in fashion, in a wrong public sentiment, in wrong views of life. Too many young people look upon life as valuable simply for enjoyment, and in consequence the men shirk the duty of supporting a family and the women theirs of raising children. All ancient civilizations, the Romans, the Greeks, the Assyrians, fell victims to the same moral disease. Then, too, the changes recommended cannot be carried out. Too much is expected of the teacher of little children. She should not be expected to conduct physical examinations. In Washington, D. C., members of the medical profession conduct such examinations, which is both proper and desirable.

Supt. Luckey, of Pittsburg: I have been trying for some time to learn just what nature study" means, but without

success.

Prof. Lowden in closing the discussion said he had not intended to lay special stress upon nature study, except to show how children may be taught to observe and think, and make the best of their opportunities. They need stimulus to awaken interest in the world around them.

The next and last address of the forenoon session was made by Supt. John Morrow, of Allegheny, on the advisability of establishing

SPECIAL TRUANT SCHOOLS.

How many truant schools have we in Pennsylvania? So far as I have learned, the only truant school in the State is in Allegheny. We have such a school in our city, at present numbering thirty pupils. Their education thus far has been attained largely in the school of nature. They have had a great deal of "nature study," but very little public school study. Our truant school, we think, has been very successful.

Since its organization, the first of November, last, eighty pupils have been admitted. Thirty-eight of these have served out their term of twenty days, according to our rules, and have been returned to their own schools and are attending regularly and behaving themselves-what they never could be induced to do before. Nine others have been returned to the truant school the second time and will have to stay there a longer term, probably sixty days. Of those admitted thus far, three have finally been sent to the Morganza reform school.

Our truant school was not organized and is not managed as contemplated in the compulsory law. After careful consideration of the whole subject, we decided to try as an experiment something milder than a detention school. Our truant school is not much different from any of the other public schools

in the city, except that the discipline is closer and the pupils have just three half days to run at large, until they and their parents, according to the rules, must appear at the alderman's office.

The rules adopted by our board of directors are strictly enforced. These rules, of course, are based on the compulsory law, and their requirements may be said to be a sort of last resort before the parents are prosecuted.

When the principal of a school notifies the Superintendent that he has a pupil who is a fit subject for the truant school, for any of the causes specified in the law, the superintendent, according to the rules, immediately holds a hearing at which the pupil and his parents or guardian are invited to be present. If the parents do not appear at the appointed time for the hearing or offer some reasonable excuse for their absence, the superintendent goes right on with the investigation as though they were present, and passes sentence or gives the culprit a further trial in his own school. If he is as

signed to the truant school, however, and does not attend there, at the expiration of three half days absence his parents are prosecuted according to law and fined. We have had fifteen prosecutions and have won every suit.

To the question, If the parents are not disposed to pay the fine and costs what do you do? We make them either pay or go to jail. One man persistently refused to pay either fine or costs. Our alderman in the case is a level headed, common-sense man. He took counsel from one of the most reliable lawyers at the Pittsburg bar as to what he should do. The attorney instructed him to give the defendant thirty days to pay the fine and costs, and if at the expiration of that time he still continued obstinate, to levy on his household goods or anything he could get. The alderman obeyed the instructions of his attorney implicitly, and when the thirty days were up the defendant was still, if possible, more stubborn than the proverbial mule ever was at its best. His wife claimed everything in the house and on the premises, so there was nothing left for us but to put the man in jail, which we did; he was so pig headed that he would not permit his neighbors to pay the alder man's charges to keep him out of prison.

The defendant seemed to be under bad advice from start to finish. There are those in every community who know a great deal of what is termed "fireside law," and are willing to give it to their friends, too, without charge. The one who receives such law, however, and acts upon it, is pretty sure to come to grief.

They told us we could not enforce the law, that we could not put defendant in jail, and even after we had him in jail for two days they kept telling us we could not put him in. The case, though, began to take on such unpleasant phases of reality that

after three or four days' experience behind the bars defendant weakened, paid all legal charges up to date, and left the county jail a wiser, if not a better man.

