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complains of the inadequate salaries granted to teachers. In Wheeling they average per month, for males, $139 and for females $42, there being about 8.8 months in the year; in other districts males receive $34, and females $22, there being on the average only 2.7 in the school year. The report contains numerous excellent recommendations, among which are, that the school-fund be apportioned upon the basis of average attendance, that five normal schools be established, that a uniform series of text-books be adopted, and that proper apparatus be procured for the schools. The irreducible school-fund is $106,122, and the atiount expended during the last year was $67,350.

VIRGINIA. A vigorous effort is being made for the removal of Randolph Macon College, as the financial condition of the institution is one of serious embarrassment.

SOUTH CAROLINA.-From the January Report of the State Superintendent of Education under the Freedmen's Bureau in South Carolina, it appears that 109 teachers were employed among the Freedmen of that State in December. 6,420 pupils were registered; the average attendance, 4,504. Of the number enrolled, 4,879 were reading: 3,206 studied arithmetic; 1,346 studied geography; 2,983 were writing. 36 of the teachers were natives; 78 from the North; 35 were colored. Of the pupils, 565 were free before the war.

WESTERN STATES.

ILLINOIS.-The whole number of pupils enrolled in the public-schools of Chicago during December, 1865, was 16,014, an ina ease of 1,296 over the corresponding month of 1864. The average attendance hus increased 1,989. Notwithstanding the increased attendance, no new accommodations have been provided, and the schools are over-crowded, while many children are unable to gain admission. The number of pupils to each teacher averages about 70.

Iowa. The biennial report of the Superintendent of Instruction has just been published. The number of pupils in the State shows an increase of 7,024, and the average attendance of 2,215 over the previous year. The number of teachers is 8,820, a decrease of 185. The aggregate amount of teachers' salaries was $856,725, an increase of $170,053. There are 4,635 school-houses valued at $2,161,568, an increase of $428,727. 59 institutes were held during the year, and were attended by upward of 4,000 teachers.

MINNESOTA.-The report of Secretary Blakeley, who unites with his duties as Secretary of the State, the responsibility of

State Superintendent of Instruction, gives the following statistics: The number of school districts is 1,824; the number of children between five and twenty-one years of age is 87,244; number of pupils on school-lists, 50,564; average attendance, 82,259; total number of teachers, 2,008; total amount paid to teachers, $124,563, an increase of $14,538 over the preceding year; total number of school-houses, 1,112, of which 22 are stone, 12 brick, 517 fraine, and 561 log; amount of money received from county treasurers, $151,917; amount of district taxes, $32,215: the irreducible school-fund is now more than $1,000,000, and it is believed it will eventually equal $12,600,000, as one-eighteenth of the State has been set apart. Here, as elsewhere, the friends of education are grieved by the indifference to school privileges manifested by a large number. Only 37 per cent. of those entitled to the advantages of the schools, are regular in attendance. From this alone, as the secretary shows, the State has suffered a loss in money equalling the amount of teachers' salaries. Mr. Blakeley finds no ground for gratitude in the increased number of school-houses, as skillful teachers are less numerous than formerly. He urges the necessity of appointing an efficient State Superintendent, and maintains that nothing else can render the system effective; its buildings are wretched, its teachers incompetent, its district officers are ignorant, and its annual income is wastefully applied. "Poor schools are dear at any price, good ones are cheap at any reasonable cost, and the latter can not be secured without close and careful supervision."

-The Normal-school at Winona, under the charge of Professor W. F. Phelps, is succeeding admirably. There were in attendance last year eighty-two pupils. The principal holds that county superintendents should exercise more discrimination in selecting candidates. The efficiency of the school would be greatly increased if none were recommended but those who are well advanced in their studies and give promise of becoming successful teachers. The soundness of the principal's opinion will appear from the following selections from examination papers of candidates for admission:

Geography.-1st question. How do we know the earth is round?

1st answer. Because it has been traversed over, examined, and found to be certainly the case.

2d answer. The earth at a distance looks round, also the representation of the globe is round.

