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America. It was a time when debtors were imprisoned, when thieves were hung, when accused persons who refused to plead were pressed to death, when husbands controlled their wives' property and whipped their persons, when women were absolutely debarred from any education except the merest rudiments, and when only a few of either sex had any schooling at all. It was a time when the men who fought for liberty in America, and who were in the very forefront of the world's progress, distrusted the people so much that they provided in the constitution for the election of a president and of a senate by methods intended to guard against the awful danger of the common people actually choosing their rulers. It was a time when there were no railroads, no telegraphs, no factories and no daily newspapers, and each little community lived in comparative isolation. The thrill of a wider and a nobler life which now binds the civilized world together with each returning sunrise, and gives a voice to every movement for the good of humanity, was then felt but rarely. Deeds of darkness and cruelty could then go unknown and unrestrained, which now would be reached by a roused public opinion as well as by more humane laws. It was a time when there were no public schools, no Sunday schools, no children's books, no humane societies, no child-saving societies. The average

child was a drudge, the orphan and the abandoned child was bound out by the town authorities into virtual slavery, and the child of the drunkard, of the miser, of the prostitute, and of the thief had no protection from the avarice, the malice or the vicious teaching of his legal owner.

How different it is to-day. America is now the children's paradise. Most homes are now habitations of love. The switch and the ferule, once the badge of the schoolmaster's office, have disappeared. Toys and dolls, costly and ingenious, minister to the pleasure of the little ones, and books and papers attract and inform the older youth. The apprenticeship system has passed away, and the danger is now rather that youth will be idlers than drudges. The standard of living for all classes has been raised and comforts and luxuries, unknown to the wealthy in Washington's time are now within the easy reach of the poor as well as the rich. Greatest and best of all, marriages are now based on mutual affection. Women do not marry for a home; men do not marry for a household drudge, and neither men nor women marry because forced into it by mercenary or managing mothers or fathers. The children of to-day are the children of love.

They are born into an atmosphere of affection. They are nurtured in kindliness. Each house is a spontaneous kindergarten. Each neighborhood is a nursery of friendship. Solomon's rod is as out of date as Solomon's polygamy. And the results prove that it is not necessary to cramp a child's activities, to ride roughshod over his sensibilities, or to lash him like a brute in order to make a man of him. The young manhood and womanhood of to-day is of a higher order, better educated, more moral, better equipped for this life and for the next than that of any previous generation, brought up on the rod and trained in juvenile servitude. Never in the history of the world have the children of a nation had such opportunities, never have they lived in such a paradise for the present or in such a training school for the future as the homes and the schools of this great republic give their children to-day.

THE MONTH.

WISCONSIN NEWS AND NOTES.

W.

-The graduation exercises of the Washburn high school occur June 4th.

-Prin. A. E. Brainerd, assisted by Supt. George S. Moody, will hold a summer school at Richland Center from July 12th to August 13th.

-The time of the annual meeting of the Normal Regents has been changed from the first to the second Wednesday in July, to make way for the N. E. A.

-A summer school will be held at Reedsburg for five weeks from July 12th to August 13th, Principal W. N. Parker is manager, assisted by A. D. Tarnutzer, L. May Chamberlain, R. B. Dickie, Blanche Jeffries and Sup't

Roeseler.

-The great Yerkes telescope, the largest in the world, has been set up at Lake Geneva, and was tried for the first time May 21st. The huge object lense was made by Alvan Clarke, of Cambridge, Mass., who has worked upon it for ten years past.

-The regents examinations at the several schools are fixed at the following dates: Oshkosh, May 25-26th; Stevens Point, May 2728th; Superior, June 1-2d; River Falls, June 3-4th; Milwaukee, June 7-8th; Whitewater, June 9th; Platteville, June 10-11th.

-The North Wisconsin Teacher's Association held a successful session in the high

school building at Washburn, May 15th. Teachers from Washburn, Ashland, Bayfield and Superior took part in the exercises.

-Mr. F. A. Hutchins, chairman of the Wisconsin Free Library Commission, now has an office in the capitol, where he may be found when not traveling about in the interest of the libraries and to which correspondence may be

sent.

-A summer school will be held at Wautoma, Waushara county, for four weeks beginning July 19th. The teachers are to be A. M. Olson of Oakfield, Eber Dafoe of Plainfield, T. W. Davies of Stanley, and Supt. Taylor of Terrill.

-Platteville normal school is to have a new heating and ventilating plant to cost $10,000. A vacant lot adjoining the Milwaukee normal has been bought for the use of the school. Stevens Point normal has had an addition of five acres to its campus.

