3.-Industrial Exhibit, including work by the defective classes, with processes. H. H. Belfield, Superintendent Manual Training School, 12th and Michigan Avenue, Chicago.

4.-Art Exhibit. W. S. Perry, Superintendent, Worcester, Massachusetts. 5.-Miscellaneous.

ANNEX.

1.-Exhibit of School Furniture, Apparatus and Supplies. Leslie Lewis, Superintendent, Hyde Park, Illinois.

2. Exhibit of School Books. O. S. Cook, Superintendent, 74 Bryant Avenue, Chicago.

3.-School Architecture, including models, plans and elevations, and schemes for heating and ventilating. Alfred Kirk, Moseley School, Chicago. 4.-Miscellaneous.

This general plan is subject to modification on further consultation.

The Director asks that each person who receives this circular will at once interest himself in this matter, and do all in his power to make this exhibition national, instructive and complete.

State Superintendents will please lay the matter at once before county and city officials, that ample time may be secured for preparing exhibits which shall be thoroughly creditable to the State and to the several localities. Whenever possible the Legislature should be asked to provide means for ensuring the best possible representation.

Presidents of the various Technical and Art Schools, and workers in Kindergartens and in other special lines, are urged to take advantage of this unusual opportunity for exhibiting their processes and results.

The educational press is asked to notice this movement, and lend us the full weight of its influence.

The general press is requested to give this practical demonstration of the value of our school system its cordial support.

It is hoped that manufacturers and dealers will see the advantage of a very complete representation in the Annex. Ample space will be provided.

The usual concessions will be made in freight and express rates, of which more definite information will be given in a later circular.

The exposition will open early enough to give ample time for a careful study of the various exhibits. The educational effects of time spent in this way must be most marked and beneficial.

The attendance will doubtless be from ten to fifteen thousand. Correspondence should be, as far as possible, specific, and addressed to the Superintendent of the Department, in which the proposed exhibit will appear.

All general correspondence should be addressed to

ALBERT G. Lane,

Director National Educational Exposition, Chicago, Ill.

Preponderance of Women as Teachers.

One of the most notable characteristics of our city school systems in the United States is the overwhelming preponderance of women as teachers. So great is this preponderance, that the cities where male teachers are employed in elementary schools, in any other capacity than as principals or as teachers of special subjects, such as German, for example, may be reckoned the exceptions. In the high schools the proportion of male teachers is much larger than in the elementary grades. In the mixed high schools, especially in the large cities, the number of male teachers is perhaps nearly equal to that of the female teachers. Where the high schools are unmixed, those for boys are taught by male teachers, while the schools for girls are taught mostly by female teachers, under the direction of a male principal. The following tables exhibit the proportion of male to female teachers in twenty-four representative cities:

It will be seen by the above tables that the average proportion of male teachers to female teachers in the twenty-four cities represented is about one to ten. The average of all the cities taken together would probably vary not far from this showing.

Philadelphia has the lowest proportion of male teachers, but the male. teachers employed are actually engaged in teaching; each one of these, except the high school teachers, being confined to the care and instruction of the upper class of a boys' grammar school, and having supervision over a very limited number of lower classes.

The next lowest proportion is found in Chicago. In that city there are in fact, in the elementary schools, no male teachers, properly so called. The men reckoned as teachers are, in reality, supervising principals, each having a large number of classes and teachers under his direction and supervision. In Cincinnati the proportion of male teachers is about six times as great as that of Philadelphia and Chicago. This is the result of the policy of employing, to some extent, male assistants in the elementary schools. This is the case in the other large cities, where the proportion is comparatively high; namely, Wilwaukee, New York, St. Louis and Boston.

In Milwaukee there are several male principals of primary schools, as well as some subordinate male teachers of district schools, and, in addition, a number of special male teachers of the German language; and hence the high ratio of male teachers as compared with other cities.

In some cases ladies are employed as principals of large mixed schools composed of grammar and primary grades. In Cleveland the experiment was made several years ago of placing all the elementary schools in charge of female principals, three or four general supervising male principals being employed to visit the schools at short intervals to give assistance when needed in the discipline and management. The women have given entire satisfaction as principals, and there is no reason, except habit and political influence, why they should not fill the highest as well as the subordinate positions.-Woman's Journal.

CHESTNUTS.-Refer to our respected unabridged friend, Noah Webster, for the word "chestnut," and you will find a terse botanical description of the little brown nut whose name is on everybody's lips. Alas! Webster died before the modern use of the word was adopted, or he might have added, "a slang phrase, used to snub 'twice told tales.'". The Adelphian.

