The failure was

once thoroughly understood, ought to be a sure possession. most marked just where a little clear thinking was needed- —a power which high school training should certainly increase. What is the explanation of this result? Are not the pupils in our graded schools kept long enough in the common branches? Do they not spend time enough on arithmetic and English grammar? Are they forced over these subjects too early? Are the moderate and dull pupils dragged over them by the brighter minority? What is the trouble, and what is the remedy? We are glad to know that there are high schools whose pupils do not lose their knowledge of the common branches while pursuing the higher. Will some one tell our readers how this very desirable result is secured?

Ar the late meeting of the State Teachers' Association of Massachusetts, the finance committee reported an indebtedness of $1,440, after deducting all reliable assets. This debt has been incurred by the Association in publishing the Massachusetts Teacher, the greater part having accumulated during the war. The Teacher is one of the oldest, ablest, and best known of the state educational journals, and it is surprising that it has not paid expenses, even under the bad financial management of an Association.

The committee's report is a great muddle, but we gather from it that the receipts from the State last year, were $800, and from subscriptions, $2,466.75. The receipts from advertising are not given. The cost of publishing the Teacher was $2,648, which, we take it, does not include office rent, clerk's wages, etc. The amount due from delinquent subscribers is reported at $1,291! The annual loss from this source has been from $500 to $800. The Association did two wise things. An earnest effort was made to liquidate the debt, and $1,100 were raised on the spot. It was next voted that future subscriptions shall be paid in advance—a step which should have been taken years ago. This financial experience of the Massachusetts Teacher, with the professional spirit of Massachusetts teachers to sustain it, shows that educational journals are not money-making enterprises. Nor does Massachusetts afford the only illustration. The Michigan Teacher, now closing its fifth volume, has, we believe, never paid expenses, and yet it is one of the very best journals of the kind in the country. The Pennsylvania School Journal has just changed hands, and the chief reason, given by the veteran retiring editor, is " a want of compensating support." There is no educational journal in the country, that pays adequately for its editing and publishing.

THE first number of Scribner's Monthly contains a brief editorial on "Sex and Wages." The editor admits that the statement, "when a woman does the same work as a man, she should have the same pay," looks fair and sounds well, but he finds a law that sets it aside-" the law that that instrument or agent of labor which has the higher value, shall command the greater return for use and operation." Man as a general laborer is more valuable than woman. "He has the larger, stronger, and hardier frame, and is free from many of the disadvantages which woman as a laborer is obliged to encounter."

Hence he can do many kinds of work better than woman, and his sphere of labor is wider. He clears the forests, mines, builds railroads, constructs ships and steamers, etc. His value as a general laborer is superior to woman's, and hence he receives superior wages, not only for work which woman can not do as well, but for all kinds of work. His wages as a general laborer determines his wages for special work. A man will not make clothes for much less wages than the carpenter receives. A woman makes clothes for less than a carpenter's wages, because she can not also do a carpenter's work. There are some kinds of work which boys can do as well as men, but a bobbin-boy in a mill can not command man's wages or even woman's. The writer claims that the operation of this law is limited to the common work of the world. The moment the body-the instrument of labor-is counted out, the sexes are on common ground. In the realm of creative art, Mrs. Browning, Mrs. Stowe, Miss Hosmer, Jenny Lind, and Miss Dickinson are the peers of men in reward as well as performance. This, in brief, is Dr. Holland's view of the question of wages, and we think all will admit that it is, at least, very suggestive. In the application of this law to the business of teaching, we think he fails to make a just discrimination. True teaching is an art, and not "common work ", chiefly dependent on the body. Here mind, and not muscle, determines the workman's value, and, hence, this law is set aside or greatly limited. Indeed, is there not a class of pursuits between common work" and the "creative arts ", in which this law is only partially applicable? The reward of all skilled labor is less and less influenced by sex as the skill assumes the higher form of art.

