will increase the salaries of its teachers in accordance with your wise and timely suggestion. G. M. Philips, D. W. Sensenig, C. B. Cochran, J. P. Welsh, E. Y. Speakman, Lydia A. Martin, Alma Sager Welsh, Mary A. Cummings, Carrie E. Bemus, Lizzie K. Leigh, Annie M. Sensenig, Lizzie M. Philips, Addison Jones, Christine Faas, A. Thos. Smith, Calvin U. Gantenbein, Henry J. Benner, Eva J. Blanchard, and Abbie A. Eyre. "" COATESVILLE, June, 1887. Dear Sir: I have read with great pleasure your article entitled 'A Million and a Half for the Public Schools," and endorse every word of it. When the Senate of Pennsylvania amended the appropriation for public schools by adding a half million dollars more than in former years, it was the prevailing desire that the salaries of our teachers should be increased, so that the Commonwealth might be able to retain her best teachers and also encourage persons who are qualified to enter the profession, and thereby increase the efficiency of our schools. This can now be done with the additional halfmillion dollars without any increase in our local taxation, for no man, woman, or child in Pennsylvania pays one penny of this half million dollars unless they have money at interest. Surely Delaware county does not pay her teachers more than they deserve, and surely there is no reason why Chester county should be behind Delaware county either in average length of term or in average pay of her teachers. I trust that our Directors, who are excellent men and women, will see the wisdom of your suggestion and act accordingly. With all kind wishes, Yours truly, A. D. HARLAN. HONEYBROOK, 6, 15, 1887. Dear Sir: Your favor of the 14th inst. is to hand, enclosing copy of an article for publication in reference to the increased appropriation for the public schools, which I heartily endorse. It was the understanding when the bill was before the Legislature, that the increased appropriation was to be used for the purpose of increasing the efficiency of the public schools, by getting a better grade of teachers or for lengthening the school term, and not for the purpose of reducing the school tax. Very respectfully yours, W. W. McCONNELL. UPPER OXFORD, June 15, 1887. Dear Sir: Your article in favor of applying the increased appropriation for the common schools to the better payment of teachers must commend itself to a thinking public. The increase had its conception solely in the desire to increase the efficiency of our schools by giving greater encouragement to teachers, and to prompt such a further increase in the tax levy for the same purpose as would secure the best talent. Some of the most strenuous advocates of the measure in the House last winter were much more in favor of improving the schools than increasing the minimum term. The crying demand all over the State seems to be for better schools and better teachers. The quality of heart and mind that fits the person to become an accepted teacher must be obtained at great sacrifice and expense, and the average price paid for the services of such teachers in Chester county, after deducting the price of board, is but a poor recognition indeed. I am quite sure if the increase in the appropriation had been asked for the purpose of relieving local taxation for school purposes not one dollar of increase would have been granted. I have no doubt the Directors of Chester county will be faithful to the trust, and that the spirit that prompted the passage of the bill will also prompt the distribution. Respectfully, JNO. W. HICKMAN. ERCILDOUN, Pa., 6, 14, 1887. Dear Sir: I have received the above article, and nothing gives me greater satisfaction than to learn that the Daily News is taking such deep interest in educational affairs. The points set forth therein illustrate most conclusively an easy method to improve the efficacy of our teaching force, to broaden the facilities offered to our children, and to raise the standard of work in our common schools. A little careless parsimony in primary education often entails an extra outlay of many hundred dollars before the day of graduation. It is an old adage, "Well begun is half done." I feel confident that there is no Board of Directors in the entire county of Chester who would knowingly rob our common schools of what they so urgently need-better teachers. Then by all means let us take the extra appropriation for that purpose. Very truly, Jos. S. WALTON. UNIONVILLE, June 15th, 1887. Dear Sir: I have read your article on the subject of teachers' salaries and can say amen to all the ideas contained therein. An average of fifty of our good teachers leave the public schools in Chester county every year. Many of them go to other counties for better salaries. Some years ago I had the pleasure of visiting the County Institute at Pottsville, Schuylkill county, and was surprised in looking over the register to find ninety-seven teachers' names recorded who were