To this question there were sixteen correct answers, twenty seven imperfect, and twelve total failures.

Arithmetic.-3d question. What is a square root of a number?

1st answer. The square root of a number is a number multiplied by itself three times.

2d answer. A number multiplied by itself.

Seven perfect, one imperfect, fifteen แ can not answer."

Grammar.-2d question. Give the past tense of the verb "to be" in two numbers and three persons?

1st answer. I was, thou art, he is.

2d answer. I was, they were.

To this question there were four correct answers, two incorrect, and eight replied 66 can not answer."

The legislature has passed an act making an appropriation of $10,000, with which to begin an edifice for the school. The bill passed the senate unanimously, and the bouse with but three dissenting votes. A lot has been purchased in the central part of Winona, and the citizens of that place have subscribed $5,000 for the furtherance of the project,

ARKANSAS.-The educational interests of this State are in a very backward condition. The public fund, resulting from the sale of the sixteenth section of land in each geographical township, was almost entirely swallowed up by the rebellion, as the legislature passed an act requiring school-commissioners to receive war bonds in payment of all public fund claims. The peoplo are willing to pay good rates of tuition, but have not learned the advantages of owning school property and employing permanent teachers. Consequently, there are few who teach from choice; those who are engaged in the business, taking it up from necessity.

WISCONSIN.-At the Methodist Centenary collection in the Central M. E. Church of Detroit, $4,000 were raised for the Garret Biblical Institute of Chicago.

KANSAS.-The State Normal-school at Emporia seems to be gaining rapidly in usefulness and public favor. It has been in operation one year, and sixty students are in daily attendance. The present legislature has appropriated $13,000 for the coming year; $10,000 are to be used in the construction of a suitable building, and the

remainder for the corrent expenses of the school.

FOREIGN.

CUBA. The amount expended on the free-schools last year was $460,000.

IRELAND. The whole of Protestant Ireland is in a ferment respecting the proposed affiliation of the leading colleges with the Queen's University. While this change would doubtless be beneficial to the secondary institutions by causing them to elevate their standard of scholarship, there is danger that the non-sectarian system, adopted in these, would be overthrown. On January 20th, a deputation of the Ulster National Educational Association waited on the lord-lieutenant, and presented a memorial, which stated forcibly the main objections to the change. His excellency promised to lay the paper before her majesty's government.

FRANCE.-Six thousand public libraries have been founded and annexed to common-schools within the last four years.

INDIA.-A Calcutta correspondent of the London Times says: "Every year the numbers who flock to the schools and colleges of both the State and the missionaries, and aspire to university honors, increase all over India, but especially in Bengal. Recently the enormous hall of the fine new post-office at Calcutta, built just over the Blackhole, was crowded with the university candidates as only the examinationrooms in China are filled. There were one thousand five hundred candidates for matriculation, at or above the age of sixteen, and four hundred and forty-seven undergraduates of two years' standing for the little go,' called here the first examination in arts. Next week there will be one hundred and twenty aspiring Bachelors of Arts, besides Masters of Arts, and those who seek professional degrees. But among the would-be Bachelors, there is not a single Mussulman. The Bengalese everywhere predominate in the proportion of four-fifths of the whole."

SCIENCE AND THE ARTS.

-Lately, M. Paul Berit stated to the French Academy that "if the tail of a rat be cut off, skinned, and then inserted under the skin of the same animal, it will continue to live and grow as before." He has since made further experiments, and has succeeded in grafting the tails upon other rats. The operation of grafting was successful after the tails had been subjected to the following conditions: 1. Ex

posed to the action of air, in a closed tube, for seventy-two hours, at a temperature of 44° to 46° F.; 2. After exposure to a humid heat of 185° F.; 3. After exposure to a temperature of 3° F.; 4. After complete desiccation; 5. After desiccation and exposure to dry heat of 212° F.

