Vol. XVII., No. 1. SEPTEMBER, 1897. Whole No. 184. The Public-School Journal. DEVOTED TO THE THEORY AND ART OF SCHOOL TEACHING AND CLOSE SUPERVISION. CONTENTSC TERMS $1.50 A YEAR: 15 CENTS A NUMBER'. PUBLIC SCHOOL PUBLISHING CO BLOOMINGTON. ILLINOIS. Entered as second-class mail matter it bloomington, Illinois. Adopted for Exclusive Use IN THE Public Schools of Missouri The Natural System of Vertical Writing, Shepard's Elements of Chemistry, Boyer's Laboratory Manual of Biology, Williams's Composition and Rhetoric, Hawthorne & Lemmon's American Literature, The Arden Shakespeare, Smith's Reading and Speaking, Walsh's Higher Arithmetic, The Joynes-Meissner German Grammar, Harris's German Lessons, Joynes' German Reader. BOSTON. PUBLISHED BY D. C. HEATH & CO. NEW YORK. CHICAGO. JOSEPH W. ERRANT, MEMBER OF CHICAGO SCHOOL Board. The problem of school organization is one of the most important questions before the people to-day. From the colonial era to the present time the district school system with some modifications has been in vogue. In the centers of population something like an organized system of education has been evolved. To one who has studied the development of our public schools it is simply astonishing to ascertain how recently the position of superintendent of a city school system was created, and it must not be forgotten that when McAllister left Milwaukee and went to Philadelphia he was the first superintendent of that city's schools. But it is not the cities alone which have felt this need of organization in order that they might more perfectly accomplish the work for which they were intended. In the country districts the work of organization has been going on and considerable effort has been made, largely voluntary, to obtain through combination results which cannot be reached in any other way. And so it comes to pass that the problem of the rural schools and their needs is the great central question around which the discussions of teacher's convention are rallying. Very few have any idea of the tremendous business interests which are involved in the maintenance of the school system of a great city. The board of education of the city of Chicago spends one-half of the taxes which are obtained from the people of that municipality. There are questions involving the purchase of land, the construction of buildings, their character and cost. There are questions concerning the purchase of fuel, and the hundred and one articles which make up the supplies needed in the schools. Very few great corporations there are, which from a financial point of view offer so many problems of management as does the maintenance of a great school system. It is, however, exceedingly important that in studying and solving the problems of organization in connection with our school work, we do not lose sight of factors which should be taken into consideration. It is a beautiful thing, for instance, to liken the forces connected with a great school system to a great army, which has its general, its colonels, its captains, and its privates. It is a beautiful thing to conceive how such an army, thoroughly equipped and drilled, might move on with the perfection of machinery to the accomplishment of certain results; but let us consider for a moment what the purpose of an army is. It is an organized human force thrown against another organized human force for the purpose of crushing that other human force. The theory of it is that |