We come now directly to the public high school. How is its existence as a part of the social structure justified? How does it appear that society receives far more than an equivalent for its cost and is the gainer by it?

To genius and superior abilities is due the progress of the centuries. The thousand comforts that solace modern social life and the many artificial beauties that surround and adorn it are all the products of art, literature, and science, and due to the directive power of genius and superior abilities. We are in almost every way immeasurably better off than were our forefathers. Blot out that progress and measure the distance separating the two social planes. Does the difference startle you? How does your push light compare with yon arc light shining like a nascent sun? The difference in power between those two lights is the exact measure of the amount of benefit that the directive power of genius and superior abilities has conferred upon society. Now sum up the whole cost of developing and utilizing those abilities and compare it with the benefit to society. Shall we retain the cost or the benefit? Nay, it is the constantly accruing benefit that enables society to pay the cost and still have a rich surplus.

Society has manifold need of directive power. It is needed in executive, legislative, and judicial seats. It is needed in state, church, and school. It is needed in the administration of finance and in the conduct of social institutions. It is needed in the development and application of art and science, in journalism and in literature. We need inventors and discoverers to give us the best that nature has for us; and we need a whole army of literary workers to form our judgments, guide public opinion, cultivate our tastes, and minister to our intellectual and moral wants. And when these needs are supplied, it is not merely the whole body politic that is benefitted, but it is in an especial manner that great majority of it which is not gifted with superior abilities. In the parable of the talents, he that received five talents and he that received ten each returned with splendid usury the trust committed to him; while he that received the one talent could do nothing but bury it in the earth and stand and fold his arms. What would he have done and what would have been done for him under competent directive power? "Education is growth, and develops a force that presses outward, ever enlarging its sphere until it pervades all the region of thought and carries its inquisitions into every field of enterprise and speculation. It does not unify, but diversifies our ideas, sentiments, and convictions. To teach men to think alike is compression. To teach men to think apart is expansion. The force of education is not conservative; it is radical."1

Genins and superior natural abilities are the inheritance of comparatively few. Rich indeed is that state which has the largest endowment of them, for it has the prime elements of greatest material, moral, and intellectual strength. We can not create them, but we can develop, train, and utilize them to the maximum of their potential, and we can create an hereditary tendency to the transmission of them. Any loss of superior natural ability through lack of the proper development or training is a loss of wealth and power to a community. But great natural abilities are the rare inheritance of rich and poor alike; and the poor (or those who would be unable to pay for higher education) in every state always constitute a very large majority of the people; and, what is noteworthy in this connection, the rich lack the spur of necessity, which is the proverbial mother of invention. That a "government of the people, for the people, and by the people" should be without the public high school, and should look for its manifold directive power to chance and fliat quota of superior natural abilities furnished by a small rich minority is a paradox reaching the climax of folly and the eclipse of reason.

Whither, then, can the state or society look for directive power but to its public high school, college, or university? It is needless here to enlarge upon the value of individual directive power. The total directive power of society is always a whole greater than the sum of all its parts. Yet in times when physical strength in battle counted much more than at present, the directive power of Regulus was rated at a thousand common soldiers. Newton gave a new basis to the solar system and a sure foundation to the nautical almanac. One electric are light may be equal to six thousand candle-power. At one electric touch the earth contracts her ancient dimensions and New York confers with London at call, London with Calcutta. The Psalm of Life is a perpetual soul-building homily radiant with heavenly philanthropy. The discovery of electric welding during the present year by Prof. Elihu Thomson, a graduate of a public high school, will, it is estimated, save in time and material millions of dollars annually; and to the State of which he is a native it will certainly save in the same way an annual sum far greater than that appropriated to the high school of which he is an alumnus. The military and naval academies of our country furnish additional illustration of the value of directive power and of its benefit to the state. The cadets, admitted on tests and subjected to wholesome mental strain and discipline, are the foster-sons of the Government. For their costly maintenance and education the state expects a quid pro quo. Is this cost a gratuity? With what

Allen Andrews.

golden usury it is returned our history bears ample witness in many a national danger averted, in many a national blessing won; yet the laureled fasces never wear a more joyous look than when entwined by the fruitful olive-branch.

