Tae importance which Great Britain attaches to the Mosely Commission of school-teachers and managers which has visited the United States may be measured by the amount of attention given to the subject by our leading journals. Mahy of the members of the Commission acted as special correspondents for home contemporaries and we have thus been kept up to date as to the impressions made upon these experts by. what they saw in American schools and colleges. The Commissioners doubtless had before starting a fair general idea of the main differences between the school systems in England and the United States, and were thus able to profit by the lessons in detail, It was known to everybody, for example, that American education is free, and that, from a British point of view, American cities are liberality itself in support of it. But it would seem that the difference in educational ~atmosphere, was such as to astonish even those who thought they knew most.' Coming from England where the main idea regarding schools is that every penny spent must be looked at twice, it was a revelation to arrive in New York and find a people who lavish money wholesale and are persuaded that by thus acting they are doing good business, The Commissioners seem.to have been impressed with the $26,232,555 old which' represents the bill for few York City: alone during a single year. In: other cities they found similar proofs of the reality of American desire for education.
One of them wrote: "We also visited the Central High Schoo' for girls (in Philadelphin), accommo dating 1,495 pupils, for whom' a new building is in' course of erection. A thoroughly good business training combined with the ordinary education is here given t" young women, No less than 120 desks, each fitted with a Remington typewriter, are in use, and this is a good example of what the large towns are freely providing for the education of girls to fit them for the many branches of commercial and busitiess life opening up for yemen."
Yet the Americans are not satisfied. There is no finality in edueation when, from President to pauper, everybody is agreed that the most paying of all enterprises is the training of the young. Hence we find in another contemporary a list of seven declarations officially put forward by {the American National Education Association. They are too-long to note in "exténgo, covering as' they io the whole educational duty of man. But an extract or two will show their trend. Thus No.2 declares that:
"The true source of the strength of any system of public education lies in the regard of the people whom it immediate ly serves, and in their willingness to' make sacrifices for it." (Theitalics are ours.) For this reason a large share of the cost of maintaining public schools should country or the town in which the schools borne by a local tax levied by the are. State aid is to' be regarded as leupplementary to, and not as substitute for, local taxation for school purposes. Eons The school is becoming: more and more a community centre, and its larger opportunities impose new obliga-School buildings should be attractive as well as healthful, adjoining grounds should hi ud planned with appropriateness and beauty."
This last touch is characteristic of the difference noted between En; and American modes of approxehing the education question. Another, fundamental difference is the absence, in America, of any religious, difficulty. Leaving England in the throes of sectarian convulsion, the! Conimissioners entered upon a do-tain of absolute calm—the calm of} an ant-hill when everything is going' smoothly, and everybody busy. Long
the sage decision that as it is wise to the American people came' to avoid even the appearance of evil, it is good to avoid unnecessary cause of quarrel. With every reverence and respect for religion, therefore, they decreed that public educa. tion should be secular, but that the character of the teacher should be matter of the utmost care. This ix how one of the Commissioners put it:
"The personality of the teacher is the chief source of moral influence in the schoolroom. The presence of the teacher, if a proper person for the position, is worth more than a thousand text-books, though they be all as good as the Sermon on the Mount If there is any place which is really and pre-eminently godly, it is the public school, where children of all sects, races, and conditions, meet upon absolute equality to acquire knowledge, to be.trained in justice, fidelity, and universal fellowship, and' to be inducted into the rights and sanctities of citizenship. God may not be there in any dogmatic definition, but what is infinitely better, He is there in the heart of the teacher, and' in the very. atmosphere of the schoolroom; and how formal reading of the Bible would bring him nearer it would be hard to prove or explain."
It seems strange that while there should be absolutely no religious teaching in the schools yet in many of the normal colleges attendance at chapel is practically compulsory. An American writer on this point is thus quoted "Some of the reports from normal schools state that the students are excused from chapel, if the request is made on the ground of conscientious scruples; and then it is added, practically no such requests are made. Of course not. 'And the existence of such @ rule does not guarantee theological neutrality. Somothing more than this must''be done to secure perfect religious' freedom: Even if attendance were distasteful and considered positively unjust by many students, it is obvious that few would ask to be excused, as this would niake them subject to comment Few students care to put themselves in such a position."
It is remarked by some of the Commissioners that, not's withstanding the long period of time since the Bible has been excluded from the public schools, the Americans are essentially religious peop'e, and one explanation of this is found in the Sunday schools, Every city in America has something superlative, and Philadelphia plumes itself on two such; the finest High School and jthe biggest Sunday School in the world. John Wanamaker was at the head of this last.
What then are the main lessons that the Mosely Commission has to lay before the people of Shanghai, no less than before the subjects of King Edward First, that education is a necessary gond, nota necessary evil. Secondly, that it is gool business. Thirdly, that in matters of faith, it must be absolutely free, In conclusion we quote some statistics that may prove interesting.' The middle column gives the population, that on the right the annual public exp: nditure in education Buffalo 952,887 $1,442,942 Gold San Francisco 342,782 $1,382,956 Shanghai (say) 300,000 $ ° 20,000 Mex.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.