PUBLIC INSTRUCTION

STATE TEACHERS'
AND OF THE

ASSOCIATION.

FI were what I am not and what I never shall be, a writer of essays, personal or impersonal, there is one subject in which I am persuaded I could interest literary readers, and that is the impressions that men of genius have made on the minds of those who saw them for the first time. I should select authors in preference to other men of genius, and among them I would begin with poets, who have always had a strange fascination for me. I would take them when they were becoming conscious of their powers, but were not too conscious of them; when they were young enough, simple enough, and natural enough to wonder at and enjoy their gifts, ingenuously, sincerely, and modestly. I have known, more or less, most American poets who were worth knowing, beginning in my early days with youngsters of my own age, Taylor, Boker, Read, Stedman, and continuing as the years went on, with Bryant, Lowell and Longfellow; and among my scanty pleasures of memory the most precious in my eyes are those connected with the hours when the orbit of my life intersected theirs in a happy conjunction. I recall as if it were yesterday the day when I first met Taylor, and the night when, in Taylor's room, I first met Boker, and other nights and days when I first met Read and Stedman; but I am not so sure of the seasons when I first met the masters whom I approached with more reverence and an apprehension that was more than trepidation. I never made a poetical pilgrimage in my life, and, judging from what I have heard from

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those who have made real pilgrimages, I never desired to. My meetings with my betters were always unpremeditated and unexpected ones-I may say occasionally unwilling ones, for, knowing my deficiencies, I was fearful of intruding. That I need not have been, I learned after a time, for the older and greater the poet the more kind and considerate I found him.-R. H. Stoddard.

WEALTH," says a gifted writer, "is the equivalent of what we eat and drink, of the homes we live in, of the comforts with which we surround ourselves, of the independence which makes us free to go here and there, to do this and that-to spend the winter where orange blossoms perfume the soft air, and the summer where ocean breezes quicken the the pulse of life. It unlocks for us the treasury of the world, opens to our gaze whatever is sublime or beautiful; introduces us to the master-minds who live in their works; it leads us where orators declaim, and singers thrill the soul with ecstasy. Nay, more, with it we build churches, endow schools, and provide asylums and hospitals for the weak and the helpless. It is, indeed, like unto a god of this nether world, holding dominion over many spheres of life and receiving the heart-worship of millions. Yet if we make money and its equivalents a life purpose-the aim and end of our earthly hopes-our service becomes idolatry, and a blight falls upon the nobler self. Money is the equivalent of what is venal -of all that may be bought or sold; but

human cannot be bought or sold. A rich man can buy books, but not an appreciative mind; he can buy a pew, but not a pure conscience; he can buy men's votes and flattery, but not their respect. The money world is visible, material, mechanical, external; the world of the soul, of the better self, is invisible, spiritual, vital. God's kingdom is within. What we have is not what we are; and the all-important thing is to be, not to have. Our possessions belong to us only in a mechanical way. The poet's soul owns the stars and the moonlight heavens, the mountains and rivers, the flowers and the birds, more truly than a millionaire owns his bonds. What I know is mine, and what I love is mine; and as my knowledge widens and my love deepens more and more, my life is enlarged and intensified."

A "CURFEW LAW" is being urged in many localities, and deserves serious attention. The law is the outgrowth of an old English law. William the Conqueror established the "Couvir Feu" (cover the fire) to prevent conspiracies against his throne. When the "Curfew Bell" was sounded, all people were compelled to be off the streets and "cover their fires." The "Curfew Law" now means that children under a given age must be off the streets by a certain hour in the evening. Of course this law is for cities only, and its purpose is to protect children from the bad influences of the streets after night. Everybody familiar with the facts knows, that thousands of boys and girls get their start in a bad life by being allowed to run the streets at night. Mrs. John D. Townsend, in a recent article in the North American Review, discusses the necessity of a curfew for children in cities. She quotes from the report of the State Board of charities for New Jersey to the effect, that in eleven cities 13,000 policemen arrested 450,000 men, women and children at an expense of $20,000,000, while among an equal number of farmers there were not 5,000 arrests. Of the 13,000 boys and girls in reform schools in 1890, 98 per cent. went from cities, towns and villages. This means that a little more than one-third of the population of the country furnished 98 of every 100 children sent to reform schools. In view of such facts as these, the sincere men and women who are urging curfew ordinances for cities deserve to be met with something better than ridi

lack of parental watchfulness and restraint in cities is responsible for much of the crime which fills reformatories and prisons with convicts. This being the case, it seems that a remedy should be devised for the evil. This law should go along with a compulsory education law. but can be enforced independently. City councils can make and enforce such a law without any special legislation, and as a matter of fact four or five Indiana towns already have the curfew, in force. A state law, would greatly strengthen local legislation and help to stiffen the backbone of timid councilmen.-Indiana Journal.

