=The validity of the analogy.=—­We cause the stream of water to pass through the filtration-plant that it may become rectified; we cause the stream of life to pass through the school that it may become rectified.  When the stream of water becomes rectified, bodily disease is averted; when the stream of life is rectified, mental and spiritual disease is averted.  The analogy, therefore, holds good whether we consider the process itself or its effect.  We have only to state the case thus to have opened up for us a wide field for profitable speculation.  The diseases of mind and spirit that invade society are the causes that lie back of our police courts, our prisons, and, very often, our almshouses.  Hence, if the stream of life could be absolutely rectified, these undesirable institutions would disappear, and life for the entire community would be far more agreeable by reason of their absence.

=Function of the school.=—­The school, then, is established and administered to carry on this process of rectification.  By means of this process ignorance becomes intelligence, coarseness becomes culture, strife becomes peace, impurity becomes purity, disease becomes health, and darkness becomes light.  The child comes into the school not to get something but to have something done to and for him that he may become something that he was not before, and, therefore, that he may the better execute his functions as a member of society.  In short, he comes into the school that he may pass through the process of rectification.  In this process he loses neither his name, his extraction, his identity, nor his individuality.  On the contrary, all these attributes are so acted upon by the process that they become assets of the community.

=Language.=—­In order to lead to a greater degree of clarity it may be well to be even more specific in explaining this process of rectification.  Language is fundamental in all the operations of society.  It is indispensable to the grocer, the farmer, the lawyer, the physician, the manufacturer, the housewife, and the legislator.  It is the means by which members of society communicate with one another, and without communication, in some form, there can be no social intercourse, and, therefore, no society.  People are all interdependent, and language is the bond of union.  They must use the same language, of course, and the words must be invested with the same meaning in order to be intelligible.

=Language a social study.=—­Just here great care must be exercised or we shall go astray in depicting the work of the school in dealing with this subject of language.  The child comes into the school with language of a sort, but it needs rectification in order to render it readily available for the purposes of society.  Herein lies the crux of the whole matter.  If this child were not to become a member of society, it would matter little what sort of language he uses or whether he uses any language.  If he