Since the first three of these essays were written at a period of more than ten years ago, they contain many particulars of statement which would need modification if revised in view of later facts, and some particulars of opinion which I should now express in a different way. It is gratifying to find that certain suggestions made in them as to possible remedies for then existing evils and deficiencies have been adopted and more or less successfully carried out. It is also a cause for hope that some of the mists arising from the first thawing of the fields congealed by long continued customs and traditions have begun to clear away; so that a more judicious estimate of the path which lies behind us in educational matters and of the lines of educational progress in the nearer future, can be more easily attained. But he certainly overestimates the assured and thoroughly well proven value of much that is "new" in education, and also underestimates the numerous puzzling problems which remain to be solved, the practical difficulties still to be overcome, who regards the permanent courses of the more popular or of the higher education in this country as by any means clearly marked out.
The enthusiastic advocate of what is new in educational ideas—as to subjects, methods, curricula, organization, etc.—regards it as highly unfortunate that institutions are not so plastic, so
