first-rate secondary school work. Nearly three-fourths of them are "accredited" to the University. Upon the elementary schools in the high school districts, it is evident, therefore, that the University may and does exert an important direct influence; because, though its immediate contact is with the high school, all grades share every real benefit thus derived. The chief service performed by the high school is probably its uplift to the grades below. By way of the high school the University may send the roots of its influence deep into the soil from which its growth must finally come.

But there are others. More than one-third of all the elementary school enrollment is in the isolated one-room schools out in the country. Many of these little schools are quite as good as the best. elementary schools. Here and there among them are veritable little Drumtochty's, "having their own distinction, for scholars were born. there," and masters who see to it that the trail is kept open between them and the nearest high school. Except that any sort of square deal would make the high school door swing free for them, they, too, find themselves within the direct current of University influence. But these cases are the exception. In the nature of the present conditions, they must be. In eighty-four different counties of Illinois monthly wages of teachers go as low as twenty-five dollars, and the average annual stipend of teachers of this class falls below three hundred dollars. In these schools, accordingly, are practically all of the 4,428 teachers with no school education beyond the eighth grade, as well as most of the 2,455 others who have had the advantage of less than any full high school course. What right has the public, or this University, to look for trained or otherwise qualified teachers under such conditions? If we add to the children in these schools those who are in the small semi-graded schools, but without direct high school relations, we shall have more than half (four hundred fifty thousand pupils) in elementary grades who are as yet without free high school opportunities. For these children the wires which bear the current of University influence are broken. Without violating the principle that the first care of the whole common school must be for the common needs, the University may affect the tributary grades of the strong accredited high school to their mutual advantage. It is not easy to see how it can so directly aid the others. Some adjustment of relations to this large number, however, is a duty of the University, if it is proposed to occupy and cultivate its whole field. For the schools it is merely fair play. For the State it means everything that free education can mean to fully one-half the people. To relate the University to the smaller elementary schools, as it is now related to the larger ones, is the problem of most immediate importance in Illinois. Every highly trained man is a valuable social asset. There never will be too many. Extraordinary characters will be produced by

the schools, or in spite of them, in the future as in the past. But more important than either great scholarship or "genius" to the general health and strength of a democracy, is the high general average of qualification for good citizenship. That the number who receive the amount of training represented by a complete common (high) school education can ever be too large is not conceivable. No formative agency of public opinion can do more than the University to set up the standard. None is more willing to do all that can be done to make opportunity free and equal.

Again, not everything is teaching that goes by that name. The school districts paid for teaching last year nearly thirteen million dollars. The totals look large, but, as was said, the sums paid to individual teachers were sometimes pitifully small. Was the service paid for worth more or less than it cost? Is teaching an art, trade, or merely unskilled labor? If the teacher is not a skilled workman, who is? Then what should be the honest price of a teacher? This University will study the question, and when it finds a result, will promulgate it in such a way as to enlighten public opinion. The people will pay what they are convinced the best service obtainable is worth. Why may not the educational experiment station in time take. rank with the agricultural and engineering experiment stations? Our knowledge of what constitutes the best educational stuff and the rational methods of using it is far from complete. We can no more afford to waste mind than lands or material. The University can do much to so inform public opinion that a supervisor of education who does not know that mere cramming of the unwilling memory of a little child with unmeaning words does not even impart knowledge, much less educate, will soon be a supervisor out of a job. It may determine some of the tokens by which good teaching may be known, as appropriately as it now teaches the standards of a good ear of corn. It may even, some day, work out the whole scheme of a school of a better type than any we have yet seen, and set it up to be studied as a model.

The overwhelming impression upon the mind of the most casual observer of the university plan and methods must be that all this provision for techincal training is regarded here as a legitimate part of the problem of education. How far down the line should that belief operate? Does it affect in any way the processes of the primary schools? The elementary needs of man are food, clothing and shelter. To obtain these for himself is at once the first duty and the most constant limitation. Efficient life begins here. Power here is the first thing to be obtained. Until this primary step in education is taken, all others seem to be out of order. The intellectual measure of this power may not be so very high. Ethically, however, it goes to the heart of the whole question. The home is the corner stone of civili

zation. Vocation is the support of the home. Does it not follow that elementary education must take vocation, the art of getting a living, into account? Should not active occupations, as educational instruments, travel side by side with the book from the beginning? Should not teachers know how to utilize the constructive and creative instincts of very young children as the right beginning of the training which culminates in the laboratory or the workshop. Will not the University send out supervisors of elementary education with some conception of the relation of these things to the school courses of study?

Those who have to do with elementary schools confidently look to the University for these, and better things. They believe that, in its capacity of general clearing house for educational ideas it will, in due time, announce a better thought-out school policy than we now have. They believe that the University will be the leader in the important work of coördinating the now disconnected and unrelated parts of our system into a harmonious whole.

