"To what Extent Shall a High School Pupil be Allowed to Elect his work?"

Superintendent W. L. Steele, Galesburg. "Shall the Sexes and Classes Have the Same Course of Study in the Schools?"

Superintendent D. K. Goss, Indianapolis.
Afternoon.

"The Director as a factor in Education." Superintendent Samuel Hamilton, Allegheny.

Report of Committee on Uniform Financial Reports, Appointed at the Chattanooga Meeting. Superintendent C. G. Pearse, Omaha. Evening.

"Some Neglected Factors and Forgotten Facts.” Dr. T. C. Mendenhall, Worcester.

AMONG THE NEW BOOKS.

Volumes that report the official proceedings of conventions and associations are generally regarded as dry, heavy and uninteresting except to the few who may have participated in the proceedings or who may wish to study certain phases of questions there considered; they are generally included in Charles Lamb's category of "books that are no books." Just the reverse of all this is the annual volume of Addresses and Proceedings of the National Educational Association. Indeed there is in it so much of the best that it is impossible in an ordinary notice to speak at all adequately of its value. It is rather a library than a single volume; it is, as we said a year ago, a great storehouse to which we turn for inspiration again and again, always with increasing pleasure and profit. The addresses express the best thought in education to-day, wrought out with the greatest care by the leading teachers in the land The great pity is that its circulation must be so limited. The full addresses and discussions of the General Sessions, Department of Superintendence, National Council and fifteen departments are given, as usual, besides some interesting statistics. The membership at the Washington meeting was 10,653.

The efforts of publishers to keep pace with educational progress by improved text-books is no where else so marked as in school readers. Insip'd stuff and nonsense that so prevailed in the primary books are replaced by natural, interesting reading, full of sympathy with child life, fine sentiment, bright stories and artistic illustrations, beautiful and true to life. Then in the more advanced readers we used to have dry essays on abstract subjects, plenty of showy exercises for elocutionary drill, with here and there a natural story or a sweet poem which pupils would beg the privilege of selecting, over and over again, after the book had been read through by rote a sufficient number of times. Instead of this we now have for the intermediate grades delightful readings-narrative, history, story, travel, folk-lore, myth, all by writers of ability and judgment, and these selections merging gradually into masterpieces of literature for sixth and seventh grades. These are general characteristics of the best in school readers to-day, and the set of fine books before us, Lights to Literature, seems to embody these in large degree. Aside from general excellence these books have two or three special features which are worth noting-They are designed to cultivate silent rather than oral reading. "Reading is a thousand times more for the mind than for the voice." "The best reader is the one who,

in silence, appropriates the most that is good in the printed thought and sentiment of the page, and is stimulated and assisted most in his own thinking thereby." Hence the aim in these books is to cultivate the thinking faculty more than the vocal one. "Appreciation of the printed thought should be trained, and nature's correct ways of oral expression should be preserved." The usual instructions in stress, quality, inflection, etc., are wholly wanting, and there is no attempt at elocutionary instruction. Book one has an illuminated cloth cover, 120 pp., 24 colored pp., 92 illustrations, 25 cents. Book two has also the illuminated cover, 156 pp., 60 illustrations, 36 cents. Book three has 34 full page illustrations, 303 pp., 48 cents. Book four introduces the features of portraits and short biographical sketches of the eighty or more authors. 400 pp., 60 cents. Book five continues this feature and brings the pupil into fields of real literature among choice selections from the masterpieces of the best English writers. 496 pp., 90 cents. [Rand, McNally & Co., Chicago.]

Somewhere among the "ark hives" (as Dr. Edward Everett Hale would say) of Syracuse there has recently been discovered the manuscript of a story written over twenty years ago by C. W. Bardeen, entitled Commissioner Hume. Those who have read the delightful story of Roderick Hume, by the same author, will suspect this to be a sequel, as it is. Mr. Bardeen explains that after the first writing, away back in the seventies it was laid aside for revision but the opportunity to revise never came, and so the story is published now as a picture of school life in New York twenty-five years ago. The author's keen appreciation of picturesque features whether expressing the merits or the defects of a school system helps to make the story an interesting bit of educational history. [C. W. Bardeen, Syracuse, N. Y., 210 pp., Manilla 50 cents, cloth $1.25.]

A new text book on modern science is Elementary Meteorology by Frank Waldo, Ph. D. When it is remembered that studies in atmospheric phenomena have become of great practical service to science, agriculture, commerce and navigation the importance of a wider knowledge of the subject is evident. It appears that heretofore there has been no suitable text-book available for a simple, practical course in the subject, and it is this want that the present volume is intended to supply. The treatment of the subject is practical, being the result of actual experience in laboratory and schoolroom. The movement of the winds, phenomena of the clouds, the study of weather maps, storms, tornados and cyclones, and the

climate of the United States are the chief subjects considered. [American Book Co., 373 pp., Illustrated, $1.50.]

