certain age in a certain country. Hence the necessity of changes, of development. Education is something living and must grow, otherwise it will soon wither and decay. There are, however, certain fundamental principles, certain broad outlines of education, based on sound philosophy and the experience of centuries, which surfer no change. Unfortunately, it is some of these principles which have been abandoned by modern pedagogists, and it is for this reason that many "school reforms" of these days have proved mere "school changes" or, as Professor Münsterberg of Harvard University styles them, "school deteriorations."[1] This important distinction between what is essential and what is accidental in education, has too frequently been disregarded by those advocates of the new system who claim that the old principles and methods must be given up, because they are not suited to cope with modern conditions. What is but secondary in education, as for instance the election of courses and branches, has been proclaimed to be of vital importance, and its absence in the older systems has been considered as the strongest proof that these systems are entirely antiquated. This mistake has more than once been made by those who attack one of the celebrated old systems, the Ratio Studiorum of the Jesuits.
Only three years ago, President Eliot of Harvard University, in a paper read before the American Institute of Instruction, July 10, 1899, advocated the extension of electivism to secondary or high schools.[2]
