Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 55.djvu/369

Rh very handsome woman, Aliz is she named, a queen is she crowned, Queen she is of England, may her soul never have trouble! In Hebrew in truth Aliz means praise of God. I will compose a book, may God be with the commencement!"

As a sample of the zoölogical curriculum of the twelfth century take this chapter:

"Onager by right is named the wild ass; of it the Physiologus says, in his speech, when March in his course has completed twenty-five days, then that day of the month he brays twelve times, and also in the night for this reason, that that season is the equinox, that is that night and day are of equal length; by the twelve times that it makes its braying and its crying, it shows that night and day have twelve hours in their circuit. The ass is grieved when he makes his cry, that the night and day have equal length; he likes better the length of the night than of the day. Now hear without doubt the signification of this. Onager signifies the devil in this life; and by March we understand all the time that we have; by the day we understand good people, by right, who will go in light; and by night we understand those who were Neros; and by hours we understand the number of people. And when the devil perceives that his people decrease, as do the hours which are in the night, after the vernal equinox which we have in March, then he begins to cry, to deplore greatly, as the ass does which brays and crys."

One need not go back to the middle ages for a measure of progress, for all who remember the American college of thirty years ago know there has been notable improvement in this short time, and they also know that every change has not been an improvement. All who are concerned with education see many defects, and wish to do what they can to remedy them, and to increase the efficiency and usefulness of our whole educational system in all its branches from the lowest to the highest, although I believe they still find much wisdom in the advice of the prophet of old, "that we make a stand upon the ancient way, and then look about us and discover what is the straight and right way, and so walk in it."

Many who are now before the public as reformers seem to me to fall into error through belief that our educational system has been devised by some one, either in the twelfth century or at some other time, and that they may therefore hope to devise a better. All who know that it is a highly complex and delicate organism which has grown up imperceptibly and naturally in accordance with many needs, fulfilling many different purposes and acting in many diversified and far-reaching ways, know also that while reform always has been and always will be needed, organic change is quite another matter. They know, too, that a disposition to pull it to