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HERE AND THERE.

-There is a world of wisdom in this pithy saying by Principal Fairburn, "Boys were given to educate homes as much as homes were given to educate boys."

-There is one place where a woman gets a man's pay for doing a man's work. It is the township of Marshfield, Me.; and any woman who wishes to work out her road tax can do so, and have her day's work count for as much as a man's.

-Jay Gould's family are to build a memorial church at Roxbury, N. Y., costing $250,000, and bearing the inscription: "To the glory of God and in memory of Jay Gould."- Springfield Republican.

- Editor's Son: "I asked papa when the millenium was comin', un' if Mars was inhabited, an' if it was goin' to rain next Fourth of July; an' he said he didn't know. I don't see how he ever got to be an editor."

-The World's First Parliament of Religions will convene Monday, September 11. The ses sions will be held in the Hall of Columbus (seating about three thousand), in the new Art Palace on the Lake Front, already made famous as the meeting-place of the many con. gresses of the World's Congress Auxiliary. The sessions will continue seventeen days.

M. Jules Simon has discovered the secret of old age; and he has formulated the recipe in two words, intellectual work. Nothing, he declares, helps so materially to conserve physical strength as mental employment; and, in proof of this theory, he points out that the French Institute is a perfect congregation of hale and hearty octogenarians. In the Acad. emy of Moral Sciences alone there are Barthé lemy, Saint-Hilaire, Vacherot, Franck, Duruy, Larombière, Ravalson, and Bouillier, living their eighth decade through laborious and productive days.

-all

That is right Bro. Bardeen. We are a Phenomenon.

And we want to return the compliment by saying that Bro. Bardeen's Bulletin is a bright, newsy sheet, and he himself an upright-downright honest soul, even if his morals do get a little rickety when their possessor is across the water.

The educational congresses at the World's Fair were thinly attended. But then, the Fair itself is an Educational Congress; and time is precious.

The Pennsylvania legislature has set a good example by passing an act to protect the morals of school children and preserve the decencies of school life by obliging school boards to pay due care to the arrangements of their out-buildings. But Pennsylvania is not the only state that requires appropriate legislation in this particular.

Who is to Blame?

The Pennsylvania School Journal tells us that "if the Superintendent is content with examining teachers and visiting schools, he is almost as useless as the fifth wheel of a wagon." True, but who is to blame that so many superintendents seem to confine their labors to examining teachers and visiting schools? We do not believe it is the fault of the superintendent. The fact is the School boards insist upon holding the reins and driving. The one important function a superintendent should always be allowed to exercise, and the most important of all, is the selectlon of the teacher. To how few superintendents is that privilege given? Here and there a powerful personality commands it, but it is in spite of the law and custom. One reason why the evils are more quickly remedied abroad than here is because of the greater freedom of the teacher and the hands-off policy governing school legislation. With the selection of the instructor in his hands, the superintendent needs simply to inspire and to see to it that the conditions are all favorable for the best work.

Comes Slowly.

That good time, however, is very slow in coming. With the exception of a locality here and there, it is about as much as the superintendent's life is worth to withstand the infuence that places in his schools inferior laborers. The larger municipalities are especially thus cursed. In the first place, politics is too influential a factor in the election of men and women to the school

A Sad Sight.

It is a sad sight to see so many boys and girls, old enough almost to marry, occupying seats in the upper grades of our grammar schools. And the only reason of their presence in these classes is the fact that they were "born short" in some particular study. It is full time, it seems to us, that the idea that the public schools are for the purpose of promoting good scholarship had dropped to leeward. Our fathers brought this notion from across the water, and the written examinations, which for so many years have alone determined the promotions from grade to grade, have had no tendency to weaken it. But the fact is, the proper function of our public schools now, whatever may have been the purpose of their establishment in the past, is the training of the boys and girls of the Republic. As has been happily said, the whole boy goes to school. It is a violation, therefore, of the highest good of the state, as well as unjust to the child, to grade the schools by purely intellectual standards. As in the German states, we would have age rather than memory largely the controling factor; indeed, why should not the boy or girl, who has been to school constantly and has been attentive to instruction move on?

Good Health.