receiving over $50 a month. Last year's report gives 116 teachers in that county receiving from $50 to $100 a month, while in Chester county, outside of West Chester, only twelve teachers receive as much as $50 a month. This should not be. Chester county is as able to pay her teachers as Schuylkill county. Very truly yours, JACOB W. HARVEY. OBERLIN, O., June 15, 1887. Dear Sir: Your slip reached me here. I approve heartily of your suggestion. Bucks county does not do as well as Chester by her teachers, and the result is that she is training teachers for other counties, using her own children as material for teachers to experiment upon, so that they may acquire skill to teach in other counties where they pay more. Pay teachers better wages and at the same time require better work. Our present policy is economy without sagacity, and may well be called "penny wise and pound foolish." Heartily, W. W. WOODruff, JE have thus far attended the annual examinations at Orphan Schools at Harford, Loysville, Mansfield, White Hall, Chester Springs, and Mercer, and everywhere the S. O. schools have been found in excellent condition. The examinations were conducted in part by the County Superin tendents of the several localities, who are especially skilled in this work, and these officers will make written report to the Department of the results in the different branches of study. At all the schools the advanced grades, seventh and eighth, were examined in the higher branches of mathematics and literature. There was at each of the schools a very creditable exhibition of industrial work, such as their arrangements permit. We have also had the pleasure of attending the examinations at the State Normal Schools at Mansfield, West Chester and Shippensburg. These institutions all give evidence of improvement, both within and without. There are large bodies of students present, and the showing of the examinations everywhere indicates progress. At Mansfield especial attention is given to physical training, there being a voluntary "soldier company" of the students, which goes through the ordinary military evolutions, with skirmish drill and loading and firing, in a very satisfactory manner. The ladies here have their calisthenic drill, with an approved system of exercises, including many graceful and complicated movements performed to the rhythm of the music. The grounds at this school are beautifully laid out and planted, and kept in perfect order under the care of a professional English gardener. The baccalaureate sermon was preached by the State Superintendent at Mansfield on Sunday, June 19th. THE name of Supt. David B. Gildea, of Plymouth, Luzerne county, should have appeared on the list of newly-elected officers as published in our last issue. We shall republish the list, with salaries for the current term, as soon as these shall be definitely determined under the provisions of the law. AMONG the honorary degrees conferred at the recent Centennial of Franklin and Marshall College were the doctorate of laws upon the editor-in-chief of The School Journal, of divinity upon the editor of the literary department, and of philosophy upon the junior editor. It has been a good-natured surprise to all of us. ciated from this sterling old college, and are hereby gratefully acknowledged. With so many doctors in the house, and these of different schools, the intellectual and spiritual The honors are appre well-being of The Journal should be carefully looked after. TH RECENT LEGISLATION. HE school laws passed at the recent session of the Legislature, will be found at length in this number of The Journal, and our readers will examine them for themselves. They fall short of what had been hoped for by many of us, but in what was done there is reason for profound gratitude, and the School Department and the leaders of the educational work everywhere throughout the State tender their earnest thanks, first to the law-making power, and again to the Chief Executive, for his approval of what the Legislature has seen fit to enact. The most important enactments cover the long sought minimum school term of six months, and an addition of half a million dollars for each of the next two years to the annual State appropriation to the common schools. The influence of these two measures should be felt upon our educational interests like a galvanic battery, arresting retrograde tendencies and giving an impulse to forward movement all over the State. The first of these laws insures an additional month of school training to at least two hundred and twenty-five thousand pupils—a consideration of immense importance, the more so since the last month of school should be the best of the term. The marked decrease in the average salaries of common school teachers, as shown in the last annual report of the Department of Public Instruction, was a humiliating surprise to the friends of our common schools generally, and