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Jacobea of Baden was murdered. Far in the distance you can see the towers of the Cathedral of Cologne, begun some time during the thirteenth and finished during our nineteenth century. Yonder is the ancient convent built by the successor of Bishop Boniface; here the ruins of the ancient Falkenburg, the feudal castle in which lived the owner of the land as far as you can see."

Then he drew a vivid picture of the difference between feudalism and modern institutions. The knights and barons in their fortified castles were all robbers, swooping down like hawks on the fords, on the highways, on the moorlands, on the forests, on the little settlements below them, and sometimes on the fortified cities, within the walls of which were fostered the feeble germs of self-government, civil rights, and civil virtues. It was a splendid lesson! The students crowded around him with bated breath. Pencil and note-book were brought into requisition, and within the short space of an hour so many references were made to points studied in the class-room that this lesson proved a profitable review over a month's hard study.

A bugle signal brought all the different classes together in the Wolfgully. Here the professor addressed the whole school and proposed to make this the scene of the battle of Thermopylæ. About fifty agile, strong boys were selected to represent the Greeks who should defend the pass. Their leader was a fine lad of noble bearing, who played the role of Leonidas superbly. All the other boys were requested to advance and retreat as Persians. The fight in the pass was not rude, though pretty severe; and the battle could not be fought through with historical faithfulness, since not one of the boys was willing to play the role of Ephialtes, the traitor, so the teacher had to lead the Persians over the hill on a secret path into the rear of the gallant Greeks, who were disarmed after a most heroic resistance. The historical anecdotes, such as the answer of Leonidas to Xerxes about "fighting in the shade" and others, were woven into the play. This was doing history as pupils do arithmetic in the class-room.

The supercilious reader, if there be one, may smile over this boyish enthusiasm. Let him! The world owes all its prizes to enthusiasts and nothing to callous men.

After the battle a welcome rest was enjoyed, then vocal music followed. Mendelssohn's "Farewell to the Forest" and similar choruses were rendered charmingly. Now the treasures found during the afternoon were brought forward. Queer looking specimens of petri

faction, animals, plants, etc., were examined, classified, and classified, and disposed of. Gymnastics,

climbing of trees, and the tight rope, followed. Class exercises and games occupied part of the time. Certain daring feats were applauded and imitated. The teachers were always among the boys, suggesting and advising, but never showing their authority except when an order came by bugle-sound.

When the sun went down, we all assembled at the summit of the hill and enjoyed the grand sight of a sunset. Then the regiment formed in line and marched toward home, drum corps in front, and the whole school joined in singing and shouting. Another lunch at the inn, and then the march was taken up again. we approached the city gates perfect order and silence were established, the ranks closed, and by degrees the companies grew smaller, as the boys would, singly or in small groups, leave the ranks, turn into side streets, and go home.

As

There was never a break or a lull. Every change proposed, every new move made, was so well suited to the occasion, that the whole day resembled a kaleidoscope of beautiful ideas and scenery. I have my well-founded doubts that Young America could pass a day as delightfully and profitably as these healthy German lads did.-Klemm's European Schools, D. Appleton & Co.

PARENT'S DAY AT RICE LAKE.

The much talked of and widely advertised parent's day and accompanying program at the opera house Friday, was a success. The house was well filled in the afternoon and the various exercises were listened to with pleasure by many that were present. Dr. O. M. Sattre had an excellent paper on "Sound Mind and Sound Body," emphasizing the fact that with unsound bodies minds could not be sound. F. T. Watson read an able paper on "The Boy and the High School," in which several strong points were made. He showed the great difference between the school of twenty years ago and the school of to-day. Rev. Burrows in a short talk, strongly advocated the advisability of parents making a special effort to get acquainted with the teachers that have their children in charge. Co. Supt. Museus read a scholarly paper on "Common Schools and High Schools."

Prof. Chandler, inspector of high schools, made a short speech, emphasizing the pressing needs of our high school, the main one at present being more room in the recitation

rooms.

As Wm. Hawley Smith could not be here in the evening to deliver his lecture as advertised, Prin. McClelland prevailed on Professor Walker, of the Superior normal, to speak, and he chose the subject, "What Is He?" which he did justice to. Mr. Walker is a pleasant speaker and his talk contained some new ideas to the audience. The house was not as well filled as it would have been had it been more generally known that there was to be a lecture. -Rice Lake Chronicle.

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On the 1st of May next the twenty-four hour system of time measurement will be adopted by the railways, postoffices and telegraph stations of Belgium.

In order to meet the national demand for new timepieces the clockmakers of Belgium have been hard at work for several months past. Of course, the new system will be universally adopted throughout the country, as the action of the railways alone would render this inevitable. If it proves to be successful, as it no doubt will, other European countries will follow the example of Belgium, and in the course of time the new system will find its way across the Atlantic.