One of the essentials to success in the schoolroom is good health. Indeed, we think we are not far away from the truth in saying that chronic ill health has no business in the teacher's chair. Every instructor of youth, therefore, should not only guard with greatest care whatever vitality nature has endowed him with, but be quite as earnest in adding to the original supply. A striking example of what one can do towards assisting nature in keeping vigorous to a good old age a body not over strong at the beginning is seen in the present prime minister of England. Gladstone was not a very strong lad - not up to the average even. But by exercise and a wise care of himself, he has not only been a remarkably industrious man in the study, but is today, at 83, as vigorous as most men at fifty, prime minister of a great empire, and leader in the greatest parliamentary battle of the age. Think of this statesman, at so great an age, not going to bed until two in the morning; by nine, seven hours later, hard at work in his library; punctually at 2 P.M. at his place in the house and bearing the full brunt of a vigorous debate on a "closure" resolution - not over until seven; then, two hours later, returning for the evening, sitting and playing the part of the under secretary for India; and, then, with this added responsibility, after a week of tremendous labor, delivering a remarkable speech, strong in argument, of great charm, of rare fluency and eloquence! But that is the record. Surely here is a lesson in the concrete that we all should read.

66

Another Pleasure.

It is gratifying to the POPULAR EDUCATOR to see that Arithmetic seems at length to be finding its proper place in the lower grades of school work. We have urged again and again in these columns the absurdity of much of the work now done; work that is beyond the intellectual development of the primary grade pupil. From time immemorial the High Schools have complained of the ignorance of the pupils sent them from the grammar schools, pleading that the teaching must have been very poor, else children would not so soon have forgotten the arithmetical processes taught them. 'Poor teaching in the grade below" is a very common and a very convenient scapegoat. But the fact is, that so little time is devoted to the fundamental processes, and so much to problems that are beyond the intelligent comprehension of the ordinary pupil,problems that must be practically committed to memory and fixed by much cramming in order to meet the examinations,—that computations that should be easy are difficult, and many subjects have dropped from the memory altogether. We are not surprised, there fore, at the statement of the Master of a Boston High School, that boys come to him unable to add simple fractions. Should he probe for the knowledge of banking, or of brokerage, they had learned in the lower grades, he would find, we think, that, in most minds, it had got pretty near the vanishing point. A reform in the method of teaching numbers and in the kind of arithmetic taught is near, but it would not be quite so long in arriving were it not for the written examinations, which, of course, direct the teaching.

The Old Story.

At the World's Fair press convention two of the brethren, editors of western contemporaries, complained that teachers did not appreciate the substantial in the educational papers. They themselves had failed to get rich in giving to their readers only that which bore the regulation stamp upon it. The "able discussion of principles," methods formulated by "distinguished Normal School Principals," have not given to these editors an income that one need envy. The reason is not far to seek, and it is no disparagement to the profession, either. Beecher aud Chapin were great in the pulpit, but they would have failed at the Bar. Think of Freeman clothed in episcopal robes, or Gladstone writing a novel! Fifty years ago, more or less, wiseacres were astonished to see the New York Herald leap at a bound into popularity. It did not have editorials of learned length or written in Addisonian style - but it gave the news; and that is what most people then, and now as well, buy a newspaper for. Up to the advent of the Popular EduCATOR the school journals of the country were filled with dry, monotonous essays, most of them crude at that. Here and there, one more ambitious than the rest, sought to gain a circulation by printing a convention lecture by some D.D. or LL.D., or noting with a flattering compliment the change of habitation of some Mr. Brown or Mr. Smith, but the circulation was very little stimulated thereby. The POPULAR EDUCATOR entered the field to give the teacher something she could use in her every-day work. It determined, at the very beginning, to reject nothing because it came from a humble source. Cant and hypocrisy it proposed to eschew. The interests of the teacher were to be subserved, and not the prejudice or approbativeness of him who pronounced himself great. The result the world knows. Journals have tried to blot us out of existence by ignoring us, - journals that to-day have not increased their small circulation perceptibly for a decade; and others have ridiculed our many original ways of benefiting teachers. But our heart has not been troubled, for the great educational reading public has appreciated these labors as our immense circulation shows. Moreover, we have lived to see the editors of those journals who have from time to time ridiculed the original features in our columns, one by one drop down from their lofty perch and make a diet of their own words.

The Moral.

