all its stages of development, are the men in this Association whom the earnest, inquiring young teacher who would know this shortest way and best manner, will most gladly hear in the discussion of the important topics presented for consideration at this meeting. We have come here to sit at the feet and hear the wisdom of these Gamaliels.

But were it possible for this Association to receive a clear statement of the difficult problems which have arisen in the minds of its members in the course of their labors during the year, if it should attempt a solution of each, this session would be protracted to weeks or months. The nature of the teacher's work is such that his problems can only be solved by the character and lifework of his pupil. All the experience, knowledge, and wisdom of the members of this body could only in the end attain to probable results. The teacher may work conscientiously, faithfully, in season and out of season, with a knowledge of the experience of the part and in the noon-day light of the present, and yet be convinced by the unsymmetrical development of the faculties of his pupil when he has reached manhood or womanhood that his management, discipline, and methods of instruction were all wrong. The merchant may understand how to keep accounts, the principles of political economy, the relation of demand and supply, how and when to buy and sell, yet fail because he neglected to look after the minor details of his business. So the teacher may fully comprehend the great underlying principles of educating an immortal being, the best and most approved methods of training the slumbering passions and affections of the heart, the conscience, the susceptibilities, and the will, yet fail as an educator for the want of attention to the conditions of progress and the adaptation of means to the varying lines of his pupils' mental and moral growth. Ripe scholarship, keen perception, accurate observation, common sense, the ability of adapting means to ends are qualifications necessary to make up the true and successful teacher.

But the primary object of a State Teachers' Association is not so much to discuss the internal and individual conditions of success in teaching as the external and general means of education. While it belongs to the General Assembly of the State to build up the educational machinery, who are better qualified to suggest the plan of its construction and the forces for its operation than the teachers? Boards of education are properly charged with the duty of putting it in motion, and colleges, normal schools, teachers' institutes, and educational papers are the agencies to instruct and train the men and women who are to direct and conduct its movements successfully. The first and chief business of this Association, is, therefore, to consider the general and great fundamental principles of our system of public instruction, and to devise and suggest measures which will increase its efficiency and extend its range. Amendments to the school law, supervision, normal schools, teachers' institutes, examination of teachers, courses of study, educational literature, textbooks, moral training, and classification are topics which lie within its scope. The question of school government, particular methods-how to teach reading, spelling, numbers, how to wake up mind, and the treatment of dull pupils-are secondary objects, and properly belong to teachers' institutes and normal schools.

Beginning as we now are a new decade in the educational history of the State, it may not be out of place nor unprofitable to take a retrospect of the work and progress of our system of common schools in our own State during the last ten years.

This Association has been a vigorous and effective power in framing the school laws and in shaping our system of public instruction for nearly a quarter of a century. It has fought many battles: won many; lost many. But has the cause of education made substantial and marked progress? Is our system of instruction more efficient? Are the means of education greater? Are the people more liberal and more strongly attached to the free school system? Have we better qualified and more devoted teachers? Are our text-books more attractive in appearance and better adapted to the natural mental growth of children now in 1870 than in 1860?

In the winter of 1860, the law providing for public libraries was repealed, and efforts were unsuccessfully made to abolish the office of State Commissioner of Common Schools, to abolish High Schools, and Township Boards of Education. The opposition which manifested itself in the General Assembly had the effect to arouse the teachers of the State, and to infuse new life into this Association at the Newark meeting. It did more. The teachers for the first time began to feel and to recognize the fact, that the popularity of the free school system depended largely upon the successful management of the schools in their respective fields of labor. From that time to the present, notwithstanding the exhaustion of our treasury produced by the war, and the large drafts and loud call for our best men in the profession who so numerously and cheerfully responded, our system of popular education has grown in the affections of the people in efficiency, and not one material backward step has been taken. True, we have asked and worked for more. The friends of popular education in Ohio, for two generations have begged for normal schools, and, although we may fail in our day to secure them, we will bind our successors to continue our importunities for this crowning excellence of every system of common schools for two generations to come. We have asked again and again for county supervision, and stand now knocking at the door of our legislative halls, but are still refused admission. These two measures the people of Ohio will have. Our pupils will by and by be the law makers. Courage! perseverance!

