the plan of organizing the boys for self control into a sort of community of their own. He began timidly creating courts among them for trying offenders, then he established industries to be managed by the boys, provided a currency and got the boys to earning what they felt the need of. He let the boys

make laws and learn to enforce them by nat

ural penalties, and was agreeably surprised at the regard for justice and the good sense which they displayed. The industries under their management developed contractors, speculators, workmen and idlers-rich and poor as in the great world. They made experiments with currency and soon discovered for themselves the laws which regulate a circulating medium. The phases of experiment thro which these results were developed are detailed in the article before us, which is most instructive as indicating the effectiveness for real education of forces which our present systems wholly neglect or try to suppress. As the boys in this case were such as grow up neglected in city streets, and became for the most part industrious, self-respecting and prudent, it would seem that the same means might be even more effective for the right development of boys who have not begun evil ways. We commend the article to the attention of teachers.

COUNTY SUPERINTENDENTS in Wisconsin need help. They are undertaking an impossibility. Think of a man's attempting to superintend two hundred and fifty schools! Why,

if he were visiting all the time for the six months during which the schools are required to be kept open, and could see two schools a day, he could visit but one hundred and twenty of them. But there are days of storm and hindrances which cannot be overcome; and he ought to visit many of the schools more than once, or little will come of his work. Considering how often the teachers are changed in these schools, and that a large proportion of them every year are beginners, what an impotent agency for help or guidance

is an officer who can make but one brief twohour's visit in a year! We are trying to elevate the superintendency, but let us realize fully that until more rational arrangements are made with regard to this work its efficiency can not be greatly extended. Why not create an assistant superintendent? That is better than to divide the county into two or more districts; it would provide a valuable apprenticeship to the business; it would cost less than multiply superintendent-districts. Every superintendent who has one hundred and twenty schools or upwards, ought to have

an assistant to aid him in his work, and one who has over two hundred schools ought to have two assistants.

SUB-FRESHMAN ENGLISH is the title of a long and instructive paper in the December number of the Educational Review. It is lit

tle more than a compilation and classification of the chief defects in English shown in the English examination papers of the candidates for admission to Harvard College in 1896. Spelling, (the caprices shown in this almost surpass belief) capitalization, and punctuation are old sources of complaint; the vocabulary is commonplace, "there is scarcely an expression which is vigorous without being slang, or fresh without being ludicrous;" errors of grammar are numerous, especially in what the writer calls "the illiterate books;" sentencestructure is loose and pointless, or crude, or short and unorganized; paragraph making is wholly unintelligent; "of knowledge of logical structure the majority of the candidates betray no sign. They show no ability to look at a story as a whole and pick out the things that tell; they show no ability to write a story which shall be a whole in itself and in its structural parts; composition there is not; material is put together in a helter-skelter fashion." The samples appear to bear out all these charges. They show very clearly that the fitting schools do not yet understand how to teach English. While we hope that the west would make a somewhat better showing in this matter it is yet true that the teaching of English is deplorably weak among us. Can some one clearly point out the steps to be taken to work a remedy?

STATE ASSOCIATION NOTES.

The State Teacher's Association was fully attended, both general and section meetings. The scattering of the places to hold section meetings was an inconvenience, making it hard for strangers to the city to find the places, notwithstanding the very helpful sketch maps furnished, and making it also difficult for any one to go from one section to another, like a bee gathering sweetness from many flowers.

The papers and addresses were of a high order of merit and were pertinent and timely, but there was not enough opportunity for discussion.

Miss Rose C. Swart, the new president, is the first woman given that honor in this state. She has been for years the foremost woman in the public schools of Wisconsin, her election

against two very popular men was not a tribute to her sex but to herself. Her ability and experience deserved the honor without regard to the question of her being a woman. Oshkosh is talked of as well as Milwaukee for the next place of meeting.

THE SUPERINTENDENT AS AN EXPERT.

Superintendents occupy the vantage ground in educational work, since they are looked up to as the leaders and directors of the forces. A great change however has come about in the forces. They are no longer raw recruits, but with every year are more and more disciplined workers, professionally trained and capable in what they undertake. They therefore need and must have trained leaders. The public too begins to realize this-to demand prepared teachers and expert superintendents. The time has been when a superintendent might be a politician, or a business manager, to look after what our forefathers called "the prudentials" of the schools. That time has passed, or is rapidly passing. The modern superintendent must be an educational leader, competent to advise and direct in the educational affairs of the community. Under the old system he was a subordinate, the agent of the school board, their book-keeper and manager. He knew little more about the technical matters of school work than they did-how should they look to him for guidance? and how should the community entrust him with special powers?