-Whitewater normal school is to have an important and much needed addition to the building. The Board of Regents have appropriated $25,000 to extend the building by adding a new front, increasing materially the size of the assembly room and affording new recitation rooms.

-On account of illness Prof. Sylvester, of Stevens Point, is unable to serve on the Board of Examiners for Teachers' State certificates, and Sup❜t Emery has appointed in his place Sup't Albert Hardy, of La Crosse, and announces in advance that the Board as now constituted will be reappointed for next year.

-When the normal school building at Superior was erected two years ago a portion of the building was left unfinished because it was not thought that there would be any call for the rooms for some years to come. The attendance at the school has been so large, however, that the regents have been compelled to appropriate $4,000 towards completing the building as soon as possible.

-Pres. Williams, of the Wisconsin Teachers' Association, is already at work upon the program for next winter, and is able to make some interesting announcements. Dr. W. O. Krohn, of the Illinois State University, will lecture on Tuesday evening, and present the subject, Child Study in the general session on Wednesday morning. Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler will deliver the Wednesday evening lecture.

-The time of holding the examination for Teachers' State certificates has been changed

by the State Superintendent from Aug. 3rd, 4th and 5th to Aug. 10th, 11th and 12th. This brings the examinations of the present summer the week after the conclusion of the session of the Wisconsin summer school. Many teachers who are planning to attend the school and to take the examinations will find the change a great convenience.

-The Normal Regents by a unanimous vote elected Duncan MacGregor president of the Platteville normal school in place of James Chalmers, resigned. This election must be especially gratifying to President MacGregor as an endorsement of his past services, and a reversal of the act of displacement of four years ago. The Board also placed the selection of the new faculty of the school for the coming year in the hands of President MacGregor and the committee on teachers.

-A North American society for child study is forming and it is hoped to perfect the organization at the N. E. A. this summer. Dr. Bryan, of Indiana University, is president, and Dr. Van Liew, of Normal, Ill., secretary and treasurer. Each state is to have one vicepresident. All interested in the subject are urged to be present at the organization and take part in the proceedings. The society is

for mothers and doctors as well as teachers. Prof. J. Q. Jegi, of Milwaukee normal, is vicepresident for Wisconsin.

-The Herbart Society will soon issue their year book for the coming session, which, besides the papers on Training for Citizenship, will contain four important papers on Moral Education in Schools by Prof. Dewey, of Chicago; Pres. De Garmo, of Swarthmore, Dr. W. T. Harris, of Washington, and Principal John Adams, of the Teachers' Training ColThe society has lege, Aberdeen, Scotland.

now 675 members, including 32 local clubs in different parts of the country, and expects to more than double its membership during the coming year. The Year Book may be

had of the secretary, C. A. McMurry, of the University of Chicago.

-The house of Ginn & Company, the well known school-book publishers, has for many years been second to none in the educational value of its books, and in the short space of a little over a quarter of a century has grown to be the largest single school-book house in America. It has branch offices in New York,

Chicago, Columbus, Atlanta, Dallas, and London. The "Athenæum Press" is a large five-story building, located in Cambridge, Mass., devoted exclusively to the printing, binding, and shipping of the firm's publica

tions. In this model building may be seen the most improved machinery known to the printing and binding business. The output of the "Athenæum Press" is at present ten thousand volumes per day, and its capacity is for double that number. The list of this firm now includes books by the leading educational men all over the country, and in almost every town in the United States some of Ginn & Company's publications are used.

WISCONSIN BADGES.

Below we print the Wisconsin Teachers' Badge, adopted by the state association. Principal H. W. Rood, of Washburn, chairman of the committee on the subject, has had the badges prepared at his own expense, and will furnish them at ten cents each. They will be put up in two forms-buttons and pins -and will be three-fourths of an inch in diameter. Wisconsin teachers will want them at the N. E. A., at Milwaukee, and can obtain them in advance by writing to Mr. Rood.

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[Nekoosa is a paper mill town of six hundred people. Entirely built in three years.]

Mr. F. A. Hutchins, Madison, Wis.-Dear Sir:-Your request for a letter in regard to the good which the library has done at Nekoosa is gladly complied with. Of course the good which the library has done cannot be fully known, because we cannot see into the hearts and minds of the readers to find the new aspirations, new purposes and new motives of their lives. But that the winter's reading has helped many an one I do not doubt. I can give a few of the conditions which the library met here, and tell something of the use which has been made of it, and of a beginning of a taste for reading among the boys and girls, and a few of the young people.