To present supplementary reading matter and at the same time a series of suggestions for nature study appears to be the plan in Dr. Lucy L. W. Wilson in her Nature Study in Elementary Schools. It is designed that the lessons given will have for the little readers "the same interest and value that really good books and magazines have for grown-up people. The lessons are arranged by months and the book is well illustrated. [The Macmillan Co., 253 pp., 35 cents.]

It is always a source of satisfaction, not to mention the advantages, to feel that the author you are reading knows what he is talking about. This is what one feels of Professor A. C. Apgar in his Birds of the United States. The object as stated by the author is to encourage the study of birds by rendering it a pleasant and easy task. Simplicity and accuracy are aimed at. The treatment embraces (1) A general description of the external parts of birds and an explanation of the technical terms used in ornithology; (2) Classification and description of the different species of birds; (3) The study of birds in the field, with key for their identification; (4) Preparation of bird specimens. The special descriptions of the different species of birds have been prepared with great care, as have also the illustrations which are numerous and accurate. [American Book Co., 415 pp.]

In speaking again of Mr. Brander Matthews' Introduction to American Literature it seems very much to the point to quote Theodore Roosevelt's estimate of the book: The book is a piece of work as good of its kind as any American scholar has ever had in his hands. It is just the kind of book which should be given to a beginner, because it will give him a clear idea of what to read, and of the relative importance of the authors he is to read; yet it is much more than merely a book for beginners. In dealing with the authors which he has chosen as representatives of American literature, Mr. Matthews has sketched briefly the life and life-work of each. Every chapter is eminently readable and interesting; but it also contains a singularly just estimate of the author's real worth. Mr. Matthew's wide and deep acquaintance not only with American literature, but with the literatures of other countries, enables him to place each author about where he belongs." [American Book Co., 256 pp., $1.00.]

With improved methods of studying history

there has come a growing desire to know the truth and to abandon national bias and sentiment in the interests of fairness. Hence the interest that will be taken in the compilation which Professor James A. Woodburn has made from W. E. H. Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century. The volume, entitled The American Revolution, 1763-1783, includes such portions of Mr. Lecky's work as relate to the English colonies in America during those twenty years. It will thus appear that the remote as well as the immediate causes of the war are considered going back to the close of the French and Indian War. The author's chapter on "America 1763-1776" is given entire, and the remainder of the book consists of selected passages giving Mr. Lecky's view of the events connected with the war and the subsequent peace negotiations. There are many notes and a full bibliography. Professor Woodburn has done a distinct service for all students of American history in collecting so much valuable material in a single volume. [D. Appleton & Co., 518 pages.]

Number IX of Cornell Studies in Classical Philology is a Critique on Some recent Subjunctive Theories, by Chas. Edwin Bennett. The discussion includes "Elmer's Theory of the Subjunctive of Obligation or Propriety," "Are We to Recognize a May Potential in Latin? "The Latin Can, Could Potential," "On the Force of Tenses in the Prohibitive," and "Morris's Treatment of the Independent Subjunctive of Plantus."

To State Superintendent J. Q. Emery of Wisconsin we are indebted for a printed Report of the Committee of Twelve on Rural Schools. The following extract from a prefatory note will explain Superintendent Emery's purpose. "It is unquestionably the ablest report that has ever been made in this country upon that subject, and it is so valuable a document, and the importance of the subject is so great that I have felt it my duty to issue a large edition for distribution among those interested in the advancement of the rural schools."

The selection on nature study from the Indiana Course of Study was just in type when Professor W. H. Hershman's Manual of Nature Study by Grades came to hand for editorial notice. Since his book is based upon this course it is hoped that this selection reprinted will help to arouse in Professor Hershman's manual the interest it merits. The plan is simply an enlargement upon the suggestive outline of the course, but this is done in such a sympathetic way that not only

teachers who may not see clearly how, but also those who may be lacking in the spirit of the work will be materially helped. [A. Flanagan, Chicago. 35 cents in cloth, 25 cents in paper.]

In a treatise on bookkeeping entitled The Ari af Accounts, by Marshall P. Hall, the attempt has been made to avoid the excessively laborious and conventional methods which so often mar the study of this subject in schools. The plan of discarding single entry as not worth a student's time is sound from a business view since double entry includes and supersedes it. The plan of commencing with very simple accounts of a kind that may have a personal interest to the student, and of proceeding gradually toward the more complex is sound pedagogically. Definitions and explanations are plentiful and clear. The author holds closely to essentials on the basis that principles alone need to be learned in theory. Accepting such a restriction the treatise is a good one. A chapter on "Money" considers such matters as bullion, coin, standards, paper money, depreciation, substitutes, industry and prices. [Silver, Burdett & Co., 120 pages, 80 cents.]

