located on the west bank of the Schuylkill River, near to the city, and are directly reached by rail. There are many noteworthy attractions at these Gardens. Large sums of money have been spent from time to time in bringing together collections of lions from Asia and the forests of Africa; tigers from the jungles of India; rhinoceros from Abyssinia; wild boars from the Hartz Mountains of Germany; grizzly bears, buffaloes, seals, alligators, monkeys, ostriches, orangoutangs, elephants, leopards, kangaroos, jaguars, wolves, deer, birds of many kinds, aquatic fowls in variety, from the swan to the tiniest duck. There has just arrived a large collection of animals recently purchased in Europe. It is the aim of the Society to make these excursions cheap, pleasurable, and instructive to both children and adults; they can also be made an item of financial interest to Sunday-schools, churches, societies, lodges, etc. The Gardens are open from 9 a. m. until sunset. Refreshments can be had at the large and well-appointed restaurant. For further information as to railroad rates and admission, address the Zoological Society, 35th st. and Girard Avenue, Philadelphia.

THE President of Princeton University, Dr. F. L. Patton, believes that many changes will take place in the methods of the Eastern universities. In an interview he said: "The athletic craze has gone far enough. While the fact that athletics tends to improve the morals of the college men when properly conducted is realized by the faculties of the Eastern universities, it is also a fact that in the fierce inter-collegiate contests there is required a degree of proficiency that cannot be attained without constant practice; consequently it is impossible to excel in studies and at the same time be a member of the football or baseball teams. is a difficult problem for educators to solve. A thousand men cannot be controlled like schoolboys, but we are limiting the number of excuses which we accept for absence from classes. Yet we believe that the inter-collegiate contests are profitable. It is impossible to secure emulation, so necessary to the life of athletic undertakings, without inter-collegiate contests, but they should be conducted so that they would not require so much time as they do now."

It

Replying to a question concerning co

education, Dr. Patton said: "I am opposed to it. It is not necessary for me to state why I am opposed to it. There never will be any such thing as co-education at Princeton; it is impossible."

THE law allows any person liable to road tax, $1 for every four shade or fruit trees, of suitable size, transplanted to the side of the public highway on his own premises. The trees if elms must be at least 70 feet apart, if maple or other forest trees, 50, except locust, which may be 30 feet apart. The trees must have been set out a year, and be in good condition, and protected from animals. The abatement on tax allowed on trees thus transplanted shall not exceed one-quarter of his highway tax; and any person who shall destroy or injure any tree thus transplanted shall pay 50 cents for each tree.

THE veteran editor of the New York Sun, Charles A. Dana, the Nestor of the New York press, says: "Almost all books have their use; . but there are some books that are absolutely indispensable to the kind of education that we are contemplating, and to the profession we are considering; and of all these the most indispensable, the most useful, the one whose knowledge is most effective, is the Bible. There is no book from which more valuable lessons can be learned. I am considering it now not as a religious book, but as a manual of utility, of professional preparation, and professional use for the journalist. There is perhaps no book whose style is more suggestive and more instructive, from which you learn more directly that sublime simplicity which never exaggerates, which recounts the greatest event with solemnity, of course, but without sentimentality or affectation; none which you open with such confidence and lay down with such

reverence; there is no book like the Bible. When you get into a controversy and want exactly the right answer, when you are looking for an expression, what is there that closes a dispute like a verse from the Bible? What is it that sets up the right principle for you, which pleads for a policy, for a cause, so much as the right passage of Holy Scripture?" This also is a reason for reading the Bible in schools-that it is a teacher of English.

A RECENT correspondent of the London Times, who writes two long letters about the Canadian Northwest, says, among other things, that, speaking broadly, the young Englishman of the better classes who is sent out to the Northwest to be a farmer is not a success. English public-school life, he thinks, makes good soldiers or sailors, but poor farmers; for in farming it is not spirit and dash that count, but the steady pull. Thus the education of public-school lads is in some respects a hindrance to them as farmers; and, besides that, the quarterly remittances which most of them get are a positive injury. A good many of them recognize that, and stop other work as soon as their remittance comes, and promptly drink it all up, so as to have it out of the way. The correspondent thinks that if the "remittance-men" are to be sent to Canada, the extra ladies in their families should come along too, to exercise their better influence over them. "They will be as well employed," he says, "as in slumming or parish work at home, and they will be giving what the Northwest wants-something of England's best to leaven social life. One never meets in the West an English woman who is not a centre of wholesome and refining influence. It would, indeed, be a boon to the country if the same were true of every son of an English gentleman who goes to it." Reiterating his complaint against English public-school education, the correspondent says that "it creates a very strong desire to mingle sport with work in after-life, and often with the prominence, on the whole, given to sport. Conditions in the Northwest will not at present admit of thus mingling employment. It is the persistent worker who succeeds there."

