Editorial Notes. Articles for insertion should be sent in by the 20th day of each month. Personal items may find place up to the 25th. When a subscriber wishes School Education discontinued at the expiration of the time for which his subscription is paid, he should notify us by postal card or letter. When such order for discontinuance is not received, we continue to send the journal taking it for granted that it is desired. Please remember that this is our rule. See terms, when not paid in advance. the old Minnesota Journal of Education, we found the identical matter sent us, save that an opening and a closing paragraph had been added by the teacher who had borrowed the article. There was not a quotation mark or anything else to show that the body of the paper was not original. Strange as it may seem, the document proved to be our own lecture, delivered in this city before the State Teachers' Association, in 1872, eighteen years before. Bread on the waters, was it not? It gives us pleasure to record the fact that there are strong indications of a revival of interest in the study of mental arithmetic. Educators who recall the days when that branch was pursued in all schools, when it always had a place on the institute program, SCHOOL EDUCATION for one year and that keen, witty book, the Evolution of Dodd, $1.20, in advance. The executive committee of the National Educational Association has decided to hold the next meet-attribute the present stumbling over simple examples, ing at Saratoga, instead of Helena, July 12-15, 1892. The excellent article entitled "What to Do in Vacation," published in SCHOOL EDUCATION last month, was written for the Western School Journal, Topeka, Kansas, and should have been credited to that paper. We deeply regret the mistake. SCHOOL EDUCATION for one year and Black Beauty, the Uncle Tom's Cabin of the horse, cheap edition, for $1.15. Teachers will find Black Beauty an interesting book to read to their schools. It will teach boys and girls to be kind to animals. the manifest inability to reach and seize, so to speak, the kernel of even a thin-shelled arithmetical nut, to the neglect of this study. Are they correct in their conclusions? It seems to us that the pupil should be able to hold things in mind, to reason from cause to effect, to focus his thoughts on things unseen by the outward eye. The power to do all this and more, is gained by the proper study of mental arithmetic. Supt. W. M. West, of Faribault, has accepted a call to the chair of pedagogy in the University of North Dakota, his appointment to take effect at the midwinter holidays. Mr. West was graduated in the The outlook for a full attendance at the school of agriculture is said to be very encouraging. The en-classical course at the University of Minnesota in '79, rollment is rapidly increasing, and although the applications for entrance have already exceeded the capacity of the dormitories, new rooms are being fitted up, so that all may be comfortably accommodated. The Cosmopolitan Magazine gives 1,536 pages annually, by some of the best known writers, with over 1,200 illustrations. The new subscription price is $3.00, but we will furnish the Cosmopolitan, SCHOOL EDUCATION, and the original $7.00 edition of General Grants' Memoirs, two vols., best paper, cloth, green and gold binding, for $4.78. Goldthwaite's Geographical Magazine is an illustrated monthly, the only publication of its kind. It gives a full record of the world's progress, popularizing the subject of geography, and is of special value to teachers. The regular subscription price is $2.00, but by arrangement with the publisher we are able to offer it with SCHOOL EDUCATION at greatly reduced Until Jan. 1st both will be mailed to any address for $2.00. Send in your orders at once. Some time since, a gentleman forwarded to us for publication a paper which had been read as original by a teacher, before an association held in one of our western counties. A dreamy memory of something long past came gradually into the foreground as we scanned the paragraphs, and, turning to a volume of and two years later a second degree of M. A. was conferred upon him. He has held several public school positions, among others the superintendency of the Duluth schools, a position whice he resigned in 1884 to accept the Faribault superintendency which he has held to the present time. Mr. West has been a scholarly, active and intelligent worker in our state high school system from its inception and has had an influence second to none in establishing correct ideas of high school instruction and management. Unlike many college men, he has thoroughly familiarized himself with the details of primary work and is pre-eminently an all-around worker. He is also an omnivorous reader of history, philosophy and bellelettres, a habit contracted in college and from which he will probably never escape. Minnesota loses one of her brightest and ablest men whose absence from educational gatherings will be keenly