The public high school thus stands on solid ground and becomes an essential part of the social structure. It is not merely an essential part, but it is the essential part which originates, moves, and directs all the other parts. It is the eye and sensorium of the body politic and the state's perpetual policy of insurance. The money appropriated for its support is not a gratuity, but a public investment which elevates and enriches society and makes the intellectual greatness and the material strength of states.

The argument which thus necessitates the public high school also prescribes its character. Consider the word high in this connection; emphasize it a little; give it voice and a tongue and it will speak eloquently. In order that the resources of art, literature, and science may be realized in over fresh benefit to society, their underlying principles must be explored to their farthest limits. Equipment, appliances, and corps should be thorough and complete, and instruction in principles sufficiently extensive to lead the student up to original research. Mediocrity in these respects is mental stagnation; inferiority, intellectual starvation and death. Preparation for college or any other private institution is not a necessary function of the public high school, which should either be in itself, or culminate in, a State university. This ideal public high school has already been realized in several parts of our country, and reveals the destined trend in which all our educational lines are surely moving to convergence.

The existence of private high schools, colleges, and universities can not remove public responsibility. These supplement, in some degree, State delinquency, and have in the past furnished considerable directive power. But they are institutions for a small rich minority, and the sum annually paid for higher education in them is a convincing proof of the value of that education in developing and utilizing great natural abilities. And let us not forget that we are speaking for a "government of the people, for the people, and by the people."

Notwithstanding the directness of the reasoning which thus constitutes the public high school an important part of the body politic, a few objections to it are still urged. Of these some are trivial, some specious, but none of them true. The rich man without children, or sending them to private institutions, objects to paying the high school tax because he does not directly participate in the benefit. O for Menenius Agrippa to relate again, as once at the Sacred Mount, the fable of The Belly and the Members. For, dullard that he is, this rich man must then either consent or refuse to pay the tax for street-lighting because a public lamp has not been placed before his own door, or the poor tax, because none of his family is in the poorhouse. This rich man is, however, rapidly disappearing.

The remaining objections may all be classed together as those resulting from socalled over-education. These are the most specious and the most dangerous because they are urged by respectable journals and newspapers. The crying evils of this over-education are all summed up in the following extract from one of our most influential journals; the students in our public high schools are "aiming at something beyond and above their social rank and condition." Do you, Mr. Editor, really need to be informed that the object of the most rational system of education is to develop and utilize to their maximum all the child's inherited abilities? Or is it for you to tell us, contrary to reason, just how much of his abilities it will be best to develop and utilize? Do you, an expounder of democratic principles, need to be told that it is the freeman's inalienable right to do that work in society to which his conspicuous fitness is his best title? Or do you mean that it is a serious objection to be too skilful a machinist, too able an engineer, or perhaps too clever an editor? But, pardon ns, Mr. Editor; we mistake your meaning. You mean that by some hook or crook society may appoint the graduate to some field of labor for which he is not qualified. That would indeed be a serious blunder; and so much the worse for the society committing it. Now listen to us, Mr. Editor, while we address the same students: "Young men, it is a praiseworthy ambition in you to be aiming to better your condition. Strive to develop and utilize all your inherited abilities. Society has a just right to expect this of you. Conspicuous fitness is the American citizen's only title to superiority. Let great examples stimulate your activity. Recall those worthies the results of whose achievements are in us and around us, graven upon the form and features of the times; which are materialized in a higher plane of social comfort, moralized in broader, more practical, and self-reliant character, and spiritualized in a kindlier vein of charity and benevolenco and in works of high art and high literature." Is there any demagogism in this, Mr. Editor?