There is nothing in the least repugnant about the new system, and since the day is twenty-four hours in length, there is no good reason, either practical or scientific, why the divisions of the clock should not correspond with nature's measurements. As the twelvehour system has been in use so long, there are thousands of people who will be loath to give

it up, but sentimental considerations should not outweigh practical advantages, and if the new system is a better one, the old system should be discontinued by all means. -Atlanta Constitution.

WAR IN SCHOOL HISTORIES AGAIN.

ED. WIS. JOURNAL OF EDUCATION-Dear Sir:-In glancing over your interesting editorial in the March number of the JOURNAL, "War in School Histories," we are led to wonder whether among the six text-books on United States history referred to you included our own History of the United States, by Dr. From certain W. A. Mowry and his son. comments which we cannot believe applicable to our book, we are inclined to think that this was not one of the text-books under consideration, since our authors aimed throughout to preserve well-balanced periods, and not to give undue prominence to war periods, especially to the details of wars. Reference to their preface shows that their book devotes 115 pp. to the colonial period, that is down to 1763; 76 pp. to the revolutionary period, only a portion of this being given to the revolution itself; 92 pp. to the development of the new republic from 1781 to 1860; 50 pp. to the civil war and associated events; and 47 pp. to events subsequent to 1865. This brief summary will show you a division of topics much more in accordance with your ideas than that found in general text-books. treatment of topics, of social, educational and industrial interest is also largely in the line of your own thought, so much so that it afforded us pleasure to read such an indorsement (though indirect) of the plan and purpose of our authors.

Very truly yours,

The

SILVER, BURDETT & COMPANY. [The inference is correct. This is not among the books examined in preparing our article.]

THE SCHOOL ROOM.

WALT WHITMAN.

1819-1892.

HIS LIFE.-Mr. Whitman was a farmer's son and was born at West Hills, Long Island, thirty miles from New York city. When he was about five years old the family moved to Brooklyn, and the lad for a short time attended the city schools, but he never was a scholar. He became a printer when quite young, and speaks of himself as "a country school teacher,

gardener, printer, carpenter, author and journalist, domiciled in nearly all of the United States and principal cities north and south— went to the front (moving about and occupied as army nurse and missionary), during the Secession war, 1861 to 1865, and in the Virginia hospitals, and after the battles of that time, tending the northern and southern wounded alike-worked down south and in Washington city arduously three years, contracted the paralysis which I have suffered ever since, and now live in a little cottage of my own, near the Delaware in New Jersey."

HIS WORKS. "The works of Walt Whitman cover a great many pages, but the texture of them is anything but subtle. When once the mind perceives what it is that Whitman says, it is found that he repeats himself over and over again, and that all his "gospel" (as the odious modern cant puts it) is capable of being strained into very narrow limits. One "poem" contains at least the germ of all the sheaves and sheaves of writing that Whitman published. There is not one aspect of his nature which is not stated, or more than broadly hinted at, in the single piece which he named after himself, "Walt Whitman." It was appropriately named, for an unclothing of himself, an invitation to all the world to come and prove that, stripped of his clothes, he was exactly like everybody else, was the essence of his religion, his philosophy, and his poetry. * * * The absence of intellectual quality the superabundance of the emotional, the objective, the pictorial, are no reason for undervaluing Whitman's imagination. But there is one condition which distinguishes art from mere amorphous expression; that condition is the result of a process through which the vague and engaging observations of Whitman never passed. He felt acutely and accurately, his imagination was purged of external impurities, he lay spread abroad in a condition of literary solution."-Edmund Gosse in Critical Kit-Kats.

HIS MANNER.-Whitman smears his pages with the commonest slang and the most hideous newspaper English. He regards with contempt the scholastic speech and polished diction of the great poets. He will have no speech but the speech of the people."-Smyth's American Literature.

In "Leaves of Grass," not merely are rhythm and meter conspicuously absent, but composition, evolution, vertebration of style, even syntax and the limits of the English tongue are disregarded.-Edmund Gosse.

"Leaves of Grass" is Whitman's masterwork; he spent his life in perfecting it and

revising it. He declared that he had omitted nothing; that he was all there; that the book was to be his "carte de visite to future generations." Its aim, as its author expressed it, is "to present a complete picture of man in this age;" and if a running catalog, minute and specific, of every detail and accessory of modern life is what was meant, the book has accomplished its purpose. He has touched upon every subject; he has described everything, and has omitted nothing in his descriptions. He has filled page after page with enumerations like this:

"Land of wheat, beef, pork! Land of wool and hemp!
Land of the potatoe, the apple, and the grape!
Land of the pastoral plains, the grass fields of the world!
Land of those sweet-aired, interminable plateaus! Land
there of the herd, the garden, the healthy house of
adobe! Land there of rapt thot and of the realization
of the stars! Land of simple, holy untamed lives!
Land where the northwest Columbia winds and where the
southwest Colorado winds!