A YOUNG man wrote to Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes not long ago, propounding four questions, which are often asked

of public men, and the distinguished poet's answers are not without interest for their conciseness:

My dear Sir: I must answer your questions, if at all, in my own hand, as my assistant is absent at this time.

1. A young man of good taste and good principles may safely go to see a good actor in a good play.

2. The best three books? The Bible, Shakespeare's plays, and a good dictionary, say Worcester or Webster.

3. To obtain "real success?" Real work; concentration on some useful calling adapted to his abilities.

4. Shall he smoke? Certainly not. It is liable to injure the sight, to render the nerves unsteady, to enfeeble the will and enslave the nature to an imperious habit likely to stand in the way of duty to be performed.

Yours very truly,

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

STATE TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION.

THIRTY-NINTH ANNUAL SESSION.

THE thirty-ninth annual meeting of the Pennsylvania State Teachers As sociation will be held at Media, Delaware county, Pa., July 3d, 4th and 5th, 1894. We have just received from Prof. L. S. Shimmell, Secretary of the Executive Committee, the following attractive programme:

PROGRAMME OF EXERCISES.
TUESDAY, JULY 3D.

10 A. M.-Opening Exercises. Address of Welcome.-Congressman John B. Robinson, Media.

Responses-Supt. Thos. Farquhar, Bethlehem, and Prof. C. B. Cook, Chartiers.

Report of Wickersham Memorial Committee. What can be Seen in Philadelphia-Col. J. A. M. Passmore, Philadelphia.

2 P. M.-Inaugural Address-Supt. Samuel Hamilton, Braddock.

Report of the Legislation Committee.

Forestry-Dr. J. T. Rothrock, West Chester, Phila.; Supt. G. W. Phillips, Scranton; Prof. H. B. Twitmyer, Honesdale; Prof. C. E. Kauffman, Tyrone.

8 P. M.-Evening session not yet provided for.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 4TH.

9 A. M.-Elementary Science-Dr. S. C. Schmucker, Indiana, Pa.; Supt. D. A. Harman, Hazleton; Prof. A. H. Gerberich, Williamstown.

First Steps in Reading and Language-Mrs. R. S. Pollard, Allegheny; Prof. J. L. Snyder, Allegheny; Miss Nannie J. Machrell, Pittsburg.

2 P. M.-Place of Meeting and Nominating Officers.

A Review of "The Committee of Ten"-Dr. E. T. Jeffers, York; Dr. Chas. De Garmo, Swarthmore.

Duty of Superintendents and Directors on Charts and School Apparatus-Supt. J. M. Berkey, Berlin; Prof. John Cessna, Altoona; Mr. John D. Goff, President Delaware County Directors' Association.

8 P. M.-Banking in Kansas; How I found it, and how it left me-W. O. Fuller, Rockland, Maine.

Physical Culture-Mrs. Louisa C. Preece, Minneapolis, Minn.; Prof. Albert D. Pinkham, Millersville.

School Hygiene-Dr. E. D. Ressley, Media. 2 P. M.-Can and Should Agriculture be Taught in the Country Schools?-Prof. John Hamilton, State College.

Drawing-Miss W. Seegmiller, Allegheny. Needed School Legislation from the Directors' Standpoint-David F. Fortney, Bellefonte. Patriotism-Prof. I. K. Witmer, Lansford. The Music will be in charge of Prof. Jere March, Norristown.

OFFICERS OF THE ASSOCIATION.

President-Supt. Samuel Hamilton, Braddock, Allegheny county.

Vice-Presidents-Miss Jennie Knott, New Brighton; Supt L. E. McGinnes, Steelton. Secretary-J. P. McCaskey, Lancaster. Treasurer-David S. Keck, Kutztown. Executive Committee-Supt. A. G. C. Smith, Media, Chairman; L. S. Shimmell, Harrisburg, Secretary and Ticket Agent; Supt. J. M. Reed, Beaver Falls; Supt. E. Mackey, Butler; and Prof. H. W. Fisher, Pittsburg.

Enrolling Committee-Supt. J. S. Walton, Chester; Prof. L. H. Watters, Media; Supt. M. J. Brecht, Lancaster; Prof. A. F. K. Kraut, Lehigh; Prof. J. H. Michener, Philadelphia.

Legislative Committee-Prof. M. G. Brumbaugh, Col. J. A. M. Passmore, Dep. Supt. J. Q. Stewart, Supt. Geo. J. Luckey, and Supt. D. S. Keith.

