Entered at the Post Office at Richmond, Va., as Second Class matter.

To County and City Superintendents and Trustees of Schools.

Webster's Dictionaries.

THE NATIONAL STANDARDS.

WEBSTER'S DICTIONARIES ARE UNIVERSALLY USED IN VIRGINIA, and throughout the country the annual sale of Webster is more than twenty times that of any other dictionary.

The State Board of Education Does not Demand a Change.

"The policy adopted by the Board of Education does not necessitate changes of text-books in any county or city of the State, but leaves the question to be determined by the county and city school boards. Counties and cities having other books than those on the prescribed list [except Copy-Books] CAN CONTINUE IN USE ONE OR EVERY ONE OF THE BOOKS THEY NOW HAVE."-From Instructions of State Superintendent, dated June 1st, 1886.

Prices to Pupils as Low as any other Corresponding Books.

Ivison, Blakeman, Taylor & Co.,

753-755 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.

A word two years ago unknown has come into use as the embodi-

ment of an idea which is fast taking hold of the public mind-the

idea that whatever ills of government afflict the nation to-day, their

final cure is not to be effected until the youth of the land come to

man's estate with a more exalted sense of the value of their inheri-

tance as citizens, and with more of the special knowledge which shall

fit them for its wise and proper use. The word which has come to

be the representation of this idea, and the answer to its requirements

("Civics") is a term which covers whatever knowledge or instruction

may be needful to preparation for good citizenship and its corollary-

good government.

Some idea of the incalculable importance of realizing, in the
highest degree possible, the end for which, in theory at least, our
common schools are supported at the public cost, may be gained from
the Treasury Department's figures showing that the tide of immigra-
tion is as great, in proportion, as it ever was, and in actual numbers
is constantly increasing. Experience has taught, with growing em-
phasis, the necessity of bringing these foreign elements, as soon and
as completely as possible, into sympathy with that which is, in the
best sense of the word, American. We have also been taught the
lesson that, with large numbers of the adults thus added to the voting,
and therefore the governing, class in our republic, it is practically
impossible to instil those lessons in republican doctrine which bear
fruit in good citizenship. While we should spare no effort to make
good citizens of the adults coming to us from all lands, it is obvious
that the most hopeful and important work, in its effects upon the fu-
ture of our institutions, is to be wrought among their children. To
make of these hundreds of thousands of youth, men and women