I do not, of course, oppose the giving of reports to children. Such expressions as "good," "fair" and "poor," which formulate the teacher's opinion of the pupil from time to time, are indispensable, inasmuch as they acquaint the parents and the pupil himself with the instructor's general approval or disapprobation. I only oppose the numerical calculation of merit and demerit, and the vulgar method of determining the pupil's rank in the class according to percentages. Under that method the pupils, having pursued knowledge only as a means to the end of satisfying their pride and vanity, relax their efforts when they have gained this ambitious aim. They cease to take any deeper interest in the pursuit of knowledge the moment they have achieved their purpose. The notorious failure of the system, despite all its artificial stimulants, to create lasting attachment and devotion to intellectual pursuits condemns the whole idea of marks, to my mind, beyond appeal. 3. "NATURAL PENALTIES" We pass next to the method for correcting the faults of children which has been proposed by Herbert Spencer in his collected essays on education. These essays have attracted great attention, as anything would be sure to do which comes from so distinguished a source. I have heard people who are ardent admirers of Spencer say, "We base the education of our children entirely on Mr. Spencer's book." All the more necessary is it to examine whether the recommendations of his book will wholly bear criticism. I cannot help feeling that if Mr. Spencer had been more thoroughly at home in the best educational literature he would not have presented to us an old method as if it were new, and would not have described that which is at best but a second- or third-rate help in moral education as the central principle of it all, the keynote of the whole theory of the moral training of the young. The method which he advises us to adopt is that of _visiting upon the child the natural penalties of its transgression_, of causing it to experience the inevitable consequences of evil acts in order that it may avoid evil, of building up the moral nature of the child, by leading it to observe the outward results of its acts. Mr. Spencer points out that when a child puts its finger into the flame, or when it incautiously touches a hot stove, it is burned; "a burnt child shuns the fire." When a child carelessly handles a sharp knife it is apt to cut its fingers. This is a salutary lesson; it will be more careful thereafter; this is the method of nature, namely, of teaching by experience. And this is a kind of cure-all which he offers for general application. He does, indeed, admit at the close of his essay, that, in certain cases, where the evil consequences are out of all proportion to the fault, some other method than that of experience must be adopted. But, in general, he recommends this method of nature, as he calls it.