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Again, last year I overtook a man hunting along the Conestoga. In his game-bag he had twenty-five robins, and some days afterward I found another man with forty redwing blackbirds. These they intended eating.

The shooting of flickers and doves goes on every year in autumn, and so many are destroyed that the diminution in their numbers is becoming very perceptible. Doves may not be beneficial birds, but what intelligent man would want to banish them from our farms and lawns? Every one knows the value of the woodpeckers, and especially those who study

the relations of these birds to forest, fruit and shade trees.

Another notable bird more beneficial yet than the flicker is the redhead woodpecker. He is an unique and original character, and yet year by year they are disappearing from our woods. I have known them so abundant that a small woods of an acre contained several pairs. I knew a year ago of five pairs within a radius of a mile around Millersville. This is due to the indiscriminate destruction by boy hunters, who are out to kill something no matter whether fit for food or not.

Ten years ago there was a colony of a hundred pairs of black-crowned night herons two miles west of the school. Now they are all

gone.

The cause was the same as in the case of the redhead.

Then think of the plumes and wings and heads used in millinery and other decorative purposes for which women are responsible! In 1892 1,000,000 humming bird skins were sold in London at one sale occupying less than a day. The demand for aigrettes has caused the almost total extinction of the Egret family of America, both north and south.

This destruction of our birds is going on rapidly, and of course is affecting our forests and vegetation generally. The rapid increase of insect pests affecting our shade and fruit trees attests the fact that the balance between the two worlds of bird life and insect life has been disturbed.

It seems to me we can reach this question in no way exept by creating a sentiment against such wanton destruction. There is no use making laws fixing penalties. Young people do not know the law or evade it. Then again no one enforces the law here in Pennsylvania, because it is generally believed to impose too heavy a penalty.

Now, I propose the establishmant of a Bird Day or the devotion of half of Arbor Day to exercises in the literature and science of our bird life, There is no doubt that we shall have enthusiastic and appreciative participants

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on the lesson.

2. Develop the power of oral expression in your pupils by a few well prepared questions 3. Let children describe a picture in a book, each write a sentence about it on a Let teacher corslate, then on blackboard. rect what pupils cannot. Then all write sentences correctly.

4. Let the teacher write questions on the board about the lesson; the children write the answers at their seats on slates, and bring them to recitation.

5. Occasionally read a short story and require the children to reproduce it in their own language.

6. Allow impromptu composition to take the place of reading every Friday afternoon.

7. By judicious management, letter writing may come in at the close of the second school year.

8. Whenever the pupil can tell a story pretty well, require him to write out the

same.

9. Correct one fault at a time.

10. In all your methods in all studies, develop the power of correct expression. -Exchange.

NOTES ON TEACHING ARITHMETIC.

Arithmetic furnishes the most valuable field in the entire curriculum for training the reasoning powers, and is also of the utmost practical utility. These two objects should be kept constantly before the mind of the teacher.

Since the practical side of arithmetic furnishes abundant material for disciplinary purposes, all rules and problems should be eliminated from the class-room.

Long and intricate examples should not be used, particularly in primary grades.

Concrete problems should always accompany abstract work, but should, in the primary grades, be simple and easy of solution, and never in advance of the undeveloped reasoning powers of the children.

The first steps in numbers should be illustrated objectively; but such illustrations should not be continued after the properties of a number have been thoroughly learned.

Tables of weights and measures, the fundamental operations of fractions, and the solution of problems in mensuration, should, as far as possible, be taught objectively.

Every operation in arithmetic should be performed orally before written problems are submitted, and the only difference between oral and written problems should be the greater simplicity of the former.

The method of solving every problem should be stated by one or more of the pupils, but set formulas for such explanation should be avoided.

In every grade, pupils should be required to invent problems for the class to solve.

The arithmetic lesson should generally be a class exercise. When an oral problem is given it should be solved by every member of the class, and answers should be written at a given signal. In written work, as many children should be required to work at the blackboard as can be accommodated, while the remaining members of the class are working on their

slates. After the solutions are worked out, they should be discussed by pupils and teachers, corrections made and explanations given.

A teacher should not waste the time of her class in marking the exercise of each pupil as right or wrong.-Supt. W. H. Maxwell.

THE CHILD-STUDY MOVEMENT.

Reforms in education are sometimes called fads, and mere fads proclaimed as great reforms. Of all educational movements which have received both names, few have at any time progressed more rapidly than has the child-study movement during the last few years and there is no topic at the present time more prominent in the minds of the educators of the United States. Scarcely an educational newspaper appears that does not contain some reference to the subject, and an entire number devoted to child-study is not unusual. One journal, the Child-Study Monthly, edited by . Dr. Krohn of the University of Illinois, is devoted wholly to that subject, and another, the Pedagogical Seminary, edited by Dr. G. Stanley Hall, president of Clark university, and generally known as the "father of child-study in America," while dealing with all phases of education, yet gives more than half its space to the various phases of child-study. subject is one of the prominent topics considered at local, state and national teachers' meetings, and since 1893 the subject has been dis

The

cussed in a separate section of the National Association, which has a large and enthusiastic membership. More than a half-dozen states have organized child-study associations, and local societies and mothers' clubs are in successful operation nearly all over the country, while hundreds of parents are observing and keeping records of their children's development.December Review of Reviews.

