[36] Subjects of Social Welfare, p. 206. [37] History of the English People, vol. i, p. 198. [38] See Histoire de l'Université de Paris. Crévier, 1791, _passim_. [39] Enumerated in the following middle-age Latin verse: "Lingua, tropus, ratio, numerus, tonus, angulus, astra." [40] Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, by Rashdall, vol. ii, p. 344. [41] William Gilbert, of Colchester, on the Magnet. Mittelag, p. x. [42] Novum Organum, vol. 1, p. 70. Fowler's edition, p. 255. [43] Schools and Universities on the Continent, p. 291. [44] University Education in England, France, and Germany, by Sir Rowland Blennerhassett, p. 25. SHOULD CHILDREN UNDER TEN LEARN TO READ AND WRITE? BY PROF. G. T. W. PATRICK. There are certain propositions about education so evidently true that probably no parent or teacher would question them. For instance, the best school is one in which the course of study is progressively adapted to the mental development of the children. Again, certain subjects are adapted to children of certain ages or stages of development, and others are not. One would not recommend the study of logic or of the calculus to the average child of ten, nor would the teaching of English be wisely deferred until the age of fifteen. Finally, if the courses of study in our present school system shall be found to be arranged without regard to the order of mental development, they will sooner or later be modified in accordance with it. Now the educational system in practice in the two or three hundred thousand public schools in the United States is a somewhat definite one, with a somewhat fixed order of studies through the different years or grades. In a majority of the States children are admitted to the schools at the age of six; in more than one third of the States children of five are admitted. In a general way we may say that during the first four years of school life the principal subjects occupying the time of the children are reading, writing, and arithmetic. To be more exact, we may cite, for instance, the city schools of Chicago.[45] Exclusive of recesses and opening exercises, there are in these schools thirteen hundred and fifty minutes of school work per week. Of this time, in the first and second grades, six hundred and seventy-five minutes are devoted to reading, seventy-five minutes to writing, and two hundred and twenty-five minutes to mathematics. Seventy-two per cent of the total time is therefore consumed by these subjects. In the third grade the proportion is the same; in the fourth grade it is somewhat more than fifty per cent. I have mentioned the Chicago schools because this is one of those school systems where a liberal introduction of other subjects, such as Nature study, physical culture, singing, and oral English, has somewhat lessened the time given to reading, writing, and arithmetic. Other cities, with few exceptions, will be found to give more rather than less time to these subjects.