"I HAVE said before, and I repeat it here, that if a man cannot get literary culture of the highest kind out of his Bible, and Chaucer and Shakespeare, and Milton, and Hobbes, and Bishop Berkeley, to mention only a few of our illustrious writers-I say if he cannot get it out of those writers, he can not get it out of anything; and I would assuredly devote a very large portion of the time of every English child to the careful study of the models of English writing of such varied and wonderful kind as we possess, and what is still more important and still more neglected, the habit of using that language with precision and with force and with art. I fancy we are almost the only nation in the world who seem to think that composition comes by nature. The French attend to their own language, the Germans study theirs; but Englishmen do not seem to think it worth their while."-Huxley.

ALL competent authorities agree in the opinion that a course of special training in the theory and practice of teaching should be insisted upon as a prerequisite to the occupation of teacher. In no department of school economy is there a greater waste of the public money than in the employment of untrained, and consequently incompetent teachers.-American Journal of Education.

EDITORIAL PARAGRAPHS.

THE NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL EXPOSITION to be held in connection with the next meeting of the National Educational Association, July next, in Chicago.

We publish elsewhere a circular from Albert G. Lane, Director of the National Educational Exposition, to which we ask special attention. On the side of the visitors to the next meeting of the National Educational Association, one of the most valuable features will be the opportunity afforded to see some of the best work of the best schools in the country, and to examine the most improved facilities for school work. The Exposition proposes to furnish this. That the greatest good may be secured in this direction, it is important that all interested in Education should make some contribution to the resources of the Exposition. Every State should furnish its quota; every well-graded school-system should contribute some of its work; and our country schools, in which some excellent work is done, should not be lacking. The publishers and manufacturers will not fail to provide the supply of improved books and apparatus. Virginia ought to be well represented. It is the testimony of competent educators, who have looked into the matter, that the school-system of Virginia is the best in the South. She ought not to shrink therefore from a comparison with her sisters, but should show by practical results that she deserves the high position accorded her.

Publishers' Notes.

Messrs. Ginn & Co., Boston, announce for early publication A Primer of Botany, by Mrs. A. A. Knight, of Robinson Seminary, Exeter, N. H. Illustrated. It is designed to bring Botany to the level of Primary and Intermediate Grades. The elementary forms of plant-life are especially taught, with an abundance of tests and reviews. The book is a "first round," and is a needed introduction to the usual text books onthe subject.

The sales of The Century Magazine have gone up over 30,000 copies in six weeks, since beginning the Life of Lincoln. A second edition of December will be issued on the 15th, A veteran New York publisher predicts that the permanent edition of the magazine will go beyond 300,000 before the completion of the Lincoln history.

In January, 1887, will be published from the office of "Science," 47 La Fayette Place, N. Y., the first number of a New Monthly Magazine, entitled The Swiss Cross. This periodical will be devoted to spreading among the people a love and knowledge of nature. The existence of a large class of persons deeply interested in the study of nature is proven by the Agassiz Association, which, made up of earnest workers of all ages, united for the purpose of original investigation, has attained a membership of many thousands, and is rapidly growing. The Swiss Cross will be hereafter the official organ of the Agassiz Association, and will be edited by its president, Mr. H. H. Ballard. Though of a scientific nature, The Swiss Cross will be popular in style, and will number among its contributors many of the best writers. The subscription price will be $1.50 a year; single copies 15 cents.

The Columbia Bicycle Calendar for 1887, just issued by the Pope Manufacturing Company of Boston, is a truly artistic and elegant work in chromo-lithography and the letter press. Each day of the year appears upon a separate slip with a quotation pertaining to 'cycling from leading publications and prominent personages. The notable 'cycling events are given; and concise opinions of the highest medical authorities; words from practical wheelmen, including clergymen and other professional gentlemen; the rights of 'cyclers upon the roads; general wheeling statistics; the benefits of tricycling for ladies; extracts from 'cycling poems, and much other information interesting alike to the 'cycler and to the general reader. In fact, it is in minature a virtual encyclopædia upon this universally utilized modern steed. The calendar proper, is mounted upon a back of heavy board, upon which is exquisitely executed in oil color effect, by G. H. Buek, of New York, an allegorical scene, representing the earth resting among the clouds, with Thomas Stevens, in heroic size, mounted upon his Columbia bicycle, circumbicyling the globe. The atmospheric lights and shades of sunlight and moonshine are charmingly vivid, yet artistically toned and softened. A smaller portion of the board is devoted to a picture of a mounted lady tricycler, speeding over a pleasant country road. As a work of conve nient art, the Columbia calendar is worthy of a place in office, library or parlor.

D. C. Heath & Co. will publish in April, a valuable book for Teachers, entitled Suggestive Lessons in Language and Reading, by Anna B. Badlam, of the Rice Training School, Boston, Mass.