the Christian who by free choice and the exercise of thought has attained the Christian position, but he resents the so-called Christian who is merely in the Church because he finds himself there, without any effort of his will or his intelligence. The convinced Secularist feels respect for the sincere Christian, even though it may only be in the sense that the real saint feels tenderness for the hopeless sinner. And in the second place, as I have sought to point out, the facts we are here concerned with are far too fundamental to concern the Christian alone. They equally concern the Secularist, who also is called upon to satisfy the spiritual hunger of the adolescent youth, to furnish him with a discipline for his entry into life, and a satisfying vision of the universe. And if Secularists have not always grasped this necessity, we may perhaps find therein one main reason why Secularism has not met with so enormous and enthusiastic a reception as the languor and formalism of the Churches seemed to render possible.

If the view here set forth is sound-a view more and more widely held by educationalists and by psychologists trained in biology—the first twelve years must be left untouched by all conceptions of life and the world which transcend immediate experience, for the child whose spiritual virginity has been prematurely tainted will never be able to awake afresh to the full significance of those conceptions when the age of religion at last arrives. But are we, it may be asked, to leave the child's restless, inquisitive, imaginative brain without any food during all those early years? By no means. Even admitting that, as it has been said, at the early stage religious training is the supreme art of standing out of Nature's way, it is still not hard to find what, in this matter, the way of Nature is. The life of the individual recapitulates the life of the race, and there can be no better imaginative food for the child than that which was found good in the childhood of the race. The savage sees the world almost exactly as the civilised child sees it, as the magnified image of himself and his own environment, but he sees it with an added poetic charm, a delightful and accomplished inventiveness, which the child is incapable of. The myths and legends of primitive peoples-for instance those of the British Columbian Indians, so carefully reproduced by Boas in German and Hill Tout in English-are one in their precision and their extravagance with the stories of children, but with a finer inventiveness. It was, I believe, many years ago pointed out by Ziller that fairy-tales ought to play a very important part in the education of young children, and since then B. Hartmann, Stanley Hall, and many others of the most conspicuous educational authorities have emphasised the same point. Fairy tales are but the final and transformed versions of primitive myths, creative legends, stories of old gods. In purer and less transformed versions the myths and legends of primitive peoples are often scarcely less adapted to the child's mind. Julia

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Gayley argues that the legends of early Greek civilisation, the most perfect of all dreams, should above all be revealed to children. The, Cof early traditions of the East and of America yield material that is scarcely less fitted for the child's imaginative uses. Portions of the Bible, specially of Genesis, are in the strict sense fairy tales, that is, legends of early gods and their deeds which have become stories. In the opinion of many these portions of the Bible may suitably be given to children (though it is curious to observe that a Welsh Educa tion Committee has lately prohibited the reading in schools of precisely the most legendary part of Genesis) but it must always be remem bered, from the Christian point of view, that nothing should be given at this early age which is to be regarded as essential at a later age, for the youth turns against the tales of his childhood as he turns das against its milk-foods. Some day, perhaps, it may be thought worth while to compile a Bible for childhood, not a mere miscellaneous assortment of stories, but a collection of books as various in origin and nature as are the books of the Hebraic-Christian Bible, so that every kind of child in all his moods and stages of growth might here find fit pasture. Children would not then be left wholly to the mercy of the thin and frothy literature which the contemporary press pours upon them so copiously; they would possess at least one great and book however fantastic and extravagant it might often be, would, yet have sprung from the deepest instincts of the primitive soul, and furnish answers to the most insistent demands of primitive hearts. Such a book, even when finally dropped from the youth's or girl's hands, would still leave its vague perfume, behind. pening. Du ton llite zuti,vku zoutez lo tro quibusta lo tra emorque It It may be pointed out finally that, the fact that it is impossible to even the elements of adult religion and philosophy, Teach C well as unwise to attempt, it, by no means implies that all serious teaching is impossible in childhood, On the imaginative and spiritual side, it is true, the child is re-born and transformed during adolescence, but on the practical and concrete side his life and thought, are for the most part but the regular and orderly development of the habits he has already acquired. The elements of ethics on the one hand, as well as of natural science on the other, may alike be taught to children, and indeed they become a necessary part of early education, the imaginative side of training is to be duly balanced and comple mented. The child as much as the adult can be taught, and is indeed apt to learn, the meaning and value of truth and honesty, of justice and pity, of kindness and courtesy; we have wrangled and worried for so long concerning the teaching of religion in schools that we have failed altogether to realise that these fundamental notions of morality are a far more essential part of school, training; the Inquiry into ared to the Methods and Results of Moral Training in Schools, now being carried out under the auspices of a large and influential Committee,

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In the same way the child is well fitted to acquire a precise knowledge of the natural objects around him, of flowers and plants and to some extent of animals, objects which to the savage also are of absorbing interest; in this way he is not only being restrained from the caprices of imagination but is unconsciously preparing himself for the serious studies which must occupy so much of his later youth.