Now, the moral; on which we have no patent. Success in any kind of journalism depends upon giving to a goodly-sized constituency just what it hungers for. Theodore Tilton was one of

the most brilliant of editorial writers. During his service as editor of the New York Independent that paper increased its subscription list enormously. But it was not very largely because of the brilliant sentences in its editorial columns, but because it gave to its readers theology in the concrete as well as in the abstract. The Golden Age, which Mr. Tilton afterwards owned and edited, had but a limited constituency and was soon defunct. The old North American Review is another case in point. It was a quarterly, and every issue was filled with the thoughts of able writers. But it never paid expenses; and was only saved from dissolution by the master stroke of the late Mr. Thorndike Rice, who changed entirely the character of its pages, devoting them to the discussion of living questions. The consequence was, the great public began to read its columns, and it is not necessary to say that its enterprising owner always had a goodly balance in his exchequer. The trouble with educational journals in the past has been that they have been edited by men without the editorial instinct. That is, these men, many of them able, all more or less distinguished, have not had the genius to see just what the teachers of the country were eager to read and so willing to buy. They filled their ventures with psychological discussions, and with addresses that had been delivered before conventions, and which cost nothing. They found, of course, a very limited constituency. And the great mass of teachers were dull, they said, unintelligent, and so unable to appreciate these thoughtful efforts in their behalf. But the fact is, the teachers then, as now, preferred their psychology in the concrete; they cared more for the how than the what. Here lies chiefly the success of the modern educational journal. Of course, back of this lie push and pluck and a generous supply of the shining metal.

Massing of Children.

of in

The statement of Maj. McClaugbry, chief of the Chicago police, that first among the causes of crime is "criminal parentage, association, and neglect of children by their parents," every teacher can testify to as being correct. The incorrigibles in a school, without an exception we believe, will be found to be unfortunately born or of those who are severely let alone by their parents. But as it is certain that these children must be reached through the emotions and the will to be influenced, a duty, religious it may be well called, rests upon every teacher having such under her charge (and who has not?) to study the peculiarities of the individual child. Away, we say, with this massing of children for purposes struction. To place sixty or fifty children in a room and expect that the young teacher shall not only teach according to the methods of the idealists, but shall deal successfully with the two or three vicious phenomenons in her class is preposterous. Enthusiasm may be born of numbers and size, and may have a good deal to do with the success of the pugilist in the ring, but neither numbers nor brawn ever gave to a child a loftier conception of duty or rounded off the moral irregularities of his unfortunate birth. We are sometimes told by the wearied teacher that the public school is not a reform school. No, not technically speaking: and yet it is a Reform school, with a capital letter. The child when it first comes from its home to the school may have criminal tendencies, more or less marked. The germs of the possible future career are no doubt there. It is for the teacher to see them, if she pleases, but only that she may by her potent influence stunt and starve. Hence, we plead for a smaller number of children in the school-room, especially in the younger classes. Here is the important point, and here, if no where else, should the influences of the intelligent mind, the mother's instinct, and the most favorable conditions be focused.

A

Natural Method in Teaching.

By M. LOUISE FOSTER, Boston, Mass.

S individuals upholding the theory of free will we are filled with a feeling of annoyance when the modern psychologist tells us that we are slavishly imitating our neighbors; but the fact most strongly revealed in the modern psychological laboratory is this very one of the power of suggestion. The child learns to smile as it is smiled upon, it holds out its hands in imitations of those about it; later it builds houses as it was first shown and makes the little paper toys of the Kindergarten School. The differentiation in the different members of the same class arises from the different environment and individual coloring which each one gives.

The power of imitation which our charges possess becomes a powerful lever in the hands of a teacher, and is powerful inversely as the merits of the teacher. Critical observation is a high function of the mind and difficult to train; how much simpler to show the children from the black-board how to do an example in arithmetic and then let them do twenty "all the way," than with skillful leading to let them find the method out for themselves; how much easier for the drawing teacher to draw upon the board the contour of the vase than to labor patiently with her pupils, while they struggle to reproduce in outline what they see in solid form before them; and in the department of experimental science, physics and chemistry, it is so much less wearisome to deftly perform the experiments oneself at the lecture table, and then assign a lesson from the book, than to waste time and money over laboratory work! But there are examples galore and I will let each one make his own in persuance of this same theory of suggestion.

