Indeed there are few sounding-boards which so intensify a jest as the wide and open sky itself. The absence of a roof in the early English theatre must have had an effect upon its humor. When man puts something heavier than canvas over his head his laughter begins to fail. I recall another incident of one who rose from slumber while his tent-mates were going to bed and dressed, supposing it was morning. This—in the open air-was excruciatingly funny, but I can now see how Meredith might have chosen it as an example of the laughter not of the mind. Yet the question remains whether much Homeric and Elizabethan laughter is best provoked by merely "lighting the candelabra of the brain.” Surely not all mirth is to be restricted to the frontal lobes. There, it is true, Wit has her seat, but the heart and other organs can laugh as well. This cruel and captious world has room for a laugh like that memorable one of Teufelsdröckh, "a laugh not of the face and diaphragm only but of the whole man from head to heel." At night upon the march big fires would blaze at the heads of the company streets. Here one evening I fell in talk with a stranger while a group of singers poured forth "My Bonnie lies over the ocean" and "Just a song at twilight" in notes of deepthroated and virile sentimentality. We talked of Christianity and of religion in general. My friend, now an editor in Illinois, had read considerably in books but more in the ways of men. He was an incorrigible Nietzschean. "What men got they got it by fighting." "Christianity was the religion of cowards." "He had given up socialism for anarchy because socialism was getting Christianized and respectable." I stood by my guns-if that warlike figure suits the attitude of tolerant and hopeful activism in which some of us manage to live not altogether ineffectively in spite of the equally scornful orthodox and rational. Of course neither convinced the other. That is not the object of a good talk. But it was satisfactory to hear the other and under side. of things so vigorously espoused in our undeniably well-bred community. "There's a curse in the words-deny it who can! And, as with all deep-rooted and perennial institutions, a blessing as well. On my right as we marched Yale '14 explained to me the folly of Socialism with which I confessed certain weak sympathies. On my left Harvard '14 did the same for Pragmatism toward which I admitted heretical leanings. Number three, rear rank, club-man and fox-hunter, discussed Emily Dickinson, and in this case my fondness was not reproved. With number one, rear rank-newspaper cartoonist at sixteen and now architect somewhere in Ohio- there came a sudden spurt of sympathy on our observing that neither joined in the singing of "John Brown's Body" and "Marching through Georgia." Number one-like "Little Giffen," whom I think he resembled in appearance was originally "of Tennessee." And while we talked about it, drawn close by the one heritage which a nation that sprang into being only to pass again away, has bequeathed the children of its children, those who so passionately and vainly loved it,—“qui pro et cum patria jacent,"—while we talked, I saw going on before us in the early morning sunlight, gold-corded and highheld, the flag which we were following. When I personally attempt to describe that crowd one word first occurs to me, one word which, however used in its cant or colloquial significance always carries deeper and unescapable connotations-decent. A decent lot. They stripped well at the lake's edge when they went in swimming. One felt they would strip well in more transcendental senses. The last evening at the end of the march, the speeches serious and humorous ended, and the last curt "Dismissed" shouted for the last time, the big crowd broke up in the dusk. Walking slowly back alone I came with the rest to a brokendown stone fence. Suddenly out of the dark an unknown young giant with one arm through a companion's, linked his other in my own. "That's the way to get over-together!" and so the three of us went lightly up and over. For a few moments we talked together in that pleasant way in which one was continually slipping with unknown men. It was the frequent note of self-gratulation. "What a fine lot of fellows!" "What a regiment they would make!" Perhaps a captious listener might have thought it a little absurd. I, at any rate, did not find it so. I called Good Night to my young giant whose face I never saw, with the thrill so common at Plattsburgh, the thrill that came with the sense that this-in spite of all quarrels of Anarchy and Capitalism, of Pacificism and Militarism—that this was young America, a very decent sort of thing, a thing even thrilling to touch shoulders with for a little time, a thing to inspire great hope and confidence in thinking over later. LOUIS WARDLAW MILES. Princeton University. THE EVOLUTION OF PUBLIC EDUCATION IN VIRGINIA I. COLONIAL THEORY AND PRACTICE Three very distinct periods, corresponding to as many different periods in our social and economic development, characterize educational history and growth in the United States. The first is that of the transplanting of European institutions, traditions, and customs to American soil, from the first settlement to the middle of the eighteenth century or a little later, when political, social, and economic conditions in the mother country affected the colonies. The second period is one of attempted modification or adoption in an effort to meet the new demands of a new and radically different environment, and extends from about the middle of the eighteenth century to about the fourth decade of the nineteenth century. The third is the period of the building up here of a system of education, distinctively American, which should meet the new conditions into which the nation had come, and extends from the thirties to near the close of the nineteenth century. A brief description of each will make somewhat clearer these periods or divisions in our educational history. Generally speaking, the first period of our educational growth is marked by a purely religious conception. Educational conditions in Europe at the time America was settled and during the period of colonial government are a necessary background for any adequate understanding of educational custom and practice here during the first period. Most of the settlements in this country were made when the reformation movement was at a most crucial point, and when the religious element was most prominent in educational matters. Educational questions were receiving more attention in Europe than they had ever received; education and schooling were given a peculiar emphasis and importance by the reformation condition. In the American colonies, therefore, education became intimately connected with religion and the church. It was controlled by the church in Pennsylvania and New York; elementary education for the more prosperous classes was carried on by the private tutorial system in Virginia and the southern colonies, and for the lower classes by the apprenticeship and poor laws, which, though not naming schools as distinct institutions, yet involved the education of the less fortunate people; and there was a certain governmental activity in educational matters in Massachusetts and New England which showed a Puritan adaptation of some of the English laws and customs. ment. In the second period educational theory and practice are the result of effort at adjustment to new conditions. Extending from about 1750, or somewhat later, to the period of Jacksonian democracy, this period in our educational growth is marked by a certain mixture of aristocratic ideals and increasing democratic notions. It is a period of rapid economic growth and developAs early as 1763, at the close of the Seven Years' War, fear of French hostilities had been removed from the English colonists, who were then left free to devote their efforts unrestricted to material expansion. From this time forward they were eager to expand; and after the Revolution, when all colonial restrictions were removed, an unprecedented stimulus was given to economic and industrial development. this struggle for commercial and economic independence went also another change, more specifically educational, which concerns us here. It was during this time that elementary schools of a private or quasi-private character, church and town schools began to disappear and the so-called "district school," which is distinctively an American product, began to assume their place. Along with The third period extends from the thirties to near the end of the nineteenth century. It is characterized by the gradual separation of public education from ecclesiastical control; by the gradual development of the ideal of local control; and by what is probably even more noticeable, a gradual but sure growth toward the ideal of democracy. During this time public schools passed over to the state, and there appeared a tendency, which has gradually increased, toward state control; the old academies rapidly changed into public high schools, colleges became largely non-sectarian, and state universities were organized and developed. It is during this period, also, that we find a more general expansion in state constitutional provisions |