no time should be lost in wiping out that reproach to the Old Key stone. As additional funds have been fur- | wonld prove a vast boon to the children and nished by the Legislature-let us hope with The act authorizing and requiring the payment of teachers while in attendance at the annual session of the County Institute is a very proper one. The twenty-day law forbids the time of the Institute to be reckoned and paid for as a part of any school month; and as attendance during Institute week, when by law the schools are closed, is in the interest alike of the schools and the teachers, it is not only generous, but just, that teachers be paid at the equitable rate here named. The consolidation of independent school districts in cities of the fourth, fifth and sixth classes thus making the city a single school district, instead of longer permitting its division under two or more distinctly separate boards of direction or control is in the line of progress, as it tends to simplify and render uniform the administration of school affairs in cities of the several classes named. The act authorizing the holding of separate institutes in cities where the number of teachers employed is not less than seventyfive is in no sense mandatory. It leaves the holding of such institutes at the discretion of the local school authorities. The act prohibiting the employment of children under twelve years of age, to work in or about mills, manufactories or mines, should insure, in many localities, largely increased school attendance of children under the age named. This act, to be made properly effective, should be supplemented by legislation requiring a careful school census under direction of the authorities of each school district in the Commonwealth, and providing for the appointment of Inspectors, whose duty it shall be to see that its provisions are not violated by employers. Thus fortified, and the law properly enforced, it result in great good to the State. The taking of such census as is here suggested could be made a part of the duties of a district superintendent; and the factory inspectors of the State of New Jersey, who have recently been in convention across the Delaware, would be good authority in the matter of proper inspection laws. Some projected legislation failed which is of fundamental importance. The District Superintendency is a matter of overshadowing and steadily-increasing importance, and its failure to be established at the late session is not in any sense a defeat, but merely a postponement. It passed the House of Representatives, but was not reported in the Senate. This failure, while a momentary disappointment, is no cause for discouragement. The schools are not for a day or a year, but for all time, and whatever is necessary to complete and strengthen the organization and operations of our common school system cannot drop out of sight or be abandoned permanently, but must come up again and again for consideration until ultimately and completely triumphant. It is the law of our school life, and will make itself felt in the face of opposition or disbelief from any quarter or from any cause whatsoever. Like a ripe apple in the autumn, the District Superintendency will fall from the Legislative tree, if shaken with energy, whenever public opinion is fairly ripe for that result. We had thought the bill to provide an office at the county seat for the Superintendent of each county would become a law without serious objection; but, as we have been mistaken, we appeal to the County Commissioners, wherever such office has not yet been provided, at once to furnish office room for the County Superintendent, of their own motion, in a spirit of progressive and commendable independence. These county school officers have as good a right to be provided with official head-quarters as any other county officers who are thus provided for. Indeed, their claim is even stronger than that of certain other officers, inasmuch as they have to do with so large a number of people, and with a public interest of such commanding importance as to reach almost every home in the entire county. It will be for the public convenience vastly more than for that of the individual officer, as will be evident to all when the Education Office properly furnished and equipped shall be as well known at the county seat as is now that of Sheriff, Recorder, Register, or Prothonotary. FRANKLIN AND MARSHALL. CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF THE COLLEGE AT LANCASTER. IT is one hundred years since Benjamin Franklin came from Philadelphia by slow conveyance, in his old age, to lay the corner-stone of Franklin College, and to make what in that early day was a liberal contribution towards its support. Had he left the Broad Street Station Friday, June 14th, with Dr. Wm. Pepper, provost of the University of Pennsylvania-another institution which he was mainly instrumental in founding-and