An expert superintendent stands in a very different relation. He is employed because of special knowledge and skill, and has the prestige arising from this. In business of many kinds experts are employed, and they are usually well paid. The proprietors expect to be guided in the technical details of the business by these men, and would count it the highest folly to pay for skilled supervision and then not make it effective in the business. Thus the position of the expert superintendent is a strong one, and will steadily grow stronger as our communities come to understand these principles. But to gain this sort of a hold the superintendent must be indeed an expert. He must bring to his work an extensive special knowledge and training, which makes him easily and naturally the head of the school system. Experience alone is not sufficient, since it may be narrow and only partly applicable to new circumstances. He must be familiar with different school systems, well grounded in the principles of education, trained to habits of careful observation and judgment

and well equipped with the prerequisite knowledge.

To his hands will inevitably fall a large range of matters now unsatisfactorily handled. The vexed text-book question obviously belongs in the hands of experts. So long as it is lodged with school boards constituted as they now are, it will be subject to suspicion of being decided by improper influences. The belief that such influences are used, and not infrequently prevail, is now wide spread. There can be no satisfactory remedy but to place the decision in the hands of competent experts. In the selection of teachers also it is notorious that the "pull" is of more importance than qualifications; that is the public schools are still considered in part the legitimate "spoils" of the ward politician. Of those who win the required certificates some are much better fitted for the work than others, and the choice among them can never be satisfactory until it is made so far as possible on merits alone, and by competent professional judges. The supervision of schools will either be feeble and ineffectual or meddlesome and mischievious until entrusted to thoroughly competent experts. The questions, what work shall be done in this grade? ought that study to be in the curriculum, and if so, where? should written examinations be required, and how much weight should be attached to their results in determining the advancement of pupils? should this pupil be required to repeat his work or be allowed to go on?-but really questions of this sort are endless, constantly arising, affecting deeply the interests of parents and pupils, and demanding answersuch questions can be properly answered only by one who has large knowledge and sound judgment, by an expert in short.

We have begun with the teachers, and recognizing the need of professional training on their part, have exacted it and provided the means of attaining it. Meantime our schools have grown into systems; we have organized them, and developed the superintendent as their director and manager. It now becomes imperative that we exact of him special knowledge and skill adequate to the large trusts placed in his hands.

TEACHERS AS PATRIOTS.

S.

If there are any patriots anywhere, they are the teachers in our public schools. Required to study the history and the constitution of our country as a condition of becoming teachers, they have given far more than a merely formal adhesion to the great principles of liberty on which our government is founded.

They have breathed the air of freedom from their infancy, they have been nourished on its ideas from their mother's arms, or in some cases they have fled to America as a harbor of refuge from the narrower conditions and abridged liberties of the old world. They take the children of all classes and languages and nationalities, and knead them into one great loaf with the milk of patriotism and the leaven of liberty, to rise into the highest type of American citizens. Others may be patriots; the teachers make patriots.

In this light, how important it is that the character of our teachers should be of the highest. They should be not merely negatively free from bad habits, but they should be positive forces for an ideal citizenship. They need not be partisans of a single hobby, but they should be forceful interpreters of liberty supported by law to the dawning consciousness of the young Americans they are to lead as well as to teach. They should not be content with the humdrum tasks of formal

book knowledge; they should inspire as well as instruct, they should teach loyalty as well as obedience, and they should aim to make the next generation of the rulers of our republic not only more prosperous, more virtuous, more cultured in their individual lives, but also men and women of broader ideas and more generous aspirations for their country.

If the pessimist sees legislatures corrupted, cities ruled by bosses, party spirit used by manipulating politicians as trading stock in the fight for the spoils, the organized forces of capital tending toward despotism, and the organized forces of labor tending toward socialism, and predicts the ruin of the republic, we reply that below the surface froth and dash. of contending waves, which fills the sensational columns of the daily press with sound and fury, there is a throng of unnoticed laborers busily building up the coral reef of a young citizenship, which shall soon be a breakwater against the storms of faction and the disorganizing forces of corruption and anarchy.

THE MONTH.

WISCONSIN NEWS AND NOTES.

W.

-The total enrolment in the normal department at Stevens Point Normal is 345.

-A catalogue of the Fond du Lac summer school, conducted this year by Principals F. C. Howard and A. B. O'Neil, and Superintendent Keats, shows a total enrolment of 155.

-The La Crosse County Teachers' Association held a vigorous and interesting meeting at West Salem, Dec. 11th.

-The executive committee of the N. E. A. have selected Washington, D. C., as the place of meeting next summer, July 7th to 12th.

-The new high school building at Boscobel is enclosed and will probably be ready for occupancy in April. It is of stone, and will cost

sixteen thousand dollars.