felt. A sister state is to be congratulated on the addition to her forces of so efficient an educator, and if a modest meritorious record is a reliable indication, Prof. West will have a successful future. For the benefit of inquirers we reprint the names of officers of the Educational Associations which are to convene the last of December: State Educational Association: President, Prof. Horace Goodhue, Northfield; vice president, Frank A. Weld, Fergus Falls; correspond- President, J. H. Lewis, Hastings; vice-president, Individ woman's design and plans. The sculptural and graphic deco- uals or associations wishing to provide artistic ornaments for of lady managers in time to allow preparations for the reception of such works to be made. In the main gallery of this building will be grouped the supreme achievements of women. Exhibits will be admitted only by invitation, and that will be considered equivalent to a prize. There will be a library of books by women, an exhibition of kindergarden work, a representation of the model training school for nurses and a model President, Dr. C. A. McMurry, Winona; secretary, hospital room, where emergency lectures will be given, and Miss Place, St. Paul. Association of County Superintendents: demonstrations of various phases of the work. One wing of the building will be devoted to the benevolent and charitable organizations of women, and it is purposed to represent graphof this kind of work being done in various countries of the world. President, J. H. Chapman, of Olmsted; vice-presi-ically by maps, plans and relief models, the relative amounts dent, F. B. Chapin, of Becker; secretary, Gertrude C. Ellis, of Mower; treasurer, T. B. McKelvy, of Dakota. WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO? General Department. On the second floor will be the assembly, lecture and committee rooms, parlors and exhibitors' headquarters and a cooking school, conducted upon a scientific plan to show the important facts of culinary chemistry. On the third floor will be the press woman's rooms, the committee rooms and places of Attending a county convention of teachers and rest. To accomplish all this the board must have the co-opschool officers where the roll was called for the pur- eration of all its auxiliary committees, both at home and pose of finding out what was most needed in each abroad, in every detail of the work before outlined. district, and listening to the responses, "supplement- of the women of this and other countries, all the privileges The board of lady managers wishes to place at the disposal ary reading," "library," "apparatus," "globe," "maps," and facilities granted women in connection with the exposition, "dictionary," and so on, only a few schools reporting and it hopes that all may feel an active sympathy with the "nothing needed," we could but wonder what the work proposed, and that every woman will have a personal inteachers proposed to do. We have watched this bus-terest in the women's building. iness of procuring libraries, apparatus, etc., and, long ago, learned that the personal influence of a live teacher counts for more than aught else. General work bears on no one and is of little present value. This generation of teachers will pass off the stage before public sentiment can be radically changed and the earnest teacher can not afford to wait. The heat lightning, flashing out from a convention is good so far as it goes; but a well regulated electric current or even a streak of chain lightning now and then, sent along your wire of influence, right to the hearts and brains of trustees and other patrons, will prove most effective. Let the hundred teachers in the county referred to, the seven thousand teachers in other counties make personal, persistent effort and something must come of it. WHAT THE WOMEN PROPOSE. THE HOLIDAY MEETINGS. NORTHFIELD, MINN., Oct. 22, 1891. Editor of School Education: There will be six sessions; three in sections, Monday evening, Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday forenoon and three general, Tuesday morning and evening and Wednesday afternoon. The topic for the three meetings of the Primary Section will be, TeachThe board of lady managers of the World's Colum- ing natural science in elementary education, considThe board of lady managers of the World's Colum-ered (1) historically; (2) as it now is; and (3) as it bian Exposition proposes to present a complete picture of woman's condition in every country of the world, and to make her show her achievements in all departments. This will include her inventions, the Monday.