that comes with success may mark an epoch to many of them. In history the topics are often thrown aside by unthinking teachers as "too hard," and it may be confessed that they were not abstracted from the stock questions of the text-books. At least one teacher, however, has brought into her classes a topic indicated for American history, namely, "The Compromises of the Constitution in Relation to the TransMississippi Country," and she has found it not only an excellent peg to hang some vital historical facts upon, but a means of grace to induce more thorough investigation. "Study for *** * X X X X X X X X

Study's Sake" is an excellent motto, but it will not move all. An immediate and personal reward for the product of one's brains is not the highest motive for using them, but it is not to be despised. A further argument to Nebraska teachers in behalf of these competitions is in the fact that, generous as the state has been in the purchase of space for her school exhibits, the amount allotted to each is limited, and the possible extension of it is through the students' exhibits, as those winning prizes are placed free of charge.

The Qualifications of Teachers HERE are interesting phases of the question, "What should the preparation of teachers include?" There is a minimum both of attainment and skill below which one may not fall and be entitled to draw public money. There is a higher attainment accompanied by a corresponding efficiency that must be met before one can be recognized as a teacher of promise. But there is yet further attainment of both knowledge and effectiveness behind him who would have professional recognition or be a great teacher. If one were asked, therefore, what are the qualifications which may be demanded of teachers, the answer must depend upon his point of view. For the present purpose it is enough to say that merely to meet the requirements of the law is neither professional nor honest. He who does not set his ideal well beyond the minimum limits fixed by the most liberal statutes in the most progressive districts, is only playing at teaching.

What may fairly be demanded, then, of teachers in the way of preparation for their work? (1.) That they be students, with the student habit fixed, possessed of the student spirit, and with an expanding horizon. They do not so much need knowledge as the craving for knowl edge and the sense of enriching life that comes of a generous and positive influx of learning. He only is a teacher who is a student.

(2.) For whatever grade of instruction they must have such academic training as includes. the rudiments at least of algebra and geometry as a preparation for teaching arithmetic; the beginnings of a true literary insight as fitting to

teach reading; a sound scientific habit as a basis for nature study and geography; a controlled and well directed historical sense as equal to the task of using the story and myth and human achievement in both the early and later training of children; and some knowledge and appreciation of the beautiful in nature and art as contributing to the child's richer personal life.

(3.) An accurate though elementary acquaintance with the child as a creature of growth and initiative,-not so much psychology, as pedagogy and the pedagogic conditions of improvement.

(4.) A sharply defined, intelligent, and interested, though perhaps partial, view of the lines and forces of educational history in the race, and the conditions of improvement in contemporary social life.

(5.) Of course everyone who teaches should know intimately and sympathetically the system of which his school is a part.

(6.) And equally, of course, he should be in habit and life the best example to the young he knows how to be. R. G. BOONE, Michigan State Normal School.

Reasonable Qualifications for High School Teachers

A QUOTATION from my address before the

State Teachers' Association last December will give my general position upon this subject.

"In the words of President Schurman, of Cornell, 'The education question to-day is the question of the qualification of school teachers,

and it is to be solved by fixing a worthy standard, both of liberal scholarship and of professional training, for every grade of teacher. The only safe rule is that the teacher in a primary school should have had a secondary education, and the teacher of a high school, academy, or normal school must be a college graduate. The practical observance of this rule would do more than any other single reform, not only to dignify the teaching profession, but to elevate and improve the schools. In a word, the schools of the people, the common schools, with their ninety-six per cent. of pupils, cannot be efficient unless the high schools, academies, and normal schools which furnish them with teachers are taught by men and women who have had a collegiate education and a thorough pedagogic training.' Nebraska has not only subscribed to this doctrine, but has been putting it into practice by the organization of her many high schools, her academies, her normal schools public and private-and her colleges. The state feels out after something more, the development of pedagogy in the colleges, of training schools, and of more subject-matter in the normals, and above all something to co-ordinate-a crowning institution of professional training."

