the student up in true wisdom and knowledge, it is fortunate;
but if nothing is assimilated on which the mind could truly thrive, no
fault is found with the provision, nor is resultant ignorance
considered to be specially worthy of blame.

The evil effects of educating in masses, or in classes, is
sufficiently apparent to cause us to consider the question whether
there is any possible remedy,--whether there could be a substitution
of individual for general training, or a combination of the two that
would produce a better result. That student is losing ground as an
individual who comes to be considered or to consider himself as simply
a factor of a class. If the general teaching must be that which is
applicable to the entire class, there should also be provision for
instruction that could be adapted to the individual need, and as great
effort as is made to adapt class work to the general need should be
made in the special direction also. But the objection arises that the
modern teacher is not able to work in both directions in the time
allotted for student life. We are very well aware that we have not yet
passed the stage where the value of the teacher's work is measured by
the number of hours in which he is engaged in the classroom. Trustees,
as a whole, pay for the professor's full time, and expect it to be
fully employed. Neither are the educators many who would know what to
do if simply let loose among students and left free to make their best
impressions upon the minds of the young.

To many teachers the mind of youth is, in reality, an unexplored
region, and until we have a change in this respect, and learn that the
knowledge of books is only the beginning of wisdom, and that the true
knowledge must include also that of the living book,--the student
entrusted to our care,--we have scarcely learned the alphabet of true
education.

The day will come, though it may be long in coming, when every
institution of learning will have, besides its technical teachers, its
lecturers and its conductors of recitations,--one man or one woman, or
as many men and women as are needed, whose special province it will be
to study the individual temperament, to discover native tendencies,
tastes, and capacities of the mind, and whose knowledge will be true
wisdom in the sense that they will know not only how to ascertain, but
how to supply real needs.

That cramping and stifling of natural tastes, which is now so marked a
feature o