, one half of the taxes levied are for school purposes.

The reasons for this enthusiasm for education may now be given. The first is the democratic constitution of the country: this is well stated in the current Report of the Board of Education of Massachusetts.

"The State depends on the common education of the people as the only cause of that unity of ideas necessary to its continued existence. To produce such an education requires public schools in which the children are organized into a community of persons required to labour together for some common end. In no other way can the young be trained into that social state which prepares them to become a people, controlled in their civil relations by self-imposed rules."

This necessity is well understood in England, and need not therefore be enlarged upon.

The second reason is one which applies only to the United States; it is the immense foreign immigration. The public school is the only security for a homogeneous nation: this matter is referred to constantly by Americans, both in literature and

conversation. Of late years the immigration of Southern European and Sclavonic races, often at a lower stage of culture, has made the necessity for education more pressing; only in this way can the children of these varying races and religions become worthy citizens of a united nation. Private and denominational schools are considered only to perpetuate the isolation which already exists among the alien parents of many American-born children. Language is the great instrument of unification; for this reason English is everywhere compulsory in the American public schools, even when it is a foreign tongue to nearly all the children. In some cities, e.g., Cincinnati and Chicago, which have a large German population, local feeling has enforced the teaching of German in addition, but English is still the language of the school. "The mere fact of separate education, especially when promoted by the affluent, tends to the rearing of castes, the creating of a gulf between the rich and the poor, and the laying of foundations for the continuance of those labour troubles that are convulsing this whole land. Great as these mischiefs inevitably are, they will be indefinitely enhanced should we remain a polyglot nation. Language is the great unifier.

Without a common language we cannot become a nation. Without the execution of our school laws, we cannot attain to a common language, or at least such attainment will be indefinitely delayed.” 1

In all schools very great attention is paid to

1 Report of the Board of Education of Massachusetts, 18911892.