There are certainly exceptions to what President Schurman calls "the only safe rule." And, again, it must be confessed that the rule is insufficient. The exceptions are particularly numerous in our younger states. There are many excellent high school teachers who have earned their places by hard private study and long experience. We ought to recognize the success of these teachers and that there will always be such exceptions to the rule. At the same time, the rising generation should know that in their day there will be fewer teachers of this kind and that they will have less opportunity in the competition for places than those who have taken the collegiate education. The principle enunciated by President Schurman is insufficient in that it does not in clear terms acknowledge that personality and experience will ever be prime factors for a

teacher. The training of all the universities of the world could not atone for the lack of these elements. In maintaining the standard of a collegiate education, with the concessions that have been made, there are certain reasonable qualifications in details in addition to those already mentioned. The professional training heretofore in colleges largely obtained by observation of professors should be supplemented not only by the theoretical work of a Department of Pedagogy, but also by actual observation and practice in the grades and in the high school. A few months' experience in the rural schools is never to be despised. Arrangements ought to be made in the graded schools and high schools for cadet teachers. College students should avail themselves of these opportunities. A much-needed reform is a revision of the high school organization by which nothing should be accounted a high school that does not rest upon eight thorough grades and cover at least three years of good work in the high school itself. The high schools of more than three teachers should be set off into departments. Indeed the smallest genuine high school should set up the departments in name, and as far as possible in fact. By this means we could have the benefit of modern specialization. The teacher would have had at least a collegiate education in the subjects he is to teach. He would not be obliged to work up subjects, himself being only just ahead of the class in his study. One needs to know so much more in a subject than the topics he is immediately handling. And yet many a graduate of the modern progressive college course finds himself in the old-fashioned high school obliged to do this very thing. Of course he can do it better than any one else, but the subdivision of the small school into three comprehensive departments would remedy the matter, as, for example, a Department of Mathematics and Physical Sciences, a Department of Biological Sciences, and one of Literature.

ONG Birds and Water Fowl is scarcely an attractive title except to readers ornithologically inclined. But it is possible to make a book purporting, like this, to be science, more interesting to the unscientific than the scientific mind. The immortal

GEO. E. MACLEAN, The University of Nebraska.

Natural History of Selborne illustrates that. It is not too much to say that Mr. H. E. Parkhurst, in this volume, has achieved a work of the same kind What we need in present days is not less science, which, roughly speaking. is Law reduced to Fact, but more

interpretations of Law and Nature into humanism. To carry on scientific study of this sort requires not only reason and intelligence, but a soul. To qualities of soul Mr. Parkhurst adds the charm of a lively and 'finished style. In discussing the habitat of the last of his song birds, the wren, he puts in two characteristic paragraphs, which I quote:

"In a grassy apple-orchard near by, a half-hour's entertainment was afforded by a tiny songster. Mistress Wren-that little brown creature which is one of the neatest specimens of concentrated happiness in feathers that exists-an endless cadenza. As I saw her enter a hole in an apple tree with a bit of downy substance in her bill, and soon after emerge, minus the same, it was the strongest circumstantial evidence that she was putting the finishing touches on her summer home, in the snuggest and most picturesque of castles. But her work seemed really to be only play, for she could not lay a single stick of timber in the house without stopping and having a long song about it, and was in a perpetual bubble of delight. A gentleman, passing by at the time, had an evil word for the universally detested English sparrow, as making life a burden to these merriest of warblers in that neighborhood; which is a very great pity, for an ounce of wren is worth a ton of sparrow.

"Probably it is rather late in the day to seek a fresh extenuation of an offense said to have been committed in the oldest orchard known to history. But I feel that our great fallen progenitor-albeit he doubtless rose by falling-had considerable excuse, if it was an app'e tree around which he lingered, being so pre-eminently 'pleasant to the sight and good for food.' If it had been a forbidden plum or pear, we might have all escaped. Had his taste been otherwise, and he had limited his walks to the maple avenues of Paradise, who can measure its effects upon the world's tragedy? But time works the revenges. After the lapse of ages the tempting apple in its turn also fell, and from its fall Sir Isaac Newton plucked the formula of the universal law of gravitation."

The book is daintily bound and printed, and assisted in its purpose with eighteen excellent illustrations. (Charles Scribner's Sons; $1.50.)

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There has come to this department a new Globe Chaucer, a very neat and welcome piece of work. We have here in the compass of 772 octavo pages all the poems that Chaucer is believed to have written, and some of the doubtful ones,-the Rmaunt included, with an introduction and glossary. The type, though small, is clear, and the uncertain e's are marked. It is a worthy addition to the famous Globe texts, gathering the fruits of the latest scholarship into portable and practicable shape. The editorial work has been divided between Alfred W. Pollard, H. Frank Heath, Mark H. Liddell, and W. S. McCormick. (Macmillan Company; $1.75.)