RAILROAD ARRANGEMENTS.

The Railroad arrangements have not been completed; they will appear in the June number of The Journal, as will also announcements pertaining to hotel and other local arrangements. Superintendents and teachers will please have this programme published in their county papers, and thereby help to make the Media meeting even larger than that at Beaver Falls. As the National Association will be held at Asbury Park, New Jersey, the week following, the teachers of Pennsylvania can easily attend both, with little additional expense to what it would cost to attend either alone. What more delightful thing could one look forward to than the "lay over" at Asbury Park from Thursday evening, the 5th of July, till Tuesday the 10th, when the National will open!

L. S. SHIMMELL, Secretary Ex. Com. and Ticket Agent.

OUR HIGH SCHOOL COMMENCEMENTS.

'N human life there are two days that

liberal-one is the wedding day, the other the day of graduation. For each occasion the finest presents and the costliest apparel are purchased. Any and every bit of extravagance in invitations and congratulations is considered justifiable, because to the interested parties the future beams with hope, and the heart beats high with brilliant expectations and lofty aspirations. Each is the beginning of a new epoch in life. Just as the wedding day is the beginning of a larger and fuller life, so graduating day has been named the COMMENCEMENT par excellence, the eyes of the graduate being then directed not to the past with its trials and struggles and disappointments, but to the future with its possibilities of fame and glorious achievement.

Often the prospect turns the heads of the students as well as of parents and teachers. Since the High School is the people's college, and oftentimes the pride of the city, the public demands admission to the exercises for every taxpayer. Tickets of admission are issued in excess of the seating capacity of the opera house; and the Commencement has sometimes degenerated into a free show in which the street Arabs make themselves heard with their whistles, so that most of the essays and orations have been lost in a veritable pandemonium of noise and confusion. It were far better to limit the admissions to the number of comfortable seats, to insist on strict order and reasonable quiet, even at the risk of incurring the ire of the general public and the criticisms of the dissatisfied taxpayer.

What is to be gained by the celebration of a Commencement day? Its glory and its tinsel are soon over; what influence, therefore, can it exert upon those who are still at school, as well as upon those who are about to commence the struggle of real life?

It is possible to graduate a student in order to get rid of him. In a school district not to be mentioned in this connection, the young men migrated to other towns in search of work. Their sisters remained, and not wishing to appear so old as they happened to be, they continued to attend the High School year after year, studying the same branches,

preventing those in the lower grades | from being promoted because there was no room above. The principal suggested graduation as the easiest solution of the problem. On the first Commencement day there was a clearance that made room for promotions from the grammar grades.

If the seniors are graduated on the basis of attainments, and not because the school authorities desire to get rid of them, the diploma is a token of proficiency. The youth who finishes a good High School course acquires materials, instruments and habits of thought that make him all his life the superior of a much brighter boy whose training and development never carry him beyond the grammar grade.

To bring the mental faculties under the control of the will so that a person can remember with facility and accuracy, and concentrate all the powers of his mind upon the point under consideration, is surely a consummation greatly to be wished and an end of discipline for which there is no more appropriate token than a diploma.

At the University of Cambridge in England, the man who comes out first in the tripos examination is known as the Senior Wrangler. The fact of graduation at the head of the class not only gives him a Fellowship at the University, but secures for him an honorable place among the scholars of the United Kingdom. It is an inspiring study to trace how the graduates of a good High School rise one after another into prominence in the civil, literary, or financial world.

The diploma is of chief value for those who do not possess it. It supplies a goal that is of inestimable value in the training of the will.

There are three stages of growth in the development of the will. If you place anything in the hand of a child it is immediately moved to the mouth, because in the first nascent stage of the will, the motive to action is the gratification of self. Sometimes the rich man's son who thinks of nothing except the enjoyment of himself fails to rise above this stage. It is a curious fact that all the bank presidents of New York were at one time country lads. This fact can be explained by reference to the effect of rural life upon the will. The youth who follows the plough when he thinks the afternoon's sun has been pinned to the Western sky is not acting for the gratification of self, but he denies himself for the sake of a

goal in the shape of a harvest at the end of the year.

This second stage of will development is teleological. The will denies self for the sake of an end to be accomplished. When graduation is fixed before the eye as a goal to be reached at the end of three or four years' study, it lifts the individual to a higher stage of will development.

The highest stage is reached when the will comes under the inspiration of the idea of right. The individual then ceases to ask about consequences. If a line of conduct is right, it is followed regardless of consequences. The tests of school life, the examinations for graduation, should train the will to honesty of purpose and right conduct, even at the expense of individual preferment or class standing.