The conditions which the library met here were perhaps peculiar for a town of this size, but perhaps not so peculiar when we remem

ber that the town has a growth of only a few years, and this mostly from a class which has had few opportunities for reading or for gaining even a fair common school education. It is surprising to think that not a few of our business men, and a still greater proportion of the mill hands, are poor readers, to say the least. I do not mean to say that all our people are such, but that many of them are. It is distressing to hear some try to read passages with which they are quite familiar, or with which they ought to be familiar if frequent repetitions are to help them. Of course such readers can not be expected to enjoy reading a book. But among such the library has found its way and books like Little Lord Fountleroy, Little Men and Little Women are helping to a taste and practice of reading.

In a town of six hundred people with six saloons furnishing attractions, with the Saturday Blade, the Chicago Ledger, and many kinds of cheap story papers with their attractive premiums, and large circulation, good reading has to fight its way. But it is making inroads upon the enemy.

With a large percentage of our people crowded into boarding houses without many of the attractions of a home, with another large share, the children, having little help in their homes toward better reading, the library has found and is finding a useful place. The boys and girls, many of whom were previously spending their time upon the streets, have been the most enthusiastic readers.

As I turn to the last library record I find that a large share of the readers are of this class. And it is not an unusual thing to enter a home in the evening and find the boys and girls reading their library books.

Little Lord Fauntleroy has been read until it is all in pieces, though the leaves are not torn, and that in only a few months. From house to house it has gone without rest on the library shelves. Miss Alcott's books are also read with much zeal, while not a few boys and girls are learning to read the books of history, biography and science. One of the favorites just now is the Electrical Boy. It is quite noticeable that many of the readers are becoming more interested in a heavier class of reading than they were at first. This, I consider, one of the good things about the libraries. The later libraries are of a little harder grade of reading than the early ones. They are adapted to the tastes of the people, and they cultivate a taste for better reading.

The young men and young ladies of the mill are beginning to read. A dozen or more of these are quite regular patrons of the li

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brary. And from reading the lighter trashy papers, they are now interested, as I see by the record, in books such as Humorous Masterpieces, Southey's Life of Nelson, Abraham Lincoln, Electrical Boy, Charles Sumner, The Making of New England, and other books of the same class, together with a much better class of fiction than that to which they have been accustomed.

One of these young men becomes interested in a good book. He mentions it to some of his companions. They read the same book and pass it on to others. The process is slow. But I think it is a sure growth and one that will tell in the characters of these young people.

The influence which the library has exerted on the children can hardly be estimated. Because without it they would have had little to attract them toward reading, and much to attract them to a life of carelessness and thoughtlessness.

Some of the mill men who do not draw books do read the magazines and papers which often come with our library, while the Youth's Companion has thus found its way into many a home which would not have had it unless in some such way as this.

Trusting that I have made clear some of the benefits we have received from Mr. Witter's gift, I am Yours truly,

A. L. MCCLELLAND,
Pastor of Congregational Church.
THE TRAVELING LIBRARIES IN PLEASANT VALLEY.

Pleasant Valley is the name applied, and justly too, to a farming district in the western part of St. Croix county just south of Downing.

The people are industrious and intelligent, and are always glad to welcome any move for the advancement of their community.

Knowing this you will not be surprised to learn that when they heard of Mr. Stout's generosity and the traveling libraries sent out by him, they were only too glad to apply for one and to comply with the simple and easy requirements necessary to form an association.

In the course of time the library came, and since has made many acquaintances and friends.

It was placed in a cheerful home just across the road from the schoolhouse. Besides the thirty books contained in the library, we received many papers and magazines, rich in entertainment and useful information. A few of these were The Forum, The Cosmopolitan, The Ladies' Home Journal and The Youth's Companion.

Among the best known authors whose works we have had are Louisa M. Alcott, A. Conan Doyle, James Otis, John Fiske, Sir Walter Scott, Charles Kingsley and Thomas Knox. On the record sheet kept by the librarian, the space is sufficient for each book to be taken out fourteen times; but one book went beyond that limit. On an average each book was taken out six times. We had a good variety of books especially in history and travel; the former were so well suited to our needs at school that we kept one or more in the school for references.

I believe the best book in our library was "Masterpieces of British Literature." Who does not feel richer after having spent a long quiet evening with such as Dr. John Brown, Alfred Tennyson, Charles Lamb, Thomas Gray or John Milton?