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Another work of prime interest to the general student of English is the Specimens of the Pre-Shakespearian Drama of Professor Manly, of Brown. The two volumes of text are now issued; a third volume of illustrative and glossarial matter being soon to follow. These books are a credit to the editor's industry

and scholarship, and constitute a unique working edition of early dramatic monuments. Nearly all the specimens can be read and appreciated without special study of Anglo-Saxon or Early English. (Ginn and Co.; The Athenæum Press Series.)

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A new issue in the "Story of the Nations" series is British India, by R. W. Frazer. It is an English reprint, not exactly entertaining or lively, but an accurate manual of the English occupation, and a convenient summary of antecedent Indic history. (G. P. Putnam's Sons; $1.50.)

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A new edition of the most usually studied among Shakespeare's plays, to be edited throughout apparently by English scholars, has now reached the eleventh volume. The Tempest, Cymbeline, Macbeth, As You Like It, Hamlet, Julius Cæsar, Twelfth Night, Richard II., Henry V., Midsummer Night's Dream, and Richard III. have now been issued. The principal feature in these text-books is the large amount of illustrative and æsthetic comment set forth at the openings of acts, and throughout the notes in the appendix portion. Of course the writer of these lines is opposed to telling students anything about the artistic meanings in a play of Shakespeare un il they have tried and failed to find these meanings for themselves. To force upon them the solution of a problem before the problem is even examined would be like putting the revealments of every process and procedure from the "key" into the body of the algebra to be studied by the school-boy. The "key" is generally affirmed to be for "the teacher only." Of course there are many readers who will never study anything out, and these texts will suit them. They will suit also many teachers and I am afraid more students than they should. But one thing is certain: they will not send pupils away from Shakespeare. Very much of school study does that. The volumes are attractive,-except a print somewhat too fine, and unleaded lines, and the price is very reasonable. (D. C. Heath and Co.; 40 cents.)

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Three specimens of an excellent and attractive series of English classics, which will be called Little Masterpieces, have been received. It is purposed to furnish in these 16mo volumes, within about 200 pages compass, the most characteristic short pieces of the authors respectively represented, and to make them artistic enough to serve equally library and schoolroom needs. Professor Bliss Perry, of Princeton, one of the most catholic and progressive of literature teachers in the country, is responsible for the text and writes the introductions. These dainty volumes are, moreover, headed with an artistic frontispiece of their respective authors, and bound in silk cloth with gilt lettering. (Doubleday and McClure Co., New York; 30 cents.)

Atlantic Monthly.-A Decade of Federal Railway Regulation, Henry C. Adams. Some Late Astronomical Discoveries, George Howard Darwin. A Nook in the Alleghanies, Bradford Torrey. On the Teaching of English, Mark H. Liddell. The Greek Tragedians, Thomas D. Goodell. A Florida Farm, F. Whitmore. A Romance of a Famous Library, Herbart Putnam. The Wonders of the Yellowstone, John Muir.

Popular Science Monthly.-An Industrial Object Lesson, S. N. D. North. The Electric Transmission of Water Power, William Baxter, Jr. Criminal Anthropology in Italy, Helen Zimmern. The Question of Wheat, I, Worthington C. Ford. A Spring Visit to Nassau, Emma G. Cummings. Migration, Prof. W. K. Brooks, LL. D. Principles of Taxation, XVII, The Case of Kirtland vs. Hotchkiss, Hon. David A. Wells. Evolution and Teleology, Rev. Dr. J. A. Zahm, C. S. C. Discovery of New Chemical Elements, Clemens Winkler. The Significance of Language, Michel Breal. Sketch of Carl Semper (with Portrait).

St. Nicholas.-The Story of the Wheel, Frank H. Vizetelly. The Buccaneers of Our Coast, Frank R. Stockton. Denise and Ned Toodles, chapters IV, V, and VI, Gabrielle E. Jackson. A Daffodil's Sermon, verse, M. M. C. An Easter Snow-Storm, P. Kitty Koudacheff. Cap Jingle, Harriot Brewer Sterling. Picture, "The Height of Impudence." The Lakerim Athletic Club, chapters V, VI, VII, Rupert Hughes. The Little Japanese at Home, Ida Tigner Hodnett. The Bell Towers of Italy, John Ward. Picture, "A Lively Tandem." Dolly Takes Tea, verse, Albert Bigelow Paine. Two Biddicut Boys, J. T. Trowbridge. Through the Earth (the end), Clement Fezandie.