We have experienced many difficulties in the enforcement of the law. The parents are generally more to blame than their children, and it is a source of regret that this is especially true of the mothers. Some of them seem to be willing to resort to almost anything to screen the children and defeat the law. They sometimes put in the claim of sickness for their children, when at the same time our truant officers see the children on the street. One mother dressed her boy in old clothes that would hardly stick on him and then plead poverty, that she could not send the boy to school for want of clothes. It is really beyond belief, the devices to which some parents will resort in order to keep their children out of school, simply to satisfy the foolish whims of the children. The success of our truant school is due to the certain and speedy justice meted out to incorrigibles and truants. If the execution of the law had been slow and uncertain the school would have been a failure. It has taken a great deal of the superintendent's time, however, to enforce this law; so much time indeed has been devoted to this work that we are convinced that a detention school, such as the law directs, would unquestionably be best for all the large cities of the state. The wayward and uncontrolled children could then be taken away from the influ

ence

of their dissolute and disorderly homes and taught obedience, decency and order. The large towns of Pennsylvania do not, in our judgment, need detention schools, for the reason that they have fewer truants and incorrigibles than the large cities, and not nearly so many other demands on the superintendent's time. With the assistance of two or three good truant officers in a town of thirty to fifty thousand, but little of the superintendent's time would be needed to hold truants and incorrigibles in check. Notwithstanding all the time it has taken from the superintendent and five truant officers, we believe the compulsory law has done more to improve our schools than all other agencies for many years combined.

Our principals and teachers all report that it has increased their average attendance at least ten per cent., that it has very greatly reduced the necessity for discipline and at the same time improved the order in their schools, and that the turbulent and belligerent elements are held in check as they never were before. Of course this would all depend on the vigor with which the law is executed.

The address was accompanied by a running fire of question and answer between the speaker and the Convention. At the request of our reporter, Supt.

Morrow kindly put the whole into form of a paper as above given.

At the close of this exercise the Association adjourned to 2 p. m.

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON.

THE

HE first paper read was by Supt. J. M. Berkey, of Johnstown, as follows -subject,

THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL COURSE OF
STUDY.

The grammar school course of study is neither the beginning nor the end of any projected curriculum of school work. It presumes upon a preparatory or primary course of instruction, and is itself a preparation for high school or academic training. Theoretically its limitations are fixed and definite, but practically they are vague and uncertain. A comparison of school manuals reveals most radical differences, both as to the beginning and the scope of grammar school work. In some courses of study, as outlined by school authorities, the grammar grades begin with the fourth school year; in others as late as the seventh year. In some only the minor or lighter common school branches are completed below the high school; while in others the common branches, such as are by law required to be taught in all public schools, are not only fairly mastered, but rounded out and supplemented by the elements of science, literature, algebra, geometry, civics, commercial forms, vocal music, and drawing. A socalled four years' high school course, therefore, may mean little or much. It may mean a four years' course of study and training along carefully selected lines in higher studies; or it may mean one or two years of plain grammar and arithmetic, with related elementary work, with two or three years more of a smattering of all the branches and subjects ordinarily found in a college curriculum.

A Detailed Course of Study not Desirable. -As a matter of course, local conditions and requirements necessarily affect the course of study for the schools of any community. The schools are for the children, and the adopted system must bend and adapt itself to their needs, rather than mould them to its set requirements. The child is of more importance than any system of work or graduation, however elaborate or theoretically complete; and when the best interests of the child require it, the system must bend or break to satisfy individual needs. I believe most emphatically in local control in every department of school work and management, and I would give to every county, city, town, districtnay, to every school, its own detailed course of study, and to every teacher the privileges

and responsibilities of application, requiring only such recognition of lines and limitations of study as are necessary to link in helpful harmony the work of successive grades and teachers. The teacher himself is, and of right ought to be, the detailed, complete, and comprehensive course of study for his own pupils. The strong teacher is only hampered, nor is the weak teacher helped, by the monthly, weekly, and even daily intellectual rations so systematically doled out for some over-graded and much-supervised schools.