THEORY AND PRACTICE.

NOTES FROM PRUSSIAN SCHOOLS.

[Extracts from an Article in the Educational Review for December, entitled "Some Characteristics of Prussian Schools."]

Absence of Blackboards.

The general absence of blackboards for the use of pupils marks a difference between Prusfrom superficial. sian and New England schools which is far It affects not only the

also the teacher's manner of testing the pupils' methods of instruction in the classroom, but knowledge from day to day and of correcting their mistakes as well. Not once did I see a

pupil go to the blackboard and, face to face

with his teacher and the class, demonstrate a proposition in geometry, or work out a problem in arithmetic, or write a sentence in a

foreign language. Instead of this every boy

had a blankbook, and the work that would be done in our schools by a few individuals at a blackboard was attempted by every member of the class in a notebook. In this way every pupil is put upon his own resources, and the teacher, who must examine and correct these written exercises before the next recitation, can make an accurate estimate of every boy's effort and accomplishment, and adapt his next day's instruction accordingly.

Manners.

These sturdy Teutons are no less solicitous in respect to the manners of their children. Pupils were everywhere respectful in their demeanor, and prompt and cheerful in their obedience. For instance, when the teacher entered the classroom at the beginning of the hour, the boys ceased their conversation and rose to receive him, and the same evidence of respect was shown when he left the room at the end of the recitation. Visitors were treated with an equal degree of respect by both pupils and teachers. I may say parenthetically that I found the Berlin schoolmasters uniformly kind-hearted and courteous. Of all the threescore teachers whose classroom work I inspected, only one received me with any manifestation of impatience or indifferOn the contrary, several of them put

ence.

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In the first place, a very large proportion of the teachers in the higher grades of schools are graduates of the university, and are therefore well-equipped and scholarly men. They command the respect of their pupils and the communities which they serve not only for what they know, but for what they are as well. Furthermore, these teachers prepare themselves for their class exercises with the utmost care and skill. There is no hesitation in the instruction from the nervousness and confusion of the instructor. He has already determined just what topics shall be considered and discussed in the hour of the recitation, and in what order they shall be presented.

The Teacher's Position.

The chief reason, however, why it is worth our while to study the Prussian schools is the unmistakable fact that they accomplish more substantial results in scholarship than are attained by the schools of the United States. Some of the reasons for this are quite evident.

I have already said that the teachers are more mature and more learned. Their superiority as a class is considerable. Teaching with them is a profession for which long and careful preparation is required. The responsible nature of the teacher's office is clearly recognized by the government both in its cautious methods of selecting and appointing teachers, and in the liberal pensions provided for teachers who have lost their health or become superannuated in the service of the schools. In general a man who seeks an appointment to teach in a gymnasium must have been graduated from a gymnasium and the university, and must have spent two years without pay, one in studying the classroom work of experienced teachers and the other in teaching under the direct supervision of an approved instructor, before, he can become a

certificated candidate for an appointment. He may even then have to wait several years beBut when fore he obtains an appointment. once the position is won it is his for life and cannot be wrested from him by an overturn in a municipal election, or by the enmity of a group of men who happen to have influence in local politics. The position of teacher in the common schools (Gemeindeschulen) is much less desirable, and is of course more easily obtained. At the end of ten years' service a teacher in Berlin may retire with a pension equal to one-fourth of his salary, which increases annually by one-sixtieth. After twenty-five years' service he may retire on a pension which at the outset is one-half as large as his salary, and increases each year onetwentieth until it equals two-thirds of the salary that he received at the date of his retirement. With a carefully guarded method of appointment, permanency of tenure, and a generous system of pensions it is not surprising to find that the Prussian teachers are men of maturity, scholarship, and skill.

Ways of Work and Teaching.

