is "the school of the future." Be it remarked, as a curious fact, that this modern system is not new at all, but a mere revival of the system of Comenius (1592—1671).[1] The future has to show whether this system is practicable or not. So far its value has not been sufficiently demonstrated.
Our own country furnishes significant phenomena,—similar to those witnessed in Germany. People had been told that our educational system was well nigh perfect. American children, at the age of ten or twelve years, now learn things of which in former generations men of twenty-five knew little or nothing, be it physiology, biology, hygiene, civics or what not. And all this they learn without exertion and coercion; for, agreeably to the free spirit of the country, the young citizens are to be given, as early as possible, full liberty of choosing those branches which suit their good pleasure, or, as our moderns express it, their natural abilities. Indeed, what system can be more perfect? Now on a sudden people are rudely awakened from their pleasant dreams by most distinguished men, who tell the people that there is something wrong, some say "radically wrong," in our educational system. Not a few of these critics begin to point out that one of the fundamental defects of American schools is the very thing which was vaunted as our greatest educational achievement: the elective system in secondary schools. Others discover the greatest danger in the hasty experimenting, in the rash accep
- ↑ "No less a person than Cornenius, the father of our new philosophical education, outlines in his Great Didactic a system which in its principal features agrees with that now in vogue in our pioneer schools." Educational Review, Sept. 1900, p. 173.
