pends is respectfully submitted. On other plans this end might perhaps be attained as completely as on this. We are, however, firmly convinced that the great essential is the separation of the instructors from the examiners, and we do not see that this can be accomplished more effectually otherwise than on the plan herein proposed. DAVID A. WALLACE, Chairman.

DISCUSSION.

Prof. J. Stevens, of Granville, Ohio, commended the paper. The plan would work a revolution.

President Eliot, of Harvard, said: The difficulty that the professors are the examiners is the difficulty with all. The want is to find suitable persons to act as examiners. They failed at Harvard to secure such examining committees as they needed. None but practical teachers make good examiners. The plan proposed had been considered by at least two of the Massachusetts colleges. He would like to have it tried for a time. Degrees were justly held in low estimation. Legislatures were responsible for this.

Professor Stevenson, of University of West Virginia, thought a change neces

sary.

tent.

President Wallace stated that nearly all examiners were unpaid and incompeThe state should pay the best salaries for this work, should import men, if necessary. It would pay the state well to do this. Unworthy men can go from one college to another and obtain a degree.

Mr. Sawyer, of New York, affirmed that there were the same difficulties in examinations in academies as in colleges.

An examiner must Mr. Baird, of Baltimore, declared the difficulties great. be a practical teacher. Could see no way to overcome this difficulty. As regards degrees, matters are growing better. Degrees are more worthy than they were a few years ago. The true plan was as suggested, to add the initial of the college to the degree.

Dr. Gregory, of Illinois. The American people are practical and care nothing for degrees, even though they come from Harvard. Degrees are ignored, except with a few, though desired at the time of graduation. The question is not what a student is when he leaves college, but what he becomes afterward.

Dr. Read, of Missouri State University. American degrees are not so humiliating after all-English degrees are no better than ours. No legislation necessary. Let public opinion and the colleges themselves regulate this matter. Let Harvard do as she will, her course will have more effect than any legislation that can be devised.

Dr. Gregory. If Harvard would abolish degrees, in twenty years no more degrees would be given in this country.

Prof. Stevens. In the West, only a few of those who Genuine young men appreciate thorough instruction.

enter college graduate.

Put them under thor

ough-going teachers, and they will not stay long unless they come up to the mark.

President Tappan. There are about thirty-five institutions in Ohio authorized to grant degrees, but few students are graduated by the inferior institutions. Some of them are only second- or third-rate academies. Students prefer the better schools. The question is how to know the better ones. Would not the plan of the committee help to show where good work is done?

President Eliot. It would be preposterous for every state to have a university. Massachusetts could not support one-not sufficient wealth nor population. President Wallace. The United States needs but one university. A degree means a certificate of certain attainments. The examiners must be the most successful teachers in the country.

Prof. Henkle, of Ohio, said the paper had hit upon one excellent point, that is the inspection of college work. He had witnessed as poor instruction in the colleges of Ohio as in the common schools. The work of professors must be inspected.

Prof. Stevenson. The best teachers should be in the common schools.

Mr. Littlefield asked President ELIOT if the degree of A.M. at Harvard was opened to graduates of other colleges. President ELIOT answered it was, if their A. B. course was equivalent to that of Harvard, otherwise it must be made up by special examinations.

The subject was laid on the table, to be called up any time.

SECOND DAY.

WEDNESDAY-AUGUST 7th, 1872.

The Department met at the Institute of Technology. Its first business was to listen to the report of the Committee, appointed at St. Louis, "On Greek and Latin Pronunciation." Prof. TYLER, of Knox College, Illinois, presented the report, prefacing it with the following remarks:

MR. PRESIDENT: In presenting the report of our committee, allow me to refer very briefly to the discussion which took place before this body a year ago. In the paper which I then had the privilege of presenting, I referred to three objects which we desire especially to attain. 1st. We wish for a method which will tend to give us a uniform pronunciation throughout the whole country. 2d. We wish to place the Latin and Greek in their proper relation to each other. 3d. We wish, in our method of reading, to bring out as much as possible the character of each language. Experience proves that we can not hope to attain these objects by the use of the English or so-called Continental systems. In fact, our only hope seems to be in an earnest attempt to restore the pronunciation of the ancients themselves.

The present committee was appointed to try what could be accomplished in

this direction. It has, however, by no means been our expectation that we should reach a satisfactory result at once. It is rather our hope that future investigation may give us far more accurate instruction in this matter. We do not claim that we ourselves have no doubts upon some difficult questions. We can only say that we all substantially agree upon the method as presenting the ancient sounds of the letters as nearly as we can discover and reproduce them. In one or two instances, at least, we are conscious that we might have made our theory more thorough and consistent. Thus & undoubtedly sounded more like eh-ee, but practical difficulties lead us for the present to adhere to the more popular pronunciation. Being confident that we are recommending a step in the right direction, and hoping that the future may lead to still better results than we can now attain, we would beg leave to submit the following

REPORT.

GREEK PRONUNCIATION.

The committee appointed to draft a plan for the pronunciation of Greek, which shall agree as nearly as possible with the pronunciation of the ancients, would recommend the following method. It should be remarked in explanation that the most of the rules here given are copied verbatim from GOODWIN'S Greek Grammar.

a as a in father, ʼn as e in fête, ɛ as e in men, ‹ as i in machine, w as o in note, v according to most grammars should be sounded like French u, German ü. Differences must be allowed in practice, varying from oo in moon to French u. In large numbers of American schools, owing to the difficulty of sounding the French u, it is pronounced as eu in feud. Short vowels merely shorter than the corresponding long ones: -a as ai in aisle, & as ei in height, or as oi in oil, w as ui in quit or wi in with, av as ou in house, ev as eu in feud, ou as ou in uncouth, a, 7, w as a, 7, w. The consonants as in English, except that y before «, y and x has the sound of n, but otherwise is hard, that is always like th in thin, that is always hissing like s in sin, and that x is always hard like German d. Accent is to be observed as stress on the syllable where it is written.

i

LATIN PRONUNCIATION.