Because they so believe, the workers in elementary schools are profoundly interested in the events of this historic week. They rejoice with all who rejoice in past achievements, and share every hope of all who believe that the two most potent factors in the extension and improvement of common school education, now in operation, are the free public high school and the free state university.

MESSAGE FROM PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT

President Roosevelt sent the following telegram to the University Trustees:

"It is with sincere regret that I find myself unable to accept your kind invitation to attend the installation of President James. I wish I were able to be with you, both because of my high regard for President James and because of my appreciation of the work being done by the University of Illinois."

ASSEMBLY OF THE COLLEGE OF MEDICINE

THE CHAPEL, WEDNESDAY MORNING, OCTOBER 18

CHARACTER AS AN ELEMENT OF SUCCESS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF PROFESSIONAL REPUTATION

DANIEL A. K. STEELE, M.D.

Professor in the College of Medicine, Chicago

On this auspicious occasion, when the professional departments of the University of Illinois meet in this assembly hall to play their part in the installation of a new President and to do honor to the University and its distinguished head, it is my privilege to represent the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Chicago-the College of Medicine of the University of Illinois.

I congratulate the University upon the acquisition of such a distinguished educator as President James to guide its destinies and develop its professional departments during a period of the world's history that is marked by phenomenal advances in scientific thought, material progress and professional attainment, and predict that under his skillful guidance the next decade will see our University in the forefront of educational institutions in this country.

At this time when public attention is daily drawn to examples of shattered reputations in the ranks of our captains of industry, bankers, educators and professional men-shattered because they departed from the high ideals of youth and home, honesty and regard for the rights of others-it may not be inappropriate to say a few words to you on the value of character as an element of success in the development of professional reputation. Character is the estimate we place. upon ourselves. It is the innate monitor we call conscience. Reputation is the estimate the world places upon our achievements.

Bishop Spalding says: "Our state comes closer to us than our country; it awakens tenderer recollections, weaves about us. the tendrils of more gentle and fragrant affections. It calls forth feelings which glow like the dawn, which soften and mellow like the evening sky. It blends with memories of the twining arms of mothers and fathers, of the warm, unselfish devotion of youthful friends. The thought of it is interfused with clouds and showers and the songs of birds, and all the glories of the unfolding world that accompanied us when we were young."

So character is intertwined with professional reputation as professional departments are intertwined with the University. Each is helpful to the other; one cannot exist without the other.

There are certain elements of character essential to professional success. The well educated mind looks beyond the mere semblance

of things into the higher realm of nature's laws and forces and I cannot help but think that our early environments have much to do with our future success. A study of nature and nature's God in early life purifies and ennobles our whole subsequent career.

To him who has been fortunate enough to open his eyes for the first time upon the light breaking over the Green Mountains of Vermont or the rugged grandeur of Colorado peaks, or near the roaring of a mighty ocean or the rushing, whirling waters of a turbid river, there must ever remain an ineffaceable memory picture of nature's wonders; and as his budding brain realizes and appreciates the beauties of the landscape, the ever changing and yet harmonious colors of nature's painting, whether in field or forest, in graden or on hillside, in the morning dawn or when lit by the glows of an autumn sunset, his mind cannot fail to be impressed with the grandeur and eloquence of nature's sermons, nor can he help realizing that a higher and mightier power than man rules the universe and directs by an all-wise method the mysteries of life.

Thus imperceptibly, but none the less permanently, he has impressed upon his character by reason of his environment, noble thoughts, generous impulses, and an unconscious religious trend. His mind is unsullied by the murky stream of a city's vileness, that too often dwarfs and destroys the one whose character is not strong enough to resist its baneful blandishments.

In our own College of Medicine it is interesting to note that its founders and leaders had their early environment amid such surroundings as I have sketched.

To succeed we must be in love with our profession. We must have a high conception of its aims and objects; we must idealize our work. Our motives should be the love of science, the instinct of investigation, the desire to search out the secrets of nature, and to alleviate human suffering. We should be a composite picture, blending in our make-up perfect health, mental vigor, manliness, honor, honesty, self-reliance, courage, truth and conscience, with a devotion to high ideals and an unwavering self-confidence. We should be composed of the rich and beautiful material gathered from all ages and places. The true professional man is a mosaic and not a single gem.

Ideals change, but there must be a permanent good-a lasting, beautiful and unchanging truth. The ideal beauty has not yet come in painting, statuary or music, and I sometimes think it never will come this side the dawning of the great millennium, unless we hold closely to the ideals of youth and home, innocence and purity.

The world demands a doctor who is educated all over, who is tender, whose hand is steady, whose eye is clear, whose tongue is clean, whose brain is cultured, whose nerves are under perfect control, one who is broad minded. It wants a doctor whose knowledge of disease