which shall have its end largely accomplished upon graduation, and thus prepare the student for some line of employment so that with ambition and intense application to the work at hand he can fit into the social and economic conditions as an efficient citizen.

With this function in mind it would be well to consider that all students should be required to master bookkeeping to the extent of at least keeping personal accounts; banking, for an understandable idea of opening an account, computing interest, and keeping a check book; insurance so taught that they may be familiar with the different types of life and reality for at least a comparison of values; that part of law dealing with mortgages, deeds, and contracts in order to know the correct forms to be used; all of which would give them a fund of knowledge absolutely worth while in that higher education usually gained in the so-called "knocks of life."

In order that all the young people who take commercial courses may have the best instruction possible and be properly prepared for efficient service, we must have capable teachers. These teachers must be liberally educated; they must have actual business experience in the subjects taught; they must possess a genuine interest in humanity, be sympathetic, ambitious, and entertain sound judgment that they may lead their students to an earnest desire for success, willingly paying the price which it exacts.

Re

When, a few years ago, an insistent plea was made for the establishment of separate high schools of commerce, the educators of the country were by no means converted to work in commercial subjects as a part of the high school curriculum. cent developments have convinced all that this recommendation now expresses a national need, which is evidenced by the large number of high schools of commerce now successfully operating in our metropolitan centers, and by the increasing number of high schools containing departments of commercial education. The present demands both stability and the true spirit of democracy. It insists upon specialization and upon efficient development of individual ability. The public in general and the business men in particular, are growing to have more faith in all forms of education.

The time has come when educators and business men must realize the essential unity of their interests and their mutual happiness. Efficiency in affairs is the call of the hour. The years to come cannot be idle ones. Only the very highest type of individual ability is commensurate with the every day sitúation. To obtain this we shall be obliged to rely largely upon our educational systems. Therefore, educators must come to a "speedy recognition of business as a profession and of the need of making adequate educational provision therefor." The development may be slow, partly because of the need of much experimenting, partly because of the limited number of suitable teachers; and it will be no easy task to change the teaching methods to fit the new ideal.

In the industrial courses it is quite satisfactorily demonstrated that continuation work can be carried on between the shop and the school. Just so it is possible for a similar co-operation between business establishments and the school. Educators must soon realize the necessity of arranging with the business public a plan for permitting both boys and girls to spend some time in the store or office in connection with carrying on certain prescribed subjects in the school curriculum. Such a plan would surely be of inestimable benefit to those who were obliged to leave school so as to assist in the financial receipts of the family, because they would thus be able to learn and earn at the same time.

To better facilitate business methods and to add to the real value of training the time will soon come when different schools must carry on an interchange of work, such as business correspondence, actual experience in shipping routes, bills of lading and freight receipts. To continue this scheme further several schools within a reasonable distance could teach banking much more profitably and realistically by having each school in turn become the banking institution for the other schools, having one of them in circuit act as clearing house. By adopting this plan the more complicated forms of banking and financial exchange would be more accurately and thoroughly understod by the students and they would actually have a working conception of banking institutions.

Many colleges and universities now have established courses in business and commercial administration, therefore, the commercial courses in secondary schools should be so recognized by these higher institutions that credits towards entrance could be allowed and this in a sense, would necessarily strengthen this grade of work in the high schools, but never to the extent of not preparing for actual business duties those who will not be able to attend college or go to the university.

Further, it has been shown by investigation that in every one hundred graduates from the high school the chances of placing them in the activities of the world are about sixty in industrial pursuits, thirty in commercial establishments, five in professional occupations, and the remaining five in various kinds of other employment. Despite the fact that there are many more opportunities of employment for the industrially trained, figures show a rapidly increasing number in commercial training courses to the already over proportioned enrollment, which is far ahead of the demand for such employees.

This situation is probably brought about by two conditions. First: because of the lack of facilities for offering the needed counsel to students who seem at a loss to know just what secondary course to select, with perhaps the added attraction of those subjects chosen which seem to require a little less work in the way of preparation than the standard traditional classical subjects. Second: because the equipment is appealing and more complete than the equipment usually offered in industrial subjects. And in many instances the secondary schools have little or no industrial equipment, with no immediate prospects for a better condition, so the student has little inducement in this direction. We must also keep in sight the fact that commercial education has practically the only occupational subjects given in the public schools which are remunerative to the girls.

Hence, extreme care ought to be taken each year not to turn adrift into the commercial field of labor an extremely large number of workmen, who at their best, except those few from the large city high schools of commerce, can hardly be termed much more than unskilled workmen, with only a smattering idea of rules and principles of business as yet to be applied to actual

working conditions. Further, also, considerable attention should be paid to the age of this army of young employees, as immaturity coupled with the lack of experience surely has a tendency to lower the scale of wages even though employment is secured.

It must be a function of secondary education to study this economic fact and use its effort in every particular to adjust this condition and advise its students in some manner that they may more clearly understand the situation.

As the small city and town high schools probably never will be able to compete with the high schools of commerce of the large cities there will soon be an excellent field for private commercial schools conducted with the main idea of being finishing schools for this type of high school graduates. This class of school must be conducted more or less on the plan of existing normal schools. Definite entrance credits will be demanded and a minimum amount of instruction required, all of which should be approved by the state board of education and the business public.

Finally, then, the chief aim of commercial education should be to produce the highest possible degree of efficiency, to increase production, to make a just distribution in commercial labor, to make self-respecting, self-supporting and contributing members of society, and thereby help in promoting social justice to all mankind.

American Notes-Editorial

This number of EDUCATION marks the beginning of the magazine's thirty-seventh year and volume. How much of the entire modern educational development falls within these past thirty-seven years! The volumes of EDUCATION Cover the great period of the expansion of the colleges into universities; of the establishment of the State Colleges; of the requirement of professionally trained instructors; the thorough grading of the elementary schools; expert supervision; medical instruction; the special treatment of defectives; and a hundred other important improvements. Our readers who have saved and bound their monthly numbers of EDUCATION are fortunate. These volumes make a perfect mirror of the later modern educational period. They are widely used and referred to in the classrooms of the schools of pedagogy and are consulted by experts who are making researches in regard to educational subjects.

We have great plans for the coming year and volume-an earnest of which is to be found in the contents of the present number. We believe that thousands of readers will be interested in the full account which we are here-in presenting, of the origin and development of the Junior High School. This informing article will be followed in the next number by a full bibliography of the Junior High School, by the same author. All articles published in Education are strictly original; that is, they have not appeared in print elsewhere. And we seek, in these original contributions by the ablest educators, to cover the more important phases of the profession of teaching. There is no waste space in EDUCATION-no mere school news and gossip. Every live, growing teacher should read at least one good, high-class, serious professional journal. We shall naturally be pleased if the one selected is EDUCATION.

In the past three quarters of a century the American public school has had an evolution that has brought it forward from a scarcely visible germ to a complicated organism of the highest vitality and of tremendous efficiency. Looking back we can mark the stages through which it has passed and it is a most interesting history. Since the organism is the product of the human brain, each stage of its development is associated with one or more great personalities-men who originated great thoughts about the nature and method of education; or who absorbed and made their own and then strenuously advocated the great ideas of European thinkers in relation to this most vital human interest. Such names as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Henry Barnard, Horace Mann, William T. Harris and Charles