ATTACKS FAULTS IN EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM OF U. S.

President Eliot, speaking under the auspices of the Woodrow Wilson Club, addressed 500 people yesterday afternoon on the subject of "The Function of Education in Heterogeneous Democracies". He dwelt principally on the various needs that popular education in the United States ought to fulfill, and concluded with much stress on the lack of any adequate religious training for school children.

President Eliot began by outlining the great work that was done for the cause of education by Bunyan, Luther, Henry VIII, and the Pilgrims. He then went on to explain what changes are most needed in public education in the United States today.

"We all assume, at least I suppose we all assume," said President Eliot, "that there can be no racial distinction in an American university.

"I hear some business men say", he continued, "that reading, writing, spelling, and cyphering are the only proper objects of education, but I suggest a few more subjects for the schools and colleges to teach. In the first place, men should be trained in the powers of observation; they should be able to see the rocks, the trees, the rivers, and oceans, and to examine them accurately. This training has been particularly neglected in the elementary and secondary schools."

Must Resist Evils of Civilization

President Eliot asserted that each pupil should acquire some technical sort of skill, either with tools, with the fine arts, with music, or in domestic science. Every student, furthermore, ought to be carefully and certainly taught the means of resisting the evils to which we are exposed on the earth, "particularly those parts of it which we call civilized. These evils include not only pests and infections, but moral as well as physical dangers."

President Eliot pointed out that all the people of the world except an insignificant proportion are impressively ignorant of economic, financial and co-operative affairs, and that this ignorance begets a state of mental inequilibrium. "Schools and colleges", he declared, "must take active measures against this danger to democracy. You say that such a method is too slow? Yes, but that is no reason why we shouldn't begin to get these educational forces working."

"Religious toleration is one of the greatest achievements of the United States", he continued, "which must not be forgotten or belittled. Today there is no religious instruction in the public schools. The result of this lack is that millions of children have no knowledge of religion." Religion, President Eliot argued in conclusion, is the motive power in human life and there is a fundamental kind of ethical instruction which fits all religion.