-The department of superintendence of the N. E. A. is to meet at Chattanooga, Tenn., Feb. 22d, 23d, 24th, and railroad rates of one first class fare for the round trip have been secured.

-The new high school building at Sparta shows up attractively in the cut of it which fills the first page of the first number of "98," the monthly paper edited and published by the high school pupils.

-We are indebted to Supt. Charles M. Jordan, of Minneapolis, for a copy of the Directory of the schools of that city. It contains the names and addresses of about seven

hundred and fifty teachers.

-The people of Neillsville, at a school meeting held Dec. 13th, voted to erect a new high school building to cost nine thousand dollars. This shows the growth of the school as well as the public spirit of the citizens.

-Supt. Davis, of Oshkosh, is busily engaged in the introduction of manual training into the city schools. The course includes sewing for girls and sloyd for boys in the lower grades and cooking and shop-work in the upper grades.

-The National Kindergarten Union holds its annual meeting at the Philadelphia normal school, Feb. 18th and 19th. An excellent program is announced with some of the foremost educational speakers of the country to address the attendants.

-The Stout Manual Training School at Menomonie has been substantially rebuilt, with improvements suggested by past experience, and will be opened for the school February Ist. It would have been ready earlier but for unforeseen delays in obtaining materials for the building.

-The Normal Badger, published monthly by the River Falls Normal School, is a twenty page pamphlet well edited and newsy. The December issue contains a view of the ruins of the building as they looked three days after the fire. We quote: "Several new students have been enrolled since the fire-substantial evidence that the Normal school was not burned."

-Charles Scribner's Sons have opened a western office for their educational publications at 334 Dearborn St., Chicago, to be under the management of Mr. Henry M. Echlin. They hope thus to be able to serve more efficiently their western customers, who are welcomed at these headquarters, and are requested to address to them correspondence as to text-books, etc.

-The new and handsome high school building at Evansville was dedicated Jan. 10th with appropriate exercises. County Superintendent Ross, Supt. D. D. Mayne, of Janesville; State Supt. Emery, Pres. Salisbury, of Whitewater, and Pres. Adams, of the University, were the principal speakers. The building cost eleven thousand dollars, and provides

suitable accommodations for laboratories, li

brary and class rooms, with a good assembly

room.

-The December Library Journal contains an account of the new Elisha D. Smith library building at Menasha, with a cut and plans of the building. The second floor is to contain an auditorium which will seat 600 persons, so constructed that it may be divided when necessary into smaller study and club rooms. The building is 40 x 10 feet and two stories high, to cost about fifteen thousand dollars. Mr. Smith will also provide for traveling libraries as soon as this building is properly equipped.

-The burning of the River Falls normal school on the 29th of November interrupted the work of that institution but one half day. The very next day the school was housed in well-warmed and accessible buildings. In one week, on the following Monday, the entire work of the school, including laboratories and practice work, was resumed. Such prompt and efficient management deserves warm commendation. The Board of Regents have decided to rebuild on the old site. The destruction of the building naturally revived the efforts of other localities to secure the school, and the pressure was especially strong for Eau Claire; but when the vote was taken, but two members of the board were found to be in favor of a change.

-There appears to be considerable enterprise among the teachers of St. Croix and Polk counties. They have united with the teachers of Chisago county, in Minnesota, in the formation of a St. Croix valley association, which is growing in numbers and influence. December 8th a session was held at Taylors Falls, Minn., devoted principally to the study of Egyptian and Hebrew history. The meeting is spoken of by the St. Paul papers as large and enthusiastic. Another meeting was held

at St. Croix Falls, Jan. 8th, devoted to Shakespeare in the forenoon and Greek history in the afternoon. Principal J. G. Burrage, of St. Croix Falls, is very active in promoting the interests of the association.

-The Wisconsin Free Library Commission has issued a forty page pamphlet on "Free traveling libraries in Wisconsin." It contains eight or nine illustrations of free traveling library stations which are eloquent witnesses of the value of this work. They show the country farm house, the frontier station, the crossroads store, the rude pioneer home, in which these centers of light and culture are set up for people otherwise wholly cut off from such advantages. No work done in the state deserves to be classed as more useful than this and the rapid spread of it bears evidence of popular appreciation. The pamphlet contains also six Hutchins and his assistants. articles relating to the work written by Mr.

-Supt. Nattrass, of Lafayette Co. issues a pamphlet giving course of study for local institutes. These institutes are held each on three Saturdays about a month apart. In each case they are conducted by the principal of the graded or high school with which they are held. The program is carefully laid out, and a syllabus for previous study given, so that each teacher attending can come prepared for solid work at the institute. rangements are also made with the faculty of the State Normal at Platteville for lectures the evening before each institute. These lectures are intended to help arouse public interest in the schools as well as to aid the institute. It is hard for a teacher to stay in Lafayette county long without improving.

