thorough, but certainly in his preparation in Latin and Greek the amount was not sufficient to give the high-school pupil a fair chance by the side of the graduate of the special preparatory school.

The directors of the common schools have therefore been compelled to establish a double course, a classical and an English course, in the public high school; a procedure so foreign to the spirit of the entire common-school course of study that it has only partially succeeded.

This brief statement leads us to the source of the present problems in our education. Twenty-five years ago the requirements for admission to respectable colleges were much lower than at present. It was then possible for the high school graduate to enter college with a good standing. He knew nearly as much Latin and Greek as the average student from the private preparatory school, and he knew far more science and history and modern literature. These moderns gave him a decided advantage. But there had been a widespread feeling among college men that the standard for admission ought to be raised until the degree of bachelor of arts should represent more learning and greater maturity of mind and body. The bold action of some of the ablest college presidents set into more rapid motion the demand for more work in the preparatory schools, and the consequence has been the general elevation of the standard of admission to college by about one and one-half to two years.

The results of this change have become slowly apparent. There has followed a wider separation of the higher education in the United States from its public-school education. The preparatory school has been forced in to fill the place that the college formerly held, and the result is not felt to be salutary. This difficulty has been increased by the rapid multiplication of public high schools, which now number some 4,000. The numerous smaller colleges having given up a year or more of their work to the preparatory schools feel very keenly the loss of students. Inasmuch as the larger colleges have developed into universities, there is evident the beginning of a crusade against the small college that will force it to step down into the work of secondary education and renounce the work of higher instruction. This result, in fact, is unavoidable if the present high standard for admission is retained. But it has been discovered by the leading minds who are directing our higher education that there are very strong reasons against this course. It is possible that there may be a change that will return the college to its old place in the educational system, and this will save all the small colleges for the useful work which they have so long and so faithfully accomplished. This same move would likewise restore the college to a harmonious relation to the public high school. Indeed it would bring about a better adjustment than has ever been before. For the elevation of the standard for admission to college has been accompanied to some extent by requirements of preparation in moderns; some modern literature and French or German, together with

some acquaintance with science, are demanded. Hence a slight approximation of preparatory courses of study to that of the high school has been effected. If this tendency is preserved and accentuated in the change of the requirements for admission, there may come about a complete adjustment of the higher education to the common-school education and an inestimable advantage accrue to the people; for it is certainly a calamity to have the youth of the land diverted from the institutions of higher education.

Although it is uncertain what decision will be taken by the directors of our higher education, I may mention another phase of the matter which bears in favor of the return of the colleges to the old standard of admission. This is the recent development of a genuine university course above the traditional college course.

It is to be remembered that for a long time there have been generous endowments of institutions of learning by rich men. In fact, the people of the United States are very proud of their Johns Hopkinses, Tulanes, Peabodys, Purdues, Licks, Drexels, Clarks, and Stanfords. Nearly an annual average of $10,000,000 is given as endowments to various forms of higher education. The net result of these endow ments may be summed up as the creation of real university work.

The old college did not know how to manage the years of post-graduate study. The fellowship endowments were paid to brilliant students who had carried off the honors, but who had worked rather for those same honors than for the sake of learning and insight. Left to themselves, without the stimulus of class work, those post-graduate students soon lost their zest, and unless they entered the professional school gained very little in their subsequent residence at college. A reform of the greatest importance was inaugurated by organizing post-gradu ates into classes for original investigation in the form of laboratory work and of seminaria wherein critical research was taught and learned. At once there sprang up a new and superior order of professors, which has been superseding step by step the type of college professor that formerly prevailed. The new university-trained professor has a very much improved method of instruction, even if his work happens to be in lower schools. He carries that higher method-the method of investigation-into practice with his students and their work becomes far more profitable.

Now it is this discovery on the part of our leading colleges of the true character of university work that has brought about the feelingor let us say is in process of bringing about the feeling-that it is not necessary to include all higher education in the college. There should be a fourth stage of education, that of the university, quite beyond the education of the college, and its characteristics should be those of specialization and original investigation.

The work of the college may be improved by an infusion of the higher methods, but its essential character must not be changed.

The elementary school will always have the character of memory work stamped upon it, no matter how much the educational reforms may improve its methods. It is not easy to overvalue the impulse of such men as Pestalozzi and Froebel. But the child's mind can not seize great syntheses. He bites off, as it were, only small fragments of truth at best. He gets isolated data, and sees only feebly the vast network of interrelation in the world. This fragmentary, isolated character belongs essentially to primary education. But just as surely does secondary education deal with relations and functions and processes. It is the stage of crude generalization. But college education strives to superinduce on the mind the habit of seeing the unity of things. The curriculum of the college is therefore called the philosophical faculty, using the word faculty in the French sense of the word faculté.

The college rounds up the youth's view of the world and gives him an idea of the articulation of the various branches of human knowl edge. But the view of this unity is both deep and shallow at the same time. It is shallow because the student has and can have only a hearsay knowledge of the many branches of human learning. It is a deep view because the idea of the organic unity of knowledge is always the deepest idea that can arise in the mind of man.

It has been contended by some of our educational leaders in the States that this phase of education, which is founded on the search for unity, is a spurious phase of education, and they would therefore willingly relegate all of the college work to the preparatory school and commence the work of specialization and original investigation at once after the secondary school, or even in the secondary school itself.

But these zealots do not duly consider the fact that the only tran sition between the theoretical and the practical, that is to say, between the intellect and the will, takes place through the act of unifying or summing up one's knowledge. A rational man is bound to act in view of all the circumstances. The inventory of any field of reality can never be exhausted, but the practical man must act. When he acts he must stop investigating further and sum up the case; he must declare the evidence to be all in and decide what to do from what he has already learned. This is the transition from the intellect to the will. The college has in the past cultivated exclusively this frame of mind, which looks for the unity of knowledge and gives an ethical point of view to one's thinking. It will be needed to cultivate the same ethical habit of mind in future, although it will require to be supplemented by the spirit of investigation and verification which the university method brings with it. For we must learn both these methods in order to become liberally educated. We must be observant of the trend of things and gain the power of insight into the rational unity underlying all things-this is essential to practical wisdom; and on the

other hand we must learn to make original investigation and carry forward the boundaries of truth into the unknown.

In conclusion I desire to take this opportunity to testify to the valu able services and willing coöperation of the corps of this Bureau, and in particular to recognize the assistance given to me by the chief clerk, Mr. John W. Holcombe, and by the chiefs of division, Colonel Weston Flint, of the Division of Statistics; Mrs. H. F. Hovey, of the Division. of Correspondence; Mr. Henderson Presnell, of the Library; Dr. L. R. Klemm and Misses Smith and French of the Division of Foreign Exchange, and by Mr. F. E. Upton as head of the editing corps. I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant, W. T. HARRIS,

The Hon. JOHN W. NOBLE,

Secretary of the Interior.

Commissioner.