-A ministerial order has been issued in France, that only utensils tinned with pure

tin should be used in the military hospitals. M. Jeannel gives the following process for detecting small quantities of lead in tin: he treats five decigrammes of metal filings with an excess of nitric acid, diluted with three times its weight of water, boils the mixture, filters, and then drops into the solution a crystal of iodide of potassium. If only one ten-thousandth part of lead is present, the yellow precipitate of iodide of lead is formed, which will not disappear upon addition of excess of ammonia.

-At Berlin, they have discovered a new way of making butter. The cream is put into a close linen bag, and buried in the ground at the depth of about a foot and a half. At the end of twenty-four hours it is taken out, and found quite firm. It is then necessary to beat it up with a little water, to get rid of the buttermilk. To prevent any admixture of earth, it is better to inclose the first bag in a second. This method is said never to fail, and the butter to be of a particularly fine quality.

-M. Pouchet has sent a paper to the French Academy on the effects of freezing animals. He finds that no animal really frozen is susceptible of revivification, as freezing disorganizes the blood. The temperature at which the death of insects,

grubs, and snails becomes inevitable is far below the freezing point. Animals may be surrounded by ice without being frozen, unless the temperature be very low. M. Pouchet states that when an animal is frozen, the capillaries contract so as to prevent the passage of the blood, and the nuclei of the blood corpuscles escape from the envelopes, and become more opaque than in a normal state.

-It requires as many as 2,000 tons of coal to produce a circular block of aniline 24 inches high by 9 inches wide; but this is sufficient to dye 300 miles of silk fabric.

FOSSIL REMAINS IN IRELAND:-Dr. E. P. Wright recently read a paper at the meeting of the Royal Irish Academy, by Professor Huxley and himself, on the fossil remains of some large Batrachian reptiles from the Irish coal measures. It was stated that these fossil remains rested on the very bottom of the coal basin at Castlecomer, 1,850 feet below the sea level. The reptiles were six Batrachians; there was one fossil fish and one fossil insect. Professor Haughton said he had Professor Huxley's authority for stating that the coal pit at Castlecomer had, within a few months, afforded more important discov eries than all the other coal-pits of Europe.

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AMERICAN

EDUCATIONAL MONTHLY.

VOL. III.

JUNE, 1866.

No. 6.

FRO

SHORTCOMINGS OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

ROM the late message of Governor Fenton it would appear that he largely attributes the admitted deficiency of the Public School System to the lack of capable public instructors, and he recommends an increase of normal training-schools to obviate the difficulty. There is no reason why excellence in a public instructor should not be obtained in the same way and by the same means that excellence is obtained in any other trade or profession. While the inducements held out to civil engineers, lawyers, book-keepers, and traffickers, exceed those afforded by public parsimony to principals of schools, it is questionable whether the most able and energetic of pupils so instructed, could be retained in the ranks of teachers. The schoolmaster is not paid with reverence as the clergyman, nor with fame as the poet; and, as a rule, will be found to appreciate the importance of wealth as well as his neighbors. It would not be amiss for the State authorities, under the distressing circumstances of which the governor complains, to try the effect of the plan instituted by the Frenchman, who, seeing a number of verbally sympathizing spectators standing round a laborer who was injured by falling from a scaffold, stepped up to him, and, suiting the action to the word, exclaimed, "Sare, I'm sorry for you-one dollare." Fearing I have not made my meaning sufficiently plain in the foregoing, it is necessary to add, that, in this mercenary age, most men expect to realize pecuniarily on their abilities; and teachers are no exceptions to this rule. Some years ago, when young men went into business on speculation in New York, and acquired fortunes in a short space of time, a young son of Maine, who had been one of the fortunate ones, on revisiting his home in the North, met his brother, who had remained in their native village. "Sam, is that you ?" exclaimed the brother. "You look well; how have you been this long time?" "Oh! I'm all right," replied Sam; "but what are you doing? you look rather seedy." "Me; I'm preaching." "What salary do you get?" "Only two hundred a year." "Very poor pay." "Yes," replied the brother; "but it's very poor preaching, too." The moral of this is, that the quality and effi

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