Thus graduation becomes a powerful instrument for promoting the growth and discipline of the will. Real success in life depends far more upon the will than upon any other mental faculty. Or as Schopenhauer says, "Man is one-third intellect and two-thirds will." From this point of view the diploma is of incalculable value for the undergraduates, since it aids in fitting them to win in the struggles of later years.

THE GOOD WORK GOES ON.

HE corner-stone of a new building at

THE

the Clarion State Normal School was laid by Gov. Pattison on Tuesday, April Ioth. In spite of the inclement weather, the chapel was crowded both in the afternoon and in the evening. J. W. Reed, Esq., delivered an address on behalf of the Trustees. Principal A. J. Davis read a history of the school. Gov. Pattison delivered an address in which he emphasized the importance of developing the powers with which each student is endowed. Deputy Supt. Houck closed the afternoon exercises in his characteristic happy vein.

In the evening addresses were delivered by President J. D. Moffat, of Washington and Jefferson College, and State Supt. Schaeffer. The former pointed out some of the dangers to which the common schools are exposed, and the latter spoke of triumphs of the teacher in other days and under less favorable circumstances.

The Governor was received amid the booming of cannon, and the exercises closed with a banquet in the spacious

dining hall of the Normal School. From Clarion the Governor and his party went to New Castle. Wherever the train stopped, the children and citizens received him with demonstrations of respect and enthusiasm. At New Castle the children of the public and parochial schools to the number of 3500 assembled upon the public square, where they listened to short addresses by the Governor and the State Superintendent. The scene brought to the mind of the writer a conversation of two decades ago. Several Americans accompanied the Mayor of Berlin on a visit to the exercises in the Victoria Schule. On the way home he related how, the day before, he had visited schools in the company of the great Field Marshal Von Moltke, and how, at the close of the exercises, the aged general, in German fashion, clapped his hands upon his knees and exclaimed: "These boys are the hope of the Fatherland; they will never allow its enemies to wrest from it one foot of territory." As the review ended, the pupils waved hundreds of flags and all felt like exclaiming: "These pupils are the hope of our country; they will never let harm come to the land of the Stars and Stripes, the home of the brave and the free.' After the children had saluted the Governor, they made room for the citizens. Then the Shenango Valley Hospital, in all re

Local Boards in the erection of suitable buildings. Now the people urge the erection of magnificent buildings-each ward striving to excel the other in providing school facilities for its children.

Pennsylvania has two metropolitan centres of population-one at the junction of the Schuylkill and the Delaware, and the other at the confluence of the Allegheny and the Monongahela. In the former centre has sprung up a University counting its buildings by tens, its instructors by hundreds, its students by the thousand, and its endowment by the million.

Pittsburgh and Allegheny have the basis for a similar University life, on Observatory Hill and in connection with their Carnegie libraries. It is to be hoped that at no distant day the rich men in this thriving centre of population will realize this possibility, and that the educational forces at the head-waters of the Ohio, embracing every intérest from the Kindergarten to the high school and the college, including the schools of medicine and theology, will be welded together into a grand movement, resulting in a University life that shall rival anything on the banks of the Delaware.

PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

Public Schools and Religious Ed

with appropriate exercises.

On Thursday, April 12, the Shake speare sub-district school in the Twentieth Ward of Pittsburg was dedicated. The school, which is built entirely of Ligonier granite from Westmoreland county, is situated in one of the most picturesque spots in the East End. The main entrance, a huge stone archway, fronts on Shakespeare street. In the rear of the building is another beautiful entrance which leads in from Aurelia street. The building contains ten large rooms, including all the modern improvements and appliances for heating, ventilating and for filtering the water used by the pupils and teachers. The floors were made of selected maple, and all the inside finish is in hard wood. It will indeed be difficult to find a rival to this building anywhere in the wide world. It is a monument to the wisdom and management of Dr. T. D. Davis and his colleagues on the Local Board. There was a time when Supt. Luckey found it necessary to defend the

discourse by Rev. Dr. Henry Berkowitz, before the congregation Rodeph Shalom, in Philadelphia. He cited the fact from Jewish history that, as early as eighty years before the Christian era began, a sage of Judea, Simon ben Shetach, had set up the principle that popular education is the best strength of a nation. Being a brother to the reigning Queen, Salome Alexandra, and one of her chief councillors, he was enabled to carry out his doctrine, and established high schools in all the cities of the realm.

By the year 65 of the Christian era this principle had gained such ground in Palestine that Joshua ben Gamala, the High Priest, expanded its application so as to provide schools in every village for youth from six years of age upwards, and make attendance a compulsory duty. These enactments were nearly 2000 years ago. Since then public education has never ceased in Israel. But for the crushing spirit of mediævalism many of the prob