GUYOT'S WALL MAPS. Physical, Political and Outline Combined. INCOMPARABLY SUPERIOR TO ANYTHING PUBLISHED.—Agassiz. On these Maps, the green color indicates low lands; the brown, table lands; and the white, high plateaus; while the position, direction, height and steepness of mountains, are all shown by the peculiarities of the mountain shades. The Political Divisions are shown by bright red lines; the names of all prominent features are distinctly printed, but in so light type that they can be read at a short distance only; thus the map is fitted for all the purposes of an outline map. Hence, these maps are, at the same time, really Physical, Political, and Outline, or, in other words, we have three maps in one. Map of the Roman Empire,. "Ancient Greece (including Map of Ancient City of Athens), ..6x8 46 TEN MAPS put up in neat portfolio, same size as Common School Series,. . . . . Price, $18.00 Key to Guyot's Wall Maps sent free with each set. SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT! Schools using Guyot's Geographies, or about introducing them, will be supplied with the above maps at the following discounts: - On the Large and Intermediate Series, 10 per cent; on the Common School and Primary Series, 25 per cent. Address, GILMAN H. TUCKER, Corresponding Agent, 25 & 29 CORNHILL, BOSTON. At THOMPSON, BIGELOW & BROWN'S, THE CAUSE OF FAILURES IN COLLEGE AND THE REMEDY.. DR. S. H. TAYLOR AS A DISCIPLINARIAN. TOM HUGHES TO THE BOYS.... ........ .Page 267 275 278 282 288 290 291 292 294 295 298 298 303 OTHER MAGAZINES. - Subscribers who pay in advance for the Massachusetts Teacher may order, through this Office, the following Magazines, at the prices indicated. THE NATION. E. L. GODKIN, Publisher, New York. A Weekly Journal. $5.00 per an. num. Our Subscribers, $4.00. THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, devoted to Literature, Science, Art, and Politics. $4.00 per year. Our Subscribers, $3.00. OLD AND NEW, edited by Rev. E. E. HALE, is published monthly. $4.00 per year. 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All communications relating to advertising must be sent before the 15th of the month preceding that of publication. Address editorial communications to EDITOR of MASS. TEACHER, Boston; etters relating to advertising to JOHN P. PAYSON, Chelsea; those relating to subscriptions to Massachusetts Teacher, Boston; to publishing, to D. W. JONES, Boston Highlands. [Read before the Classical and High School Teachers' Association, Feb. 24, 1871, by W. C. Collar.] "THIS speech," said Pericles, as he put a scrap of paper into the hands of Aspasia, " occupied me one whole night and somewhat of the next morning; I had so very much not to say." These words came to my mind, as I began to ponder the theme assigned me by your committee. "Here," I said to myself, "is a subject certainly comprehensive enough for a paper limited to fifteen minutes." To answer the question satisfactorily, to unfold clearly all the probable causes of failure in college, we ought to survey the whole field of secondary education. In particular, we should need to examine methods of instruction, to see whether we could discover any great defect there. We should have to inquire whether anything is to be charged to the want of a high general average of learning among teachers. And, finally, whether the fault may not lie, in some measure, in the curriculum of prepara. tory studies. Then we should pass on to consider the relations of the school to the college; the conditions of admission to college; and, finally, college organization, and the character of college instruction. It is evident that I have "very much not to say." It will accordingly be the object of this paper to touch upon one or two only of the topics mentioned, in the hope of offering suggestions for the discussion that is to follow, rather than to attempt a thorough examination of any one of them. Doubtless the most obvious and the most common causes of failure among college students, are two to which I have not referred. I mean indolence and incapacity. Probably a large per cent of undergraduates (how large I believe it to be, I should hardly dare to say) go to college without any definite purpose, unless it be to get the maximum of enjoyment out of college life, while doing the minimum of work; whose mental powers are never so actively exercised as in devising means of shirking all forms of intellectual toil; who feel no interest in, and derive no pleasure from, the studies of the place; and who are incapable of being stimulated by the most faithful labors, or inspired by the most unflagging enthusiasm, of their instructors. There is another class, less numerous, who somehow pass the entrance examination (and that, it must be confessed, is not a difficult matter), who are yet incapable, from sheer mental imbecility, of profiting by the college curriculum. With the best aims, an industry, a faithfulness, and perseverance that are almost pathetic, they can only stagger and grope their way through, always about to succeed, but never succeeding. This class, I have observed, generally enter the ministry, and so, I doubt not, do a great deal of good; but, considering only their college career, I suppose they would be included in the number of those whom our question reckons as failures. For the admission to college of such as I have described, I consider the preparatory schools largely responsible. It seems to me to be the duty of all teachers to dissuade, as far as they can, the indolent, and those of inferior mental ability, from striving for the prize of high culture, which nature has declared they shall never win. Many might thus be saved from almost wasting the precious years of youth, and from the bitter disappointment of failure at last. But the college is not altogether blameless. It has no right to say one thing and do another,aliud clausum in pectore, aliud in lingua promptum habere. It fixes a standard for admission that is nearly or quite high enough. But it seems to pay no attention to its own demands. Every year applicants are received who do not pretend to have performed a half, or even a fourth, of the work nominally required. Some of these unquestionably do make up by hard study for their defective preparation; many do not and cannot, and their number is so large that the character of instruction in college is of necessity kept low. It is probably felt to be useless to lecture on the relations of Sanscrit to Latin and Greek, or to discuss the different readings in the text of a chorus of Eschylus before a class, three-fourths of whom could not conjugate the verb, did, or distinguish between an anapest and an iambus. The colleges are striving to reach a higher level, to raise their grade of scholarship; but they doggedly pursue a course directly calculated to defeat their purpose. Nor is this all; the effect upon the preparatory schools is not less injurious. The ease with which admission to college is gained offers a temptation to the less faithful and studious to neglect their school-work; the eagerness of boys to throw off restraint, is seconded by the unreasoning haste of parents to have their sons get through their studies, and thus many boys of character and talents are drawn away from school, before the foundations of scholarship can be laid broad and deep. Thus excellent teachers, who are deeply interested in all measures for the improvement of higher education, find their own efforts thwarted, and have the pain of seeing boys. of promise go up to college wanting in that development and discipline of mind and in that elementary knowledge which are absolutely requisite to make their higher studies really liberalizing and refining. When, therefore, Prof. Porter of Yale, representing the American colleges, says, "What the college needs first of all, is a more uniformly adequate preparation on the part of those admitted to its privileges," he says what is undeniably true; but when he goes further, and throws the blame of this defect wholly upon the schools, he does them an injustice. However, it cannot be denied that some may justly charge their want of success in college, not to any lack of ability or industry, nor yet of time devoted to preparatory studies, but to their defective training. "The fact is notorious," to quote Prof. Porter again, "that the preparatory instruction in this country is not uniformly good, nor is it likely soon to become so." And Dr. Taylor, in the introduction to his recently published book on Classical Study, says, "Much of our elementary instruction is defective, and fails to |