Just how well the elementary course in municipal civics is administered in New York City or in other cities where it is prescribed it is impossible for the committee to say. A recent writer in the “Survey” seems rather skeptical of the results obtained in New York. From her own showing, however, I think the situation is not so bad as she seems to imagine it. We who teach know the difficulty of getting pupils to do themselves justice in examinations or tests. They really know more than their answers indicate. Patient, skillful, sympathetic questioning will often reveal intelligence where only ignorance seemed to exist. It would be a matter for surprise, however, if our civics teaching was at present all that it ought to be. It is a new thing in the curriculum. Both its content and its proper presentation must be worked out by experiment. It can only be well handled by teachers with a keen love for the subject, a genuine appreciation of its value and some taste for first hand investigation. Supervisory officers must give it cordial support and helpful direction. For the immediate future we must look to the high schools, I think, to show the most marked development in the study of municipal activities. The conditions of teaching are more favorable and the teaching force better qualified to meet the problem. History and economics are both more generally taught and certainly much better taught than they were a decade ago, and it will not be difficult, I think, to interest instructors in these subjects in the new field of municipal government. Of prime importance is the place of the new study in the curriculum. The general custom hitherto has been to postpone all teaching of civics in secondary schools until the fourth year, when American history is taken up. This is a serious error, as it means no instruction whatever in the subject for the vast majority of high school students, a relatively small proportion of whom complete the full course. It should not be postponed till even the second year, but should be taken up at once by the student upon entrance into the high school as a serious and important study. Confessedly pupils of 14 or 15 are not well prepared to receive instruction in civics, as it is generally taught as a scientific study of state and national government, with a historical background. The latter may well continue to be a part of a well-rounded high school course, modified only by the inclusion of much more work on the municipal side and greatly improved by more rational methods of teaching. But your committee earnestly insists upon place being made in the very first year of the high school course for this new work. At present there is only one high school in New York which is doing this, but it is interesting to note that no less than three committees are now at work in that city upon plans for a program of study in this subject. And, moreover, two of these committees have been appointed