In the two years' struggle through which we reached success, Mr. Smyth gave us every assistance in his power. He made the "Official Department" of the MONTHLY a valuable feature, officially urged members of boards of education to become subscribers, and in other ways held up our hands. But for his aid we must have surrendered our work at its very beginning. And all this he did without asking us to support his "policy" as Commissioner. We were as free to express our own views as we are to day. To Anson Smyth the State Association and this journal owe a large debt of gratitude. God bless him!

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- A LETTER before us takes issue with the common idea of teaching reading in schools. "As I understand it," says the writer, "our boys and girls should be taught reading for two purposes, first, to acquire knowledge, and, secondly, to communicate it. To acquire is first in order and first also in importance; to communicate is also of high value, but yet it is quite secondary to the other. To put this secondary object not only as first, but as the only aim in teaching reading in schools, is a great error. Why not utilize the time and efforts of our pupils while learning to read, just as the carpenter does his apprentice's time while learning his trade?" The letter closes by asking us to "think of this whole matter." We intend to do so, meanwhile let us record some of our first efforts. The primary object of a reading exercise in school must be to teach pupils to read. Is not this plain? What is reading? Silent reading is the recognition of written or printed words and characters, and a comprehension of the ideas, thoughts, and emotions they express. Oral reading is the proper oral expression of the ideas, thoughts, and emotions recorded by written or printed characters. But as comprehension must necessarily precede utterance, the proper teaching of oral reading includes the imparting of the ability of silent reading. Moreover, oral reading, as a school exercise, has two aims, viz.: (1) to test the pupil's comprehension of what is read, and (2) to impart the ability to communicate it to others. What, then, is the primary aim of a reading exercise in school? Is it to teach oral reading or silent reading? Will our friend tell us whether this is a good beginning? If it is, we will try to carry our thinking to a practical conclusion. But we are now troubled to see where we can bring in the idea of utilizing the time, etc. This seems to have an eye on the subject-matter of the reading lesson. Is there a logical connection here? We will think a little on this point.

A RECENT number of The Chicago Courier-an excellent weekly, published by H. B. Bryant-contains a suggestive editorial on diseases caused by the school life of children. It states that the prevailing "school disease" in Prussia is imperfect vision. The Prussian Minister of Public Instruction recently caused a thorough examination of 10,000 students to be made, and he reports that nineteen per cent. have defective vision. The percentage in the different grades and classes of schools is as follows: In country schools, 5.2 per cent.; city primary schools, 14.7; intermediate schools, 19.2; higher girls' schools, 21.6; technical schools, 24.1; gymnasia (college), 31.7. Of 410 university students 68 per cent. had imperfect sight. The prevailing imperfection

is short-sightedness, the average per cent. of the pupils thus afflicted being: In country schools, 1.4 per cent.; city primary, 6.7; intermediate, 7.7; technical, 18.7; college, 26.2; university, 60. The same increasing ratio is seen in the different classes of the same school, the per cent. in the lowest primary class being 1, and in the highest college class, 55.8. Prof. Virchon, of Berlin, attributes this result principally to "the barbarous German type." We believe that much of the imperfect vision in this country is due to the small solid type formerly used in school books and still used in most newspapers. We are glad to see the general use of large clear type in school and college manuals.

WE call special attention to Miss Lee's article showing how teachers may greatly promote the health and physical development of their pupils. We also take occasion to urge all teachers to show their appreciation of pure air by giving constant attention to the ventilation of their school-rooms. What is needed is not pure air at the sacrifice of temperature, but both pure air and right temperature. Would it trench upon the rights of physicians to impress pupils with the necessity of ventilating their sleeping rooms?

The Illinois Teacher thus alludes to the profits of educational journals: An examination of the condition of the various teachers' magazines throughout the country would quickly convince any having such impression of their mistake. Without referring to statistics, we can enumerate at least six state educational journals which have died for want of support within the last few years. Considering that there are now only about a dozen journals in the whole country, this showing is certainly not very favorable to the profit of the enterprise. Some of these receive, regularly, aid from the treasuries of their respective states. The fact is that no editor or publisher of an educational journal-disconnected from any publishing house, where it is used as means of advertising-has ever grown wealthy by the profits of the business. What all these journals need is an increased circulation. There is hardly one of them which is not conducted more from a public spirit for the work than from any expectation of private gain. They are a necessity in the great work of education, and the obligation rests upon all interested in the work to give them their support. Financial aid will add strength and ability to them as it will to a daily newspaper. Men of each political party or religious denomination feel it a duty to support their party or denominational paper. Is there a less duty resting upon teachers to support an educational journal?

