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Relation of district board to school.
Relation of patrons to the schools.
Benefits of the township district.
Uniformity of text-books.
Free text-books.

Equalization of taxation.
The township institute.

County institute.

The use and abuse of examinations.

District libraries.

These "conncils" have proved very helpful indeed to the State superintendent in making him conversant with public sentiment concerning school matters as viewed by all the factors that are active in the administration of school affairs. At every council there were representatives from school boards, patrons, teachers, examiners, and commissioners.

Free text-books.-The system of free text-books which provides for the ownership of the books by the district and loaning them to pupils has been tried by some of our cities and a few of our rural districts for several years. In journey ing about the State we have taken especial pains to inquire how satisfactory the system proves to be, and almost without exception it is most unanimously commended by both city and country districts. The cities of the State which have adopted the system are Detroit, Grand Rapids, Saginaw East Side, and Bay City. Of these cities East Saginaw has tried the system for the past nine years. None but laudatory reports come from officers and teachers concerning the workings of the plan. We give herewith a table showing the average cost per capita for text-books during the past nine years in Saginaw East Side:

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This should encourage other cities and villages to try the experiment. The rural teachers and school officers of the districts where the plan has been tried say that the books are kept better than when owned by the individuals, the cost is reduced, uniformity secured, and time saved, because pupils are always provided with books on the first day of the term instead of being obliged to "wait until pa goes to town," till he forgets to get the books once or twice, and then buys the wrong book. The expense upon the whole district is insignificant, and the advantages are so apparent that it would seem advisable for every district to adopt the plan. The districts now working under the system are mostly in the northern part of the State.

Libraries. The most important factor in a good school, next to the teacher, is a good school library. If my child could have but one, either a college education or a taste for good literature with ability to read it, I would without hesitation choose the latter. Fortunately we are not obliged to make this choice. A taste for good reading, and a generous education are both within the reach of every child in Michigan. In many of our cities by means of the philanthropic gifts of wealthy men, or the far-sighted acts of school authorities, fully equipped libraries are established and made accessible to all the people. In nearly all our cities, and in many villages, there have been established what are known as working school libraries-selection of books adapted to the different grades of schools, and more especially designed to aid in the teaching of literature, history, geography, and science. These books are kept by the teacher of each grade, and are made very accessible to the pupils of the school. Further than this, courses of reading have been mapped out for the pupils, and the teachers have sought to lead pupils to read these books, and converse with the teacher on the topics read. In this way a taste for reading has been formed in many instances, and a better spirit of study has been the direct result of this reading. Besides this, the parents of these pupils have oftentimes become interested in reading, and the pupils have been encouraged to start a little library of their own. Who can estimate the value of such beginnings? Parents will find that the question of keeping the boy at home evenings is very largely solved when the same boy shall

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become interested in the reading of good books. We are the heirs of all the ages in literature as well as in the more material things of which we boast. The publication of inexpensive editions of our classics has aided very materially in this spread of general intelligence and love for reading.

School architecture-Miscellaneous suggestions.-We give herewith some miscellaneous suggestions which should be carefully considered by those about to build schoolhouses.

1. The window-lighting surface should equal one-fifth of the floor surface.

2. No pupil should sit farther from the window than two and one-half times the distance from the floor to the top of the window.

3. The window should extend to the ceiling, only leaving enough room for the casing between the opening and the ceiling.

4. The windows should be grouped.

5. Light is better from both sides than from one side and the back. The light at the back, unless high, will cast the pupil's shadow on his work.

6. There should be no windows for pupils to face.

7. Light from one side should be from the left, so as not to throw the shadow of the pupil's hand upon his work.

8. The windows should be provided with green shades; yellow is not as good for the eyes.

9. The blackboards should not have a glossy surface.

10. If windows are grouped as they should be, and as they are in the accompanying sketches, no blackboards come between windows to try the eyes of the pupils. Heating and ventilating.-1. A wood furnace is the cheapest and best means of heating small schoolhouses where wood is abundant. The furnace heats and ventilates and will burn long wood, knots, branches, etc., that can not be used in a stove.

