recent session of the annual Institute, were in attendance at the World's Fair during the past summer. This means at least fifteen hundred miles of travel for each of these teachers who visited the White City, at more or less expense in addition to the railroad fare. They could have made no better investment of time or money. We agree with the State Superintendent of one of the Western States who advised his teachers: "If to any intelligent teacher the choice lies between a year at the State Normal School or a month at Chicago this summer, go to the World's Fair." It would be very interesting to know how many teachers of Pennsylvania were at the Fair. Cannot the Superintendents of the different cities, boroughs, townships and counties, give us the figures from their respective localities? WHAT with Chatauqua circles, University Extension, and Columbian Expositions, object-lesson methods of teaching are coming to the front at a rapidly accelerated pace, and taking on new and expanding forms of application. Many instances of this could be given from recent developments, and we see it stated that next summer a class in American history in the University of Pennsylvania will be taken, in charge of their professor, over the ground from Boston to Philadelphia, visiting every battlefield of the Revolution en route, and studying those memorable campaigns on the spot, thus getting a personal and ineradicable knowledge of the subject that the printed page could never impart. This is a charming innovation. What Normal School or College student would not be delighted to study history in that way, especially as they will not be called upon to encounter any of the hardships or privations to which our Continental armies were subjected in the brave days of old. Two venerable men. In Philadelphia, on Saturday last, we were looking through the libraries in search of music periodicals of forty years ago. At the Philadelphia Library, corner of Locust and Juniper streets, while we did not find the thing looked for, we did come unexpectedly upon Prof. Jas. G. Barnwell, who was well known in the Philadelphia schools some forty-five years ago, and whose name we knew as one of the secretaries of the Pennsylvania State Teach ers' Association at its organization in Harrisburg forty years ago. We thought that nearly all the men of that era had left the scene, but here was Prof. Barnwell, hale and hearty, and the active Director of a great public library. The noon and afternoon of the same day we spent with Hon. Henry C. Hickok, at the wonderful chrysanthemum show on Broad street and the concert of the Imperial Austrian Band in the Grand Opera House, For an old gentleman who, thanks to his native grit and the skill of the oculist, can say literally, "Whereas once I was blind now I see,” he is a remarkable man, quite an "old boy" indeed, with the keenest capacity for enjoyment. Of men now living we rate him first and highest upon the list of distinguished citizens whose privilege and pleasure it has been to confer lasting and ever-cumulative benefit upon the State of Pennsylvania. His work was done at a formative era in the history of the common school system, the most valuable and important interest of the Commonwealth. THE promotion of Judge D. Newlin Fell from the Common Pleas bench of Philadelphia to the Supreme Court of the State is a gratifying compliment to the educational policy of Pennsylvania, Judge Fell having been one of the early graduates of the State Normal School at Millersville. His election to the Supreme bench is a high tribute to his Alma Mater. Another shining common school man is Judge John Dean, of Blair county, also of the Supreme Court, who is said to have been one of the most intelligent, judicious, and successful County Superintendents the State has ever had. common school system can hold up its head proudly in the light of such conspicuous examples as these of the efficiency and success of its operations. Our AT the late session of the Teachers' County Institute, the following resolution was unanimously adopted: Resolved, That the law in regard to school out-houses, enacted during the late session of the State Legislature, treats a matter of the utmost importance to health and decency, to the good manners and good morals of the pupils in our schools. We commend this important Act of Assembly to the prompt and careful attention of teachers, parents and School Directors, in all parts of Lancaster county. THE Werner Company, of Chicago, is | publishing in weekly numbers a report of the proceedings of the World's Parliament of Religions, held in Chicago, in the Memorial Art Palace, under the auspices of the World's Columbian Exposition. The addresses are complete, and verbatim, and are illustrated with portraits of one hundred of the principal delegates and speakers. There will be eleven parts. The entire series costs but $1.00, postpaid to any address. IN the East Stroudsburg Normal department 218 are now enrolled, and 55 in the Model School; of these 170 are boarders. The probability is that by the middle of the term the number will exceed 300. The senior class has 83 members, some of whom were admitted on certificate. The members of the faculty are as follows: Profs. Geo. P. Bible, principal and teacher of pedagogics, higher English, and elocution; E. L. Kemp, psychology and methods of teaching, and H. D. Brasefield, higher mathematics; Dr. H. A. Curran, natural sciences; Lillian M. Rosenkrans, Latin and Greek; J. W. Paul, geography, history and civics; Martha Noyes, grammar, reading and composition; Marie