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312 sanctity of the individual's gifts and will power, have made uniform prescriptions of study in secondary schools impossible and absurd. We must absolutely give up the notion that any set of human beings, however wise and learned, can ever again construct and enforce on school children one uniform course of study. The class system, that is, the process of instructing children in large groups, is a quite sufficient school evil, without clinging to its twin evil, an inflexible programme of studies. Individual instruction is the new ideal."

If this new ideal of individual instruction should be carried out consistently—and the patrons of this electivism certainly ought to work at the realization of this ideal state—we might in the twentieth century see the day, when for five thousand students at Harvard there will be no less than five thousand instructors. No wonder that all these pupils will turn out geniuses, such as the world has never seen before. It seems certain that great results are anticipated by President Eliot. For he concludes his paper with the words: "These gains are noiseless but persuasive; they take effect on five hundred thousand pupils every year. Have we not here some solid ground for hopefulness about the Republic, both as a form of government and as a state of society?"

Not less amusing is the absolute certainty with which President Eliot affirms that electivism is the only system which can claim a right to exist. He says: "Direct revelation from on high would be the only satisfactory basis for a uniform prescribed school curriculum, and nothing but an unhesitating belief in