2. A jacketed stove is the next best heater and ventilator. A round, tall stove should be incased by a sheet-iron jacket, the jacket being placed 4 or 6 inches from the stove. The jacket should reach within 2 inches of the floor, and extend to top of stove. Air conductors 6 by 12 inches should lead from the wall on two opposite sides of the schoolhouse under the floor, and open into a register immediately under the stove. This furnishes fresh air. Dampers can be placed in these ducts to regulate the amount of fresh air. A good stove and jacket can be bought for $25 or $40.

3. The chimney should extend to the ground and contain a flue 2 feet square, with either a brick partition dividing it into two parts or an 8-inch chimney tile for smoke flue. This smoke flue warms the shaft, creates a current upward, and thus the impure air of the room may be drawn off.

4. Flues built into walls without provision for warming them are merely monuments to fools.

5. Place a large register in the room at base of chimney, and also one in the chimney near the ceiling. Let both be provided with valves with which to close them when

necessary.

6. Place a ventilator in ceiling of room near the center, opening into the attic. 7. Hang windows with cords and weights if possible, or at least make them easy of movement, and supplied with easy catches at lifts of short intervals. Place a 5-inch board under lower sash of window, just as long as window is wide. This will create a space between upper and lower sash, through which the air can come in without direct draft on pupils.

8. Occasionally open doors and windows, and let the air change while pupils are marching or exercising.

Miscellaneous.-1. Wardrobes for country schools are better made of wainscoting 6 or 8 feet high, at both sides of entrance door, in the school room. Those old entries are great breeders of disorder.

2. The girls and boys should have separate wardrobes.

3. The teacher's desk should be in the opposite end of the room from the entrance. 4. The end of the room opposite the entrance should have no windows.

5. The blackboard should extend across the end of the room back of the teacher's desk and down each side to the windows. It will do no harm to run the blackboard the length of both sides as well as one end.

6. If necessary, stand over the builder with a club to make him put the blackboards low enough for the little people. The side boards should be within 2 feet of the floor and made 4 feet wide. The end board should be 6 feet wide.

8. The floor should be of narrow and well-seasoned maple. Do not put in a soft wood floor.

8. Provide a neat wood box if no fuel room is given.

9. Provide at least one extra chair for stray visitors.

10. There should be an average of 16 square feet of floor space to each pupil. A little increase in the dimensions of the building does not add materially to the expense, but adds much to health and comfort of pupils.

MISSISSIPPI.

[From Report of State Supt. J. R. Preston for 1802–93.]

FLOURISHING CONDITION OF TOWN AND VILLAGE SCHOOLS.

The average country school, as it has been conducted, could command the respect of neither pupil nor patron, and has served, in many instances, but to pension incompetent kindred of trustees, to blant every educational aspiration of our youth, and rob them of precious days and golden opportunities. The time has come to stop dallying with so serious an interest of the Commonwealth.

The towns of our State, recognizing the futility of a four months' term, have organized into separate school districts, and annually raise enough money by local taxation to extend their term to seven months in all the smaller towns, and to eight, nine, and ten months in the larger ones-the average term being more than eight months.

The new constitution diminished the revenues of many of the separate school districts, and occasioned a stricter economy, and in some instances a shortening of the term; but in every case the towns have met the emergency, increased the local levy, and will maintain their schools eight or nine months.

The people in our towns have gone to great expense besides in building and equipping schoolhouses. They recognize the value of education, and are determined that their children shall have every reasonable opportunity in an educational line.

In the last two years the number of separate school districts has increased from 41 to 58, showing that our towns and villages are forging to the front in providing school facilities for their children.

Several of the smaller towns have enlarged their school districts by embracing some adjacent rural territory upon petition of the freeholders thereof.

The schools of all the separate districts are reported as being in a flourishing condition and crowded with pupils to the limit of their capacity.

As indicated in the last biennial report, these municipalities had to make, in most instances, a slight increase in their local school tax; but no serious hindrance of their progress and efficiency has been occasioned by the change in our school revenue system. The increase in the number of separate school districts and their steady progress indicate the healthy tone of public sentiment which follows great local effort in behalf of schools.