Who can read "Enoch Arden" without having all his sympathies aroused? or who "Horatius" without feelin ghis heart swell with true. patriotism and a sense of justice?

But you are anxious to know what the library has done that I can tell you only in part-for it seems to me that in this short time, the seed has merely been sown. But don't think that all of the benefits are of the future for we are enjoying many of them today.

I

I will enumerate a few of them for you. noticed while visiting at the different homes, that the family (children were as zealous as parents) talked about the library and the books in it. Then at school the older girls had been accustomed to play ball or other games, at every possible opportunity; at first I noticed that one or two would read a little at recess or noon. Finally I observed that they would take a good book and go out under the trees at the side of the school ground, and while one would read aloud, a few would sew or knit, for they now began to bring some little work with them.

I have also read a number of books to the school, reading a chapter or so each morning for the opening exercise. I found that there was less tardiness while so doing than at other times. The younger pupils were fully as eager as the older ones; when their interest became absorbed in a particular book, such as "Helen's Babies" by Jno. Habberton, they would spend a recess or noon with the people of the story rather than accept the urgent requests of a dozen pupils to join in their play.

We feel that we have derived a world of good from the books and our hearts are full of gratitude to the generous giver.

As we have had only one of these libraries,

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This commission has now a permanent office in the capitol building at Madison and has been re-organized to push its work more effectively. The former chairman, F. A. Hutchins, and the secretary, Miss L. E. Stearns, recently resigned their positions as members of the commission. The governor appointed State Senator J. H. Stout, of Menomonie, and Mrs. Lucy E. Morris, of Berlin, to the vacant positions. The new board elected Mr. Stout chairman, Mr. Hutchins secretary and Miss Stearns librarian. The two officers last named will now devote their whole time to the work of the commission. The term "librarian" does not well define Miss Stearn's duties as she will be in fact a "field secretary," giving most of her time to the southern part of the state, organizing new libraries and helping to improve the older ones. The secretary will give more time to the free traveling libraries and the public libraries in northern Wisconsin.

Mrs. Morris, one of the new members of the commission, is the president of the state federation of women's clubs. In most communities in Wisconsin the women's clubs and the teachers are the prime movers for free public libraries and as the schools and colleges of the state were already represented on the commission by the State Superintendent and the president of the state university, Mrs. Morris's appointment will make the commission fairly representative of the leading educational forces of the state.

The commission was first organized in December, 1895, and has therefore been in existence only a year and a half. Although the appropriation for its support was meager it has received such generous support from Hon. J. H. Stout that it has been able to prove its usefulness. In its brief life and during a period of financial depression it has seen new libraries started on substantial foundations in Oshkosh, Kenosha, Racine, Menasha, Rice Lake and Stevens Point. It has helped to make great improvements in the methods of many old established libraries and it has aided

in forming a public sentiment which will soon build many new libraries on good foundations as effective allies of the public schools. The commission has also aided in the organization and development of a number of systems of free traveling libraries which are likely to be the pioneers of many similar systems in the

state.

The commission has also arranged and conducted a number of meetings in various parts of the state which have reached many isolated libraries and schools and aroused a more active and intelligent interest in school, as well as public libraries.

In no other state, with the possible exception of New York, has the alliance between the teachers and the leaders in library work been so close as in Wisconsin and the commission has labored persistently to make our libraries in effect a part of our educational system, working in cordial co-operation with our schools to give the pupils both the desire and the opportunity to read good literature.

RECENT WISCONSIN LIBRARY LEGISLATION.

The Wisconsin library world will remember the Wisconsin legislature of 1897 with sentiments of lively gratitude, as it has placed the public libraries of the state on a footing which promises to make them a substantial part of our educational system. It increased the annual appropriation of the Wisconsin Free Library Commission from $500 to $4,000 and gave it an office, fully equipped, in the capitol building. It struck out the general library law the provision which limits the annual tax levy for a local library to one mill on the dollar of assessed valuation and it also omitted the clause which made it necessary to have a favorable popular vote before a library could be established.

By another amendment, city superintendents and supervising principals of schools are made ex-officio members of boards of free library directors.

Still another amendment gives to boards of library directors authority to make contracts with the boards of supervisors of neighboring towns or villages or with county boards of supervisors by which the people of neighboring towns and villages or the people of the surrounding country may have free use of the books of the library. Under this amendment it will be possible for a county with a good central library to make arrangements for a system of county traveling libraries.

Two years ago the legislature ordered a levy of one-sixth of a mill tax for three years

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