-President's address; address by the avenues of employment she may enter, the educational courses best fitted to prepare her for further advance-State Superintendent, and five minute reports from ment, the personal elements upon which the value of her work depends, and an exhibit of those things most creditable to her sex. The following from an address of Mrs. Potter Palmer is of general interest: It is intended that the women's building and all its contents shall be the inspiration of woman's genius. It is to be 400 by 260 feet in size, is to cost $20,000 and will be constructed from a should be. The programme for the meetings of the County Superintendents will be: the field. Schools. How may districts be educated to appreciTuesday. Reports from the Summer Training ate and support better schools? Ought not the state to require of its teachers a higher standard of scholarship? and How may our system of examining teachers be improved? Wednesday. Unfinished business. Reports of linking together in the same class of pupils of all committees and election of officers. grades of mental capacity and under all sorts of inMonday evening the High School Council will pre-tellectual environment at home, and the keeping tosent a declamatory contest, according to the vote gether of such pupils in daily lessons and recitations taken last year. Tuesday will have for its topic The until the end of the half-year, and until the examinatraining of the will; and Wednesday will present a tion for promotions shall determine the "survival of symposium on the teaching of Latin and the modern the fittest" is a great injury, not only to the intellectlanguages. The question is sub-divided as follows: ually stronger and better conditioned pupils, but also 1. The quickest way of giving an accurate knowl- to those not so well endowed intellectually, and not so edge of forms. 2. Of syntax and idioms; and 3. favorably environed. Let me explain by a concrete The best way of giving a vocabulary of 800 or 1,000 example: words. Ten successful teachers have been asked to tell how they do these things with their classes. The first session of the general meeting will be given to the address of the President; the report of the committee on the revision of the constitution; a free parliament, and general business. The second session is set apart for an oration and it is expected that the orator will be named in your next issue. The closing session will be largely devoted to a symposium on the place that English should hold and the best method of teaching it in (1) the district schools; (2) in the lower grades; (3) in the high school; (4)in the colleges and universities. For the purpose of general acquaintance, arrangements have been made for a general headquarters at the Windsor Hotel at $2 a day, with free use of parlors and committee rooms, where all may assemble whenever they please. Those desiring the use of bath rooms or other special privileges can have them at a discount of 50 cents from the ordinary rates. The house has been greatly improved this summer and will accommodate 600 guests and the officers hope that all members of the Association will locate at our headquarters. By this means other states are securing generous contributions toward their current expenses from the hotels which they patronize, and if large numbers become guests of the Windsor this year we may be able to make such arrangements hereafter. If any have suggestions to make respecting the new constitution, they should write at once to the chairman of the committee, Prof. Geo. B. Aiton, principal of the Holmes school, Minneapolis. A special meeting may be called, of those engaged last summer in the Training Schools of the state, and the organization of a Round Table in the department of natural science is under consideration. In these and other ways it may be necessary to modify the foregoing outline, but in your next issue we expect to be able to give a completed programme, with the names of all who will take part. H. GOODHUE, Pres. A NEW PLAN OF INSTRUCTION. [From a Paper by Supt. John Moore, in the Crookston Times.] The result of long experience in teaching and superintending leads me to the conclusion that the At the beginning of a half year twenty pupils are grouped together in the same class. Now, owing to higher natural ability, better home influences, more favorable intellectual surroundings in their homes, assistance and stimulating efforts of parents, prompt attendance, etc., some of these twenty would be able to advance at least twice as rapidly as the others not so well endowed, or so favorably conditioned. And yet day after day during the half-year the superior and the inferior pupils are almost unavoidably compelled to maintain the same pace. The result is injurious to both classes. The ambition and vigor of the abler pupil is deadened by having to prepare lessons that he can prepare in much less time than he has at his disposal, by having to listen to instruction on points which he already clearly comprehends, and by having to review work which is nauseating to him because he already fully knows it. On the other hand, the weaker pupil is hurried on too rapidly to allow him to gain mastery of the subject, and as a consequence his knowledge is imperfect and his discouragement great. This evil is not the fault of teachers or the public schools, but rather a condition inseparable from