until his pupils can draw the plants, or their parts, which he is studying, — and, further, drawing may and should be subservient in a high degree to the development of the imagination. Its uses in various directions are too numerous to mention, but for one thing I should say that a teacher is not fully equipped for his work who cannot use his crayon in illustration of the subject which he teaches.

I have not included this in the foregoing list of desiderata. Drawing is already systematically taught in our lower grades of schools, and if sufficient skill can be attained before entering the high school, the time of the latter would profitably be devoted to other subjects. But if experience shall demonstrate that the pupil upon finishing the grammar school course has just attained that degree of facility in drawing, as well as of mental development, which would enable him to pursue the study with practical and fruitful results, then the continuance of drawing in the high school, during a part of the course, would be much to be desired. The subject which we are considering, like all other subjects in the broad field of educational science, is a practical one. For such questions as the details of our curricula, the greatest economy of time, the relative value of the various studies, the most effective methods of presentation, how to introduce new subjects without overcrowding the old, for these there is needed the highest practical wisdom. We think that some advancement has been made in our secondary schools, especially during the last ten or fifteen years; it is natural and hopeful to think that both here and in all other departments of our school-work we shall make further and continuous progress.

THOUGH We fail indeed,

You -I- a score of such weak workers, — He
Fails never. If He cannot work by us,
He will work over us. Does He want a man,
Much less a woman, think you? Every time
The star winks there, so many souls are born,
Who all shall work too. Let our own be calm:
We should be ashamed to sit beneath those stars,
Impatient that we're nothing.

-Mrs. Browning.

THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF A LIBERAL
EDUCATION.

BY PROF. WILLIAM A. MERRILL, MIAMI UNIVERSITY.

PROBABLY there is no question more often aimed at college

graduates than this: What is the use of grinding away at the classics, mathematics, and all the 'ologies? And the question is often asked in good faith, and we all ought to be provided with an answer. The intellectual aristocrat might reply with a general negative, and very possibly the answer would be correct, for we cannot disguise the fact that with the single exception of teaching, college learning has no cash value, that is to say, there is no market where one can take his Latin, Greek, and Mathematics, and turn them into money. Now all knowledge may be roughly divided into two classes, into the immediately useful and the potentially useful; into that which perfects a man in his trade or profession, and that which increases the mental stature of the man. We all know the passage in the Iliad, where the poet describes the hewing of the ship timber; the artisan accomplishes his work, but the labor increases the strength of the man. The two results go together. In the language of philosophy, there is the objective result of the work accomplished, and the subjective result of the increased power of the actor. Now, when the task is a mental one and not physical, the strength of the mind is increased just as the strength of the arm of Homer's ship carpenter was; and that is what we mean by mental discipline. This mental discipline is one of the great aims of education. The man must possess himself, must have full control over his bodily furniture; and this control is most easily and surely gained by a carefully arranged mental curriculum; a course of intellectual gymnastics which will do for the mind what the gymnasium does for the body.

The great object of a liberal education is not the imparting of knowledge; it is the teaching of wisdom. Boys go to college and men come from it. And consequently the course of study is not planned for the making of good lawyers, doctors, chemists, and merchants; but to make men, well-developed men, physically and

mentally. And hence the practical value consists in the elevation of character, in the more lively sympathy with the true, the good, and the beautiful, and in the increase of mental power noted above. We claim that, other things being equal, the liberally educated man is a man of greater power, of greater influence in the community; that his training strengthens him for any calling. in life; but above all, that his ability to enjoy the higher pleasures of life is vastly greater. This is the great advantage; this more than compensates for the trouble and time spent in the classroom. Is it nothing to be able to see the beauties of a painting, to be delighted with a musical symphony, to see poetic beauty? "But this power is special and technical; it belongs to the artist, the musician, the poet." Very true; so it does, in its perfection, but the lower degree of enjoyment acquired by general culture gives pleasure also. Imagine for a moment, the plan of life on which a savage lives; imagine the whole teaching of history and the heritage of culture swept away from us. Even the Philistine can see the difference between the savage and the civilized man; or, as I prefer to put it, between the cultivated and uncultivated one. If, then, there is an unconscious cultivation gained from the civilization in which we live, which all regard as valuable, how much more valuable is that special and direct cultivation gained by a liberal education?

