How have we done this? Not by exalting a few geniuses and glorying in their superiority! That is more nearly like the ideals of the lands from which they came. Our glory has been in our common democracy-in our religion of benevolence and love which makes every man our equal before God and as citizens; and in our common schools, where devoted and loving teachers have impartially and tirelessly given their lives to the task of building up an average of intelligence that has made American schools a model for others and America a Mecca for all the nations of the world. No nation has achieved a higher rank as a self-governing, free people than ours.

We believe that the American ideal will continue to be found in an average intelligence of all the people rather than in an exceptional brilliancy and ability of a few selected and exclusive leaders.

We plead, then, the great public value of academic salvage. We would lay the emphasis of effort upon the needs of the poor pupil, rather than on the attainments or abilities of the exceptionally gifted. Individually the latter will prosper, anyway, in nearly all instances. They will find their opportunities. They will get on and up-perhaps fully as fast and well for being early thrown upon their own responsibility. In any case great educational opportunities are opened to them through privately endowed schools and such great Foundations as those bearing the names of Carnegie, Rockefeller and others. We are discussing particularly our public school, college and university situation. We believe it to be the duty of these to encourage and nurture and care for all the pupils, impartially, as they severally and collectively need, with a view to giving them the best possible preparation for a happy and useful life. To discourage a poor pupil because of his failure to be brilliant in scholarship is a crime. Discouragement will never improve his scholarship. The probability is that it will finish him. Whereas, his great need is encouragement. By sympathetic aid and persistent effort such pu

pils may nearly always be aroused and put on the right track and enabled to go ahead. In such cases they will never cease to be enthusiastically grateful to the teacher or teachers who understood and befriended them instead of eliminating them. Most of the readers of EDUCATION have enjoyed the privileges of long courses of preparation for teaching and are now in the work, directing the fortunes of the coming generation of business men and women, those in the professions, the politicians, the statesmen, and leaders in all human activities. It is a great responsibility. It is a serious thing to say to another, "You are a failure." "You will never succeed." "You might just as well stop right where you are and go home." "It is nothing but a waste of money for your father to keep you here any longer." Yet all of these things we have known to be said to young folks in school, by teachers in reputable standing.

We want to enter our plea for a policy which is the reverse of this. We want to express our disapproval of making exclusive standards that will make it impossible for any but geniuses to get by college entrance examinations. We want to honor the memory of teachers who have saved the intellectual lives of many who were discouraged and in danger. We want to plead for a democracy of learning.

A great schoolmaster, now at the head of a prosperous and influential "fitting school," tells an anecdote of the War of the Rebellion, in which our great War President, Abraham Lincoln, set us all a splendid example. As we know, he frequently went to the front and visited the scenes of battle and inspired his generals, and often their troops, and their most humble soldiers, by his presence and his words of encouragement. On one occasion he came across a desperately wounded soldier, lying helpless and suffering upon the ground, with none to minister to him. President Lincoln bent over his prostrate form and examined his wound-then took him in his great, strong arms and lifted him bodily from the ground and bore him to a waiting ambulance, assuring him with ut

most positiveness as well as tenderness that he should not die that he was going to get well, that such bravery as his could not and would not be spared by his country which so needed the continued services of such as he.

This soldier afterwards testified that his great leader's praise, his belief in him, his encouragement, his positiveness, his splendid strength of body, mind and spirit as he ministered to him gave the impulse that alone could and did save his life. He lived and became one of the most noted and successful Head Masters of the post-bellum years.

A similar field of influence is open all about us in the schools and colleges of the land. The sympathetic, broad-minded, large-hearted, conscientious teacher will not let his pupils be eliminated. He has a vision of the values of scholarship and of a salvaged scholarly life.

Idealists

Their faults are virtues overgrown;
Their failure but the fruitless flower
Of faith; when they are overthrown.
They trip on steps that lead to power.

No lever theirs of circumstance,

No fulcrum hour that turns the years;
Wise, but outfaced by ignorance,

Their lot the slaves; their work, the seers.

And they are scorned. The men who find,
Or steal wholesale-whose hands hold all-
Sneer, while each other's bays they bind,
At empty hands which they forestall.

And oh, the soul's foot-crushed ideal,
The sacrifice none understands!
But One is throned to whom all kneel,

The Judge a Man with empty hands!

STOKELY S. FISHER,

Kansas City University.

Case Study of Ethical Standards for

Public Schools

WALTER SCOTT MCNUTT, PH.D., FLORIDA STATE COLLEGE FOR WOMEN, TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA.

(Concluded from EDUCATION for March)

WHAT I WOULD DO IN STARTING STUDENT
CO-OPERATION.

(Superintendent's Standpoint.)

Get my school board interested first. The average school board desires an autocrat at the helm of administration to dictate their desires to teachers and students and to see that they are carried out to the letter of the law. As a rule, they have come through the old system, and their idea of a school "worthwhile" is one similar to the one through which they have passed, back in the good old days when the rod was spared not, and their master's rules were like "the laws of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not." Sometimes you will have one or two progressive men on the board, but at the same time you will have others on the same board to watch their progressivness.

And anything that the teacher starts new will be looked upon with disfavor, and will be the means of causing the board to distrust their judgment on future things for the welfare of the school, and in many instances it will cause a change in the teaching staff for the next year.

The wise teacher must realize that these conditions prevail, in the majority of village school boards, and use tact and common sense in all of his dealings with them. He should show a spirit of sympathy and co-operation at all times with his board; but at the same time he should make them see and feel that he is master of his profession, by giving them mod

ern ideas of education and keeping them informed as to the progress of education in other cities and towns similar to their own. When they once come to believe in him, it is possible to get their co-operation in things which otherwise would be impossible.

After gaining the confidence of the board, it is then time to approach the matter of student self-government. But before doing this the teacher must be able to give what has been done and the possibilities of the movement, in a concise, graphic, and enthusiastic manner.

In regard to the time spent in educating a board, I should think that a live and enthusiastic teacher could do this in three months, preferably the summer months before the school opens.

Having educated my board, I would turn to the education of my teachers. At our first faculty meeting, I would assign rooms and give plans of work and co-operation for the teachers. I would make this meeting just as pleasant and profitable as possible and show a spirit of helpfulness and co-operation in all things pertaining to the school work. At our next regular meeting I would bring up the question of the best possible means of school discipline, and during the discussion, I would give a concise, graphic account of the George Junior Republic or some work of a similar character and leave the subject open for further discussion at our next weekly meeting.

At our next meeting I would find the attitude of each teacher, through our discussions; and before adjourning I would suggest that we make a study of the movement, and state that I had some literature on the subject, and that I had studied the matter and should like to think about it more.

After getting my teachers saturated with the movement, and seeing the need of it in our school, I would suggest that the teachers begin discussing it with their students in their individual rooms, and in this way create a spirit of co-operation throughout the school.