IT is somewhat difficult to state the test of a school, but I am interested, first of all, in the personality of the teacher, for I am convinced that the teacher herself is a more influential factor in the school than the studies taught. The voice of the teacher strikes me as especially worthy of notice. If it is low in tone and used comparatively little, the indications are that both the control of the children and the instruction are excellent. In judging the instruction itself, the first point I would notice is the interest that the children feel for the subject taught. If they are genuinely interested, they will be responsive enough to ask questions freely; to answer questions in their own language, and not in the words of the book, and in so doing they will make abundant use of their hands for gesturing. The latter point I would emphasize. These tests will not fully cover the ground, but I think they cover it largely.-F. M. McMurray.

MORE attention should be given to reading, writing and spelling. It is discreditable to our schools that so many of their graduates can not read, write, or spell well. The boy or girl who is well grounded in the fundamentals of an education, i. e., the common branches, can successfully cope with life's problems. Better to know a few things well and be able to use one's knowledge, than to know a little of a great many things. Knowledge of the higher branches should be had, but the essentials learned thoroughly first. We would not have our pupils know less of the higher branches, but we would have them know more of the things and subjects used every day and all the time. Correct spelling can be taught incidentally as well as directly. So, also, of cor

rect expression in reading. These matters. should be looked after carefully in geography, history, language, physiology, and other branches of the school course.

THE powers of youth in the season of Spring are as safe as those of youth in a human soul are uncertain. The stamp of God on the tree is its endless perfectness. The instinct of that nest-building bird yonder, of the thrifty ant down there at your foot, or that busy bee that hums a line of inerrant flight past your ear, is the same stamp on a movable die. It seems that the heraldry of all nature never bears a dishonored flag, a broken or defaced escutcheon. Each living thing here around you is a law unto itself to do always and to conclusion the right, the becoming thing. They sport, they rejoice, they breathe a rotund fullness, a singing life as full as it is strong, yet withal they grow, and they grow right on toward the ideal perfectness. The rosy whiteness of those blooming trees in the orchards down below is a chorus of laughter, a dance of delight; but there is no frenzy in that mirth, no dissipation of force, nothing to wither the fall-apple or weaken the body of the tree. And this, because it keeps true to its ideal, in a high sense, true to itself. This is God's way of making the youth of our summer such perpetual joy and comfort to us men. Everything seems to drink of the Fountain of Youth in these glad days. Why not we, oh, fellow man? How is it that we falter and fall, stray away and waste, grow worse and perish? Is not the answer in the query itself? Keep up to your divine ideal, and the prodigal days need never come to you.

THE boy who smokes saps his physical strength. In boat races and games of base-ball, cricket, bicycling and other athletics, the habitual smoker stands little chance against the young man of pure, cleanly, and temperate habits. Some investigations have recently been made which convey a startling warning to smoking boys. From measurement of 187 students in Yale College, it was found that those who let tobacco alone gained over those who used it during the college year 1892, 22 per cent. in weight, 293 per cent. in height, 19 per cent. in girth of chest, and 66 per cent. in lung capacity. Measurements at Amherst College showed even greater difference in favor of those who did not use tobacco. With such evi- |

dence as this before him, no sensible boy is likely to cultivate the tobacco habit, or to cling to it if he has already acquired it.-N. Y. Evangelist.

AMONG SO many Christians there is a singular ignorance of the books of the Scripture as a whole. With a wide knowledge of particular texts, there is a strange lack of familiarity with the bearing of each separate Gospel and Epistle. He whose knowledge is confined to texts, and who has never studied them, first with their context, then as forming fragments of entire books, and lastly in their relation to the whole of Scripture, incurs the risk of turning theology into an erroneous and artificial system. The abuse of sacred phrases has been the cause, in age after age, of incredible misery and mischief. The remedy for these deadly evils would have been found in the due study and comprehension of Scripture as a whole.-Canon Farrar.