The course of study in nearly all of these schools is sufficient to prepare students to enter the freshman class of the university and the other State institutions. They are, moreover, contributing to the rural schools many well-prepared, active, and progressive teachers.

Numerous changes of principals and superintendents have taken place within the past few years, indicating that the people are seeking stronger men to conduct their schools.

A system of schools seldom rises above the idea of the principal or superintendent, and most often is but a reflection of that ideal.

The chief function of trustees is to put the right man in charge of the schools. The quality of manhood in a principal is a silent molding power that stamps its impress on the character and destiny of every pupil. It operates not simply in the school room and on the play ground, but follows children into their homes, is with them during vacations, and registers itself in their conduct as future citizens of the Commonwealth.

Most of the separate school districts have provided school libraries.

DISTRICT LIBRARIES.

A library composed of popular and standard literature is a necessary adjunct to every public school.

The highest function of the public school is to create and cultivate the reading habit. Herein lies its chief power to promote culture among the masses.

Our country homes have but few books, and these generally of a kind unattractive to children. Many young people are reaching the age of maturity without ever having read a book.

Our schools must set to work to collect small libraries of readable books and place them in the hands of the children. A little cooperative effort by the neighborhood will supply the means to purchase twenty or thirty volumes. Even this small number, if well selected and wisely used by the teacher, will suffice to lead the pupils into communion with the great apostles of the world's thought, to create within them a new source of happiness, to uplift them ultimately to a state of intellectual freedom.

PROPRIETARY HIGH SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES.

In addition to our separate school districts we have 233 high schools, academies, and colleges. The enrollment in these institutions for 1892-93 was 22,859, and all of them give more or less secondary instruction.

These schools include all denominational institutions, and, except eight or ten, are conducted upon the coeducation plan. Most of them are effective factors in the education of the youth of the State.

Nearly all of them during the public school term conduct their departments below the high school as public schools.

A high degree of credit must be conceded to a majority of these institutions; but some of them are unworthy of the patronage they secure through artful and delusive pretenses.

When a school claims that in one year it can teach a course of mathematics from algebra to calculus, or can give a classical education in two years, the wise parent will conclude that it is a numbug and look for another school in which to educate his child.

We need to get rid of all such educational shams.

A DEPARTMENT OF PEDAGOGY FOR THE STATE UNIVERSITY.

The establishment of a department of pedagogy in the university is a step of progress which reflects credit upon the wisdom of the trustees of this great institution of learning.

The department of pedagogy will articulate the university with the public school system of the State and by degrees put university men at the head of most of our town and city public schools, which will unify and harmonize our educational work. Young men and women of the State who wish to become teachers will turn to the university for professional instruction, and the people will naturally apply there when they wish scholarly and well-trained teachers.

With no normal school in the State, this department should be crowded from year to year by those who aim to make themselves better teachers. The day is not far distant when an applicant without professional training need not apply for a position in any important public school in Mississippi. The sooner trustees exact professional training as a condition precedent to election, the speedier will be the progress of their schools.

Already there is happily a growing tendency in this direction. Many scholarly young men have been rejected within the past few years simply because they had no professional training. Scholarship is of prime importance. No acquaintance with methods and devices can take its place; but it is equally essential that the scholar be trained to teach, if he expects to meet the demands of any position of prominence in our schools.

The people are fast learning that the very worst investment they can mako is to employ a poor teacher for their children, and the day is at hand when teacher、 must invest liberally in the acquisition of professional training before they enter the profession, and must annually spend a part of their salaries in self-improvement.

TEACHERS' PROFESSIONAL LIBRARIES.

Under the law allowing 20 per cent of the surplus institute fund to be invested in works on teaching, to be kept by the county superintendent for the use of teachers, more than half the counties have purchased libraries containing from 20 to 300 volumes each. At the county institutes the past summer contributions were made by the teachers for enlarging these libraries and for the purchase of libraries in counties were none had been procured, so that by the end of the present scholastic year nearly every county will be provided with the best works on teaching. These libraries will be increased from year to year, and in a short while the public school teachers of Mississippi will have free access to the very best educational thought of the world. Our teachers can now pursue a course of professional reading with no outlay for books; reading circles and associations can be formed to master prescribed courses; educational theories can be studied in the light of daily experience. The establishment and use of these libraries will ultimately exert a potent influence in uplifting the teachers and bringing them to a true appreciation of the dignity of their profession.