Bradley, vocal and instrumental music; Mrs. Eleanor Lamb, principal of model school and preceptress. The trustees are liberal and energetic in their efforts to make the school complete in every respect. There is no reason to doubt that it will grow to be one of the strong schools of the State. DR. E. E. WHITE writes The Journal: "I have just learned of the death of the gifted and noble C. C. Leslie, of Chicago. He died at his home in Wisconsin, of heart disease. The teachers in several of the counties in your State will long remember Professor Leslie and his devoted niece, Miss Grace, as he called her. He was a born musician and a most enthusiastic and inspiring teacher. He was a Christian gentleman, manly and true." SOME years ago it was our good fortune to hear a grand Welsh chorus at WilkesBarre. It is these same Pennsylvania singers that won the five thousand ($5000) dollár prize in the international contest at Chicago a few weeks since. Four choirs engaged in the competition, the Cymrodorion Choral Society, of Scranton, Pa., 214 voices, director, Dan Protherse; the Salt Lake Tabernacle Choir, of Salt Lake City, Utah, 250 voices, director, Evan Stephens; the Scranton Choral Union, of Scranton, Pa., 240 voices, director Hayden Evans; and the Western Reserve Choral Union, of Ohio, 240 voices, director, J. Powell Jones. The judges were W. L. Tomlins, of Chicago, John Thomas, of London, and Dr. J. H. Gower, of Denver. The first grand prize of $5000 was won by the Scranton Choral Union, Hayden Evans, director; the second prize by the Salt Lake Tabernacle Choir. This splendid prize was awarded for the best rendering of Handel's "Worthy is the Lamb." All of these choirs do magnificent choral work. Ten thousand people attended these great musical contests. It was the first international competition of the kind ever undertaken by our Welsh Pennsylvanians. The Keystone State bears the palm in music also-thanks, not to herself, but to Wales! All the same it is "Pennsylvania." Give us more music, more music everywhere, in the schools, both vocal and instrumental. 64 It WHEN the Oregon" went down, a copy of one of Ruskin's books, owned by Dr. Geo. M. Philips, of the West Chester State Normal School, was on board. was afterward restored to Dr. Philips, in a sea-stained condition. He sent the volume to Mr. Ruskin, with a note explaining the adventure of the book, and it was afterward returned to him with this inscription on the fly-leaf: "I have great pleasure in writing in this book after it has suffered its sea change, and I think it richer and pleasantly stranger than I ever did before, and complacently aver that, to my notion, it was better worth fishing up than most of the things that JOHN RUSKIN." went down with it. 'OBSERVED AND NOTED, "is a book of five hundred and more pages, by Mr. Robert B. Risk, an editorial writer upon the Lancaster Examiner. In it is found very much that will be greeted with hearty welcome by those who have, for years, been laughing over his weekly page of humorous philosophizing, or who have enjoyed with him the simple, and pleasant, and homely in life and nature which he describes so well. His feeling for the country and country-life is that of one who has been in it and of it until its colors have set. These time brings out more rich and clear, until the old sur roundings have grown attractive, even beautiful, and the song of the heart is Home, Sweet Home. In the days when the early dawn called him out of bed to the barn or the field, when the plow had to be followed, or the hay unloaded, or the wheat bound into sheaves, or the corn husked on frosty mornings, he admits that he looked about with an unseeing eye, an eye not in focusfor beauty. But he has learned better. Some of these pages, calling one from the fret and hurry of the busy, work-a-day world, seem to lead from dusty roads to quiet meadows, and green hillsides, and dreamy woods. It is to be hoped that many throughout Lancaster county and southeastern Pennsylvania will buy and read this book of their home-life. Those parts of it which relate to public men, whether of reminiscence or but expressions of personal opinion, are of permanent value, and would aid the teacher in the schoolroom. Many short poems scattered through the book, not a few of them charming bits of verse, add much to its value. We commend it as a pleasant book to hand to a friend at the coming Christmas time. The price of the volume is $1.50. AT THE World's Educational Congress statistics were adduced to show that three times as many boys as girls are afflicted with stammering and stuttering. An educator facetiously suggested a reason in the fact that boys must "pop the question." These statistics open a perplex-❘ ing problem for those who ponder earnestly upon pedagogical subjects. The greatest amount of difficulty in utterance is reached at the ages of eight and thirteen in the male sex, while in the other sex the maximum is reached a year earlier. Much, it was asserted, is due to the violation of nature's laws in teaching children to read, write and speak. During the coming year inquiries will be made in Boston and elsewhere to ascertain the schools and the conditions in which this defect is most frequently found. Moreover, many children have a period of stammering in the years in which the language centre of the brain is developing and in which the organs of articulation are growing most rapidly. Sudden fright and careless ridicule may at this period result in life-long injury to the growing child. THE COUNTY INSTITUTE. NOT OT long ago an Institute instructor