like this is almost equivalent to participation, and we hope the good people will stand up like men. * A New Foreign Policy. were two ways of dealing with conquered tribes or nations: one was to absorb them, the other was to enslave them. There are two notable examples to-day of a better method still: first, the action of one hundred or more American colleges in offering to take two Cubans each for education without charge for tuition, and in many cases promising additional aid; second, the call of Lord Kitchener, general of the English army in Egypt, for a half million dollars to found and maintain a college at Khartoum. The money was subscribed inside of a fortnight, and on January 6th the corner stone was laid. The school is designed as a memorial to General Gordon, and will continue by education the work of civilization begun by that brave man. Some one has pointed out the contrast of such a memorial to those other monuments scattered along the Nile valley. We hear much to-day about foreign policy, imperialism, spheres of influence and the like, and opinions are widely divergent; but we feel that it will be tolerably safe to trust a nation's policy when it is based on raising the intelligence of its subjects. School people in all parts of the The country have rejoiced, and Other Side. properly enough, in what is called the victory of Dr. E. Benjamin Andrews over the Chicago board of education. It is undoubtedly true that a substantial gain has been made in establishing a precedent that recognizes certain privileges as belonging to the responsible head of a school system. The progress is most gratifying, and we are glad to say again, as we have said before, Long live Dr. Andrews! But as teachers we do well to remember that some credit is due the board in yielding so gracefully and extending the hand of cooperation to their superintendent. This is the best thing of all. The Chicago board had the power to make the work exceedingly unpleasant for Dr. Andrews by continued petty opposition in a hundred ways. Instead of that they magnanimously propose, by aiding him in all ways possible, to make the work harmonious and successful. Now is the time to expect good results from the Chicago schools. Apropos, there comes a bit of news from Cambridge, Mass., that the leading citizens, tax-payers, of that city, through a voluntary petition to the school committee of Cambridge, have secured a considerable increase in salary for their kindergarten, primary and grammar-school teachers. The petition has such a good ring and seems to indicate such an advance in sentiment that it is copied herewith: "We, the undersigned, citizens of Cambridge, beg to say that we approve the general proposition that the salaries of our public school teachers need to be revised by your honorable board. "Whatever increase may be made in these salaries, it should be substantial enough to enable our teachers to live under conditions reasonably suited to the requirements and responsibilities of their important positions. Moreover, a judicious increase will favor the city in its endeavor to retain the service of superior teachers, strengthen its educational interests, and so promote its material welfare, as amply to compensate for the increased cost of the policy." A Limit To In Massachusetts. * The Journal of Education reports a peculiar and interesting discussion which was conducted at a recent session of the Massachusetts School Masters' Club on the question whether or not there should be a legal limit to the high school facilities that a community or a municipality should provide at the public expense. It appears that last winter Mayor Josiah Quincy of Boston went before the legislature and presented a bill, which became a law, providing that the amount to be appropriated for education in Boston should be limited to 2.8 mills on the dollar of valuation in 1899, to 2.85 mills in 1900, and to 2.9 mills thereafter. The mayor holds that the needs of the primary schools should be regarded first, those of the grammar schools next and that whatever remains should go to the high school. With all this we heartily accord, but we protest when he adds that he would single out students who show a capacity for higher education and would support the high school chiefly for such. He would specialize all high school work, emphasizing the mechanical arts, commercial studies and manual training. In other words Mayor Quincy would be intensely practical if not narrowly so. George H. Martin, supervisor in Boston, in reply to the mayor's speech made an eloquent defense of better education for larger numbers. Superintendent Chas. F. Carroll of Worcester suggested that lack of capacity might mean that we are not doing the right thing for some students. Aptitude and capacity vary greatly but favoritism on such a basis he considered monstrous. The high schools should be adapted to the needs of the greatest numbers. Superintendent Guy of Malden took ground with the mayor claiming that many who are now in the high school "are not fit to be there, will be fit for nothing in this world nor for heaven beyond." This is pitiful-first, that there should be such in Malden; and second, that there should be a superintendent in all our land who would publicly say so. The most sensible:advice, in our judgment, was given by Dr. Albert Bushnell Hart who chanced to be present and was asked for his opinion. He said that the tendency of the higher education is to make every child better and happier. The only live question is how can the high school do more for more youth of the land? As Dr. Jenkin Lloyd Jones says, "All children are children of the state or else none are children