We have procured the passage of a law creating the office of a State Board of Examiners, and one which largely increases the efficiency of our institute system, besides local laws greatly advancing the interest of education in the larger cities. There is now scarcely a village containing two thousand inhabitants which has not a system of graded schools, with a prescribed course of study, sufficiently extensive when completed by the pupils to enable them to enter the Freshman class in our colleges. In 1860 there were very few High schools outside of our large cities in which such an education was even thought of. Intelligent and worthy persons were able and desired to give their sons and daughters a liberal education, were compelled to send them from home, at an age when they most needed a father's eye and a mother's care, and were consequently indifferent as to the character of the schools in their own town or

city. To remove this indifference, to secure the friendly snpport and patronage of these persons, to build up High schools, required consummate tact and extraordinary efforts on the part of local superintendents and boards of education. It seemed necessary and best, for a time, at least, to render the High school grade popular and worthy of patronage, to give it special attention and to make it particularly prominent. Thus all interest seemed to be concentrated in the higher grades; visitors were always taken to them; they occupied the best rooms; there, were to be found the most expensive furniture, the finest pictures, teachers who received the largest salaries, and, of course, were supposed to be the most competent instructors; there, too, the pupils had the greatest number of privileges, and the least number of hours for study. Thus the High school has been made popular, and in almost every town in the State, it has taken deep root in the affections of the people.

ture.

High schools established beyond a peradventure, the last four or five years have wrought a marvelous change in the direction of effort. Educators began to be convinced that if the primary schools were properly conducted, and in them the discipline and training were such as to awaken mind, stimulate thought, to cultivate good habits, the higher grades of a system of school would, in a manner, take care of themselves. These primary grades, so long almost entirely neglected, crowded into the basements of old churches, or little wooden buildings fronting on alleys or back streets, have now become the centres of interest and attraction. Now the best rooms are set apart for these grades; the most comfortable and convenient furniture, the most attractive and cheerful pictures adorn the rooms. There is to be found now, teachers of the greatest tact, ingenuity, self-sacrificing devotion and the highest religious culNow visitors, instead of being conducted first up two or three flights of steps to the higher departments, are stopped on the first floor, and introduced to the primary grades We have visited few schools during the last two years, the superintendent of which has not said, "I shall be glad to show you first the little folks, and how we teach them." Primary instruction is now the allabsorbing theme. Superintendents dwell upon it at teachers' meetings, institute lecturers make it the most prominent topic for discussion, and primary text-books have improved and increased with the demand. What a change in ten years in the estimation put upon primary schools and the importance of rational methods of instruction. This is progress, and progress too in the right direction. Thanks to the noble and philanthropic men and women who have so successfully labored for the grand results now produced in our primary schools. They have done more by making learning the child's highest delight and the school room his happiest retreat, to diminish truancy and vagrancy, than all the compulsory laws ever enacted or devised.

The attachment of the people to their system of schools and the interest shown in the cause, is best manifested by their liberality in its support. During the war, when the people were taxed so heavily for the maintenance of the government, from 1860 to 1865, more money was contributed for the support of the public schools of Ohio than during the term of twenty years from 1837 to 1857. During the last five years, from 1865 to 1870, there have been paid teachers $15,618,150, against $9,989,190 the preceding five years, from 1860

to 1855, and for buildings and repairs, $5,541,296, against $1,875,783. There can be no better evidence than this of the liberality of the people and their willingness to sustain their present system of schools, notwithstanding the General Assembly has not been as liberal as we had reason to expect. This great expenditure for school purposes has been most cheerfully made. In every part of the State, in city, town, and country, many indications of the popularity of our public schools may be seen, in advances in teachers' salaries, and in the building and furnishing of school houses. We believe the people in the rural districts, especially where teachers' institutes are annually held, and educational periodicals are circulated, entertain more enlightened views in regard to the importance of providing for their children the means of education than they did ten years ago. The sparseness of population and the want of consolidation of sub-districts, are the principal obstacles in the way of the efficiency of these schools.

