and instructing. He may lose some of his own individuality,—it may be swallowed up in the higher perfection of the pattern he imitates. But the loss of individuality is not always a misfortune. Originality is not within the reach of every teacher. A true copy of a fine picture may give as much pleasure as the original. A single quotation from Shakespeare is often worth more than a poem of a thousand verses from the pen of an amateur poet. Good judgment in the selection of methods, common sense in their application, and thought before action, make failure almost impossible.

Even the methods of school government are undergoing careful revision. We do not wonder that Rousseau, living in an age when the sound of the lash was frequent and especially revolting to his sensitive nature, should cry out for the emancipation of childhood, the use of better methods and higher ideals. The old equation, discipline equals whipping, has become well nigh obsolete. Under the new dispensation, discipline equals teaching. But we are in danger of going to an extreme even in this matter. Some discipline is a necessary condition of teaching, therefore some discipline must be secured before teaching is possible-how much is a question of judgment, in what manner is a question of tact or of knowledge. Discipline is in itself educating. The habit of obedience to wholesome rules is most valuable. But how shall I secure this? Shall I resort to the rod?

Dr. Wickersham, of Pennsylvania, has aptly said, "If to spare the rod is to spoil the child, then do not spare the rod." It is better to whip a boy whose parents have no control over him and, perhaps, no interest in his welfare, than to throw him out of school to grow up on the streets, a bane to society and an enemy to the state. It is to be admitted that this is the very lowest form of government. But to reach the will through the feelings, or to secure obedience through fear, is far better than disobedience. It may be, in some cases, there is no sense of honor or shame to which it is possible to appeal, that fear of consequences is the only avenue of approach to the soul. In such cases, the path of duty is plain. No false sentimentality should allow us to hesitate. This step taken in a proper spirit, the other avenues will open until, at last, conscience becomes the ruling influence and the principles of true manhood are implanted. Not unfrequently the teacher should be punished instead of the child, for a lack of self control and a criminal neglect to make suitable preparation for the work of the day. The true teacher, conscious of the nobility of his calling, and inspired with the desire of lifting up, instructing and benefitting those who are under his care, will seldom find occasion to resort to corporal punishment.

It has been but a few years since written examinations were held in nearly all our principal cities and towns. To-day there seems to be a slight reaction against them. We naturally ask ourselves the reason for this, and we need not go far to find it: abuse will destroy any method. It is not strange that the monthly repetition of written examinations should become irksome and exceedingly distasteful to both pupil and teacher. Over-exercise leads to exhaustion, not to development. Do we propose to abandon a method that has in it so much that is good, simply because it has been overdone in some places? For, if exercise strengthens faculty, an occasional written examination, which calls for memory, thought and language, must be beneficial, not only as a measure of progress, but also as strengthening all of these faculties.

Nowhere, perhaps, is conservatism more needed than in the line of memory and thought. The receptive faculties are, in many schools, shamefully neglected. The would-be progressive teacher holds up his hands in horror at the idea of having pupils learn anything by rote: he has heard some one say that such work is "parrot-like" and unpedagogical; he does not stop to think that there may be a golden mean, and that some things may be committed to memory with profit that are not even understood at the time. The greatest of all teachers was wont to tell his disciples much that to them was incomprehensible, and, though they had been with him for three years, heard his incomparable discourses and seen his miracles, yet, at the time of the crucifixion, they thought that all was lost. Not until the day of pentecost did they fully realize the true nature of his mission; then remembered they all his sayings. What nobler example can we follow? May it not be that in our effort to develop the power to think, we neglect the ability to know? Is it possible to think without knowing? Must not knowledge precede thought? If so, the first step of the teacher should be to supply the child's mind with mental food, and then watch the development of its strength. The old adage, “Knowledge is power" is still true. I would not over-load the memory with useless rubbish, I would not have my pupils learn the name of every village in South America, or every creek in Africa, but I would want them to know that nine times seven are sixty-three, and I would want them to know it at once. I would have them commit certain definitions for the sake of exactness; I would have them learn, word for word, literary gems, such as Peaslee's Graded Selections, not only as a means of strengthening the representative faculty, but for the sentiment expressed and its moral influence, and for its effect in cultivating literary taste, and in excluding by pre-occupation much of the material that is

poisoning the minds of our young people at the present day. Who does not recall with wonderful vividness a speech, a poem or an expression learned when a child? As educators, we should take full advantage of this fact. It is impossible to draw water from an empty cistern or to gather a harvest from an unsown field. The mind must be supplied with food for thought before reason will dawn. If acquisition ceases (verbal or rational) the stock on hand will soon be exhausted and mental emptiness ensue. Draw out; do not allow stagnation; but, keep the supply pipes open and equal to all demands.

In Ohio, it requires from one to three years to learn how to teach. Without any knowledge of the principles of education, from one to three thousand inexperienced teachers enter our ranks yearly. Most of them are without supervision and launch out of their own accord. Each is supposed to have an original idea to develop and does it at the expense of the state. After experimenting for a while, if he does not study and rise in the profession, he either quits teaching or settles down into an appropriate rut, where he remains, sinking deeper and deeper until lost from sight. Why should this be so? The county supervision of Indiana is bearing better fruit. The State normal schools of conservative Massachusetts are sending out teachers who are qualified for the work. Why should not the schools of Ohio, country as well as city, take the same high rank? Teachers and legislators should unite their efforts to reach a solution. If supervision is needed, work for supervision; but if instruction is what is wanted, let it be supplied. If necessary, place a normal department in every college and university, or a State normal school in every county, where the constant in education may be studied. Thus, our teachers coming. forth well supplied with fixed principles, our schools may be placed on a solid foundation and become the husbanders of character and the fountains of mental power.