of the state." Does It Pay? The above discussion is all the opinions and also a lack of definite purpose on the part of some which will doubtless help to defeat any legislation looking toward a change in the state board of education as at present constituted. The bill to promote Governor Mount's plan of making agriculture a required study in the public schools of Indiana was defeated. The attack upon it was a violent one, and though it was warmly defended it was lost by a large majority, the main objections being that the boys should learn agriculture on the farm and that school teachers had neither time nor ability to teach it. more interesting in the light of Text Books in American History a report by Mr. Frank A. Hill in which he sets forth the relation of increase of wealth to increase of education in Massachusetts. After considering the vast improvement in the comfort, convenience, beauty, sanitation, equipment and grounds of modern high schools as an expression of the faith which the taxpayer has in this institution, he asks if there is anything like a dividend in cash or its equivalent. This is the view which the practical man of affairs takes of the question, especially if he himself lacked educational facilities when a boy or has so outgrown sentiment that the delightful associations of school days count for nothing. Mr. Hill then turns to the latest report of Commissioner W. T. Harris for some striking statistics:-The average school attendance for each child in Massachusetts is 7 years; in the whole United States it is 4.3 years, a ratio of 70 to 43. The average wealth producing power of each man, woman and child in Massachusetts is 73 cents per day; in the whole United States it is 40 cents, a ratio of 73 to 40. This means that in Massachusetts the average income per year is about $90 more than the average in the nation; or that the income for the whole state is about $200,000,000 more than the average, which is fifteen times the annual running expenses of the public schools of the state. Such results challenge thought and the fact that the ratio of increase is so nearly the same in both cases is a striking one to say the least. Mr. Hill notes that the education of the people both stimulates material wants and increases the call for high directive ability and skilled labor. Educational * * As the editorial form goes to press it is impossible to announce any definite progress in the various measures that have been presented to the educational committees of the present legislature at Indianapolis. The number and variety of the measures proposed indicate widely divergent One of our educational problems has been how to get more real help out of the great assemblies of teachers which convene annually to consider questions that pertain to the improvement of the schools. The problem still exists though a partial solution. has been found in the appointment of committees charged with a specific duty of investigating some question in all its phases and reporting back the result of its investigations at the next meeting of the appointing body. The members of such committees are generally chosen because of special fitness, while the systematic character and the thoroughness of their work make their reports peculiarly interesting and valuable. Their work is, in a way, exhaustive and their conclusions are considered sound. The famous Committees of Fifteen on Correlation and of Twelve on Rural Schools will be remembered as examples. Of such a character, too, is the report of the committee on text-books in American History made in October last to the New England History Teachers' Association, in Boston. The report appears in full in the December number of the Educational Review and is one of the soundest utterances on the subject that we have yet seen. A summary is attempted herewith but we earnestly advise the full reading if possible. The purpose in the report has been to examine critically a selected list of current text-books and without fear or favor to express an estimate of them, and yet not to relieve the individual teacher from the responsibility of appraising books for himself. The report heartily condemns the old models of United States histories which extol the virtues of the noble red man, dwell on the undaunted courage and the magnificent faith of Columbus, the hardships of the Pilgrims the stern ness of the Puritans the simplicity of the Quakers and the quaintness of the Dutch; which charge the Revolution to the brutality of the British, cannonize Washington and Franklin, characterize the Constitution as the greatest product of the human mind, and treat the constitutional period by administrations. The committee finds that the histories of to-day are large improvements upon the poorly compiled books that were formerly used. They are now usually the work of specialists, "immeasurably superior to the best of a generation ago," and instead of dry outlines, with an occasional anecdote, bloodcurdling details of battles, and sectional or even national bias, we have the living record of progress and truth. They consider that, broadly speaking, a manual in history should be organized upon natural divisions somewhat as follows: An outline of the physical geography of North America, the period of discovery and exploration, colonial development, struggle for independence, confederation, the constitutional period to the second war with Great Britain, 1815 to 1861, Civil War, 1865 to the present. The application of such a standard to the books selected for examination shows that all of them are more or less out of proportion. Writers like Fiske, Eggleston and Higginson put too much stress on the