Scribners. Frontispiece: The Workers.-The Police Station Breakfast. The Story of the Revolution.— The Fight for the Hudson-Trenton and Princeton, Henry Cabot Lodge, Senator from Massachusetts, (To continue through the year). Incarnation, a poem, Harrison S. Morris. The King's Jackal, in four parts -Part I, Richard Harding Davis. The Toiling of Felix, a Legend on a New Saying of the Christ, Henry van Dyke. The Workers-The West, II, in the Army of the Unemployed, Walter A. Wyckoff (continued). The Sweetest Singer, a poem, Sarah Piatt. Arbutus, a poem, Frank Dempster Sherman. Letreis, Brittany, Cecilia Waern. Red Rock-A Chronicle of Reconstruction, chapters XII-XVI, Thomas Nelson Page. The Conventions of the Drama, Brander Matthews. The Point of View. The Field of Art-Thoughts Suggested by the new Porches of Trinity Church, Boston, (illustrated), Henry Rutgers Marshall.

The Chautauquan.-St. Anthony and the Infant Christ, Frontispiece. Frances Willard, Frontispiece. Student Life in Germany (illustrated), Prof. H. Zick, Ph. D. Roman Orators, President Charles J. Little, LL. D. The Changes of the Seasons, Prof. N. S. Shaler, S. D. Sunday Readings, selected by Bishop Vincent. Young Europe, Domenico Oliva. Virgil's Eneid, Prof. William Cranston Lawton. How to Use Objects as Illustrations (illustrated), John Hopkins Denison. A Gentleman of Dixie (story; conclusion), Ellen Claire Campbell. Dreams and Reality, M. Camille Melinand. The Coke Country, H. P. Snyder. New York Editors and Daily Papers, An Insider. How a Ship Is Made, Max Hahn. Great Harbors on Our Seaboard, Cyrus C. Adams. The Holy Season in Russia, Eleanor Hodgens. Frances E. Willard (18391898), President Charles J. Little, LL. D. A Bachelor Girl (story), Anna S, B. Rue. The Richest Woman in

the World, William Eleroy Curtis. The Play (poem), Clinton Scollard. History as It Is Made (illustrated)..

The American Monthly Review of Reviews.-The Progress of the World-The Topic of the Month. The Naval Inquiry. Fifty Millions for Defense. America's Latent Power. War nowadays a Question of Machinery. Ship Canals and Our Future Navy. Keep the Real Issue in Sight! Nor Should Cuba Be Saddled with Spain's Debt! Will Hawaii Be Annexed by Joint Resolution? Europe and the Cuban Affair. Anglo-French War Talk. France and the Chinese Scramble. Affairs in France. German Politics. The Western View. The Revenue Question. The Acquittal of the Lattimer Posse. London's Municipal Victory. Russian Politics. Death of Miss Willard. Record of Current Events. The Hispano-American Crisis in Caricature. Political Germany. Does Cosmopolitan Life Lead to International Friendliness? Baron Pierre de Coubertin. The Golden Heart of the Sierra Madre. The Referendum and the Swiss Railroads. Bacchylides, the Risen Bard. Leading Articles of the Month. The Periodicals Reviewed. The New Books. Contents of Reviews and Magazines.

The Sunday School Times.-This remarkable paper can hardly receive the usual magazine notes, but we cannot refrain from calling attention to its remarkable work. It is certainly the greatest Sunday school paper in the world, and if any public school or Sunday school teacher has not seen a copy it should be sent for at once. It not only contains each week an exhaustive discussion of the Sunday school lesson, methods of teaching, etc., but also a valuable series of articles on ancient history, literary study of the Bible, study of eastern countries as they are to-day, etc. The best of writers for the year include such distinguished people as Dr. Hilprecht, the Dean of Canterbury, Richard G. Moulton, I. Zangwill, Rob't E. Speer. J. P. Mahaffy, Cunningham Geike, "Faith Latimer," and many others. That Sunday school is behind the times that does not have The Times for all its teachers. Dr. Patterson Du Bois, who has contributed two masterful articles for THE NORTH WESTERN MONTHLY this year, is the managing editor and John D. Wattles & Co., Philadelphia, the publishers. Dr. H. Clay Trumbull, that veteran Sunday school worker and writer, is the editor-in-chief.