From the reasoning which necessitates the public high school and determines its relation to the body politic we are enabled to deduce, as natural and easy corollaries, its functions, and the manner in which they should be performed. The State recog nizes that all its directive power must be selected from those of its citizens having

the best natural abilities according to their conspicuous fitness, and that, as it is the developing and utilizing power of higher education which gives to directive power its greatest value and efficiency, it can look with confidence and justice for this higher education only to its public high school or State university. It therefore follows that the chief function of the public high school is to furnish the State with the directive power necessary for its political and social well-being.

A secondary function of the high school in each State or subdivision of it must necessarily be to stimulate into greater activity and keener competition all the lower schools, and to act as a radiating centre of thought and mental activity, and thus to elevate and refine the general tone of the community. For the "force of education is centrifugal." The location of the school should always be near the source of largest supply, or in centres of population. The exclusion of everything partisan or sectarian from the course of study tends to develop a character without prejudice or bias, and free intercourse on a plane of entire equality gives to that character a breadth and homogeneousness in harmony with the spirit of our government quite unattainable in private institutions, where the pride of wealth and social distinctions based thereon too often build around themselves a narrowing wall of exclusiveness.

The doors of the public high school are open to rich and poor alike. The State does not care whether A or B is to be admitted. Its purpose is that those who are to be admitted shall be the best fitted to be admitted. Conspicuous fitness is the only title to admission, and this fitness must be determined by competitive examination. The quota system of admission is wholly illogical and is based on a misconception of the functions of the school. Socrates justly ridiculed the Athenians for choosing some of their public officers by lot. Promotion in the school should be determined by the same criterion. Tests should increase in severity with the progress of the course. Wholesome mental strain sustained by wholesome exercise is a wholesome hygiene. When the limit of capacity in any case is reached, a vacancy should be declared. Limit of capacity is a safe indication of limit of fitness. The public high school is neither a reformatory nor an asylum for feebleness. The State builds its greatest expectations on the survival of the fittest.

The curriculum or course of study should connect closely with the studies of the next lower schools. The reason for this is obvious. The educative process is a succession of ascending steps connected like the links of a chain.

"From nature's chain whatever link you strike,

Tenth or ten-thousandth breaks the chain alike."

Until within recent years higher institutions of learning had a single undivided curriculum, in which the classics and the humanities played a dominating part. These served mankind long and well. But an evolution was in progress mightier than classic veto or papal bull or warning voice of Cassandra. The latent forces of material nature began to be utilized, and science clamored for recognition. A fierce struggle ensued. Science thrust and the classics parried, and the issue seemed doubtful, until science, opening its subterranean and celestial armories stored with wondrous wealth and power, led its Titan forces-steam, heat, light, electricity, geology, and the wonder-working analyses of chemistry-into the field and drove the classics and the humanities from more than half the educational arena. Then they compromised, joined hands, and divided all mastery between them. To science fell directive power over matter; to the classics and the humanities directive power over mind. Thus, directive power is utilized

ON THE MATERIAL SIDE, in mining, metallurgy, engineering, architecture, ship-building, ap plied chemistry, applied physics, manifold inanufacture, applied mechanics, etc.

AND ON THE HUMAN SIDE, in law and legislation, judicature, politics, police, sociology, journalism, literature, theology, painting, sculpture, music, oratory, etc.

Hence all our higher institutions of learning now divide the curriculum into two main branches, which may be called scientific and literary. There is, of course, even in the highest university courses, a frequent overlapping of these branches, and each becomes contributory to the other. This division of the course became a necessity resulting both from the vastness of the intellectual field and the utility of the economic principle of division of labor. The field demands almost infinite energies; yet, by the distribution of finite energies to its several parts, this almost infinite demand is readily supplied. It is better to know everything of something than something of everything.