story of our national beginnings. Others subordinate development to the narration of picturesque incidents. Prejudice and partisanship have, in the past, influenced accounts of the Revolution and Civil War with their causes and results, though continuous protest and discussion have resulted in greater fairness and justice. Still other authors give too little attention to the period of confederation considering its importance and causal connections. The advance in this regard made by Channing and Scudder is commended. Gordy alone is found to give proper attention to the opening of the West. The general denunciation of the South for its attitude toward slavery was succeeded by a tone of apology that explained slavery on scientific rather than on moral grounds, but later books are trying to "treat these questions of sectional divergence with impartiality and in a true historical spirit. It is no longer thought necessary to apologize for slavery, but it is no longer permissible to treat the subject with passion and blare of trumpets." There is an increasing tendency to reduce the details of "strictly military movements to the lowest terms and to emphasize the battles of statesmen and politicians more than those of soldiers and sailors." In regard to illustrations the committee concludes "that history has suffered much at the hands of art." Too often the pictures are those of the fancy merely whose aim is to interest and instruct but whose effect is more often to mislead and misin form. The illustrations in recent books by Montgomery, Channing and McMaster are commended. Few of the maps used are considered satisfactory, many of them being inaccurate. Topical analyses and skeletons are characterized as harmless, dry, hard and dead, excepting, of course, such as students and teachers make for themselves. The report closes with a review of the leading features, commendable and otherwise, of the eighteen books examined. From this it appears that all have good points, none is perfect, all are great improvements upon their predecessors, and the ideal history yet remains to be written. Where schools are circumscribed and barred by the law from using the best book one can only pity; but where there is freedom teachers of history will surely find the work of selection greatly simplified by reading this report. EXERCISES FOR FEBRUARY 22ND. (Director of Practice in the Indianapolis Normal School.) WHAT child is not familiar with the story classmates? Has not his code of fifty-seven of the hatchet and the cherry tree? Are there many children who have not been told over and over that the boy Washington loved army plays, and how he drilled his or more rules of conduct copied at the age of thirteen formed a part of the majority of Washington celebrations? Repeatin things, in spite of their great interest, year after year in the old setting, makes the subject so monotonous to pupils that it is scarcely to be wondered at that many of them appear blase so far as the character of the man is concerned and the only good coming from the celebration of this hero's birthday is that it is a holiday. We are all aware that religious interest is deadened by dull repetition of the same laws and facts. Yet we tell the same story in the same way and expect children to grow in inspiration and admiration of a great and beautiful character. Another thing which we should be outgrowing is the making of superlative statements that simply settle everything, not be cause they prove anything, but by virtue of being briefly condensed in words. These do not convince adults that Washington is the greatest and best man that ever lived. We all know many great and good people who have lived before our time, but most of us are far from setting any one of them on a throne high above the rest. Both among foreigners and our own Americans we can find leonine characters as great and good as Washington. With equal vehemence we must say that we know not what man is greater than Washington. Of one thing, however, we are positive; namely, we are thankful that our country owns a Washington, a Lincoln, an Emerson, a Lowell, and many noble, courageous pioneers in exploration, government, and science who have devoted their lives to making our United States a great and glorious nation. Furthermore, we are thankful that the world has possessed so many brilliant geniuses; for after all is said, every hero that ever strove belongs to us and to our 70,000,000 or more countrymen. Hence, though Wallace did say of Washington that he was "the best of all great men and the greatest of all good men," and again, "in moral qualities, the character of Washington is the most truly dignified that was ever presented to the respect and admiration of mankind"; and if Frederick the Great did send him greeting as "the greatest general on earth," we have no right to set our children to learning these extracts. By what infallible, all-comprehensive test can any man place another on the very highest ped estal? better; but it, too, is an extract and only the conclusion of a mature, experienced man. What the child needs is not the final opinions of old men recited verbatim, but actual flesh and blood illustrations of the deeds of a man, so he has the basis from which to draw personal conclusions. The deeds of a man? No; the deeds of many noble men should be presented. A man's real stature comes best to light when seen in the company of other men. It is of very little value to have a child in the elementary schools learn that Napoleon said, "posterity will talk of Washington with reverence as the founder of a great empire when my name shall be lost in the vortex of revolutions" unless the