come through to Lancaster in two hours; greeted the strong men assembled for the great anniversary; seen the large audiences; heard the music, worthy of the occasion, and the addresses by some of the ablest men whom the college has sent out from its halls, he would have recalled very pleasantly "the day of small things," and drawn his check for a handsome addition to the endowment fund. Marshall College was founded at Mercersburg in 1837, fifty years later than Franklin. It was united with Franklin in 1853, and thus the united college celebrated both a centennial and semi-centennial. The skies during the week were clear and bright, the alumni and visitors generally were enthusiastic, the programmes of the successive days were admirably arranged, and the general interest manifested on the part of our citizens was at once unusual and most gratifying. Franklin College was incorporated by the Legislature of Pennsylvania on the 10th of March, 1787, as "The German College and Charity School of the borough and county of Lancaster." At the same time the institution was named Franklin College, "" from a profound respect for the talent, virtues and services to mankind in general, but especially to this country, of His Excellency Benjamin Franklin, Esq., President of the Supreme Executive Council." Although older than Marshall by half a century, "Franklin and Marshall" owes all of its theological and scholastic distinctiveness to the younger of the two institutions. The reasons for this will be apparent from a brief sketch of the history of Marshall College. It was founded in 1837, under a charter granted by the Legislature in 1836. Its beginning, however, was about 1830, as a high school at York in connection with the Reformed Theological Seminary, which had been removed to that place from Carlisle. Five years later, in 1835, the Synod of Chambersburg deter mined to remove the Seminary and high school to Mercersburg, and the resolve to change the high school into a college was also agreed upon. A Board of Trustees, representing the Mercersburg, Zion, Maryland and Virginia Classes, was chosen, under whose direction the cause of the college was pushed with such vigor that the college building was erected in 1836. The first President of Marshall College was the Rev. Dr. Frederick A. Rauch, a native of Germany, a graduate of the University of Marburg, who fled to this country in 1831, in consequence of incurring the displeasure of the government by the liberality of his political. opinions. He settled at York, where he was ordained to the ministry in 1832. Upon the death of the Rev. Daniel Young in that year, Mr. Rauch succeeded him as principal of the high school, and so became the first president of Marshall College. Upon the death of Dr. Rauch in 1841, the Rev. Dr. John W. Nevin succeeded him and continued to direct the college until united with Franklin in 1853. Of the two Presidents of Mercersburg College, Dr. Nevin was the abler and more original thinker. Both were very learned men and both theological and philosophical teachers who attained to great distinction. The latter was, beyond question, the greatest teacher of his time in Pennsyl vania. Since the consolidation, Franklin and Marshall College has graduated 553 alumni, while Marshall turned out 192 graduates, making a total of 745. The majority of these are still living. The first graduate of Marshall College, and the only member of the class of 1837, was the Rev. Dr. J. H. A. Bomberger, now president of Ursinus College. At the head of the class of 1838 was Rev. Dr. E. V. Gerhart, the first president of Franklin and Marshall College, a position that he held until 1866, when he was succeeded by Rev. Dr. Nevin, who thus became the second president of Franklin and Marshall, as he had been the second president of Marshall College. At the head of the class of 1840, is the name of Jacob Heyser, of Chambersburg. Among the graduates in 1842 were the Rev. Theodore Appel, and John Cessna, LL.D. Ex-Congressman J. W. Killinger was graduated in 1843, Dr. L. H. Steiner, of Baltimore, in 1846, and Rev. Dr. P. S. Davis, editor of the Reformed Church Messenger, in 1849. At the head of the class of 1850 was the Rev. Dr. Thomas G. Apple, who succeeded Dr. Nevin as president of Franklin and Marshall College in 1876, and is still its president. The lege that combines their worthy names. events we commemorate impose a responsibility not only upon the churches. but upon the city within whose limits Franklin College was founded. Lancaster should feel honored in having been selected at that early day as the home for a college. This fact should act as a stimulus upon all her literary institutions, and make her realize her great responsibility as one of the college towns in our great Commonwealth. Lancaster county is renowned as the "Garden Spot of Pennsylvania;" let her value still more her character as the home of Pennsylvania's