more than in any other division of the public schools are physical education and athletics a part of the curriculum. In a recent study of 250 junior high schools, it was found that 62% of them have gymnasiums, 14% have swimming pools, and 82% have access to an equipped athletic field or playground. But even in the junior high school the tendency is toward too much specialization in athletics.

There are many changes which should be made in the administration of physical education and athletics, and many of these changes could be effected if made a part of the curriculum.

First of all, athletics should be organized for all and required of all, not the few. Some type of athletics should be required of faculty as well as-yes, even more particularly than-of students. Instead of eighteen or twenty-two playing and one thousand or more watching from the side-lines, this should be reversed. Very little more time, if any, should be required of those on the teams than of other students. The time required of any one should be fixed at the time which is considered best for the health of those contesting. A minimum of three hours a week should be required of all.

A pupil is required by compulsory laws and truant officers to devote so many hours a week to mental work on the supposition that such requirements are best for the state; and yet he is allowed to form his own habits of physical exercise or to form no habits whatsoever. To be sure, several states now require some time each week given to physical education, but they set no standards of accomplishments.

If the work is required, then credit should be given foryes, required in physical education. The junior high school movement will probably affect credit in physical education.

We must have either fewer interscholastic contests with more inter-class work, or more inter-scholastic contests with second, third, and fourth teams contesting. Why not put on as a head-liner, "Freshmen against Freshmen"? Are not

5 J. F. Landis, Principal of Latimer Junior High School, Pittsburgh.

athletic contests as valuable physically, mentaly, and morally to the freshman as to the old sports who have served four years in athletics?

Competitors should be weighed and standards of accomplishment established so that schools may compete on reasonable bases. If one school has 500 boys from which to select a team of eleven men and can thus select a heavy team, why should it be allowed to compete with a small school of 40 boys, many of whom will be extremely light? There is no indication whatever that the school which puts out the greatest number of winning teams is doing most for the physical, intellectual, or moral development of its pupils. If weight were taken into consideration, there would be fewer serious injuries in football. It is a sin for any team to run up a score of 100 against a competing team in football. The weaker team, in this case is literally trampled on probably, yet the coach says the team must have practice and so the team is urged to do its best. Perhaps too, the school represented by the weak team has formerly beaten the school represented by the strong team or the coaches have an old grudge and so the grudge is taken out on this weak team. The weak team must fight to the limit of endurance or be called "yellow."

No special privileges should be allowed athletics or to athletes. Honesty, manliness, proper language, etc., should be required on the athletic field as well as in the schoolroom. There is no reason why one hundred times as much should be spent on the physical development of the already strong athlete as upon the average individual. How often do you see high schools and colleges giving the total budget to specialized athletics, and nothing for the physical development of the rank and file?

More playground space would be required than is now available if this plan were put into practice, but it would be worth the extra investment. Boards of education in towns and cities should early plan for additional space for physical

education and athletics. Yale University has recently added 750 acres to her athletic field.

Specialization in only one sport should not be required nor allowed until a broad general physical training is secured. It is much more valuable for a person to receive training in several sports than to be a specialist in only one. It is much more valuable from the physical point of view also for a person to learn to play many games and to enjoy them through life, than to have learned to play only one of the major sports. Training rules should be kept by the whole student body all the time, rather than by the athletes only during the training season. If the boys on the team can be required to forego the pleasures of midnight larks and the cigarette, why should not the same requirements be made of the weaker students of the school, the dude and the puny girl? Scholarship as well as athletics should have a place on the student's training schedule.

Athletics will never become a part of the curriculum until administered by the superintendent of the school and board of education, just as English, history or mathematics are at present administered. Rules and regulations concerning athletics should be made by high school men rather than by professional coaches. The physician or school nurse, rather than the coach, should determine when a certain form of athletics is needed for the child's physical development. When this sort of an arrangement is made, the coach will be selected because of his ability to develop and to maintain strong physical stamina and proper ideals in his pupils, rather than because he has been an athletic "star" in one or more college sports.

Herbert Spencer says, "Nothing will so much hasten the time when body and mind will both be adequately cared for as a diffusion of the belief that the preservation of health is a duty and that all breaches of the laws of health are physical sins." This point of view will not become general until 6 Herbert Spencer, Education, chapter on "Physical Education."

athletic sports and all other types of physical education are placed in the curriculum and administered by school officials as carefully as other subjects.

Furthermore, this point of view will not be generally accepted and athletics made a regular and legitimate part of the curriculum until teachers of physical education and directors of athletics secure the professional training and the point of view of the teacher, rather than that of the professional athlete. Every athletic coach should be a real teacher, having carefully prepared himself in biology, sociology, psychology, and education. Certainly the coach has need of the ideals of sympathy, self-control, self-denial, and like virtues as much as any teacher. On the other hand, this point of view will not come until teachers in the public school get the attitude toward physical education and the play life of the child. When all teachers of athletics, as well as other subjects, have the professional training and point of view of the real teacher; when all teachers of other subjects as well as of athletics, have the spirit of play and of fair play; and when all these teachers cooperate in securing for physical education and athletics a proper place in the curriculum, then, and not until then, will athletics become "strictly educational."

Some Serviceable Definitions of Education

T

CLARA F. CHASSELL,

TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.

HIS article presents in outline form (1) an explanation of the nature of a definition; (2) the statement of five criteria of a good definition of education; (3) a discussion of four of the more serviceable definitions of education, including (a) various statements of these definitions, (b) an analysis of their implications, MARK and (c) a consideration of their relation to other aims; and (4) the application of the criteria presented at the opening of the outline to the four definitions discussed; and (5) a brief summary. The sources from which the material for the outline has been drawn will be found in the bibliography at the close of the article. Free use has been made of these references by direct quotation and by utilization of thought.

I. Introduction.

A. Nature of definition.

1. It represents present status of knowledge concerning that which is defined.

2. It is a useful point of view for organization of facts.

3. It places emphasis upon essential elements and implies aim of whatever is defined.

B. Criteria of good definition of education.

1. It must be sufficiently broad to provide for all phases of development in human life.

2. It must take into account individual differences and provide for equality of opportunity.

3. It must make provision for origination of knowledge and insure progress.