PREFACE. THE addresses and essays contained in this volume have been prepared at various times and for various purposes during the last fifteen or sixteen years. I am well aware that they show clearly in manner and thought the variety of uses to which they have been put, even in some instances the pressure of the circumstances under which they were written but this possibly will not diminish their usefulness, and it has been thought best not to attempt to rewrite them. A of them have a direct bearing upon education, either from the point of view of educational doctrine or from that of school administration. All of them deal more or less, most of them primarily, with the relation of educational work to social and political life. The essay on School-Book Legislation was the out- come of a careful observation of the process of law- making in the state of Indiana and is perhaps as much a political as an educational study. From the educational point of view, however, the subject has much interest, and it has therefore been thought wise to add to this essay a supplementary note containing a list of laws along similar lines which have been passed in the various states since that time. As a student of politics for many years, I have been much impressed by the apathy of most voters, even on questions of great public interest. It has seemed to me that this very great evil must be removed, if at all, mainly through the influence of our public schools. In consequence, both before general audiences and before gatherings of teachers I have often taken the opportunity to SCUBB the question of training for citizenship. Every one interested in good government must have been gratified by noticing how prominent this subject has lately become in discussions among teachers but the schools doubtless still lack much, and they may be of far greater service in the future than they are at present, provided the teachers work intelligently together toward this end, the promotion of good citizenship. Every subject taught in the common schools will contribute to this purpose, if the teachers only keep it in mind and so organize their work as to carry it out. Moreover, in no other way can the burden of our overcrowded curriculum be so much lightened and the interest of pupils and parents be so easily aroused and retained as by careful work toward the unification of the cirricilnrn aronnd the central ida of snaial firvire. human service is the element in each case which will It would be extremely useful if the teachers of any school system, through reading circles or otherwise, could arrange their subjects harmoniously with this end in view, each making his own subject teach citizenship from its own vicw-point, so that the work of each teacher would supplement that of every other. In the higher grades where special teachers of separate subjects are employed, those teaching arithmetic, for example, would do well to work out a series of lessons adapted to local economic and social conditions, so that, while suited to the teaching of arithmetical principles, the lessons would also contribute to the work in history, geography, literature and science. The teachers in geography, in the same way, should prepare a series of lesions that would be of service to the classes in history, literature, and mathematics, while the teachers of history, literature, and science should so plan their work as not only to bring out the full value of those subjects from the social point of view, but also, by so doing, make each subject supplement the others. Adaptability to unify them...