I am not after details, therefore, in the discussion of the grammar school course. Let us consider rather the fundamental principles of pedagogy which should shape, and to a degree harmonize, all courses of study for elementary schools.

The Sub-Grammar or Primary Course.I seek no quarrel upon the matter of names or terms used in designating grades or grade-work. "A rose by any other name would have the same qualities still. Whether we call the sub-grammar grades primary alone, or primary and intermediate, matters little, but it does seem to me that all grammar grade work, properly so-called, has a natural and well-defined basis of preliminary training, From an objective standpoint, a pupil recommended for the grammar school ought to have learned how to read with ease and expression, to write a good hand and common English fairly well, to interpret simple language readily and to express it easily, to be accurate and quick in the fundamental operations of arithmetic, including their application in simple fractions, decimals, and denominate numbers, and to have learned the fundamental laws of nature and facts of geography. Subjectively, the pupil should know how to study a text-book and how to think and say for himself. Whatever else he may have acquired below the grammar grade is largely supplemental to these essential requirements. It is not the province of this paper to discuss the purpose, place and relative value of music, drawing, nature study, physiology, history stories, elementary literature, morals and civics, in the primary and intermediate grades, but I do assert that none or all of them as distinctive and separate subjects of study can compensate for any lack of preparation and thoroughness along the fundamental lines indicated. A pupil who cannot read, spell, write, talk and cipher reasonably well is not prepared for grammar school work; but all these little side-dishes, such as elementary science, literature, music and morals, while not coordinate with reading, language and numbers, may be very helpful, and even essential, both in providing the full meal and furnishing the appetite to relish it.

Reading, spelling and writing as distinctive class drills, with the elementary text-books in language, arithmetic and geography, should be completed below the

grammar grade. While the pupils necessarily continue to read, spell and write through the higher grades, the exercises required are used only as a means in the development of advanced thought and knowledge, rather than as separate branches.

Scope and Limitations of Grammar Grade Work.-In fixing the limits and requirements of a grammar school course of study, I should find the landmarks and guiding lines in the common school law of the commonwealth. The grammar school course ought to encompass a common school education, either as a preparation for the high school or as a completed elementary course of training, essential to all good citizens of the state. Now the law says these branches shall be taught-reading, spelling, writing, arithmetic, grammar, history, geography and physiology; and these fairly well mastered constitute the grammar or common school course. Whatever additional branches or supplemental material may be essentially helpful in the development of the required work, should have a place in the course; not, however, to displace or make top-heavy any of the fundamental branches, but only to make them more practical or of greater disciplinary value.

What Shall be Taught.-Neither the law nor the adopted text-books indicate what shall or what shall not be taught. Modern text-books, it is true, are generally safe and helpful guides; but because an arithmetic devotes a hundred or more pages to such subjects as annual interest, partial payments, foreign exchange, arbitration of exchange, compound proportion, equation of payments, medial proportion, annuities, life insurance, building and loan associations, etc., etc., it does not follow that these things must all be taught in the grammar school in order that the pupils may get a practical knowledge of arithmetic. Have not the common experiences of the best teachers and superintendents been crystallized into the conclusion that half the time usually devoted to mental and written arithmetic in the grammar grades might be more profitably devoted to concrete geometry and elementary algebra, and thus give to the pupils not only a more comprehensive, but also a clearer and firmer grasp upon the principles of number and measurable quantity? In the same way, the study of biography and masterpieces in literature will make better readers, because there will be a deeper interest in the continuity of thought and the association of individual life with classic language, and the pupils will learn to read well because they cultivate the power to think and feel.