defined the evening lecture as a heterogeneous compound, consisting of halfa-dozen amusing anecdotes, an equal number of pathetic stories calculated to bring the tear, a few grains of sound sense mixed with flings at existing insti tutions (the Church not excepted), and the whole dished up with considerable froth and foam. He claimed that an era of better things had dawned, that the public taste was beginning to demand better food; and then for an hour and a half, without telling a single story, he held his audience spell-bound by discussing the duty of the hour in the education of the children. It would be of immense advantage to all concerned if the evening lecture were to aim at instruction rather than amusement. And there would be strength left for an hour's attention to a literary, scientific or historical subject if the day sessions were limited to three hours in the forenoon and two in the afternoon. When teachers must sit for four or five successive days in crowded rooms, often breathing bad air three hours in the morning, three in the afternoon and two more in the evening, it is no wonder that their power of attention is in good measure exhausted by the middle of the week, and that the lecturer seeks to hold them by funny stories rather than by helpful information. In the German universities the students, although possessing welldisciplined minds, are not expected to listen longer than forty-five minutes at one stretch. Between successive lectures an intermission of fifteen minutes is given for recreation and conversation. The students who wish to digest and assimilate what they hear, limit themselves to three or four lectures per day. In Chester county experts in literature, science, and other departments of work, were this year selected to conduct exercises during the forenoon in different rooms. The teachers had an opportunity to express their preference at the time of enrollment. The experts were selected from the staff of University Extension Lecturers. All present were delighted with the information given by these skillful instructors, whose tact, experience and special study had fitted them for their work. The success of this division of the Institute into sections of course de pends upon the skill of the persons in charge. Nowhere else can a superintendent show his executive power and superior wisdom more conspicuously than in the management of an Institute. In the eyes of many people the Superintendent is a Protean monster, whose function during part of the year is that of a watchdog and during the rest of it that of a Maltese cat. As an examiner he is expected to be a sort of Cerberus who in the ancient mythology guarded the entrance to the nether world against unworthy intruders. He is supposed to keep out of the school-room, by rigid examination, all who are not fitted for the work. When his examinations are ended his function changes into that of the cat, whose duty it is to visit every school-room, watch the destructive mice that may creep into a teacher's work in the shape of defects, and kill them off before they mar the intellectual food intended for the children. country upon the globe. The diseases incident to school life are to be discussed. The value of childhood is to be emphasized. The vocation of teaching is to be magnified. And at the close of the week everybody is to be sent home well pleased with the management, or the Institute may be pronounced a failure. Since the comic furnishes a safety valve for the escape of the discontent within us, the lecturer is constantly tempted to try sallies of wit and bursts of humor; for by means of these he can send the audience away praising him, instead of taking to heart what he has seriously said. Now the story or the joke can only be justified when it helps to enforce a legitimate statement or to relieve the over-strained attention. He who thinks of the valuable hours taken from the school year, of the thousands of dollars annually expended upon the Institutes of Pennsylvania, of the vast responsibility of talking to those who shape the weal or woe of a million children, will be sparing in the use of laughter, will expend the best energies of the soul in getting something to say and in expressing it in logical order, and above everything else will strive, in the time allotted him, to sow seed that shall bear blessed fruit in the school-room. A superintendent should never be satisfied with performing the cat and dog functions of the office. The Institute af fords him a splendid opportunity for inaugurating movements in the way of progress which he can stimulate and carry forward during the rest of the year. He cannot merely save time for the teachers by studying the art of making his announcements pointed and brief; by prompt methods of registering the daily attendance, and of dispatching business; but he can so plan his pro-He public schools arises from abuses THE agitation against examinations in in gramme as to shape the studies, mould the ideals, and enrich the teaching of all who attend the Institute. The task of the instructor at a County Institute is not an easy one. In addition to the audience of teachers a miscellaneous crowd of listeners must be entertained, if not instructed. Much is to be done, and there is little time in which to do it. The life of the dying teacher is to be revived. The zeal of the young teacher is to be stimulated. The latest movements in education are to be discussed. The most difficult investigations in psychology and pedagogy are to be presented in popular form. New information is to be added to the