At this point we come to the parting of the ways. One is labelled, What and How Much; the other, What and How. For years we have followed the former, and with the increased demands of modern civilization we have added to our courses of study without restraint and without elimination. The result is dissociated lumps of undigested information, for it cannot be called knowledge. And the biggest lump of all in the grammar school is arithmetic. From the time when a boy enters the primary school, he begins to study number; as he progresses in grade, he advances in arithmetical processes, spending about five hours a week for eight or ten years, wrestling, with varied success, on "examples." Yet when he reaches the high school, he will add the means and extremes in a problem of compound proportion, so little does he actually understand the process. What is the reason? There must be some explanation.

The psychologist again would tell us that, instead of having one broad, deep brain track,- Prof James' expression,- by means of which we could reach the three or four arithmetical principles, each new method had been taught in such a way, that each had its own brain track with the result that disuse of a few years had sidetracked the process and made it unavailable. If such is the case, why teach all these processes? Why not teach numbers, decimals, fractions and the tables of weights and measures by practical use and there leave the matter? Algebra and geometry might follow; but I look upon so much mathematics, as the inheritance of tradition, and its boasted mental training as exceedingly problematical.

More educational benefit, i. e., mental growth and development, can be obtained by the average student from simple quantitative experiments in the laboratory and analytical study of English with accompanying composition than from mathematical problems. To them the theorems of geometry seem self-evident, and there is no pleasure in the proof, but the excitement of discovery and the satisfaction of arithmetical proof, for most people still devoutly believe that "figures cannot lie," are skillfully combined. A boy or girl is always interested when hand and mind are called into

play; the relation existing between them is so complimentary that it is hard for the amateur to tell which leads, he would probably, however, fall into the error of saying that the brain directed the action, and yet psychology teaches us that sensation precedes all mental action If this be true, then the legitimate method in teaching must be the laboratory method of experiment and individual experience, and the more we approximate to nature's demands, the more will our teaching be ideal.

Famous Literary Women.*

I.

Alice and Phoebe Cary.

By JENNIE E. KEYSOR, Omaha, Nebraska.

Introduction.

"How fresh of life the younger one,
Half tears, half smiles, like rain in sun!
Her gravest mood could scarce displace
The dimples of her nut-brown face.
"Wit sparkled on her lips not less

For quick and tremulous tenderness;
And following close her inerriest glance
Dreamed through her eyes the heart's romance.

"Timid and still, the elder had

Even then a smile too sweetly sad;
The crown of pain that all must wear
Too early pressed her midnight hair.

"A memory hauuted all her words
Of clover-fields and singing birds.
"Her speech dropped prairie flowers; the gold
Of harvest wheat about her rolled.

"Fore-doomed to song she seemed to me."

Whittier's" The Singer."

Among the women who have graced American thoughtful life, none stand higher than Alice and Phoebe Cary, not only for what they attained, but for the struggle which they made against ill health, sorrow, and limited means, to gain their place of independ

ence.

Alice, the older, was born April 26th, 1820, and Phoebe saw the light four years later. They were both born on a farm a few miles from Cincinnati, where their father and mother had toiled hard for years and where they were doomed to more toil yet, the mother, alas! to die at her unfinished task. In their writings, both women give vivid pictures of their early home, for whatever prosperity came to them in later life, they alwas delighted in their recollections of this home the old weather-beaten house with the sweetbrier under the window, with old-fashioned flowers bordering the walk, and the thrifty apple and cherry trees that shaded the yard.

--

The Carys' were undoubtedly of noble origin though there is a question as to just the line of descent. In the heraldic records we find Sir Robert Cary, in the reign of Henry V., conquering the Knight of Aragon in single combat, and then, according to the custom in vogue, assuming the arms of his conquered foe. Of this Phoebe Cary was very proud and nothing vexed her more than the expression of a doubt concerning this picturesque little incident, though really and truly, she herself, with her wit, her talent, her perseverence, was more credit to the Cary name than many knights of Aragon real as life. After all it is only a natural feeling — we all like to be well born, and most of us too would prize a coat of arms as she did, and perhaps, too, keep it framed in a conspicuous place in the library.

Whatever be true of the Knight of Aragon, the first Carys' in this country were Huguenots, and came here for religious freedom *Copyrighted by EDUCATIONAL PUBLISHING CO., 1893.