ARE THE NATIONAL STANDARD. Throughout the United States schools which have attained the highest proficiency in practical writing, without a special teacher, have used and are using the SPENCERIAN SYSTEM, which includes THE TRACING COURSE, THE SHORTER COURSE, COMMON SCHOOL COURSE. Complete for Every Requirement. Send 25 cents for "THEORY OF SPENCERIAN PENMANSHIP." HITE'S INDUSTRIAL DRAWING WHIT Aims to Do a Few Things Well. It Teaches: I, to make WORKING DRAWINGS, to scale, of any simple object; 2, to execute such drawings so accurately that the article represented may be MADE BY A MECHANIC, following these drawings, with certainty and precision; 3, to make a drawing giving a faithful representation of the appearance of simple objects, either singly of in groups; 4. to compose an original design, suitable for the decoration of any object of general use. White's System provides definite COURSES OF STUDY for all grades. Full Information and Specimen Pages Furnished Free on ́ Application. Elementary Physiology and Hygiene. Having special reference to the effects of Stimulants and Narcotics on the Human System. By WILLIAM THAYER SMITH, M. D., Dartmouth Medical College. An original and striking work, as remarkable for its judicious omission of unimportant details as for its masterly treatment of the essentials of the science. "So far as we can see * * * it is the most complete treatise, in a concise form, .yet given to the American reader."-Every Other Saturday, Oct. 11th, 1884. Full cloth. Richly illustrated with colored plates and wood cuts. Introduction Price, 50 cts. Copies sent for examination, post-paid, on receipt of Introduction Price. Specimen pages free on application. FISH'S NEW ARITHMETICS. Over 200 pages. BRIEF, YET COMPLETE; PRACTICAL, NOT PUZZLING. Thoroughly Inductive in Treatment. Fish's Arithmetic, Number One; Full Cloth; Illustrated; 158 pages. Send for our Descriptive List, mailed free to any address on application, containing title and descriptions of over three hundred and fifty popular school-books, maps, charts, etc. IVISON, BLAKEMAN, TAYLOR & CO., Publishers, 753 and 755 BROADWAY, N. Y. BY JOHN E. BRADLEY, Ph. D., Principal of the Albany High School. I. In no profession are the underlying principles more clearly ascertained than in teaching. Profound students of human nature in all ages, from Horace Mann back to the time of Socrates, have contributed to elucidate and enforce certain cardinal truths in accordance with which every successful teacher must work. Among these fundamental facts of pedagogic science, none is more important and far-reaching in its results than the familiar proposition that education is a growth-a development. The mind is self-active. Whatever influence is to be exerted upon it by educational processes must be in accordance with its nature and laws of growth. It is not a storehouse to be filled. It is a spiritual principle, already putting forth its own energies and working out its own ends when it first comes within reach of the educator. He adds to it no new powers; and he can modify and augment its activities only by furnishing the materials and supplying the normal conditions of mental growth. Obvious and important as is this truth, it must be admitted that it is often overlooked in the daily work of instruction; and this disregard of a fundamental principle results in wasted effort and dwarfed and distorted developments. It is the purpose of this paper to point out one of these educational wastes, and to indicate how one of the most precious and potent of the forces at the disposal of the teacher may be utilized. When President Garfield said that he would prefer a log schoolhouse with Mark Hopkins for his teacher to the best endowed university without him, he uttered, not merely a grateful tribute to a beloved teacher, but an important truth applicable in every grade of instruction. Garfield, we may be sure, would not undervalue good educational equipments. Ample endowments and learned faculties are, or may be, powerful auxiliaries in mental training; but one thing is more important than these, more valuable than costly apparatus or scholarly attainments, and that is a vigorous personality, so permeated with sympathy and good-will as to attract those who are taught and inspire within them a genuine interest in study. Dr. Holland says: "I am sorry for the man who did not have, at some period of his childhood or youth, at least one teacher who filled him with the enthusiasm of study and brought him into love with knowledge and into a genuine delight in the use of his intellectual powersa teacher who could be systematic without becoming mechanical, and who inspired in the pupil the love of the good and an ambition to excel." Now, it is hardly to be expected that every boy should have a genius for a teacher. It is seldom that a school or college secures the services of an Emma Willard or a Mark Hopkins; but is it not true that every teacher possesses an element of personal influence which might be exerted with far greater efficiency upon those who are taught? And is it not also true that this power of personal influence, or magnetism, will arouse the pupil to a vigor of growth not otherwise attainable? Every superintendent, or principal of a large school, must have observed with pain the antagonism constantly springing up between certain teachers and their pupils. He must also have realized how much the children lose from the neglect or inability of teachers to enter with genuine sympathy into the daily life and work of those whom they instruct. In some cases a chasm yawns between them too wide and too deep to be often crossed. In others, though no barrier separates, the intercourse between teacher and pupil is too formal and perfunctory to afford personal stimulus or encouragement. Let us see why this important factor in education is so often lacking, and then consider how it may be cultivated and utilized by inexperienced or inefficient teachers under our charge. The present is an age of organization. Every department of industry and every form of progress relies more and more upon organized effort for its success. What was formerly accomplished by individual exertion, men now seek to attain more speedily and on a larger scale by combination of capital, distribution of responsibility and division of labor. Nowhere is this tendency more manifest than in the work of education. The duties which formerly devolved upon one teacher in a district school are now assigned to eight or ten teachers in the primary and grammar schools, and nearly as many more in the high school. Instead of a handful of scholars, each ciphering through the arithmetic in a "go-as-you-please" sort of a way, only to repeat the process the next winter, we now have thousands of pupils, carefully arranged in grades and divisions, moving with uniform step and kept in line by frequent examinations. Theoretically, at least, the modern school-boy takes no step backwards. Instead of an endless iteration of fractions and the rule of three, he marches steadily on to the completion of a high school course at the callow age of eighteen. We do not sympathize with those who would draw unfavorable comparisons at this point and sigh for the good old ways of our fathers. The prevalent criticisms of the public schools are unfair and unreasonable, evincing not only surprising ignorance, but also a malicious captiousness and inconsistency on the part of those who make them. The schools are blamed for educating too much, and they are blamed for educating too little. There is scarcely a subject in the whole realm of knowledge, theoretical or practical, which certain critics do not demand that the schools should teach, while, at the same time, they incessantly accuse them of superficiality and an unhealthy cram. If a moral or industrial reform is desired the schools are called upon to inaugurate it. If profitless reading and superficial thinking prevail in the community, it is the fault of the schools. Have monopolies and trades-unions combined for half a century to prohibit men from freely choosing their own employment, the tremendous evils resulting from such an interference are laid the door of the public schools. Indeed, the only comfort one can get from the unreasonable demands upon the teachers of the present day is the boundless confidence which is thus evinced in the power of education. But while careful grading and classification have added much to the efficiency of the public schools, there is reason to fear that the personal weight and influence of the teacher have often been greatly diminished. Completeness of organization and equipment have taken the place of individuality and direct contact. The teacher, instead of going in advance of the class to lead and inspire them, follows behind to drive up the laggards. Instead of a relation of friendship and contagious enthusiasm between teacher and pupil there springs up one of fear or cold indifference. Instead of spon taneous exertions, by which the mental faculties grow unconsciously, we have feeble activities under compulsion or a sense of duty. The mind of the pupil, be he young or old, cannot develop at its best in such an atmosphere. The interest and good-will of the teacher are |