Incidentally, these three reports have failed in another way to become the unifying influence which they might and should have been. Each of them not only ignored the other two, but set itself the impossible task of solving programme difficulties by studying only a limited portion of the pupil's educational career. Once at work, however, each committee found it impossible to limit its field so narrowly. The Committee on Correlation necessarily dealt, incidentally, with secondary school problems; and the other two committees similarly found it necessary to consider, to some extent at least, problems of elementary education.

Taking the three reports together, there is probably no single defect that has been so effective an obstacle to their use for guidance as this want of unification of their subject-matter in harmony with the interdependence of the problems with which they deal. We have had a body of educational doctrine that covered elementary education-the report of the Committee of Fifteen- and one that covered secondary education the report of the Committee of Ten as if the two were distinct and independent. We need an educational doctrine that covers the entire school period, and so may serve as a guide to practice at each stage of the pupil's school career.

We are, therefore, still seeking definite guidance. The want of it has led, and still leads, to economic and educational waste, and hence to uneasiness and vacillation within the teaching profession, and to dissatisfaction in the community. As long as we have no such definite guidance, how can we expect that the programme changes recommended will be accepted by the great body of teachers in the only spirit that will render them valuable—the spirit of interested or, at least, intelligent coöperation? How can we expect the community to be impressed with the wisdom of changes that run counter to all tradition, to be interested in them, and to display the patience that must be exercised before such changes can commend themselves alike to all concerned? And how can we expect the schools to be free from persistent meddling -usually well meant but pernicious with the details of school work by school committees, parents, newspapers, and other lay influences?

The remedy for such obstacles to progress is not far to seek; but experience, thus far, seems to show that it is difficult to secure. It is this: We need a new formulation of contemporary educational doctrine that will serve to clarify our own conception of what a modern education means, and therefore serve as a guide to intelligent, coöperative, and prolonged experimentation on a large scale. Such a formulation of educational doctrine would be based on our present knowledge of social

needs; and it would be formulated in the light of the best educational literature that the last dozen years or so have brought forth, to say nothing of the educational classics of earlier generations.

Such a body of educational doctrine would be more generally and more seriously studied than any formulation of educational doctrine has ever been studied; and it could, therefore, be expected to furnish an insight and a purpose into the now too generally imitative and chaotic experiments in programme-making with which we are so familiar. Educational experiments are desirable and inevitable. My plea is for a more rational experimentation than we have yet had, and, as I shall point out in a moment, for an experimentation that enables us to gather the fruits of experience as we go along.

With such an educational doctrine thoroughly assimilated and consciously adhered to-no matter whether it achieves universal acceptance in all its details or not superintendents, principals, and teachers can face the community with a professional consciousness that must triumph over ignorant or meddlesome obstruction, repeatedly break down indifference, and occasionally promote enthusiastic coöperation, until it is clear just what can and cannot be achieved by it. By that time we would demand a fresh formulation of our educational doctrine. New experiments would follow, but not a repetition of former errors. In this way, progress would be steady and sure, in spite of errors, and not random, haphazard, and uncertain, as it must be now. It appears,. therefore, that we need to repeat our formulation of educational doctrine at intervals say once in ten years often enough to embody it in the new insight that changing social needs, a careful study of the best educational literature, and our practical experiments afford.

But a satisfactory educational doctrine is not enough to promote educational progress. To be really effective, doctrine must achieve conspicuous success in application over a wide area. Now, just as we have not organized and adequately assimilated a generally accepted educational doctrine, so we are without a body of recorded educational experience. Results actually achieved and collectively presented constitute a force that is capable of sweeping away superficial criticism or paralyzing scepticism on the one hand, and meddlesome interference and impatient clamoring for premature results on the other. Isolated successes have been advertised, to be sure, and failures, more or less obvious, have sometimes been frankly confessed, and sometimes unwisely suppressed. But in neither case have we had an orderly presentation of both successes and failures over a wide area. We have had plenty of experiments;

indeed, as I have intimated, our whole educational activity for nearly a generation has consisted of experiments. But we have had little cooperation. Just as every educational theorizer has worked by himself without taking due account of the labors of his fellow-workers in the same field, so every superintendent has pursued his way, apparently in blissful indifference to what his fellow-superintendents were doing, multiplying instances and varying conditions ad libitum. How is it possible to extract any confirmation of alleged results from such a heterogeneous procedure? And we never can get such confirmation until we abandon our absurd extreme of individualism in these experiments and work together for the attainment of the same ends.