In the Riverside Literature Series number 128 is devoted to selections from Byron. The leading poem is The Prisoner of Chillon. Among the other selections are "Fare Thee Well," "The Dream," "Darkness," "Prometheus” and “Mazeppa." The explanatory notes are very interesting as might be expected from the picturesque character of the poet. [Houghton, Mifflin & Co.]

A little book of 67 pages by Ernest L. Thurston is based upon the assumption that much of the ordinary work in arithmetic fails to fit men for practical business. There is, unfortunately, some reason for the assumption, and Mr. Thurston aims to supplement the school work by Practical Tests in Commercial and Higher Arithmetic. These test problems are of a practical character and are so coordinated with bookkeeping and commercial law as to offer the means for a helpful review to young men going into business. [Silver, Burdett & Co. 42 cents.]

From time to time there come into the world men whom we persistently misunderstand-voices in the wilderness, prophets without honor, pioneers ahead of their race. We decline their messages and their motives we misinterpret. It is a way of the world, and happy is the rare spirit of genius that holds its way serene and undaunted with absolute disregard of popular censure or applause. Such a spirit was that of Walt Whitman,

CERTAIN ESSENTIALS OF LIBRARY EQUIP

MENT.

(Continued from page 16.)

What are some of the popular delusions of li

It is the main function of the school to employ the means of education so as to stimulate the maximum of mental effort on the part of the pupil in order to give him the highest possible degree of independence and freedom in his thinking. The school furnishes three kinds of exercises to accomplish this end. First, the rest period which affords an opportunity for the spontaneous activity of the pupil. Second, the study period, which has as its aim to train the pupil in systematic habits of study and in independent study. Third, the recitation period, which furnishes an opportunity for the highest effort because, under the direction of the mature mind of the teacher and the stimulus of equals, the pupil's capacity is put to its highest test. Thorough work in the grades and lower schools equips the pupils both in mental capacity and knowledge for independent activity in the higher stage, in the higher schools and in society.

Space will not permit a full illustration of the first and second stages of thought from the material assigned in Montgomery's History pp. 1-6. We will note one or two points for each.

For the first stage may be given the story of Columbus, bringing in all of the facts that can be brought within the comprehension of the pupil.

For the second stage the theories held by the race and by Columbus may be definitely dealt with since the pupil is assumed to have sufficient knowledge of the geography of the earth, etc., to grasp the points definitely in the light of relations and facts which he understands.

This closes our discussion of this important book. The reader who drops this phase of study at the close of the institute work is not wise. He should enter into it even more largely and make a more extended study of Greek history and then Greek philosophy, especially of the three greatest thinkers in that period of the race's history. It is a part of the inheritance of the race which every school teacher should claim and appropriate.

A. R. CHARMAN.

One is the belief that, put side by side, the masterpieces for children will finally crowd out the commonplace. The young reader will read Autun House, Being a Boy, The Story of a Bad Boy, The Dog of Flanders, Rab, Hector, The Jungle Books and the few other classics and will feel their charm ; but he will immediately with apparently quite as much relish read a class of juvenile fiction where everything is false to life, where the painting of characters is the grossest daub, where all the cant and unreality are presented in a medium of desertlike commonplace. A moment's consideration of the immaturity and inexperience of youth who reads, and the exquisite observation and wise insight of him who can produce a children's classic, is sufficient to make us realize how impossible it is for the youth to compare and discriminate. I say, therefore, your classics, few in number on your library shelves, will never crowd out or even jostle the throng of commonplace juveniles by their side. As a consequence I go far, and counsel that the lists of books written for young people be kept small. It would be wise indeed to increase to the fullest extent the copies of the few classics and to begin a war of extermination on the commonplace. Librarians are fond of claiming that the classics drive out the others. Such instances can generally be reduced to the children where there are literary traditions and a literary environment; or to the occasional but always exceptional child springing out of unpromising conditions, but born with literary hunger and virility. The capacious maw of such children may emerge from a period of indiscriminate reception apparently unharmed. Such an exception is probably the girl of fourteen, whose answers among three hundred were conspicuous for their intelligence and for the excellent writing and spelling, but who, in six months, had read sixty-eight booksLongfellow, Scott, Dickens, Alcott and also Mrs. Southworth and twelve of the Elsie Books.

In an effort to test what young people are reading and how they read, with the comparisons of different ages and classes, I recently obtained answers to six questions from 300 chosen from different schools and sections of a city. These questions were prepared with as much ingenuity as I possessed in the hope of getting really frank answers; but I failed. Even though the names were not disclosed, the unconscious bias of answering as they thought they should was apparent in so many answers that any statistics from them going

2. (a) Logical reason-Man's obligation to be just begins when he is viewed in his social and political relations. (b) Pedagogical reason-The whole should be presented first and then the details.