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THE Illinois Teacher for November contains a spirited defence of State Normal Schools by Prof. Phelps, of Minnesota. He states that the first State Normal School in this country, established in 1838, still lives and prospers, and that the number of such schools has already increased to nearly fifty, many having been put in operation within the past five years. "The State of New York, from a single Normal School in 1840, with an annual appropriation of $10,000 has inaugurated six others, with an annual appropriation of nearly $150,000. Wisconsin has established three within the past five years, two of which are in successful operation, and she has accumulated a fund for their support, valued at $1,000,000. Minnesota has, within the same period, established three, all of which are eminently successful. This young State has appropriated from her treasury, during the time named, the sum of $200,000 for the support and encouragement of these agencies for the training of teachers." He cites other examples, as Illinois and Indiana, to show the increasing public recognition of the value of Normal Schools. The design of these pioneer schools is not to supply all the schools with teachers trained in them, but to train a large number of teachers, and through them to "improve the average quality of yet other teachers", by example and instruction, and by contact with them in institutes and associations. "And nobly have they answered heir design; fully have they vindicated the sagacity and wisdom of the farseeing men who have struggled so manfully and long to place them in an assured position." It is admitted that they are imperfect-so are our colleg

and public schools-but they are no longer an experiment. They are an accomplished fact-a signal success. Prof. Phelps also maintains that "it is the duty of the State to establish and liberally support Normal Schools enough to supply every school with a competent teacher." This is the true idea, but, as will be admitted, its full realization is far in the future. Meanwhile, Normal Schools must be supplemented by teachers' institutes of different grades, and by other agencies which place some valuable professional assistance within the reach of all teachers. But, by all means, let Normal Schools be multiplied as rapidly as possible.

THE Galaxy for December pays a very high compliment to American educators. In an appreciative review of Dr. J. W. Hoyt's recent report on the condition of "Education in Europe and America", it says:

"Every decade, and especially the last, has seen reports, lectures, and addresses innumerable, written by teachers or educated men in behalf of a better provision for schools, both primary and high. And we may fairly do educational men the honor of saying that their productions as a class rank with those of lawyers, doctors, editors, or any other practisers of the liberal professions. We think, indeed, that generally speaking, with all the experience of editors in writing, and lawyers in speaking, for earnestness, comprehension of a great theme, and even for excellence in oratory, the palm must be given to the teachers."

This is not only high praise, but it is most encouraging evidence of a growing public appreciation of the profession of teaching. When popular estimation places professional educators on a par with the members of the other liberal professions in intellectual, literary, and oratorical power, a great victory will have been won for the cause of education. These are qualities which men esteem, and when their possession by teachers is generally recognized, the business of teaching will receive higher public consideration. We can not estimate the indebtedness of popular education in this country to the clear thinking, felicitous expression, and stirring eloquence of Horace Mann. That practical educator who wins public esteem as a thinker, writer, and speaker, renders the cause of education most efficient and valuable service.

VENTILATION.

A few of the important principles involved in the proper ventilation of a school-room, may be regarded as settled. The room must not only be supplied with pure air, but, in cold weather especially, this pure air must be warm, and it must not be too dry. What is needed is an abundant supply of pure warm air, containing the requisite amount of moisture. This is the first condition of good ventilation.

The mere statement of this condition is sufficient to show the inadequacy of windows as a means of ventilation They admit cold air, thus lowering the temperature of the room. In severe winter weather, this becomes so great an inconvenience as to necessitate the closing of the windows to exclude the cold air. Besides, the windows of school-rooms are sometimes so situated that they

can not be opened in cold weather, even at the top, without sending currents of cold air upon the pupils sitting near them. This difficulty may be partially obviated by lowering several windows a little each. This is much better than to lower one window much, except when the window lowered is near the stove, and not too near the pupils. In cold weather, the windows should remain closed a few minutes after the opening of school, but, as soon as the room is sufficiently warm, they should be opened a little, if possible, and always at the top. When there is wind, they should be opened on the lee side of the room. But how may school-rooms be supplied with air which is both pure and warm? Let experience furnish an answer. When buildings, not too large, are heated by furnaces, this may be readily secured, provided the furnaces are properly constructed. The furnaces should be large enough to avoid the necessity of over-heating, thus burning the air and destroying its vitality-to use popular language. The cold-air ducts should lead from the furnaces to the outside of the building. It is a great blunder to let the hot-air chamber of a furnace open into a cellar or basement. It should be supplied with fresh air direct from "all out doors." Further, these cold-air ducts should be large, and they should extend from the furnace to the opposite sides of the building. This will secure proper draft, whatever may be the direction of the wind. Furnaces should also be provided with means for the evaporation of water, to supply the requisite moisture.