MISSOURI.

[From report of State Supt. L. E. Wolfe for 1892-93.]

A REFORM URGED IN THE ELEMENTARY COURSE OF STUDY.

It was once thought sufficient to educate the few. The education of the many is an idea of comparatively recent origin. Our universities and colleges are aristocratic in their origin, their design, their scope, their courses of study, and methods. I use the term aristocratic not in an odious sense. By its use I mean that these institutions reach the few in distinction from the many. From the very nature of things, they can reach but a small per cent of the people. They were originally designed to prepare for the learned professions, especially for the ministry and law. The time came when States, in the interest both of humanity and public welfare, decided to make the education of all a public charge.

There has not been sufficient time to make the public school courses of study and methods as democratic as the systems are in their scope and design. The design of our free school systems is to reach the masses; yet we cling to the courses of study and methods modeled after those in universities and colleges, that, from the very nature of things, can reach only the few. We must remember that the day of universal education at public expense has but fairly dawned; the sun hangs low in the eastern horizon. There has not been sufficient time to create a harmonious whole. These higher institutions of learning being designed to prepare for the learned professions, their courses of study were shaped with reference to graduation. If the student fell by the wayside before graduation, it was his own fault. When free school systems were established, their courses of study were modeled largely after those of the college. These courses of study, while professedly for the many, are really for the few. Although a largo per cent of the pupils drop out of school before reaching the fourth grade, but little work is done in the majority of schools below the fourth grade in oral geography, and in the applications of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Although three-fourths of the pupils leave school before reaching the eighth year of school life, not one school in twenty gives instruction below grade 8 in the elements of the natural sciences, in elementary history, civil government, political economy, and literature.

Our courses of study seem to have been framed without a recognition of the fact that these pupils, without training in the natural sciences, without any knowledge of their country's history, with no intimation of the world's history, with no instruction with regard to the social units so near and vital-the school district, the township, the county-that these pupils are to become heads of families, and are to wield the ballots that are to shape the destiny of our country. We apply the spurs to the geographical hobby through grades 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8, apparently oblivious, not only of the great events of the world's history, but of the thrilling events in the history of our country. Is it because pupils below grade 8 would not take an interest in these events? Oh, no; it is simply that we are slaves to custom; that wo have been unable to overcome the inertia of the past; that we have not had sufficient time to make our free school systems democratic in their courses of study and methods. Pupils of the second and third grades, if given an opportunity, would read with great relish fairy tales and folk stories. In grades 3, 4, and 5 they would read with equal relish Kingsley's Greek Heroes, Ten Boys on the Road from Long Ago Till Now, Abbott's Cyrus and John Esten Cooke's Stories of the Old Dominion In grades 5, 6, and 7 they would read with interest and profit elementary books of civil government and political economy.

Again, why, when we take up United States history, should we be expected to memorize the thousand unimportant details of battles? Why not give some of this time to interesting historical or biographical sketches in the world's history? Again, we are expected to grind the selections of the readers over and over, again and again. squandering valuable time that could be given to the reading of a number of choice literary wholes. It is not enough to study the examples in arithmetic growing out of actual life. We must ransack algebra in order to deviso improbable, impractical, and artificial hare-and-hound problems. It is not enough to study practical arithmetic; we must push the study into abstruse and impractical higher arithmetic, thus wasting time that should be given not only to a better understanding of practical arithmetic, but to obtaining au elementary knowledge of points, lines, surfaces, and solids. Writing and drawing must also be ground very fine, and strung out very long-made as abstruse as possible.

This reform course of study herein offered does the best thing possible for every pupil, regardless of his station in life, and regardless of the number of years he is permitted to remain in school. If from caprice or misfortune he leaves school at the end of the third year, he has the best the school can give him. The same is true if he leaves the school at grade 5 or 8. At whatever point he leaves school, he would

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