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PERCENTAGES OF ATTENDANCE.

A correspondent alludes to the want of uniformity in the methods of computing percentages of school attendance, and urges that some uniform practice should be adopted by the graded schools of the State. In our July number, we called the attention of the State Superintendents' Association to this subject with the hope that it would be considered at the Cleveland meeting and definite action taken. The fact is the present reports of percentages are well nigh worthless as a means of ascertaining the comparative regularity of attendance in different cities and towns, and our only object in publishing them is to make superintendents conscious of the fact. The most flattering approaches to perfection are often the result of sharp figuring and a sharper practice. One

superintendent only marks absence for three successive days after that the pupil is regarded as "withdrawn"; another has his pupils "withdraw" if obliged to be absent more than two days; another has pupils who are to be absent, come to the school and report at roll-call, etc., etc.

Our correspondent suggests that a week be made the basis of enrollment, and that every pupil attending school any portion of a week be considered a member of the school for the entire week. This would secure uniformity, but would it report the truth? Suppose a pupil does not actually enter school until Thursday or Friday, or suppose he permanently withdraws on Tuesday, is he a member of the school for the entire week? But we do not object to making a week the basis, if the plan be governed by such rules as will secure a record of the whole truth and nothing but the truth. A school register should not lie. Absence is absence and membership is membership, and, we may add, that tardiness is tardiness, necessary or unnecessary, excused or unexcused.

This leads us to say that the first essential in school records is rigid honesty. Years ago when we were principal of a grammar school, the city superintendent adopted the plan of publishing the monthly percentages of attendance of the different schools, with the number of cases of tardiness. The very few cases reported, from month to month, by a certain principal led us to make his school an early morning visit to see how the thing was done. The devotional exercises began promptly at 9 o'clock and closed in ten minutes. The doors were opened and some fifteen pupils entered. We remained until recess, and then asked the principal what had caused so many of his pupils to be tardy that morning? He surprised us by saying that pupils who were ready to enter the room when the doors were opened at ten minutes past nine, were not tardy; that he allowed ten minutes for a variation in clocks!

Possibly the reader may call such a practice dishonest, but is it more dishonest than the keeping of a school clock from ten to fifteen minutes slow? The truth is the reputation secured by such questionable practices is not worth the price paid for it. We are glad to believe that the great majority of our teachers so feel and act.

THE BIBLE QUESTION AGAIN.

At a meeting of the State Christian Convention, held at Columbus, Dec. 1st and 2d, and composed of delegates from all evangelical denominations, the following resolutions were adopted by a rising vote:

Resolved, That whereas "religion and morality are essential to good government," and whereas our public school system is organized and sustained to promote good government and secure the well-being of society, therefore the right moral instruction and training of its pupils are the highest function and the most imperative duty of the public school.

Resolved, That while effective moral instruction and training in our schools do not require the teaching of sectarian dogmas, creeds, catechisms, or rituals, we believe that such instruction and training must be based upon the Bible as the divine moral code, and must be vitalized by a religious atmosphere. Both reason and history at

test the insufficiency of the natural virtues as a basis of moral duty and action, and especially when enjoined by no higher authority than the human reason. The moral law must come to the human heart and conscience as "Thus saith the Lord." Resolved, That we hold with Justice Story, in the Girard Will case, that "the Bible is a religious but not a sectarian book," and we believe that its devotional reading in our schools, without note or comment, neither trenches upon the rights of conscience nor violates the right of private judgment, and we are opposed to the prohibition of such reading by the action of boards of education or by statutory enactment.

Resolved, That the argument urged in favor of the exclusion of the Bible from our schools, also demands the exclusion of every religious sentiment from our school books, seals the lips of the teacher with reference to every religious fact or precept, and inaugurates atheism as the supreme law of our schools, thus rendering them more instead of less objectionable to the Roman Catholic Church, and imperiling the very existence of the system.

We believe that these resolutions present the true ground on which to fight the battle for the preservation of a non-sectarian system of public education. The exclusion of the Bible and non-sectarian religion is to be opposed, not in the interest of Protestantism or of the Christian faith, but solely for the general good and the nation's safety. The two great foes of human society and free government are ignorance and vice, and hence that great mission of public education is not only to disseminate intelligence among the people, but also to inculcate virtue-to purify the heart and ennoble the life. Nor can this higher duty of moral training be neglected. The moral need of the nation is to day greater than its intellectual. Witness the impious violation of official oaths, and the shameful dishonesty and corruption which disgrace public life and even menace our free institutions.