most vigorous college. The first day of the Centennial week was Sunday, June 12th. Dr. Thos. G. Apple, president of the college, preached the baccalaureate sermon. Before proceeding to the discussion of the thoughts presented in the text chosen for the occasion, he spoke much as follows: The service upon which we this day enter, stands connected with an important epoch in the history of this college. It inaugurates the celebration of the centennial anniversary of the founding of Franklin and the semi-centennial of the founding of Marshall College, two institutions that were united and consolidated in 1853 under the name and title of Franklin and Marshall College. Such an epoch carries in it vast significance for the duties and responsibilities of the present hour. The events we commemorate in this centennial and semi-centennial anniversary were of no ordinary character in their original inception, and still more is their significance increased for our contemplation by the history that has grown forth from them. The founding of Franklin College had for its design the promotion of higher education among the German population of this commonwealth. Considering the character of the population of Pennsylvania at that time, composed largely of Germans who had fled from persecution in the Fatherland and their descendants, this event was fraught with the deepest interest and importance for the welfare of the State; and that this significance was recognized at the time is evident from the character of the men who took part in the founding of Franklin College. Benjamin Franklin was, we are told, in a sense its founder, aad made it a liberal contribution. Robert Morris, the financier of the American Revolution, contributed $600, and Benjamin Rush, the prince of physicians, was not only a liberal patron, but an active promoter of the enterprise. In the list of its trustees are the Hon. Thomas Mifflin, Hon. Thomas McKean, LL.D., Governors Snyder and Hiester, General Muhlenberg, Hon. Robert Morris, Hon. George Clymer, and many other eminent public men. In its faculty are the names of Dr. H. E. Muhlenberg, Dr. William Hendel and Rev. F. V. Melsheimer. What the University of Pennsylvania was for the Eastern section, and the English population, that Franklin College was to be for the inland section and the German population of the State. Of similar importance and significance was the founding of Marshall College, a half century later. It was not a mere college in the ordinary sense of the term that was founded at Mercers burg, but an Anglo-German institution, adapted to the peculiar wants of the descendants of those early German citizens of Pennsylvania and their brethren throughout the country at large. This idea fully penetrated the men who labored and sacrificed in its founding, and the men who, in its early history, stood at its head as professors. And now, as we look back to-day upon the history of the past. we feel that the responsibilities as well as the honors of the founding of these two institutions rest upon the present col On Monday evening the fifth annual oratorical contest of the Junior class took place, the prize, a gold medal, being awarded to Mr. C. L. Bowman. At a meeting of the trustees on Tuesday, at which Hon. John Cessna presided, Dr. Apple read the report of the Centennial Committee, and urged strongly the three objects which it is hoped to accomplish during the present year-the founding of the Nevin memorial, the endowment of the presidency of the college and of an alumni professorship. Some $10,000 were finally reported. Among subscribers to the fund were Mr. Jacob Bausman, Lancaster, $5,000; George F. Baer, Esq., Reading, $1,000; Dr. Wm. Pepper, $1,000, and others. Rev. C. U. Heilman made a report on the Wilhelm estate of 1900 acres in Somerset county, owned by the college, which it was reported could be sold for $40,000, reserving all mineral rights. On Tuesday evening a public meeting was held in the court house, Hon. John W. Killinger presiding. Addresses were made upon "Benjamin Franklin," the founder of Franklin College, by Dr. Wm. Pepper, of the University of Pennsylvania, and upon "Chief Justice John Marshall and His Work," for whom Marshall College was named, by Hon. R. W. Hughes, judge of the United States District Court, Norfolk, Va. We regret that lack of space prevents our making extended extracts from these carefully-prepared addresses. Governor Beaver, who was present upon the platform as the guest of the college authorities, was then loudly called upon. He said that he did not wish to spoil the keen edge that had been put on the people's ap petites by the gentlemen who had preceded him. He felt privileged, however, in standing on the same platform where Pennsylva nia and Virginia were so well represented. This was a most happy and auspicious occasion. He saw the inscription on the College, "Lux et Lex," and regarded it as a |