HENRY M. TYLER,

LOUIS KISTLER,
JAS. R. BOISE.

In fixing upon a method for the pronunciation of Latin, the committee have followed mainly the authority of Professor Lane, of Harvard. recommend the following scheme:

They would

a as in father, é as in fête, I as in machine, ō as in tone, u as in rule; when short, the same sounds shortened. y as French u, German ü.

ae as ai in aisle, au as ou in house, oe as oi in oil, ei as in eight, with a slight exaggeration of the English sound ee at the end, eu like eh-oo rapidly pronounced, ui as we in English.

The only guide which is necessary with regard to the diphthongs is to remember that they are pronounced as their component elements sound, drawn close together.

The consonants should be pronounced as in English, with the following exceptions: c and g always have their hard sound as in car and garden; t is always hard as in time, s is always sharp as in sin, i and u when consonants (j and v) as y and w.

HENRY M. TYLER,

LOUIS KISTLER,

JAS. R. Boise.

DISCUSSION.

Prof. Harkness, of Brown University, spoke as follows: The question is a vexed one, and will be for a long time to come. The English method is for us the best. Some think the Italian the best, others the Modern Greek, still others the German. I once believed the original Roman system the best, but on investigation gave it up. The ancient pronunciation is lost-for ever lost. The Germans themselves distrust the statements which they have published.

What is the Continental method? Germans pronounce by one method - the Italians another-the French another. Each pronounces according to the analogy of his own language. Scholars have determined to continue this way till the ancient method is rescued. An objection to the Continental is, it is foreign and requires too much time. To speak according to the analogy of one's own language is the most simple.

Prof. Crosby, of Nashua, said he should feel amazingly ashamed if he did not pronounce according to the English method. English is to be the language of the nations. The great convocation at Rome could not understand each other, though they spoke according to the Continental method.

Prof. Bartholomew, of Cincinnati, Ohio. We all agree that we want uniformity. The Continental does not tend in this direction. His experience was that the Roman method required less time than the English.

Prof. Henkle was on both sides. The English method was not according to the analogy of the English language as far as accent is concerned. His school had returned to the English method. Public men will not adopt the new method readily.

Subject laid on the table, the time having arrived for the lecture of Prof. E. C. PICKERING, of Boston, on "The Method of Teaching Physics by Laboratory Practice and Objectively."

In a note to the Chairman of the Publishing Committee, Prof. PICKERING states that the condition of his health has been such during the summer as to prevent his writing out an abstract of his lecture for publication.

At 33 P.M., Prof. SHALER, of Harvard, gave a lecture on

NATURAL-HISTORY EDUCATION.

For nearly a half-century students of nature have been demanding a place for the observational sciences in the plan of a general education. For a long time there seemed no great inclination to change the system of culture so that natural science in any of its branches should share with the humanities and

mathematics in the work of intellectual development; but within the past decade the long-continued criticism of the old teaching systems has begun to have a very great effect upon the public mind; and natural science, so long repelled, is now gladly admitted to our schools, is even unreasonably welcomed as a deliverer from all the great difficulties of education. The sudden change in the attitude of the public towards natural-science education has thrown a great burden upon those who have been urging its claims. It will no longer answer for them to assert the intellectual value of the training which they feel it to be in the power of this science to give. They must proceed to show a practicable way of giving this training. Within the next generation, natural science must justify the claims it has so long and so vigorously made of its training-power, or run the risk of disappointing the public confidence which has been so suddenly and generously awarded it. If it fails to justify the claims that it has made, there is a great reason to fear a strong reäction towards the ancient methods of instruction, resulting in its entire neglect.

These considerations make it evident that it is the duty of all those who feel it to be a matter of importance to our race to have the study of nature brought to bear on its development, to have none but effective methods of instruction used in the teaching of the natural sciences. A glance at the methods now employed in teaching these branches will be enough to satisfy any one that they are generally vicious and calculated to neutralize any benefits naturally belonging to these studies. The old standard studies, the languages, mathematics, and the range of matters commonly called philosophical, gradually determined certain methods of teaching, which were doubtless on all accounts the best possible for the purposes required to be kept in view in teaching these matters. The most prominent features in the machinery of the old system of education, the text-book and the lecture, are doubtless quite well adapted for instruction in those branches of knowledge where the main object is to acquaint the student with the opinions held by eminent authorities, or to give him the advantages arising from intellectual contact with a great master in any department of human thought. But precisely those features which prove advantageous in the use of these instruments in the old subjects of study are necessarily in the highest degree hurtful when we apply them to the teaching of the natural sciences. Every student who has experienced the advantages arising from the study of any science is clearly aware of the fact that it is to the observational character of his work that he owes the benefits which he has derived from it. A given amount of knowledge obtained at second hand from an observer through a text-book or the lecture-room would not have had the same effect upon his intellect as if he had gained it by his own original work. It is not the mass of information contained within the records of our sciences which gives them their importance as educational agents, for only a very small part of this can ever be made useful by the teacher; it is the habits of investigation they teach and the relation which they establish between the student and the phenomenal world which give them their real value. A man may have the accumulated store of facts of a whole science and yet be intellectually poor, while the thousandth part of that information gained by the independent use of his faculties may enrich him far beyond his fellows.

The fact that the old machinery of education was devised to accomplish a