We hear a great deal about the new education, but everything that is good is not new, nor is everything that is new good. The new education is not a plant of the present. It has been growing ever since Bacon insisted that science should become intuitional, living and practical. Bacon's idea was that the teacher should "transplant knowledge in the scholar's mind as it grows in his own," for "whatever is imparted in this way will take root, flourish and bear fruit." Locke, the father of empirical psychology, proposed to combine instruction and sport, study and play. "The great use of the teacher," he says, "is to make all things as easy as he can." But this is the spirit of the new education.

Pestalozzi and his enthusiastic disciple, Froebel, followed the same idea in their attempt to reach natural methods. Froebel employed

the productive side of a child's nature to develop his reason, thus laying the foundation of the kindergarten, and giving an impetus to thought education.

We find, then, that it is necessary to go back to the old masters in order to understand fully the new education. It is true, each has his special idea to which he devotes himself, but it is the duty of the conservative teacher to collect and arrange these ideas under proper heads, thus contributing to a science of education. It is not a mistake to take a retrospect of the past. I have heard prominent educators say, that they had no use whatever for Socrates or his teachings, that there are hundreds of teachers to-day who are not only his peer, but his superior. How did they reach this conclusion? They had evidently been sitting at the feet of the old Athenian school-master, prying into his defects, but blind to his noble spirit of self-denial and devotion to the interests of the young. The true teacher cannot afford to pass in silence over the names of Socrates or Pythagoras, Plato or Aristotle. He will even go back with interest to the mythical Chiron, and, enraptured, drink in the music from the Centaur's harp as it awakens the genius of an Orpheus, or listen to the stories that inspire a Jason to seek the Golden Fleece, or an Achilles to lead to victory his Myrmidons. Worthy ideal teacher of the Greeks! Worthy indeed to be the instructor of their heroes!

Musicians do not hesitate to express with enthusiasm their admiration for the compositions of Beethoven, Mozart or Haydn. A Carlyle or an Emerson, a Tennyson or a Longfellow does not blush to acknowledge his indebtedness to the great literary masters of the Elizabethan era. The spirit of Virgil and of the "Blind Bard of Ionia,” is breathed into the heroic verse of nearly all our great poets. So the true teacher, while wide-awake to what is going on about him, finding "sermons in stones and good in everything," has time to study the works of the masters of his profession, appropriating what is good and discarding what is superfluous. By carefully studying educational history, visiting and observing the work of our best living teachers, and by beginning our experience where theirs leaves off, we may hope to reach a higher degree of proficiency and elevate the standard of our work. The question should not be, Do the schools produce a sensation? Are they giving special attention to this or that line of work?. But the question should be, Are they producing substantial and lasting results? Are they sending forth true and intelligent men and women, fortified in character and prepared to meet the conflicts of life? If the answer is, Yes, they are fulfilling their mission; if, No, there is need of more study, more thought, more earnestness and more enthusiastic devotion to the cause of education. "As is the teacher, so is the school.”

SOME EVIL EFFECTS OF THE TOBACCO HABIT.

BY A. A. CROSIER.

Every act, voluntary or involuntary, physical or mental, results in a waste of bodily tissue. To preserve an equilibrium, it is necessary that the waste matter be promptly excreted and its place supplied with new material. Unless this be done, we are not at our best to do and to become.

The perfection of these two functions, known as excretion and assimilation, requires the following:

1. Complete mastication.

I.

2. Regular supply and proper quality, (a) of saliva to convert the starchy parts of the food into sugar; (b) of gastric juice to dissolve the sugar thus formed, and to break up the albuminoid substances of animal food; (c) of bile, and pancreatic and intestinal juices to act upon the fats and oils, and to complete the work begun in the mouth and carried on in the stomach.

3. A strong and regular action, (a) of the heart to force the nutrient matter to the lungs with the impure blood, to be oxygenized, and thence to all parts of the body, for the repair of the tissues; (b) of the lungs to furnish the requisite amount of oxygen for the digested food, and a sufficient volume of air to purify the old blood.

4. A complete and speedy removal of all waste matter, by the various organs of excretion.

5. A vigorous and well-balanced nervous system to control and regulate all the machinery of the body. Such is the mutual relation of the organs that it is impossible for one to suffer without all being. affected more or less, through the sympathetic nervous system.

The use of tobacco interferes with all the above named requisites for assimilation and excretion from the first, and soon, with mathematical certainty, breeds disease and decay.

2.

1. The saliva is rendered unfit for its office; besides, much is wasted and the system is thus robbed of much of the starchy part of the food by not being converted into sugar before passing to the stomach. By its direct and immediate paralyzing influence upon the nerves that control the organs of digestion, the secretion of saliva, bile, gastric, pancreatic and intestinal juices, is irregular in quantity and inferior in quality. Hence the system suffers an additional loss in the way of oils, fats, and albuminoid substances. This means leanness and emaciation. It also means to the young and growing, physical and mental dwarfing, and to all, the impairment of power. (See Mills'