clear in the following passages from his private letters, which I translate from the Italian Ragione (of Rome): "As is notorious, the child is born without any preconceived idea, and in the course of life it imbibes the ideas of those who first surround it, modifying them afterwards according to its culture, observations, and relations to its environment. It clearly follows that, if the child be educated in true, positive ideas about all things, and taught that, to avoid errors, it is indispensable that it should accept nothing on faith, but only what science can demonstrate, the child will grow up with its powers of observation sharpened and with an aptitude for all kinds of study.......To educate children with freedom from prejudice, and publish the works necessary for that purpose, is the work of the Modern School.......The whole value of education consists in respect of the physical, intellectual, and moral will of the child.......The true teacher is he who can defend the child against his own will and ideas, making his appeal in increasing measure to the energies of the child himself."
We thus see that this man who has been so grossly misrepresented had a profound theory of pedagogy, which he embodied in a fine constructive system of education. Construction was essentially his aim. He would make a new Spanish race, of upright life—the scurrilous charge that he undermined morality is too frivolous to be considered—informed mind, and scientifically trained judgment. This new democracy would create a new Spain. I have before me the index to the Boletin he published from 1901 to 1909. The articles are often by some of the most eminent men of science in Europe. They deal with every aspect of pedagogy and science, and often with religion; but, except in this broad sense, not one article in a hundred deals with social questions, none deal with political questions, and all reflect a serious, scientific temper.
I need only add, in regard to the general principles of his work, that after his schools had been threatened in 1906 his friends co-operated in forming an "International League for the Rational Education of Children." Ferrer was made President, and Professor Haeckel (an anti-Socialist) and Professor Sergi (the great Italian anthropologist) are among the Vice-
