hether the pretty
thoroughly standardized curriculum now in operation would not be
considerably modified to advantage if it is recognized that the prime
object of education is character rather than mental training and the
fitting of a pupil to obtain a paying job on graduation. From my own
point of view the answer is in a vociferous affirmative. I suggest the
drastic reduction of the very superficial science courses in all schools
up to and including the high school, certainly in chemistry, physics and
biology, but perhaps with some added emphasis on astronomy, geology and
botany. History should become one of the fundamental subjects, and
English, both being taught for their humanistic value and not as
exercises in memory or for the purpose of making a student a sort of
dictionary of dates. This would require a considerable rewriting of
history text books, as well as a corresponding change in the methods of
teaching, but after all, are not these both consummations devoutly to be
wished. There are few histories like Mr. Chesterton's "Short History of
England," unfortunately. One would, perhaps, hardly commend this
stimulating book as a sufficient statement of English history for
general use in schools, but its approach is wholly right and it
possesses the singular virtue of interest. Another thing that commends
it is the fact that while it runs from Caesar to Mr. Lloyd George, it
contains, I believe, only seven specific dates, three of which are
possibly wrong. This is as it should be--not the inaccuracies but the
commendable frugality in point of number. Dates, apart from a few key
years, are of small historical importance; so are the details of palace
intrigues and military campaigns. History is, or should be, life
expressed in terms of romance, and it is of little moment whether the
narrated incidents are established by documentary evidence or whether
they are contemporary legend quite unsubstantiated by what are known
(and overestimated) as "facts." There is more of the real Middle Ages in
Mallory's "Mort d'Arthur" than there is in all Hallam, and the same
antithesis can be established for nearly all other periods of history.

The history of man is one great dramatic romance, and so used it may be
made perhaps the most stimulating agency in education as character
development. I do not mean romance in the sense in which Mr. Wells takes
it, that is to say, the dramatic assembling and clever cooerdination of
unsubstanti