Land of the Chesapeake! Land of the Delaware!
Land of Ontario, Erie, Huron, Michigan!
Land of the Old Thirteen! Massachusetts land!
Land of Vermont and Connecticut!" etc.

Many of his longer poems contain no consecutive thot; they wander all over the cosmos and beyond. A long list of the fauna of North America is followed by a description of the defence of the Alamo; of the capture of the Serapis by John Paul Jones, and then by a minute catalog of New York street sights.' -Pattie's American Literature.

O Captain! My Captain!

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weathered every rock, the prize we sought is

won;

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my captain! rise up and hear the bells,
Rise up for you the flag is flung-for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths-for you the shores
a-crowding,

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning.

Hear captain! dear father!

This arm beneath your head!

It is some dream that on the deck
You've fallen cold and dead.

My captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still!
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and
done,

From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my captain lies
Fallen cold and dead.

Patroling Barnegat.

Wild, wild the storm, and the sea high running, Steady the war of the gale, with incessant undertone muttering,

Shouts of demoniac laughter, fitfully piercing and pealing,
Waves, air, midnight, their savagest trinity lashing,
Out in the shadows their milk-white combs careering,
On beachy slush and sand spirts of snow fierce slanting,
Where thro the murk the easterly death wind breasting,
Thro cutting swirl and spray watchful and firm advancing,
(That in the distance! is that a wreck? Is the red signal
flaring?

Slush and sand of the beach tireless till daylight wending,
Steadily, slowly, thro hoarse war never remitting,

Along the midnight edge by those milk white combs careering,

A group of dim, weird forms, struggling, the night confronting,

That savage trinity warily watching.

Broadway.

What hurrying human tides, or day or night!

What passions, winnings, losses, ardors swim thy waters,
What whirls of evil, bliss, and sorrow stem thee!
What curious questioning glances-glints of love!
Leer, envy, scorn, contempt, hope, aspiration!
Thou portal-thou arena-thou of the myriad long-drawn
lines and groups!

(Could by thy flagstones, curbs, facades, tell their inimitable tales;

Thy windows rich, and huge hotels-thy sidewalks wide;)
Thou of the endless sliding, mincing, shuffling feet!
Thou, like the parti-colored world itself-like infinite, teem-
ing, mocking life!

Thou visored, vast, unspeakable show and lesson!

MANUAL TRAINING IN FOREIGN SCHOOLS.

In every

The systems of education in foreign cities differ most widely from our own in the stress laid upon manual and industrial training in elementary schools and in the larger number, variety and excellence of technical schools of every kind. In London there are 142 cooking centers in connection with public schools, sixty-two laundry centers, two housewifery centers and seventy-two manual training centers, and twenty-four sewing machines are circulated in connection with the training work. French girls are taught dressmaking, cookery, laundering, corset-making, tailoring, embroidery, drawing and industrial designing in connection with the public schools. considerable city of Great Britain or the continent art and technical schools give theoretical knowledge and practical skill in all the scientific, artistic and technical principles and processes that pertain to standard lines of manufacture." They also instruct "in literary and commercial subjects, elementary science, drawing, designing, bookkeeping, typewriting, shorthand and modern languages, as well as in engineering subjects, mathematics, physics and practical electricity, applied chemistry, wood-working, metallurgy, building trades, sanitary engineering and plumbing, bleaching and dyeing, spinning and weaving, and numerous other specialties and trades." Paris spares no pains nor money that her artisans may remain pre-eminent in decorative art as applied

to all lines of manufacture. Technical instruction in the trades and arts furnished in public schools, with free text-books and material, might remove the reproach now sometimes cast upon our system of education, that it turns the children of good mechanics and artisans into poor clerks and inferior professional men. -Mrs. Alice B. Wiles in the Chicago TimesHerald.

BAD ARTICULATION.

It shows itself in various ways, some of which I will illustrate, thus: wus for was, fur for for, git for get, runnin' for running, 'n or un for and (not once in a hundred times is and fully pronounced); las' steps for last steps, mus' go for must go, winda for window, thish year, for this year, azh usual for as usual, las' chear for last year, unaty for unity, opporchunity for opportunity, juty for duty, Henery for Henry, Febuary for February, figger for figure, visable for visible, spur't for spirit, bar'n for baron, pote and pome for poet and poem.

Now, what is the cause of this bad articulation, which is almost universal and is one of the worst defects in reading?

