ness and adaptability, but that these very traits have been shown most markedly among college-bred men, as was seen among our college graduates in the late war. The two qualities of resourcefulness and adaptability have been, indeed, those that we have most needed in the past. They have been absolutely essential for the great American achievement, unparalleled in so short a period, of bringing under cultivation a vast wilderness, of developing the mines and other natural resources of a continent, and of developing various industries for a hundred millions of people. But all this has now been in large part done; the cream has been skimmed; and the great need of the hour is a better conservation, a more complete and scientific use, of our resources. In short, the time for superficial treatment on a large scale has largely passed, and the time has come for the greater thoroughness of an older civilization.

Wisdom consists, not in glorying in one's merits, but in curing one's defects; and the great defect in American education has been the lack of thoroughness. The European professional man is apt to have a wider knowledge and a broader foundation than the American. Professor Maurice Caullery, in his recent book on the universities and scientific life in the United States, in speaking of engineering education says, "The conditions of the training of the American engineer and his French colleague are very different. The latter has certainly a very marked superiority in theoretical scientific instruction. I am told, indeed, that since the war has brought into the American industries a rather large number of our engineers, this fact is well recognized. There is in the United States nothing to compare with the preparation for our competitive examinations for the Ecole Polytechnique and the Ecole Centrale. The first-year students -the freshmen in the engineering schools are very feebly equipped." On the other hand, he says, "It is not less true that the American engineer gives abundant proof of the combination of qualities which he needs." He then goes on to give an example from Mann's "Bulletin on Engineering Education" to show that of the freshmen in twenty-two engineering schools only about one-third could solve a simple algebraic equation. We are told also that the English physiologists have a great

advantage over ours in a more comprehensive knowledge of physics and chemistry; and probably anyone familiar with learned professions in the two countries could give other examples.

As usual, a number of causes no doubt contribute to the lack of thoroughness in American education. One obviously is the briefness of time spent in study from birth through graduation from college. This is especially true in the younger years. Our children begin late and go slowly, apparently on the theory that the less conscious effort a boy puts into the process of education the more rapidly will he proceed. Another cause is the constant insertion of new subjects which are either not of a very severe nature or ought to be extra curriculum activities, subjects which are inserted to the displacement of more serious ones. If someone suggests that rural walks and the observation of nature are good, the school, instead of providing for them outside of school hours, inserts them in the school time in the place of language, history, or mathematics.

A third cause is the absence of rigorous standards which, until a few years ago, pervaded most college work more than it does to-day, and which I fear is still too largely present in the schools. Last year a boy from a good high school not far from the central part of the country offered himself for the College Entrance Board examinations. He was the valedictorian of his class, and yet in five subjects-in all of which he had obtained a double A at school-his marks were as follows: English Literature 50; Latin 41; American History 37; Ancient History 30; Plane Geometry 33. In Physics, in which he had a B at school-which is, I suppose, an honor markhis mark was only 28. The papers of the College Entrance Examination Board are not made out, nor are the books marked, by any one college, but by a body representing the colleges and schools. A difference in preparation might very well affect to some extent an examination in literature and history, possibly even in Latin; but surely a boy who obtains an unusually high mark at school in plane geometry ought not to fail any entrance examination with so low a grade as 33 per cent.

The failure to maintain rigorous standards may well be connected with the American system of measurement by credits

instead of by attainment. Courses, whether in school, in college or in any kind of education, instead of being treated as an end, should be regarded as a means; and a test in them should be, not a final reward, but a mere measure of progress. At present the credit for a course is treated like a deposit in a savings bank, without a suspicion that the deposit is not of gold that can be drawn upon at its face value, but of a perishable article. To change the metaphor, we treat it like wheat poured into a grain elevator, whereas it is often more like the contents of a cold storage plant without the means of refrigeration. Indeed, it is sometimes more like the contents of an incinerator.