Nature study is only the connecting link of interest and emotional force between the geography of the schoolroom and the geography of the world, between school life and world life. Properly developed, it will infuse life and interest and practical worth into every page and map of the text-book;

and maybe, happily diffuse into thin smoke many of the map questions and worthless descriptions of governments or topography. But it is simply a part of geography.

In United States history, the Federal Constitution is but the summing up of national history and development, and is, therefore, a natural supplement to early history, as well as a prelude to later developments; while local history and civics is only national life in its local interest and application. We cannot teach history, therefore, without teaching government, for government is only crystallized history.

Drawing and music have a rightful place in the grammar school course, but they are not properly studies. Skill of hand is a ready means of expression, an aid to mental discipline, and of real value in life; music, as an exercise is a restful recreation, and as a moral force is of recognized worth.

Physiology, with its related hygienic requirements, should be a part of the grammar course, not as a difficult science, but as a helpful guide to physical health and vigor, to which physical culture is a fitting complement. Correspondence and business forms are only the application of commercial arithmetic and language proprieties to business and social life.

Speaking definitely, then, it is my judgment that the complete course of study for a grammar school should contemplate the completion of the so-called common school branches, rounding them out with the outlines of literature, business forms and requirements, elementary algebra, concrete or applied geometry, the study of nature and familiar science, elements of civil government, State history and civics, vocal music, and industrial art. Eighteen branches? No, only eight-in fact, only six distinct subjects of study, apart from music and drawing.

A Crowded Curriculum Avoided.-Around these few centers of grammar school development I would gather all the necessary material of a course of study. Drawing and music, with general exercises, may be put into one group and given one daily period on the school program. History and physiology are minor branches, and together may Occupy one period, alternating with each other in half-term work. Reading, language, arithmetic, and geography are the major studies, and should each have a full period daily throughout the course. Each class will thus have six recitations and five regular studies. Of these five, reading and literature is not a subject requiring much study, except so far as it may be related to language or history; thus leaving only four assigned lessons for careful daily prepara

tion.

As for details of the course of instruction, only general suggestions need be given. Text-books should be definitely indicated. The order and correlation of subjects should be noted, and the general limits of work for each year should be stated. The only other

essential requisite is a thoughtful, earnest, sympathetic, schooled teacher.

Where a pupil has had the proper preliminary training, the work outlined for the grammar school should be completed in three school years, and the high school should be reached at the age of fourteen or fifteen years, where as early as possible a special line of work should be selected for or by the student.

A Nine-Year Elementary Course Preferable. An objection frequently made to a well-filled and properly-rounded elementary course of study is that pupils cannot complete the work well in eight years. The objection is a valid one; for there are few, if any, properly constituted high schools in the State to-day which admit pupils even below the average age of fifteen, while in many cases the average is more nearly sixteen years. Eight-year courses are, therefore, really not such, but are actually nine or ten-year courses. A few of the intellectually bright pupils do the work of the successive grades within the required time, while the many lose a year or two in the promotions or are lost along the way. In some cases the system of grading is so inflexible or mechanical that the strong pupils are compelled to wait upon the average and the dull until they lose ambition and interest, and the high school is not reached at all. Is it not better to make the course one of nine steps with necessary sub-divisions, thus bringing it within the range of attainment for the large body of pupils of average ability, while by a flexible system of grading and promotions, the brighter pupils, comparatively few in number, may move forward by special promotion, and thus gain a year, or even two years, upon those of less natural ability? Is it not much better to adapt our system of grading to the 70 or 75 per cent. of the pupils who may pass, not as weak or doubtful in grade, but as having made a satisfactory record, and then allow the 15 or 20 per cent. who are able to move faster, to push ahead, instead of having them "mark time" while waiting for their plodding classmates? The plan is not only practicable, but is rapidly gaining in favor in many cities. I am myself fully persuaded that the nine-year, or rather the nine-step course for the elementary schools, with a flexible system of grading and promotions, will not only secure a larger number of students for the high school, but will allow them to enter at an earlier age than is possible under the standard eight-year schedule with annual promotions only.

