ess rather than toward
arithmetic or other school studies, we shall win the feeling that we are
making progress. Thoroughness must be distinguished, of course, from a
smattering knowledge of details that have no value. In the right sense
thoroughness must be interpreted as the habit of mastery. We may well
indulge the hope that the time will come when parents will invoke the aid
of the schools to assist their children in acquiring this habit of
mastery. When that time comes the schools will be working toward larger
and higher objectives and education will have become a spiritual process
in reality.

It will be readily conceded that the habit of mastery is a desirable
quality in every vocation and in every avocation. It is a very real asset
on the farm, in the factory, in legislative halls, in the offices of
lawyer and physician, in the study, in the shop, and in the home. When
mastery becomes habitual with people in all these activities society will
thrill with the pulsations of new life and civilization will rise to a
higher level. But how may the child acquire this habit of mastery? On what
meat shall this our pupil feed that he may become master of himself,
master of all his powers, and master of every situation in which he finds
himself? How shall he win that mastery that will enable him to interpret
every obstacle as a new challenge to his powers, and to translate
temporary defeat into ultimate victory? How may he enter into such
complete sense of mastery that he will not quail in the presence of
difficulties, that he will never display the white flag or the white
feather, that he will ever show forth the spirit of Henley's _Invictus_,
and that nothing short of death may avail to absolve him from his
obligations to his high standards?

These questions are referred, with all proper respect, to the
superintendent, the principal, and the teachers, whose province it is to
vouchsafe satisfactory answers. If they tell us that arithmetic will be of
assistance in the way of inculcating this habit of mastery, then we shall
hail arithmetic with joyous acclaim and accord it a place of honor in the
school regime,--but only as an auxiliary, only as a means to the great end
of mastery. If they assure us that science will be equally serviceable in
our enterprise of developing mastery, then we shall give to science an
equally hearty welcome. However, we shall emphasize the right to stipulate
that, in the course of study, the capi