At what point in the curriculum of the public high school this division may be safely made depends upon the quality and quantity of the requisites for admission. The average stage of preparation attained in our public grammar schools makes necessary a common curriculum for some time after admission, and for obvious reasons. Some studies have a high disciplinary value, some a high culture value, and some have both. For example, higher mathematics, aside from high scientific

value, has also a high disciplinary value; language studies, literature, and history have a high culture value; and the study of a cultivated language not vernacular has both a high disciplinary and a high culture value. Such studies give roundness, fulness, and symmetry to mental development, and avert that one-sidedness which results from the pursuit of special courses without due preparation for them. We do not mean that all such studies are necessary. We believe that in a curriculum of four years, common studies for the first two years would be ample preparation for special scientific and literary courses. The arrangement of curricula for the latter courses presents little difficulty, and the only limitation in it is the element of time. There are sometimes taught in public high schools subjects which have no relation whatever to the end in view. Such subjects are book-keeping, type-writing, phonography, sewing, and cooking. The criterion of fitness in any subject to be a branch of instruction is extensive application of principle and prospective benefit to society. Benefit that remains wholly with the individual or individual interests can found no claim to public recognition. Judged by this criterion, how can any of these subjects be justified? The mathematical principles of book-keeping are taught in arithmetic, and balancing accounts may very properly be taught as a practical application of them. Type-writing and phonography are manual operations involving no principle whatever, and have just the same title to public recognition as shoemaking and tailoring. The benefit remains wholly with the individual. Sewing and cooking can be justified as branches of instruction only on the ground that those who are taught will either sew and cook or teach sewing and cooking for the public, and that society will be benefited thereby. The normal school is justified as a public institntion solely on the ground that its function is to furnish teachers for the public schools. And now in conclusion. The scientific movement before mentioned advanced with ever-widening flow. Matter, material force, and mechanism became the ruling deities. They open vistas richer than the wealth of Ormus or of Ind. Their products choke the avenues of trade and line all the ways of commerce. The prospect of riches stimulates every activity. The altars of Mammon smoke with a perpetual sacritice, and too often the sole object of our vows is the golden though fatal gift of Midas. Money is at last our supreme good, because in it we have found the measure of a mau, the next of kin to heaven. "In fact, if we look deeper, we shall find that this faith in mechanism has now struck its roots deep into man's most intimate, primary sources of conviction; and is thence sending up, over his whole life and activity, innumerable stems, fruit-bearing and poison-bearing. The truth is, men have lost their belief in the invisible, and believe and hope and work only in the visible; or, to speak it in other words, this is not a religious age. Only the material, the immediately practical, not the divine and spiritual, is important to us. The infinite, absolute character of virtue has passed into a finite, conditional one; it is no longer a worship of the beautiful and good, but a calculation of the profitable." i

Against these poison-bearing stems and against a tendency so materialistic our methods in scientific training should provide some preservative. The neglect of pure culture studies-the neglect of the humanities-especially the neglect of them in scientific education, is in some measure responsible for much of our materialism. Education means vastly more than a mere whetting of the intellectual faculties; it also means spiritual growth, a sensitizing of the moral faculties, and the moulding of character for manhood. But let us not therefore undervalue science and its golden freightage of blessing. "Science is noble and good, but the progress of the soul is better. Genius is a bird of morning, and its song is always the exponent of the most recent pulse of human passion, human knowledge of beauty, human sympathy with the joys and sorrows of the world. The rocks may give up the last secret of their hearts; the sea, too, may disgorge its treasures; but at last it is the soul of man that is the poet's field of study-the soul that walked with God upon chaos in the dark hour before the dawn of creation, the soul that still walks with him as the morning twilight slowly broadens into perfect day."2

Mere science, without cultivation on the human, the moral, and the spiritual side, is apt to be unimpassioned, unimpressive, and unimaginative. No mere science ever writes poetry, and no pathos heaves the diaphragm of the phonograph. Let not science be made ignoble by the clod of materialism. Let it roam the macrocosm in full sympathy with the microcosm. While it finds melody only in sonorous vibrations, still let the golden planets, beating against the tides of ether, peal out to fancy's ear ethereal chimes; and while it sees the birth of dewy morning only in luminous undulations, still let its eye of poesy behold the steeds of Aurora, breaking from the barriers of night,

"arise,

And shake the darkness from their loosened manes,

And beat the twilight into flakes of fire."