THE region of the Landes, which, fifty years ago was one of the poorest and most miserable in France, has now been made one of the most prosperous, owing to the planting of pines. The increased value is estimated at no less than 1,000,000,000 francs. Where there were fifty years ago only a few thousand poor and unhealthy shepherds whose flocks pastured on the scanty herbage, there are now saw mills, charcoal kilns and turpentine works, interspersed with thriving villages and fertile agricultural lands.

A PRECOCIOUS boy and a youngish old man alike repel us with an incongruity. Life might all be simple and beautiful if we could only regard it as one long journey, where every day's march had its own separate sort of beauty to travel through.-Phillips Brooks.

To maintain a cheery, happy atmosphere in the school-room,. to judiciously care for the minds, bodies and souls of the restless, impressible little folks committed to our care, is the grand work of the primary teacher. That there is much poor primary teaching is unquestionable. That some is due to crowded rooms and over-worked teachers is equally true. That the quality of the work done is often superior to the demands of the people is a sad commentary upon the interest many parents show in their children's educa

tion. But admitting all this, are we measuring up to our "ideal primary teacher?" Are we magnifying our calling? Are we doing all we can? Do we ever keep in mind that " Education commences at the mother's knee, and that every word spoken within the hearing of a little child, tends to the formation of character?"

SCHOOL libraries will continue to increase in size and grow in numbers as the days go by. And the character and quality of the books will grow better as the needs and wants of the children become better understood by book writers and book buyers. The time is not far off when not a school room in the State but will have at least a small library of well selected books suited to the grade of pupils for whom they are intended.

HELEN, aged four, was spending a night away from home. At bedtime she knelt at her hostess' knee to say her prayers, expecting the usual prompting. Finding her friend unable to help her out, she ended thus: "Please God, 'scuse me. I can't remember my prayers, and I'm staying with a lady that don't know any."

WHEN some new educational hobby appears, the inexperienced and incautious teacher mounts the little horse and dashes away at full gallop, until pony and rider come to the ground. The wise teacher harnesses the little horse to his strong educational team and lets him draw "for all he is worth," retaining him or discarding him as he proves a help or a hindrance.-Fletcher.

THE teacher should know the best literature, and should not make the mistake of allowing his professional studies to absorb all his time and thought. He who restricts himself to pedagogy can hope to become at best but a pedagogue, some writer has said. While it can not be denied that there is a cultural side to pedagogical studies, especially in the line of the history and the philosophy of education, the teacher can not be the embodiment of culture in its highest form, unless he gives no small degree of his energy to the study of literature. Literature is specifically and distinctively life, and it is for this reason that we would have every teacher intimately acquainted with the best literature of all ages. The teacher who knows sympathetically the best of

the world's literature lives in a higher and richer world than the teacher who contents himself with mere information. He is consequently a greater power among his pupils both in and out of the schoolroom.-Journal of Pedagogy.

In illustrating a lack of common sense that is not at all uncommon, President Seerley points out five directions in which false views of life are shown. 1. The importance given to professional success over manhood and womanhood. "All are more useful to the world if they will set the standard of manhood above the standard of their vocations." 2. Among teachers, too great value placed upon recommendations and credentials. 3. Neglect of opportunities for literary and artistic culture. 4. Waste of energy by unnecessary effort, such as persistent standing in school, that is, not sitting down, and general nervous strain. He says: "I have met five women in the last month who spoke exultingly of having broken down nervously, as if it were a tribute to their womanhood instead of a crime against nature and God." 5. Constant change of methods without sufficient test of those that are already in use in their schools.

CONCERNING the transmission of mail through pneumatic tubes, the report of the Second Assistant Postmaster-General, just published, says: "Last year there was only one pneumatic postal tube in operation in the country, that in Philadelphia. Since then four more contracts have been executed, in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and between New York and Brooklyn. It is quite possible to carry second, third and fourth-class matter as well as first. Extension to stations, several miles distant from the main office, will save clerical force as well as expedite delivery in distant cities from twelve to twenty-four hours. The most important source of revenue to the department will be the large increase of local correspondence and special delivery letters.

A FEW days ago, I was standing by an American gentleman, says a writer in London Truth, when I expressed a wish to know which point was north. He at once pulled out his watch, looked at it, and pointed to the north. I asked him whether he had a compass attached to his watch. "All watches," he replied, “are compasses." Then he explained to me