all schools in which children are taught in classes. Having found that the teachers usually take their classes over the work for the halfyear in about two-thirds of the time assigned, and that they employ the remaining third of the time in review work, I have decided to instruct the teachers. to take their classes once over the work prescribed for the half-year in half that time. Then we will hold supplementary examinations, when it will be found, I think, that many pupils will be able to pass fairly well, and these will be at once promoted, while the other members of the class will begin a review of the work already passed over once. The excellence of this plan is that the pupils promoted will not have to "bridge over" any part of their work, but will receive regular class instruction aud drill on every lesson in the subject or text book, a condition, the want of which always stood in the way of "special promotions." This will simply give an opportunity for the abler and better conditioned pupils to advance rapidly, without interfering with the regular course of the slower pupils. "He that saves when he is young may spend when he is old.” MENTAL ARITHMETIC IN OUR COMMON child for the work of life by making him an independ SCHOOLS. BY CO. SUPT. S. J. RACE. ent thinker, broadening the mind and developing the faculties, so that in any emergency one may turn back upon his own resources. We fix our courses of study so that each days' work is staked out. So many pages are to be gone over After several years' experience as a school examin- and we bend all our energies to driving the pupil er I am led to believe that mental arithmetic has been through. So much that he may do what? Discuss quite neglected. Very few teachers who begin work intelligently and logically what he has been over? in our schools know anything about Colburn's Mental Arithmetic or one equally as good. To pass as rapidly as possible from mental to written work seems to be the idea of the average teacher; and I have found that pupils resort to the use of pencils and paper to do what ought to be an easy mental act. They are not trained to do the work without pencils; and the training is what we need to change. To see pupils determining that 12 per cent is of the base; or that 8 is 3 of 9, by some mechanical process, on slates or paper, is not unusual; and a large number of modern educators think that if a pupil states that 8 pounds of candy at 9 cts. a pound cost 72 cts. it is a sufficient solution. I do not think it is. I want that everlasting "why" answered. That he may assimilate it by making it a part of himself? No, but that he may receive his regular promotion, and, finally, his diploma, certifying that he has completed the course. We see the tendency of modern education-it attempts too much. The remedy is to be more practical. Teach the child to rely upon his own individual resources. What is there that so stimulates the mind as the careful analysis of the processes in arithmetic, secured by properly studying mental arithmetic? Let us, then, make school room education analytical and synthetical. Let us by induction and deduction seek to make our pupils thinking, reasoning beings, rather than mere vessels to be filled with dry formulæ. Mr. Hyde in a recent institute here, said, "Make your pupils original thinkers by teaching them how to think." Let us heed his counsel. A SECOND JOSEPH. How can we hope to improve this condition of things? By making mental arithmetic a part of our daily curriculum; by insisting on its daily use. The pencil is only to record combinations too large to be carried in the mind. The pupil should be so taught. Written arithmetic, to many, seems to be just what There is quite a sermon in this one, told me by an its name implies. They think that all work is to be old Scotchman who happened to be seated in the written; that what is called the practical is to precede same carriage with me. A Dundee navvy, on awakenthe mental. We seem to be fast losing sight of the ing one morning, told his wife of a curious dream great purpose of education, which is to equip the that he had during the night. He dreamed that he ། saw a big fat rat coming toward him followed by two lean ones, and in the rear one blind one. He was greatly worried over it and swore that some great evil was about to fall upon him. He had heard that to dream of rats foreboded some dire calamity. In vain did he appeal to his wife, but she could not relieve him. His son, who, by the way, was a bright lad, hearing the dream told, volunteered to interpret it, and he did it with all the wisdom of a Joseph. Said he: "The fat rat is the mon who keeps the public house where ye gang to sae aften, and the twa lean anes are me and me mither, and the blind one is yerself, father."-Frank Leslie's Weekly. Lizzie Mc Laughlin, Literary. MONTEVIDEO. Alice Webb, General. Adolph O. Eliason." MOORHEAD. Edward Fay, General. Guy Morgan. Wm. E. Landeene, 66 Frank G. Landeene, 66 ORTONVILLE. 66 66 |