There is an old saying in England that an educated man should have forgotten Greek. If the adage is true, it is not because the man had forgotten Greek, but because he retained something worth while from having learned it. Even if the material put into the mind be not perishable, we ought to distinguish between information and education. Storing in the mind is not enough; we must also train the student to use the store; and accumulating credits for things done is not the way to attain the result. When a man's life ends, we ask what he has done; but a diploma from a school or a degree from a college or university is not an obituary, and when a student's education ends we should ask, not what he has done, but what he is or has become.

Can we measure what the boy or man is or has become; can we measure him as he stands? It does not seem impossible. Yet most of our examinations are adapted to ascertain little except knowledge, which tends to promote mere cramming; whereas the tests in the great school of active life depend rather upon the ability to use information. Surely examinations can be framed to measure not only knowledge but the ability to comprehend and correlate what is known. In short, to test the grasp of a subject as a whole. Such a grasp requires a more rigorous training in fundamentals than we are in the habit of exacting. An examination of this kind would be not only a measure of that which we desire to ascertain, but it would tend also to direct attention to a field of thought instead of to small isolated fragments of it. In short, it must

not be forgotten that examinations essentially control the content of education. If examinations demand a thorough knowledge of fundamental principles, the teachers will provide it and the students will attempt to acquire it. If they require merely a certain amount of miscellaneous knowledge, that will be the aim of instruction; and if, as in many schools, there is no examination at all, there is naturally less inducement to attain a very high standard of any kind.

The mechanical practice of credit for courses is, I believe, the gravest defect in the American educational system, and we ought to strive for some method of general examinations testing the real grasp of a subject as a whole. But if such examinations are possible, it is nevertheless certain that they demand skill which can be acquired only by practice. The art of examination is a difficult one, and in America it is still in its infancy, particularly in the matter of measuring the ability to use one's knowledge. The new psychological tests are interesting as an attempt to do this, to measure the capacity of the boy or man as he stands. They are crude, and for our purpose they suffer under the defect of assuming only the most elementary information. We need tests that will measure ability to use scholarly and specific knowledge. Anyone who attempts to introduce examinations of this kind will be disappointed at first, because the art has not yet been sufficiently developed. To use them effectively, we need to learn that the conduct of examinations is as important and worthy a part of the educational process as giving lectures, and quite as stimulating to the teacher. Ascertaining what the pupil knows, measuring his progress and deficiencies, is, indeed, a part of teaching, and quite as essential a portion of it as the imparting of information. The true teacher should be constantly both developing the mind of his pupil, and ascertaining how rapidly and beneficially the process is going on. One of the defects of much of our teaching and especially of the lecture system—is that this second part of the function of education is to a great degree lost from sight. An improvement in our examination system which will measure the grasp of a whole subject is, I believe, the most serious advance that can be made in American education to-day.

HENRY EDWARD, CARDINAL

MANNING

PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS

Address by Cardinal Manning, English Roman Catholic prelate and religious writer (born in Totteridge, Hertfordshire, July 15, 1808; died in London, January 14, 1892), delivered February 1, 1882, in the Egyptian Hall of the Mansion House, London, at a meeting convened by the Lord Mayor to give expression to the feeling excited in England by the then recently perpetrated atrocities upon the Jews in Russia.

MY LORD MAYOR, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:-It has often fallen to my lot to move a resolution in meetings such as this, but never in my memory have I moved one with more perfect conviction of my reason or more entire concurrence of my heart. Before I use any further words, it will, perhaps, be better that I should read what that resolution is. It is, "That this meeting, while disclaiming any right or desire to interfere in the internal affairs of another country, and desiring that the most amicable relations between England and Russia should be preserved, feels it a duty to express its opinion that the laws of Russia relating to the Jews tend to degrade them in the eyes of the Christian population, and to expose Russian Jewish subjects to the outbreaks of fanatical ignorance."

I need not disclaim, for I accept the eloquent disclaimer of the noble lord, that we are not met here for a political purpose. If there were a suspicion of any party politics, I should not be standing here. It is because I believe that we are highly above all the tumults of party politics, that we are in the serene region of human sympathy and human justice, that I am here to-day. I can also declare that nothing can be further from my intention, as I am confident nothing can be further from yours, than to do that which would be a violation of the laws of