The child, we thus have to realise, is from the educational point of view a being of dual nature, who needs ministering to on both sides. On the one hand he demands the key to an imaginative Paradise which one day he must leave, bearing away with him, at the best, only a dim and haunting memory of its beauty. On the other hand he possesses eager aptitudes on which may be built up concrete knowledge and human relationships to serve as a firm foundation when the period of adolescent development and discipline at length arrives... to tinutroqqo bas ensoar oft novin od of ei Ludo festoon caT HAVELOCK ELLIS. 79181 bus od 8 -75wla zi di) etnylst trailed e ed of 918 (27ollisanos Thames 100 to masib users sit ni de adt vd bolusa bas bougie rot-suloods a spilliz sit vd betootob botromso bas qidendor's- lis auoo (Janos oli vd bomunjosas netosem

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THE EDUCATIONAL LADDER

In education as in other things we lack courage, we shelter ourselves behind accepted axioms and shrink from acting on our convictions.

For example, the title of this article expresses the democratic and at present popular view of our educational aims.

The poorest child is to be given the means and opportunity of going to college. His brilliant talents (it is always a he and rarely a she in the elysian dreams of our county councillors) are to be detected by the village schoolmaster, signed and sealed by the inspector, encouraged by the county council scholarship and cemented by transference to a secondary school and a university career. What is to happen afterwards we seldom inquire.

I propose to examine this dream.

In ordinary life we do not live on ladders; we walk on the solid ground, and mount a ladder in exceptional cases for exceptional purposes. Not every man is expected to build or paint a housepick from or prune our trees-we keep ladders for such occasions and use them when required.

Would to Heaven we did the same with educational ladders! Only one child in a hundred, perhaps one in a thousand, will go to the University. Why sacrifice the ninety-nine or the nine hundred and ninetynine to him?

We are terrorised by the democratic spirit of the day, till even a democrat like myself squirms at the follies into which this theory, unbalanced and unchecked, is leading us-no, has led us-for it lies at the root of our educational system and poisons it root and branch.

What else has influenced the amazing curriculum of our elementary schools? Only the immense ignorance of the general public about that curriculum can account for the choice of subjects which are now accepted as indispensable.

Does the country gentleman, the farmer, the builder, or the carpenter appreciate the material we turn out yearly with labour certificates? Does the employer generally realise, when he complains that boys prefer to swell the ranks of underpaid clerks rather than soil their hands by learning a trade, that the previous instruction

given to all boys unfits them for learning a trade and only fits them for clerkships, scholarships, and the possible university?

In elementary schools no subject receives more attention than English grammar. The difference between nouns and adjectives, the so-called training of logical faculty' supposed to accompany the analysis of sentences, results in grammar being hammered into boys and girls alike for two or three mortal hours every week every year of their school life, in nearly every school in this kingdom.

English grammar is the curse of elementary education, the despair of the teacher, the loathed lesson to the child. Quickly he learns by heart certain formulæ likely to be serviceable on the larger number of occasions, and rapidly in the presence of inspectors is such lore glibly reproduced.

How often have I myself been forced to encourage the pursuit of this abstract and detestable science!

"My umbrella is split." Subject of the sentence, please, children?' "Umbrella," please, miss.'

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'Quite right; well done, Tommy. Now, "My green umbrella is split." Subject of that sentence, please, children? Umbrella " again-quite right-why, how clever we all are!'

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'My grandfather's green umbrella is split." Subject, please, children?'

As sure as fate comes the reply, ""Grandfather," please, miss. 'Oh, Susan Anne! now, do you really mean that your grandfather is split? How many other children have split grandfathers?' And so on, till a little mirth is introduced into the dreary world of subjects, objects, enlargements, and predicates.

Meanwhile, Tommy and Susan Anne go home to tea and neither seems much the better able to assist their mother in her housework or their father in the garden. Nor does it appear to me are they the least more likely to develop logical faculty of a practical kind enabling them to cope with draughts which cause the chimney to smoke, the making of shelves out of old boxes, or the mending of holes which stand gaping for lack of a needle and thread.

In Queen Elizabeth's reign, class legislation was openly accepted as the basis of our laws. Long before then wages were fixed in the various trades, and little boys of seven who had already embraced the occupation of husbandry were compelled to pursue that calling for life.

In remedying evils of this monstrous kind, in abolishing the maximum wage of an adult, or destroying the chains that fettered the life purpose of the infant, we swept away the invaluable and common-sense basis of which they were only an evil off-shoot. So long as the world lasts we shall have class distinctions. Why not accept them in the right spirit ?

Let us fight by all means against the snobbery which prevents one class from knowing its next-door neighbour-makes the farmer's