Whatever we may say about the high school being the people's college, it is after all the school for the few only; for at best, less than ten per cent. of the pupils admitted to the primary schools ever reach it, and less than five per cent. of the whole number ever graduate. Is not then the grammar school more nearly the people's college? And if we strengthen while we simplify, en

large while we yet limit, expand while yet we combine, in the grammar school course, may we not both give to the people a full equivalent for grammar school equipment and support, and bring to the high school better students in larger numbers, to begin there, as early as possible, departmental work, which I believe is the true function of the city high school?

Dr. Schaeffer: I wish to ask how the statistics used in the paper were obtained -the figures in reference to the percentage of attendance at high school, etc.

Supt. Berkey: They were taken from the published reports of school officers for the cities and towns to which they refer.

Dr. Schaeffer: Well, I am always suspicious of statistics made up in that way from reports. As has recently been shown by Mr. Hill, of Massachusetts, those figures may be made to prove almost any thing. The only correct way to obtain percentages of high school attendance would be to take the whole number of pupils who enter the schools in a given year, and eight years after take the number of those same pupils who enter the high school. If this was done for a series of years, the average percentage might be useful in trying to settle this question. Even then our Pennsylvania schools would not furnish a crucial test, by reason of the varying grade of high and grammar schools in different towns. So we must not rely too much upon statistics compiled under such circumstances. Again, more money is invested in private schools in Pennsylvania than in New York, and those who make secondary education a study look up the towns whose high schools do not prepare young people for college; the private secondary or fitting schools draw largely from that class of places. All this must be taken into account.

Supt. E. E. Miller (Bradford): In our city we have a high percentage of pupils entering high schools and remaining long enough to graduate-as many as 60 in a total enrolment of 1800. They pass from the high school into college, some entering with advance standing.

Supt. J. B. Richey (New Brighton): We do not accomplish so much in the grammar grade in Pennsylvania as is done in some other states. The pupils grind over a number of studies until they are fagged out, and after all know comparatively little of what they ought to know. They are kept at arithmetic, grammar, geography for years, until they are tired of

it. There is something wrong about this. In the Cleveland schools, which I visited, I saw only the small geography, and yet the pupils knew more of the subject than ours do who use the more advanced book. It depends upon how we teach the branches. Pupils may take less geography and history and arithmetic, but by doing thorough work on what they do take, be stronger for after work, and lead their classes in high school and college, and distance others in the race of life. The grammar course can and should be divested of much of its drudgery.

Supt. Berkey: In New England and other states recently revised courses of study give 9 years to the end of grammar course. They seem to have found this extension necessary to get the best results, especially in the development of judgment and breadth of culture.

Supt. Buehrle (Lancaster): I agree with Dr. Schaeffer as to the unreliability of the statistics we have regarding percentage of pupils reaching high school. There are waves of population. This year our primary schools admitted very few pupils-fewer than the previous year; yet our population has held its own, and our high schools have greatly increased. Eight years hence this ebb will be evident in the high school. Then again, large cities will show a relatively smaller number in the high schools. So, too, I would expect fewer boys to graduate if the high school is co educational than if not. Besides all this, high schools differ greatly in their courses of study and the time required to graduate. All this proves that the first thing necessary is to secure statistics with greater circumspection, before any reliance can be placed upon them or any conclusions drawn from them.

Supt. Morrow (Allegheny): I have heard this subject discussed time and again, and seemingly with little profit or advantage; for no intelligent conclusion has thus far been reached. As a usual thing, about 60 per cent. of the city's school enrolment of required ages enters the primary schools, about 30 per cent. of same enrolment enters the grammar grade, and about 10 per cent. of same enrolment enters the high school. is about the average experience, and that is as far as we have gone in ascertaining the facts on this question.

That

The next paper was omitted, in the absence of Supt. Howell of Scranton.