No physicist or biologist would ignore his fellow-workers in this way. When Roentgen announced his discovery, other physicists confirmed his discovery. The facts of embryology and their bearing on the theory of evolution are similarly confirmed by each biologist under the conditions which led to their discovery. The principles of science once established in this way, no one can doubt or belittle them. Each experimenter then sees clearly what conditions must be observed to secure certain results, and the application of principles proceeds intelligently, no matter how varied the circumstances under which the application is made. So it must be in education, if we are ever to escape from the quagmire of random and isolated experimenting in which each worker seeks to find the way out for himself, disregarding the landmarks and sign-posts that have already been set up by his predecessors. Briefly, then, we must organize our educational experience just as we must organize our educational doctrine, if we are to make real progress.

Let me give two or three illustrations of what I mean. Every school system having five thousand or more children is and should be, among other things, an educational experiment station. Many a smaller one could also serve the same purpose. Suppose that in twenty-five school systems of this country the attempt were made by the superintendents acting together, under ordinary conditions of teaching and equipment, to discover just what the accomplishment in the three R's is with a given time allotment, agreement having previously been reached, for the sake of the experiment, as to the conditions under which the experiment was to be tried. Suppose the conditions to be something like this: Five hundred or a thousand pupils in each city to begin the study of arithmetic in the first year, a similar number to begin it in the second year, and a third similar group to begin it in the third year of school. At the end of the sixth year of school compare the attainments of the three groups

of pupils. Would not the conclusions reached by such an experiment have a convincing value which no amount of assertion beginning “in my schools," or "so far as my experience goes," or "I believe," or "in my opinion" could possibly have?1

Suppose, again, that in the same twenty-five school systems the study of algebra, geometry, foreign languages, and elementary natural science were undertaken in two pre-high-school grades, with substantially the same aims, equipment (books and apparatus), time allotment, and teaching force. That is to say, suppose that it were understood that one or more of these studies, if undertaken at all in pre-high-school grades, were to be undertaken seriously. Suppose, further, that this experiment were continued for not less than five years. If the twenty-five superintendents should then make a collective report on the results of the work, would not such a report have an overwhelming force in determining public opinion within and without the teaching profession? Would it not render future progress less doubtful, and future experiments more profitable than is now the case?

Or, again, could not our contemporary independent experiments with the elective system in secondary education be correctly reported on and the results so far attained duly appraised by competent investigators? Or, finally, would it not be possible to find twenty-five important schools that, for the sake of the important educational interests at stake, would be willing to sink minor individual differences in the administration of the elective system, and consent to act together? If we could not get twenty-five, could we get ten schools to undertake this coöperative enterprise for at least five years? I do not believe that such coöperation is impossible. Why should it be? Experiments similar to those suggested are everywhere in progress; coöperation in large enterprises of all kinds is possible. Why should it be impossible in education only?

Under such circumstances we could face the teaching profession and the general public with facts, instead of opinions. The enormous difference between the weight of these two very different things in educational affairs still remains to be experienced.

PAUL H. HANUS.

1 The only comprehensive attempt known to the writer to secure definite information concerning the actual achievement of the schools in the school arts, with a view to establishing just how much time can be saved by suitable restriction and selection of subject-matter, was made by the editor of THE FORUM. His investigations would naturally be of great importance for any future researches that might be undertaken. Dr. Rice's method and results were published in THE FORUM for December, 1896, and January, February, April, and June, 1897.

IS ENGLAND BEING AMERICANIZED?

It would probably be impossible for the most diligent investigator to fix the precise date of the discovery that England was being Americanized. In any case it must be placed at least three centuries ago, when there spread along the banks of the James River the pleasing rumor that a taste for tobacco and for potatoes had been acquired across the ocean. Mr. Earl Mayo, the author of an article on this subject in THE FORUM for January, 1902, is therefore scarcely correct when he assigns to this process a history of only five years.

In his description of the stages through which the influence of America upon England has passed a description in which, by a curious adaptation, he attributes to his own country the qualities which Alexander Pope ascribed to Vice-Mr. Mayo considerably underestimates the receptivity that England habitually shows to ideas coming from outside. His belief that, until quite recently, "barriers of frigid indifference" kept John Bull from being affected by other nations causes him to ignore altogether the connection between English and Continental trade, and thus to attach a disproportionate significance to the spurt just now being made by America. His argument from observation would produce astonishing results if applied generally. Let us imagine a patriotic Frenchman, for example, taking the suggested 'bus journey from the Bank to Piccadilly Circus, and, instead of stopping, as Mr. Mayo's typical American tourist does, at the threshold of the fashionable shopping district, continuing his drive along Regent Street or Piccadilly, with the addition of such cross-streets as Bond Street. He would be delighted by the sight of a number of establishments of French shoemakers, French modistes, French coiffeurs, and sellers of French bijouterie and bric-à-brac, while French restaurants would be more. numerous still. Even within the English restaurants he would find the menus and certainly "menu" is not a characteristically American word crowded with the names of French dishes. The attractive legend, "Içi on parle Français," would meet his eye much more frequently than "American patronage solicited." In spite of "the barriers