But it is urged that "the great duties of love to God and man, the beauty of holiness, the sweet magic of charity, and all that is noblest in human aim and truest in human life", may be taught in school without the formal reading of the Bible. This, if true, does not meet the difficulty. The demand is not only that the Bible, but that all religious knowledge and instruction be banished from the schools. Love to God is the very duty most offensive to atheism. It is proposed to train the youth of the nation in virtue and fortify them against vice and crime by a Godless system of ethics. Dare a Christian people try the experiment? Has atheism moral power enough in it to preserve the nation? The fact is moral instruction in this land must be religious or irreligious, Christian or anti-Christian. It can not be neutral.

But if religion is to be tolerated in the schools, if God's law is to sanction and enforce moral duty and obligation, why exclude the Bible? The plea that this will remove the objection of the Catholic Church to the school system will be made by no one who knows the Catholic position. There is not an authoritative statement from the Pope's Syllabus of Modern Errors down to the latest utterances of bishops, priests, or papers, that gives the shadow of an assurance that the driving of the Bible from the schools will bring Catholic youth into them. On the contrary every statement shows that Bible reading is not the only nor the chief objection. The Catholic Telegraph (Cincinnati) of Nov. 11th says:

"It is a matter of very little practical importance to Catholics whether the Bible be in or out of the public schools. In no case will they send their children to them; they must have religious instruction that answers the principles of their own faith to go hand in hand with all secular knowledge."

The New York Tablet, which is high Catholic authority, is still more explicit:

"The School Board of Cincinnati have voted, we see from the papers, to exclude the Bible and all religious instruction from the public schools of the city. If this has been done with a view to reconciling Catholics to the common school system its purpose will not be realized. It does not meet or in any degree lessen our objection to the public school system, and only proves the impracticability of that system in a mixed community of Catholics and Protestants; for it proves that the schools, to be sustained, must become thoroughly godless. But to us godless schools are still less acceptable than sectarian schools, and we object less to the reading of King James' Bible, even in the schools, than we do to the exclusion of all religious instruction. American Protestanism of the true orthodox stamp is a far less evil than German infidelity."

The Tablet then states the Catholic demand to be that the Government leave "the whole question of education, as it does religion, to the voluntary principle," or, that "it divide the schools into two classes, the one for Catholics and the other for Protestants, with the education in each under the supervision and control of its respective religious authority." This confronts us with the peril alluded to in the fourth resolution above. Bible reading in school is not the real issue. Catholic ecclesiastics demand that Catholic youth be educated in an atmosphere of Romanism, and they know that there is no weapon one half as effective in destroying the public school system as the charge that it is Godless and infidel. To banish the Bible and all religious instruction from our schools is to give this perilous charge potency; it is to destroy the confidence of a Christian people in the system, and that means its overthrow. The fact is that there are now Protestant sects, which sustain, at great expense, their own denominational schools, and this demand for sectarian schools is the most serious difficulty which the public school system has encountered. It has, in many cases, prevented the organization of high schools, and has crippled and destroyed such schools when established. Banish the Bible and religion from the public schools, and ten pupils will be driven out to one that is thus brought in, and a demand for denominational schools will be created, which will be sustained by many Protestants as well as Catholics. The inauguration of atheism in the public schools of this country is the destruction of the system. Hence it is, that we so earnestly oppose this whole movement. We are willing to concede any thing but the crippling, subversion, or destruction of the school system. It exists to meet a great human and national need, and no ecclesiastical interests, or religious zeal, or atheistic sophistry must be permitted to stand in its way. The great majority of the school districts of the country contain neither Catholic nor Jewish youth of school age, and the system has been and may be so administered in mixed districts as to offend the conscience of no pupil or school patron. If any parents object to their children's hearing the Bible read, let such pupils be permitted to come in the morning after the devotional exercises, or, what is better, let such exercises occur at the close of the day's session, and let such pupils be excused from remaining. In schools where the teacher or a majority of the pupils are Catholic, let the Douay Bible be read. Let there be no compulsion in these religious matters, and let there be no religious instruction of a sectarian character. Let us, in brief, keep, build up, and perfect our beneficent system of free, non-sectarian public schools.