were to be banished to some island there to dwell alone, language would be unnecessary.  Hence, his study of language in the school is, primarily, for the well-being of society and not for himself.  Language is so essential to the life processes that, without it, society would be thrown out of balance.  The needs of society are paramount, and hence language as it concerns the child relates to him chiefly if not wholly as a member of society.

=Grammar.=—­Grammar is nothing else than language reduced to a system of common terms that have been agreed upon in the interests of society.  People have entered into a linguistic compact, an agreement that certain words and combinations of words shall be understood to mean certain things.  The tradesman must understand the purchaser or there can be no exchange.  The ticket-agent must understand the prospective traveler or the latter cannot take the journey and reach his destination.  Hence, grammar, with all that the term implies, is a means of facilitating the activities of society and pertains to the individual only in his relation to society.

=Needs of society.=—­True, the individual will find life more agreeable in society if he understands the common language, just as the traveler is more comfortable in a foreign country if he understands its language.  But we need emphasis upon the statement that we have grammar in the school because it is one of the needs of society.  The individual may not need chemistry, but society does need it, and the school must somehow provide it because of this need.  Hence we place chemistry in the school as one of the ingredients of the solvent which we employ in the process of rectification.  Those who are susceptible to the influences of this ingredient will become inoculated with it and bear it forth into the uses of society.

=Caution.=—­But just here we find the most delicate and difficult task of the school.  Here we encounter some of the fundamental principles of psychology as explained and emphasized by James, McDougall, and Strayer.  Here we must begin our quest for the native tendencies that condition successful teaching.  We must discover what pupils are susceptible to chemistry before we can proceed with the work of inoculation.  This has been the scene and source of many tragedies.  We have been wont to ask whether chemistry will be good for the boy instead of making an effort to discover whether the boy will be good for chemistry—­whether his native tendencies render him susceptible to chemistry.

=Some mistakes.=—­Our procedure has often come but little short of an inquisition.  We have followed our own predilections and prejudices instead of being docile at the feet of Nature and asking her what to do.  We have applied opprobrious epithets and resorted to ostracism.  We have been freely dispensing suspensions and expulsions in a vain effort to prove that the school is both omniscient and omnipotent.  We have tried to transform a poet into a mechanic, a blacksmith into an artist, and an astronomer into a ditcher.  And our complacency in the presence of the misfits of the school is the saddest tragedy of all.  We have taken counsel with tradition rather than with the nature of the pupil, the while rejoicing in our own infallibility.