children in the national schools do not tend to enrich psychology,
they become ends in themselves, just as the beauty of Nature is an end
in itself.

The new school, indeed, must not be created for the service of a
science, but for the service of living humanity; and teachers will be
able to rejoice in the contemplation of lives unfolding under their
eyes, without sharing the spectacle with science, wrapped in a holy
egoism which will exalt their spirits as does every intimate contact
with living souls.

It is unquestionable that with this method of education the
preparation of the teacher must be made _ex novo_, and that the
personality and social importance of the instructress will be
transformed thereby.

Even after the first desultory experiments hitherto made, a new type
of mistress has been evolved; instead of facility in speech, she has
to acquire the power of silence; instead of teaching, she has to
observe; instead of the proud dignity of one who claims to be
infallible, she assumes the vesture of humility.

* * * * *

This transformation has a parallel in that undergone by the university
professor, when the positive sciences began to play their part in the
world. What a difference between the dignified old-world professor,
draped in a robe often ermine-trimmed, seated on his high chair as on
a throne, and speaking so authoritatively that students were not only
bound to believe all he said, but to swear _in verbo magistri_, and
the professor of to-day, who leaves the high places to the students
that they may be able to see, reserving for himself the lowest
station, on the bare floor; while the students are all seated, he
alone stands, often clad in a gray linen blouse like a workman.

The students know that they will be on the way to the highest degree
of progress when they are capable of "verifying" the theses of the
professor--nay, more, of giving a further impetus to science, and
inscribing their own names among those quoted as having contributed to
its wealth or having discovered new truths.

Dignity and hierarchy in these schools have been superseded by
interest in the chemical or physical or natural phenomena to be
produced; and in presence of this all the rest disappears. The whole
arrangement of the laboratory is subject to the same purpose; if the
phenomenon requires light, all the walls are of glass; if darkness be
necessary, the laboratory is so constructed that it may be tra