It is, in the first instance, a national, not merely a provincial defect, and this increases the difficulty of the situation. Every uncultured Briton has the defect, and some cultured ones, too. The natural tendency in speaking is to draw back the tongue with its tip pointing in an upward direction, whilst there is a strong disinclination to push the lips out and use them in articulation. Another noticeable tendency in our speech, which contributes to bad articulation, is the increase of accent at the expense of the unaccented syllables. This I need not illustrate. The unaccented syllables are but indistinctly heard, or, as it has been facetiously put, they are swallowed. Having regard also to a common tendency to close the mouth partially, with consequent improper labialization or the muffling of certain vowel sounds, the Germans, indeed, say of the English that they speak, not with their mouth like other people, but with their nose and throat. The accompanying lip-contraction is also one of the main causes of the dull, lowpitched intonation so characteristic of the speech and reading of our schools.

Many of the vowel sounds in ordinary use amongst us are also incorrect; for instance, we often hear noos for news; constitootion for constitution; and no difference is made between fool and full. The Italian sound of a, which is frequent in good English speech, is

seldom heard in our schools. The common substitute for it is one of the most disgusting sounds I know of a sort of cross between eh and ah, with a nasal accompaniment. We have also acquired the habit of letting many of our vowel sounds end in "vanishes. (Observe the common pronunciation of pay and no.) This habit, of course, makes many of our vowel sounds impure.

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As you are aware, most of the tendencies I have mentioned have existed for hundreds of years, and have had an important influence upon the present forms of our vocabulary. All languages suffer from them, to some extent, in the natural state, if I may use the term. It is, indeed, simply an application of the Principle of Ease, and the only limitation is intelligibility. Unless we follow the model of the best speakers, we pronounce our words in a way we find the easiest. The effects of these tendencies are, however, worse in English than in French and German, for instance, owing to the very composite character of our language, the marked absence of regularity in pronunciation, and the unusual discrepancy between our spelling and our sounds.

Most pupils enter the public schools with these bad habits already formed, or in process of formation. It is the duty of the school-of the public school, in particular-to correct them when the organs of speech are plastic and the pupils are at what is distinctively the habit-forming age. Now and then, we find a pupil who can articulate well, and who uses proper English sounds. He, however, is invariably the product of a cultured home and cultured surroundings. He has learned to use his vocal organs well, just as he has learned to speak good English, by imitating good models. The teacher's task will be an easier one when the general culture of the community improves; but the school-master will always need to be abroad. Even in matters of articulation, we shall never reach our ideal, so far, at least, as most of mankind are concerned. If oral reading had no other claim to an important place in our school progam, it has this one, that, if properly taught, it will, in time, go far to cure many of the defects of our provincial speech.

Some excellent teachers with whom I have discussed this subject are inclined to attribute bad articulation to the very common habit of fast reading. It so happens, however, that the defect exists even when the pupil reads slowly. Fast reading, of course, intensifies it, and the first step in the remedial process is to secure the proper rate of reading. In senior classes, indeed, in which the habit of fast reading has

become indurated, the slowness of the rate of reading might well be exaggerated at first.

I have not the direct knowledge that would enable me to say at what stage in the education of the public school pupil the subject of articulation is most neglected-if, indeed, there is any stage in particular. From appearances I should say that, considering its importance and the difficulties which beset it the subject receives proper attention in few localities of the province; for few entrance classes give evidence that they have had their attention specially directed to their articulation.

While the first stages in learning to read are the most important, the pupil's vocal organs should be carefully trained at every stage. Owing to his surroundings and our linguistic tendencies, the danger of a relapse in the case of a convalescent is so great that the best teachers I have seen give unremitting attention to articulation. Distinct utterance of the proper sounds is regarded as the first essential in every reading lesson; and each lesson is often-generally, indeed - introduced with special exercises in vocal gymnastics, having, in some of the details, at least, a direct bearing on the reading lesson to follow.

I desire to emphasize the importance of this subject; for I regard bad articulation, associated, as it always is, with ignorance of the true sounds of our language, as the prime defect of the reading of all our schools.-John Leath, in Educational Record.

EXHIBITION OF DRAWING IN THE CHICAGO SCHOOLS.

Recently the Art Institute of Chicago has displayed in its galleries the drawings of the pupils of the Chicago public schools. On the same walls where usually hung careful selections of modern paintings, under the same roof with the finest procurable examples of the old masters, were placed the works of childish hands. This in itself is worthy of remark, and far more remarkable is the attention attracted by the little show. Not so long ago there was a determined warfare against drawing in the public schools. Tax payers objected to the cost of special teachers; parents preferred to have their children's time employed in "something useful;" artists scornfully agreed that any child intending to become an artist would first have to unlearn all that he learned at a public school. Drawing, as taught, was the most superficial thing imaginable, scarcely even an accomplishment. Under the teacher's eye the child laboriously produced a neat picture, which, like worsted work, might be used to

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