est
elements of the psychic life suggest the need once more of a new
philosophy of education, or, at the least, a greatly increased
recognition and application of the philosophy we already have.

Before the war there was a sense of security and the feeling that our
education was adequate to meet all demands. We were proud of our
educational system. Our democratic ideals, people said, were safe in
the hands of the public school. Industrial education was meeting
fairly well the needs of the industrial life. There were no very
pressing class problems. The troubles of capital and labor, although
always threatening, seemed to demand no educational interference. The
religious problem was temporarily not acute. Aesthetic forms had been
attended to in the curriculum sufficiently to meet the demands of the
day. Hygiene and physical education and individual attention seemed to
be making rapid advances. All of these had been influenced by the
scientific methods of treating educational questions. On the whole we
seemed to have a good school. But now the question must be asked
whether this school of yesterday will be adequate to meet the needs of
to-morrow; whether new conditions do not call for new thought, new
philosophy, new schools. These things of course cannot be had for the
asking. We cannot give orders to genius to produce them for us. But a
generation that does not hope for them, we might suspect of not having
realized what the war has cost. For so great a price paid have we not
a right to expect much in return, especially if we are willing to
regard the war as a lesson rather than as a debt to us, and bend all
our energies to make it count for a better civilization?

We may already see in a general way what the effect of the war is to be
upon the mind of the educator. The journals begin to be filled with
plans for the participation of the school in the work of
reconstruction. There are many suggestions for the improvement of the
school. Industrial education, the classics, history, military
education, social education are all being discussed. Evidently many
minds are at work. Some of them, indeed many of them, are apparently
most concerned about what changes we shall make at once in the day's
work of the school. Many wish to know what we are going to do now with
Latin, or history, and how we can improve the method of teaching in
this or that particular. But there are some deeper notes. Thinkers are
asking elementary quest