Thomas Carlyle, in Signs of the Times. 2 Maurice Thompson, in Birds of the Rocks.

MEDICAL COLLEGES AND THE MEDICAL PROFESSION.

BY CHARLES WARREN, A. M., M. D.

The results of some investigations about the relation of medical colleges to the medical profession in the United States are considered by the Commissioner of Education to be of enough value to justify their insertion in the Annual Report of his Office for the year 1886-87. They are here concisely presented at his request. In order that the statistics and discussions of the current year in another part of this volume may be considered by themselves and in their general relations to the other parts of the Report, these results are printed as a special article.

The annual reports of the Board of Health of the State of Illinois and the catalogues and announcements of the medical colleges in this country are the sources from which the facts have been drawn. A very careful comparison in many places between the statements of the Illinois board and those of the college publications has shown so much care and correctness, that the reports of that board, so far as they contain the facts, are used and quoted without demur.

For the careful collection of these facts through many years, and for their clear and logical presentation, the country owes a debt of gratitude to Dr. John H. Rauch, secretary of that board; yet this is only one of the many useful and continued services of that accomplished and indefatigable officer and physician.

When the Federal Census of 1880 announced that there were 85,671 physicians or alleged physicians in this country, or one to 584 of the entire population, it simply gave a definite form to a long-felt impression in most minds. That the medical profession in the United States was scandalously overcrowded was known long before that year; that it is so still, the comments and complaints of the medical journals every spring bear witness. The evil must be endured until in process of time effective measures are devised and applied for its correction; it will never cure itself, as long as human vanity, greed, and laziness are permitted to act unchecked.

Fortunately the facile descent toward the medical Avernus has awakened a good deal of professional and some public alarm; and, in consequence, medical licensing acts and other devices have been adopted in many States for the purpose of regulating the conduct, character, educational acquirements, and professional relations of medical men to the public.

The purpose of this paper is to show how medical colleges may co-operate in the good work of increasing the qualifications of medical graduates, and thereby preventing or hindering the entrance of incompetent or indolent persons into the medical profession.

The method here described is not new; it is in vogue in several colleges of medicine already with the happiest results, and only needs to be extended to all medical schools in the country to produce a most beneficial effect upon the number, quality, and value of aspirants for medical success.

The greater number of medical schools in the United States still pursue the ancient method of educating their students. This consists, essentially, of a requirement that the applicant for graduation shall have attended "two courses of lectures" upon the main topics included in medical training; but in practice these "two courses" are really one and the same course, given each year with but little variation.

A more modern and more sensible method is followed by the minority of our medical schools; these require, before graduation, attendance upon three courses of lectures, in which the subjects of instruction are arranged in such a way as to be graded in correspondence with the attainments and progress of the students.

I have taken the facts given in this article as to the numbers of matriculates and graduates of one hundred and twelve medical colleges existing in this country during the scholastic year 1885-86 from the reports of the Illinois Board of Health. I have grouped the colleges requiring three graded courses of instruction together, and those not so requiring also together; in the discussion of these groups, the graded group is entitled "A," and the other "B."

The period of time chosen covers five scholastic years; for each of these and for the quinquennial period the table on pp. 1024-27 gives the matriculates and graduates appertaining to each of the schools above indicated.

I do not mean to assert that all the schools in Group A required graded courses during the entire quinquennial period, but only that they so required in the last year of the period. Nor do I assert that all the schools in Group B are properly placed therein; but only that they appeared to me, upon a careful examination, to belong therein rather than in Group A. For errors of judgment in this respect I beg the indulgence of my readers.