The Century.-Gilbert Stuart's Portrait of Frances Cadwalader, Lady Erskine, Frontispiece. A Pennsylvania Colliery Village, with pictures by Jay Hambidge: I, A Polyglot Community, Henry Edward Rood; II, An Artist's Impressions of the Colliery Region, Jay Hambidge. Coal Is King: I, The Advantage of England and the United States in the World's Commerce, Edward Atkinson; II, The Supply of Anthracite Coal in Pennsylvania, Edward W. Parker. Over the Alps on a Bicycle, Elizabeth Robins Pennell. Gilbert Stuart's Portraits of Women, Charles Henry Hart. The Fall of Maximilian: A Woman's Reminiscences of Mexico During the French Intervention, with Glimpses of Maximilian, His Allies and Enemies, Sara Y. Stevenson. The New Telegraphy, A. Slaby. An Artist Among the Fellaheen, R. Talbot Kelly. The Adventures of Francois, IV, S. Weir Mitchell. The Seven Wonders of the World: I, The Pharos of Alexandria, Benjamin Ide Wheeler. A Famous Sea Fight, Claude H. Wetmore. Good Americans (conclusion), Mrs. Burton Harrison. Heroes of the. LifeSaving Service; Heroes of Peace, Gustav Kobbe. The Century's "American Artists Series," Charles Frederick Ulrich, W. Lewis Fraser,

Vol. VIII

TH

XVIII. HE great bulk of the literature issuing from the press now-a-days, and in fact most of what has been thought and said in writing since the invention of letters, has been of the sort called interpretative in these papers. When a man sees an old truth in a new light, or from a new point of view, or finds a way to present it more clearly, or more effectually, and gives his new version to the world, he is an interpreter, simply. Thus Tyndall, and Huxley, and President Jordan have been interpreters of the doctrine of evolution, and have made the subject clear to many minds that could not otherwise have understood it. But Goethe, and Browning, and Herbert Spencer, and Darwin, and others who independently discerned this mode or habit of the Primeval and Eternal Force, and gave it forth to the world, were not Interpreters, but Revealers. A Revealer is a man who makes known new truth, discovered in whatsoever manner. When he comes upon it, as Roentgen found the X Ray, and Pasteur the method of immunity by progressive inoculation, he is an experimenter. When he discerns beforehand, in a purely mental view, the existence and operation of some great principle, he is a Seer. Goethe, who divined evolution with some clearness and complete ness, was a Seer, as for like reason was also Browning.

The literature of seership is not of great extent, and is perforce largely commingled with interpretation. Shakespeare is a seer, and often gives utterance to profound spiritual principles, though in the main but incidentally to other ends. The author most devoted to seership, in modern literature, is Emerson. Many people are unable to read this author; some because,as they think,-his "style" is so bad. Other readers find him unintelligible, because he never writes narratively or descriptively, deals with matters of pure fact. A solid volume of

No. 10

spiritual principles is not attractive reading, except to the maturest and most cultured minds. Even the best of these quite often fail of the completer meaning through inattention, or inability to co-ordinate the revelatory and interpretative ideas.

It will be found helpful, in first studies of Emerson's strongest work, to recognize the character of the respective thoughts, and their relation to each other. Probably the best volume with which to begin reading in this author is Nature Addresses and Lectures. The writer's mind is here at its sharpest and best, and his language most vivid and compelling. Emerson never wrote anything more characteristic than these opening sentences from "Nature":

To go into solitude, a man needs to, retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds will separate between him and what he touches. If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown.

All ideas that add new spiritual principles to our knowledge, as has above been shown, are revelatory. The first sentence here quoted is clearly of that character. We may remember that Cicero gives expression, in his De Senectute, to the idea that a man is his own best company. Emerson declares that, to be alone one must silence and abrogate this second self, whereas in writing or reading the dualism of his consciousness is most palpable and obtrusive. A man reading an entertaining book has promptings to be sociable, which, if he be at all a victim to the habit of "talking to himself," are likely to assert themselves in vocal utterances like "That's clear; that's good! Was ever any thing put more neatly?" Similarly, when a man is inditing a hard matter, there is apt to be