But the most frequent questioning is that of results. The skeptic tells us that the great men of our country are not college men. This question is not new; it used to be discussed at Rome in Cicero's time. In the oration for Archias, Cicero tells us that he has known learned fools who have been to school, and great men who have not; but when a man with brains is educated then the best results follow. In the older countries of Europe we find that, as a rule, the great men have been college bred; and if, in our young country, the opposite principle seems to hold, we may fall back on the experience of history for our great principle, and may meet objectors with Cicero's dictum. Abraham Lincoln was a great man; would he have been less great if he had had a liberal training? I use the word great as it is generally used in such a connection, in the sense of political greatness. This kind of greatness depends most largely on executive ability which is inborn. It is not fair to blame the colleges for not turning out great administrators; nor is it just to claim that liberal culture and adminis

trative ability are incompatible. The best exponents of culture in the Roman world were Cicero and Cæsar; the former was moderately successful in executive work, and the latter remarkably so. The colleges cannot create, they can only develop what comes to them; and if a literary man is a failure in political life, it should be no more astonishing than the failure of a machinist to do carpenter's work. We must reiterate the principle again and again that the task of the college is to develop the whole man, and not a part of him; and therefore adverse criticism must be directed against the result as a whole, not against the least of some particular natural endowment of the man, or failure in some technical specialization in the work of the world.

ENGLISH WOMEN AND ENGLISH MANNERS.

THE

BY MRS. H. E. MONROE.

VI.

HE social life of a people is measured by the capabilities of its women. The attainments of a nation are best understood by studying its typical individuals. Englishmen are very frequently seen by Americans, either in person as visitors or through the eyes of the newspaper reporter, but English women are not travellers, talk but little in public, and are not interviewed. It has been my good fortune to meet a large number of elegant women, mostly in educational and literary circles, and a word concerning them may interest you.

Miss Frances Power Cobbe, who is at the head of the anti-vivisection movement, is by far the greatest woman, intellectually, that I met in England. I do not now remember any person of my acquaintance, man or woman, in my own land, who shows such ready wit, great information, and broad human sympathy. I have already devoted an article to Miss Cobbe and her various kinds of work for society and for animals, and shall not therefore speak further of her.

A book called "The Great Treason," a story of the War of Independence, has been republished in America in the Franklin Square Library, also by Lovell and by Munro, which shows that

our publishers believe it to be salable even in America. The book is written in some measure from an American standpoint, and shows great knowledge of the country and the people, yet the writer's knowledge is a purely theoretic one, which makes the book all the more marvelous. The author's name is Mrs. Mary A. M. Marks, but her books are, I believe, published under her maiden name of Mary A. M. Hoppons.

Mrs. Marks is the author of the "Five Chimney Farm," "All the World's a Stage," "A Story of Cromwell," "Miss Montizambert," and "Masters of the World." Another, called "The Locket," will soon be published by Bently & Son, making in all seven books which she has written since 1878. Several of these are in three volumes.

I was much pleased to receive an invitation to dine with Mrs. Marks one evening in July. She lives in a beautiful home on Adelaide Road, and is herself an ideal English woman.

I wish I could convey to you the picture I have of her as she sits in her dainty drawing-room. She wore an English dress of soft gray satin, with a bag of the same material suspended from the belt; a deep lace collar, and rare old yellow lace in the sleeves, which came only below the elbow. Her beautiful light hair, slightly mixed with gray, curls around her forehead and neck like a girl's, with just a small coil fastened on the top of the head by a filigree comb. She is about the last person you would single out in a room full of women as an industrious, literary worker. As her dainty hands, sparkling with gems, glanced in and out of her fancy work, they gave no suggestion of using the pen.

Mr. Marks is a cultivated gentleman, but being a banker, is absent all day; the two girls, probably eleven and thirteen, are in school; so Mrs. Marks has time for writing. She has an ideal study. A room with a beautiful south exposure, overlooking a well-kept garden; about 3,000 books on shelves and on revolving bookcases, little artistic bits of bric-a-brac, and a desk of superior workmanship, with every pigeon-hole lettered and in perfect order, showing not only the literary woman but the good housekeeper. Mr. Marks is a lover of old furniture, and I saw two oldfashioned clocks of fine mosaic wood work, and chairs of William the IV.'s day, which were exquisitely carved. The whole house, except the library, had the air of the last century, which was very pleasing.