course of study includes the history of the world, which very few do; and unless, furthermore, the class of which this particular boy is a member has studied Napoleon concretely. At least, the teacher must previously give a vivid sketch of him. Learning and reciting extracts is rarely a good thing; for it is apt to give a perverted notion or an abridged impression; even if we have the choicest part of a poem learned, it lacks completeness, or may even be meaningless because vital fragments, though they be details, have been omitted. We celebrate Washington's birthday for the sake of the inculcation of patriotism, of which he was a grand and noble example. Fortunate are we who have lived in the year 1898; for in it the United States has made the blossom "patriotism," which was never in fuller bloom than now, burst into greater glory. A few great scholars, among whom Lowell is one, have recognized for some time that a man's fatherland is greater than the territory of the country of which he is a citizen; but with many people, patriotism means hurrahing for your own country, and scorning every other. Had this been Washington's notion he would have had no right to oppose England, for was he not her citizen? His patriotism is manifested not by defeating England; but by his uplifting an oppressed people, rescuing from suffering a people who were being greatly wronged. He was as great a blessing to the mother country as to America. In the advanced grades (upper four) all during the month of February, the teacher and pupils should have daily ten or fifteen minute conversation periods on some lead ing events in Washington's life, the teacher questioning for and giving information, the pupils answering questions and reproducing what she gave. Stories illustrating the various excellent attributes of a true patriotism should be selected: 1, Undaunted physical courage: carrying Dinwiddie's message; 2, Sympathy for soldiers: Valley Forge; 3, Untiring, far sighted patience: Yorktown; 4, Firmness unyielding: Arnold's treason and Andre's punishment; 5, No selfish desires: refusal of third term of presidency. The teacher will be helped in presenting this vividly by reading Dr. Mitchell's recent story, "Hugh Wynne." On February 22nd, these can be rehearsed by individuals using good English prose of their own construction, not some other person's poor jingling rhymes expressly manufactured for a school celebration. Patriotic poems with the true ring to them, worded in good dignified English should be learned by heart. One such is Lowell's "The Fatherland" which ends thus: "Wher'er a single slave doth pine, Our country's material resources are not to be despised. Her unlimited wealth in rivers, hills, valleys and forests make a broad-minded, large-hearted nation possible -one that can and will help a down-trodden Cuban. These things should be mentioned and some child may recite, "The Land of Liberty." Lafayette taught this lesson of world brotherhood in Washington's time and so though he be a Frenchman he was a dear friend of Washington and his story fits in very appropriately on February 22nd. Patriotic songs, of course, belong to the order of the day. The teacher should explain that patriotism means the righting of wrongs, the uplifting of the oppressed and that all honorable civilized nations strive for this, which is exemplified in their songs. Then the children may sing the "Marseillaise hymn of France," and "God Save the Queen;" and surely let "America" round out the list. Above it was said that the deeds of noble men should appear in company with Washington. Lafayette has been mentioned. For the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grades the story of "Mazzini of Italy” can be given with great profit. This can be appropriately followed by the ode by Sir Wm. Jones. "What constitutes a state? Not high raised battlement or labored mound, Thick wall, or moated gate; Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned; Not bays and broad-armed ports. No: men, high-minded men, With powers as far above dull brutes endued In forest, brake, or den, As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude,— Men who their duties know, But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain, Prevent the long-aimed blow, And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain; These constitute a state," etc. In celebrating the birthday of this one of our nation's heroes, we must not overlook the peace element. His greatness did not end with the surrender of Cornwallis; he was equally a mighty man after the war as he had been in it. This brings us to the fact which we have need to impress upon the youth; namely, that the most patriotic man is he who lives a high, pure, kind, noble, helpful everyday life in little things and great. After a brief informal conversational exercise on this topic between pupils Cary's "True Nobility," a part of which and teacher, let some child repeat Alice runs thus: "True worth is in being, not seeming,- Make the child loyal to his little home world, to his little school world, to his neighborhood, his little town, and no fear need be had as to his ability to enlarge his power when he enters the larger circle. Washington proved himself a patriot by his humility; that is, he was not puffed up with pride. A truly patriotic people, too, need this quality. Our nation has done wonderful things and in the year just passed she has outdone herself. But in our very great success lies a tremendous root for failure if we become intoxicated with selfesteem. It is partly our duty as teachers to give our children a sane view of our conditions, to teach them wherein we Americans |