Ar

-County superintendents' conventions are held this year by State Superintendent Emery as follows: Milwaukee, normal school building, December 28, 1897; Eau Claire, court house, January 4, 1898; Stevens Point, normal school building, January 5, 1898; Rhinelander, January 7, 1898. Following are the topics for discussion: I. School visitation, how made most effective. II. School consolidation-a.

Consolidation of school districts; b. Suspension of district school and provision for instruction of pupils in other districts, with provision for transportation of pupils. III. Teachers' institutes: 1. State; 2. County. Reports and consideration of: a. By county superintendents; b. By regular institute conductors (at Milwaukee). IV. Township libraries, how promote their efficiency. V. Miscellaneous topics, relating to legal duties of county superintendents.

-The report of the Plymouth schools shows a total enrolment in the high school of one hundred and twenty-seven, and clearly needs four teachers. At present it has but three. Latin has been added to the course of study this year, the library has been increased by substantial additions and the physical apparatus considerably increased. O. Gaffron is principal of the schools.

-What was expected of the county superintendent when the office was created is shown by the statute which requires him "to introduce to the notice of teachers and the people the best modes of instruction, the physiological laws which govern the health and growth of the young, the most approved plans of building and ventilating schoolhouses, and ornamenting and adapting school grounds for the cultivation of the taste and healthful exercise of the children." In commenting on the law, the Hon. J. L. Pickard, then state superintendent, said: "Public addresses upon matters pertaining to the general good of the schools are required of the county superintendent. The people may be reached very readily and very effectually by plain, practical addresses upon matters affecting their interests." Has not our ideal of the position and duties of this officer undergone a serious decline?

-At the State examinations held in Madi

son Dec. 27-30th, the following certificates were granted:

County Superintendents: Edward S. Crowe, St. Nazicens, Wis.; Julia W. Dutton, Janesville; Wm. Griffith, Wilmot; Thos. J. Hill, Chippewa Falls; H. E. Layne, Eau Galle; Christie Munroe, Union Grove; Katharine C. Nolan, Greenbush; Isabel O'Connor, Manitowoc; John H. Sprecher, Independence; Matena Tollefson, Manitowoc; Ruth L. Walker,

Unlimited State: Charles E. Brady, Osman; John Dixon, Milwaukee; B. O. Dodge, Mauston; Herman Fischer, Stevens Point; Mrs. Mary A. Hewitt, Manitowoc; Wm. Kettle, Madison; Ingebor M. Nelson, Sturgeon Bay.

Limited: S. A. Blandin, Marion; John E.

Brindley, Boscobel; W. H. Davis, Marathon; Frank W. Heath, Oconto.

-The Walworth county teachers' association held its first meeting for the current school year at Lake Geneva, on Saturday, Nov. 13th. president; Miss Ella Coppersmith, Lake GeProf. C. D. Kipp, of Elkhorn, was re-elected neva, vice-president; Miss Nettie A. Low, Delavan, secretary and Mrs. A. D. Whitmore, Spring Prairie, treasurer. The Lake Geneva teachers entertained the visiting teachers. The literary part of the program was also furnished by Lake Geneva teachers. Prof. A. F. Bartlett, Miss Anna Stewart and a class from Miss Stewart's room explaining and exemplifying the method of teaching geography in their schools. The blackboards in several of the rooms testified to their results obtained. Map drawing, as practiced there, is merely a means unto an end and it is to be hoped that the many teachers who were in attendance realized it.

-Supt. J. F. Lamont, of Marathon county, devotes the most of his report to an argument in favor of establishing a county normal school at Wausau. This is good, and we understand that there is a good prospect that such an enterprise will be undertaken. We hope it may and wish it all manner of success. There is place for such institutions in several counties of the state. We regret, however, that the superintendent devotes so much space to expanding the thesis. "The state normals are expensive and we get little or no good from them." If Marathon teachers do not attend when free tuition is offered them, whose fault is it? Have not they as good a right and as good a chance as those in forty other counties in Wisconsin? Without more than seven schools obviously there cannot be one in every county. Thus the sad story may be told from Put up your standards, reforty counties. ward those who attend by giving them the best places-and the cause of complaint will disappear. Besides, it does not so much mat

ter where the normal students come from; if Marathon does not draw her share of these to the service of her school who is at fault in the matter?

-The Werner School Book Company finds more or less confusion arising from the similarity of the two names the Werner School Book Company and The Werner Company, and has issued the following explicit notice to its patrons: "This is the Werner School Book Company and not The Werner Company. The Werner School Book Company is a corporation entirely separate from and having no con