Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 58.djvu/597

Rh appeal to him. Under most circumstances one year is enough—and it is not too much—to ascertain whether a study does, or does not, really challenge a youth's interest and capacity. Hence, to answer the second of the two questions just proposed, first, I should say that, in general, after a pupil has made his choice of a study, he should he required to pursue it for a year. As to the first question, namely, What studies shall be prescribed for all? it seems to me clear that no youth should be allowed, through ignorance or caprice, to cut himself off from any one of the great sources of human inspiration and guidance. If we could rely on having a varied and substantial program of studies during the pre-high-school years, some of the prescriptions I am about to suggest might well be omitted: notably the mathematics. But as long as the pre-high-school grades, even those immediately preceding the high-school grades, cannot yet be seriously regarded as the beginning of high-school education in most school systems—among them some of the best in the country—in order to guard against the blindness of ignorance when pupils come up to the high school, it is necessary to insist on a considerable amount of prescription.

I would, therefore, prescribe for every non-collegiate pupil, during his secondary school career, at least one year of the study of his mother tongue, giving most of the time to literature with its inspiring and guiding influence-: at least one year of science, so taught as to show the pupil how man is coming to master nature by understanding her, and at the same time, also, how completely one who knows nothing of natural science is cut off from participation in some of the most interesting, profound and far-reaching problems of contemporary thought; one year of a modern foreign language, through which he may learn to appreciate fully his mother tongue, and through which at the same time he may widen his mental horizon so as to include ultimately the literature, the institutional life, the ideals in a word, the intellectual resources of another modern nation besides his own; one year of history—English or American—so taught as to show the meaning of democratic institutions and the means of safeguarding and improving them. If American history is prescribed, I would have it so taught as to fill the pupil's mind with the most important truths about what his country is, and what it really stands for; not glossing over its past and present defects and unduly exalting its merits, hut bringing into strong relief our worthiest political ideals, and laying special emphasis on the lesson that the approximate realization of worthy political ideals has always been and still is possible only through the intelligent participation of citizens in public affairs, not primarily as office holders, but still more as alert and active private citizens; to do this, not so much by didactic instruction or exhortation, as by the inevitable logic of events skilfully portrayed; I would prescribe, further, one year of the history of