That the teachers are better qualified now than they were ten years ago, none will deny. Every year during, at least, the last five years, boards of examiners generally have raised their standard of qualifications. Many of the teachers even in the rural districts have received, at least, a portion of their training in many of the best graded schools; they have received instruction in methods of teaching and in school management at teachers' institutes, and books and periodicals upon educational topics have been read more generally, because more numerous and accessible. The means of preparation for teaching have been greatly increased, and not without their good effect upon the schools of the State.

Another significant change which has taken place within the last ten years, is the comparative number of men and women engaged in teaching in the public schools. In 1861 there was an excess of males of nine hundred and twenty employed in the State; in 1868 there was an excess of females of three thousand eight hundred and seventy-four. This change was partly brought about by the war, and partly by the signal ability and skill which women themselves have displayed as teachers in every grade of school. They have shown themselves by far men's superiors in training and controlling primary classes, and certainly the peers of men in ability and teaching power in the higher departments. In cities where women have been appointed to the principalship of large schools, they have succeeded equally as well as men. We believe this change ought to continue, and we believe it will, till fully nine-tenths of the teachers of the country are women. If women will prepare themselves thoroughly for the profession and make it their life work, as many men now do, there can be no doubt of their ultimate success in gaining many positions now occupied by men, and where they perform the duties with equal ability and skill, it will be thought illiberal and unjust not to pay them as large salaries as those received by their male predecessors.

Another prominent feauture of progress in the educational history of the last ten years, is the improvement in text books. The dull, coarse paper, the crowded and blurred page, the small type, and the flimsy binding, have given place to heavy white or tinted paper, the clean leaded page, and to large, clear type, and binding both attractive and durable. Of the mechanical execution

of most of the text books in use, there are few grounds for complaint. The people cheerfully pay the additional expense incurred in their production. The model text book of teachers once was the one that contained all upon the subject that it was possible to crowd upon a certain number of pages. It must be an exhaustive treatise upon the subject of which it treated, from which the teacher might, at his discretion, select the parts to be learned by the pupil; but the model text book of to-day is the one which contains only what is best for the pupil in a given time to learn, leaving the teacher, as he has time and opportunity, to supply by oral instruction. Not so much what a text book should contain, as how much and what should be admitted, is the difficulty which the writer of text books must meet. We have in mind a recent text book, the facts are selected with such nice discrimination, so clearly and methodically presented, so suggestive of what the teacher ought to add orally, that the pupils who study it will become so fascinated with the subject that in manhood and womanhood they will be induced to continue to pursue the study with enthusiasm. We believe the prevailing opinion of teachers now is that the series of text books ought to be reduced in number and diminished in size, and the amount of oral instruction, fresh from the lips of the living teacher, ought to be greatly increased.

We, of course, speak of text books in general terms. We believe we have no series of Reader which, especially those of the primary grades, ought not to be supplemented by the Readers of the corresponding grades of other series. This could be better remedied if publishers of Readers would issue periodicals adapted to the primary grades, and containing fresh and appropriate matter. The publisher who will issue such a periodical or paper, at rates within the reach of all classes of pupils, will meet a want long felt, and increase the sale of his books.

In this connection, you will allow me to call your attention to the gentlemanly and intelligent representatives of the great publishing houses of the country. For many years they have been closely identified with the teachers of the State, bringing to their doors the latest publications upon educational topics. They have become almost an indispensable arm of the service, and many will regret their withdrawal from the field. Many of them, formerly progressive teachers, not only brought to us the most recent text-books, but frequently new ideas and improved methods of instruction observed in other schools. We know they have sometimes been charged with "high crimes and misdemeanors;" but if, in any case, bribes and commissions have been given by them, as an inducement to teachers and boards of education to introduce their books, the latter, and not the former, are the more culpable. If there are superintendents or teachers in the State who, for pecuniary consideration, have yielded to or lent their aid to a change of text-books, they are unworthy of the profession. Sometimes, when the competition was sharp, and where great interests were at stake, we have no doubt they have acted upon the rogue's motto, "the end justifies the means." They have always attended and liberally contributed to the support of this Association. They have ever shown themselves the teachers' trusty and devoted friends. We shall miss them here and at our places of labor, and cannot help expressing the wish, that the publish