relations is above the schoolboy capacity, it is doubtful if there is
any mental habit so valuable at the close of school studies as the
disposition to _think_ and _ponder_, to trace relations. The relations
which are of interest and vital importance are those which in daily
life bind all the realms of science into a network of causally
connected parts.

The multiplication of studies in the common school in recent years will
soon compel us to pay more attention to concentration or the mutual
relation of knowledges. There is a resistless tendency to convert the
course of studies into an _encyclopedia_ of knowledge. To perceive
this it is only necessary to note the new studies incorporated into the
public school within a generation. Drawing, natural science,
gymnastics, and manual training are entirely new, while language
lessons, history, and music have been expanded to include much that is
new for lower grades. Still other studies are even now seeking
admission, as modern languages, geometry, and sewing. In spite of all
that has been said by educational reformers against making the
acquisition of knowledge the basis of education, the range and variety
of studies has been greatly extended and chiefly through the influence
of the reformers. This expansive movement appears in schools of all
grades. The secondary and fitting schools and the universities have
spread their branches likewise over a much wider area of studies. We
are in the full sweep of this movement along the whole line and it has
not yet reached its flood.

The _simplicity_ of the old course both in the common school and in
higher institutions is in marked contrast to the present multiplicity.
It was a narrow current in which education used to run, but it was deep
and strong. In higher institutions the mastery of Latin and of Latin
authors was the _sine qua non_. In the common school arithmetic was
held in almost equal honor. Strong characters have often been
developed by a narrow and rigid training along a single line of duty as
is shown in the case of the Jesuits, the Humanists, and the more recent
devotees of natural science.

As contrasted with this, the most striking feature of our public
schools now is their _shallow and superficial_ work. It is probable
that the teaching in lower grades is better than ever before, but as
the tasks accumulate in the higher grades there is a great amount of
smattering. The prospect is, however, that t