A majority of school-houses, especially in country districts, are too small for the convenient use of furnaces, and hence they are generally heated by stoves. But the common stove is not a good ventilator. Instead of bringing warm air into the room, its draft makes every "crack and crevice" a means for the entrance of cold air. Stoves may, however, be so constructed as to introduce into the room a constant supply of fresh warm air, and thus they may be made the best of ventilators. To this end, the stove, except the door and draft-opening, should be inclosed with a casing, with openings in the top and terminating below in a cold-air duct, extending under the floor to the wall of the building and opening into the outer air. When the stove is heated, the air between the stove and the casing is heated, and, being thus rarified, it rises, and the cold air from without flows through the duct to take its place, and thus a constant current of fresh warm air is poured into the room. Such a stove is a small .furnace, the space between the casing and the stove being the hot-air chamber, and, as a ventilator, it is much better than a basement furnace, as will hereafter be shown. Years ago we used a stove constructed in this manner. It was a great success, and we wonder that the ventilating stove is not in general use in school buildings not heated by steam or furnaces. Its cost need not exceed from $40 to $50, and even as a means of evenly distributing warm air through a room and avoiding the over-heating of pupils who sit near the stove, it is worth more than its cost.

The hot-air chamber of the stove used by us was supplied with only top openings for the escape of warm air. This made it somewhat inconvenient for warming or drying the feet. This defect might easily be remedied by two sets of exit openings, one above and the other below, with a simple contrivance for closing the one and opening the other. By closing the upper openings, the

current of warm air would be directed to the floor. A ventilating stove should always have a vessel for the evaporation of water.

But the introduction of pure warm air into a school-room meets only one condition of good ventilation. There is a second condition, almost if not quite as important. Impure air must be removed from the room. The breathing of air fills it with carbonic acid gas and impure exhalations, and it is necessary that this poisoned, impure air be removed. A complete ventilation requires a circulation of air-the flowing of pure warm air into a room and the flowing of impure and poisoned air out of it. The failure to meet this second condi tion is the weakness of nearly all systems of ventilation.

One of the most stupid and, we are sorry to add, most general of these blunders is the system of ventilating flues. These flues, as ordinarily constructed, are utterly worthless, and, for the reason, that they are cold flues, and hence have no draft. Ventilating flues should always be constructed in connection with the smoke flues so that they may be heated. This may be done by separating the two flues by thin plates of iron, or, what is better, by placing the smoke flue, in the form of an iron pipe, within the ventilating file. The heat of the smoke-flue will cause the necessary draft in the ventilating flue, and thus a good circulation is secured. This arrangement is so simple and inexpensive, that it may be introduced into the cheapest one-story houses, heated by stoves, as well as into large buildings, heated by furnaces.

The openings in these heated ventilating flues should be near the floor. Carbonic acid gas is heavier than common air of the same temperature, and hence the vitiated air, which needs to be removed, is found in greatest abundance near the floor. This explains the efficiency of an open grate or fire place as a ventilator. The draft takes a large volume of air from the lowest portion of the room, and hence much poisonous gas is removed. This also shows why the lowering of windows does not sufficiently purify the air of rooms heated by common furnaces. The windows permit the escape of the warm air, which rises and fills the upper portion of the room, but they fail to remove the vitiated air below. The fresh air, which they admit, does, however, lessen the deleterious effect of the poisonous gas which the pupils are constantly breathing into the room.

We are now prepared to see why the ventilating stove is superior to the basement furnace as a means of ventilation. It not only sends a current of pure warm air into the room, but its fire draft takes impure air out of it. The current of air from the room also increases the flow of pure warm air into the room, thus increasing the needed circulation. In other words, a ventilating stove meets both conditions of good ventilation (the second partially), while the furnace, as ordinarily coustructed, meets but one. But the fire draft of the ventilating stove should be supplemented by ventilating flues, constructed as above described, and with large openings near the floor.

We have thus given some of the results of investigation and experience in the ventilation of school-rooms, and we commend the subject to teachers and school officers as one of the greatest practical importance. The health of thousands of pupils and teachers is impaired every winter by the want of properly ventilated school-rooms; and, in view of this sad fact, may we not urge