common stock of all. The latest and best methods of teaching are to be described in words or illustrated by the handling of a class. Teachers and directors are to be impressed with a due sense of the importance of making our schools equal to those of any other SHOULD EXAMINATIONS BE THE which cluster around a valuable school exercise. A skillful teacher may be a very unskillful examiner. He may worry the pupils by attaching undue importance to the answering of a set of test questions. By ill-timed remarks he may inspire a dread of failure that will take the joy out of school life, make the child nervous, invade its hours of sleep, and cause it to dream horrible dreams. When examinations are held too frequently, say once a week, they waste valuable time for teacher and pupil, converting the former into a drudge, whose doom it is to read papers and give marks instead of preparing for the class room, and causing the latter to regard the mind as a mere storehouse for keeping knowledge in the exact form in which it was acquired. In conducting an examination the first duty is to make all the pupils feel easy and happy. Embarrassment unnerves some minds and prevents good thinking. If easy questions are asked at first, the feeling of dread passes away, and the pupils begin to act as if they were engaged in a written recitation. In the next place the questions should turn upon the salient points of the lessons which have been recently learned. This will inspire additional confidence, and put the weaker members of the class into a frame of mind that will enable them to do their best. A few questions may be added for the purpose of bringing up points that are apt to be forgotten. The memory is a faithful servant, very ready to do what is ordinarily expected and very frail in discharge of unaccustomed duties. high a premium upon the work of a single hour, and it may cause great injustice to the pupils who are in ill health at the time. In the city of Washington pupils are promoted upon the recommendation of the teacher. Hence many reach the High Schools who would otherwise spend all their school days in the lower grades. An inferior mind if supplied with the materials and instruments of thought furnished by the branches in the High School course, can carry on processes of thought and reach conclusions that are utterly impossible to a much brighter boy who has never advanced beyond the Grammar grade. The examinations in our public schools should be conducted not so much for purposes of selection and promotion as for the sake of the educative influence which they exert upon the habits of study and the power to retain knowledge permanently. In other words. the child does not exist for the examination, but the examination should be made to promote the best interests of the child. Held from this point of view the examination prevents loose work, acts as a spur to the memory, makes the pupil see his knowledge in new lights, and fur Examinations are chiefly a test of the reproductive memory. The mind which carries knowledge in the exact statements of the text-book, shines at examinations, but may nevertheless be weak in the power to think out something new and original. Examinations are a spur to the memory, and very generally a hindrance to the powers of reflection. If the questions are framed so as to test the reasoning powers, it puts the timid at a great disadvantage and is unfair to those who❘nishes the teacher a valuable test for his can think best in cool moments and when there is nothing to distract their attention. Other temperaments are strengthened by excitement and their possessors often surprise themselves and the teacher by what they achieve when put to the test. Questions that are designed to test the reasoning powers, should be reserved to the last and should run in lines in which the pupils have been furnished with the materials of thought in the shape of clear, definite concepts. The aim of examinations may be either educational or for purposes of selection. The examinations of the Civil Service and of the school superintendent are designed to bring to light the persons best fitted for a given kind of work, so that the fittest may be selected and others rejected. On the other hand, the examination by a teacher of his own class is chiefly valuable by reason of the reflex influence exerted upon the habits of study. The questions prepared by a school committee or a city superintendent, tend to shape the teaching as well as the studying, to mould the instructor as well as the learner. Promotions should not depend altogether upon the marks given at an annual examination. This is putting too methods of instruction. "BY THEIR FRUITS." THE MEN WHO WERE MADE UNDER THE OLD REGIME. A HAPPY omen of our times is the manifest desire of teachers and parents to make the children as happy as possible. "The greatest boon of childhood is happiness," says a noted educator. Nevertheless, it pays occasionally by way of contrast to glance at the stern discipline of the old Puritan homes, and at the splendid men who grew up under its influence. Dr. Henry M. Field describes his father's regime as follows: "Another Puritan custom was to follow the old He brew rule of beginning the Sabbath, not at midnight but at sunset. Saturday afternoon, as the sun was declining in the west, the father made the rounds of the house, looking into every room with the gentle admonition, My sons, we are on the borders of holy time. All week-day work was finished and laid aside till the Sabbath was past. I am afraid, however, that we youngsters contrived to |