3. First, on the principle that every individual has ability to do some one thing, and should fit himself to do that thing well. Second, the principle of harmonious cooperation.

4. The principal functions of Plato's state are: Production (common people), Protection (warriors), Legislation (rulers).

5. Plato's conception of the state was, that it has in it the three functions given above and that each was to do to the best of its ability the thing it was fitted to do. That the rulers should be the best and wisest (philosophers) as they only were fit to rule. Hence, an aristocracy. The modern conception is more nearly that of democracy. Government of the people, by the people for the people.

6. Yes. Reasons: First, Universal education is necessary to the preservation of a free state. Second, The state is the only institution having authority to provide a system of education and maintain it.

7. The "Socratic Method" means a mode of teaching employed by Socrates in which he first led his pupil, by means of a kind of search questions, to see his difficulty or defect. Then by stimulative questions to understand the point involved. And finally, to test his knowledge by questioning the pupil from different points of view.

8. Elementary education involves music and gymnastics. This involves careful physical training in running, jumping, throwing the discus, wrestling swimming and dancing. It also involves reading, writing, arithmetic. Considerable stress was put upon literature.

READING.

1. What do you consider the best kind or kinds of selections for the lower grades to study? Give reasons.

2. What do you think of the use of myths and fairy stories with children? Give reasons for your answer.

3. What do you think of elementary lessons in science. history, biography, etc., for work in reading with children? Give your reasons.

4. What do you consider the prevailing defects in the reading work in the public schools?

5. Suggest some principles or plans to be used in making the work in reading more effective.

6. How much attention would you give to correct pronunciation in oral reading? Why?

7. Do you favor much concert reading? Give reasons for your answer.

1. Simple stories about objects in which the children are interested, Mother Goose rhymes and jingles, simple versions of old fables and folk stories. Children are especially interested in

simple stories of action, especially, if out of the ordinary track of experience.

2. A debatable question, although we believe that myths and fairy stories answer a demand of the child nature and should be used, of course, with proper limitations. Children are natural mythmakers.

3. These subjects are all taken care of under their respective headings and should not usurp the place which naturally belongs to the foundations of literary study. If demanded let such lessons be put into the supplementary readers.

4. Formalism and lack of real power in losing oneself in the thing read.

5. Select those lessons that interest the child intensely, or make old lessons interesting by new explanations or additional matter. Bring before him the new and novel in supplementary work. Be sure that he gets at the spirit of the lesson.

6. As much as is necessary to secure a good degree of accuracy, otherwise an obstacle stands between the reader and the meaning of the language.

7. It is doubtful if concert reading has much value. It may be used sometimes as a means to correct individual faults such as undue rapidity or slowness, and may be a means of giving confidence to the timid. Its danger is in reducing the class to a dead level of mediocrity.

ARITHMETIC.

(Any eight not omitting No. 10.)

1. For what do the Roman numerals, I, V, X, L. C, D and M stand? How would you teach pupils to form other numbers from these?

2. Find the product of 2.5 by .25 by .025 by 14

3. How can you tell at a glance when a number is divisible by 2? by 3? by 4? by 5?

4. What devices would you employ to make clear to the pupils, or more readily remembered by them, the processes usually followed in finding, (1) the convex surface of a cylinder; (2) the convex surface of a pyramid; (3) the solid contents or volume of a sphere?

5. 46-27-8-(184) - ?

6 Rewrite as fractions in their lowest terms the following. 121%, 64%.8%. 63%. 118%, 143%, 37%2%, 91%, 833%. 7. A pays B $918.75 and receives in exchange a 5% note which in A's hands has been drawing simple interest for four years and a half. What is the face of the note?

8. If water in freezing expands 10%, determine the weight of a cubic foot of ice, a cubic foot of water weighing 1000 oz. 9. State the length of the shortest string that can be cut into 9 inch, 12 inch, or 15 inch pieces with nothing left over. 10. What advantage accrues to the student of Arithmetic from acquiring an understanding of the Algebraic equation before attempting to complete his study in Arithmetic?

1. The highest numeral in a number is the basis, and letters prefixed to this are to be subtracted from it while those annexed are to be added.

2. 2.5X.25X.025X.25=.00390625.

3. Numbers ending in 2, 4, 6, 8, 0 are divisible by 2. A number is divisible by 3 if the sum of its digits is divisible by 3. A number is divisible by 4 when the number denoted by its two right hand digits is divisible by 4. Numbers ending in 5 or O are divisible by 5.