In the common schools the demands made upon the time, the attention, and the strength of the children are a little less rigorous, but would be appalling to American parents. The course of studies is six years long and children begin it at the age of six. The number of exercises a week for each year, which include two hours for singing and two for gymnastics, is indicated by the following numbers: 22, 24, 28, 30, 30, 32. No one would attempt to state accurately the number of lessons a week. in schools of corresponding grade in the United States, but the average is far below the Prussian standard. The importance of this difference between the school systems of the two countries is not easily exaggerated. I had known it in a vague way for some years, but I never realized its full significance until I saw the Prussian system in actual operation. What are the consequences of this difference? They are radical and far-reaching. The teacher in the Prussian schools gives his pupils a larger measure of helpful guidance in their studies; saves them from costly mistakes and misdirected efforts; has larger opportunities for ' training them to fix and hold their attention. upon their work; stimulates sluggish minds to greater and more prolonged activity; gives more time to repetitions, reviews, and unprepared exercises that illustrate and fix in the memory principles already learned; and actually teaches in the classroom with minute precision all subjects that are at all difficult or complex. The advantages of extending by

one-half the time during which the teacher and pupil are in actual mental contact in the schoolroom are especially noticeable in the study of such subjects as history, geometry, and the grammar and idioms of foreign languages. Young and untrained pupils are not sent home to make their way blindly through a period of history, or a proposition in geometry, or a Latin verb the forms of which they cannot even pronounce. On the contrary,

such subjects are presented clearly and logically in the classroom, and the home work. consists mainly in formulating and memorizing things that the mind to some degree has already apprehended. For the reasons just stated children in the Prussian schools may and do begin difficult subjects much earlier and make more rapid progress in acquiring knowledge, than pupils of corresponding age in the schools of the United States.

But the advantage is not wholly on the side of the Germans. Our boys undoubtedly know less about the subject-matter of books; but they are more independent in their thinking, more self-reliant in their methods of work, and, as Dr. Harris has already pointed out, have unequaled power in getting usable information from books. But, if we are to have a respectable standing with the most progressive European nations in accurate and sound scholarship, we must go no farther in shortening the school year or in cutting down the length of the daily sessions of the school. On the contrary, we should adopt the suggestion of the Committee of Ten and lengthen the time of mental contact between pupil and teacher, even at the risk of increasing the cost of instruction.

OFFICIAL DEPARTMENT.

OFFICIAL PROCEEDINGS OF THE 44TH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE WISCONSIN TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION.

The forty-fourth annual meeting of the Wisconsin Teachers' Association was called to order by its President, Arthur Burch, at 2:00 o'clock, Tuesday, December 29, 1896, in the Grand Avenue Congregational Church, Milwaukee.

After a vocal solo, the Hon. Joshua Stark, of Milwaukee, read a paper on the subject "What Authority Should be Reposed in the Superintendent?" a synopsis of which follows:

Synopsis.

The due measure of official authority depends mainly upon three considerations: The qualifications required of the officer, the nature of his service, and the results for which he is held responsible. Every officer should be selected for his fitness for the particular service required. In private business this is fully recognized. The degradation of the official service in public affairs through its neglect is compelling the adoption of the merit system.

School administration involves two distinct classes of public service. The one mainly financial, the other strictly

educational. The former is of the nature of business and may be acceptably rendered by any honest man of ordinary intelligence; the latter is the service of the expert for which special preparation is essential.

ance.

Those who examine persons who seek to enter this professional service, to determine whether they are qualified, discharge an educational function of the highest importGeneral school legislation in Wisconsin has always recognized this distinction between business and educational functions, by committing them to different officers. Local directors have had charge of the business affairs of school districts, while the examination of teachers, the inspection and supervision of the schools and the power of discharging those teachers found after trial to be unworthy or incompetent, belonged to other officers quite independent of district control. There were first five inspectors, then three commissioners of schools. Later their duties and powers were given to town superintendents, who were again superseded by county superintendents. The powers of county superintendents have long been ample, in the hands of competent men, to effect great improvement in the common schools. Their proper exercise required educated and experienced men. Insufficient salary, uncertainty of official tenure and political influence in selection, largely defeated the ends for which the office was created.

The act of 1895 requiring practical experience as a public school teacher, and the possession of a certificate of qualifications of a high grade, to make a candidate eligible, has advanced the office of county superintendent to a position of dignity, and given it a high place among the educational forces of the state.

In order to realize the full benefit of the act, salaries should be increased and the term of office lengthened, as inducement to men of required ability to accept the office. With exclusive authority to pass upon the qualifications of teachers not professionally trained, and having full power of discharge, by annulment of certificates, he is truly at the head of the public school system of his county.

School directors are not qualified to judge of professional competency, and are apt to be governed in choice of teachers by personal, social, political or religious considerations. Teaching is professional work, and requires both scholarship and aptitude. The best, if not the only way to secure competency is through tests applied by able and impartial officers, with power to reject those they find to be unfit, and to disqualify those who fail after trial.

Ex

The reason and policy of the law as to outside schools applies with greater force to schools in the cities of the state. The scope of instruction is wider, the qualifications for many of the teachers higher. The superintendent here ought to possess superior learning, ability, experience and executive skill. He is to supervise the whole body of instructors, and to see that the educational plan of the city is faithfully carried out and expected results attained. amination of those desiring to teach, as well as supervision, are among his appropriate duties. The public naturally and reasonably holds him responsible for the proper conduct of the schools and the quality of the instruction. To meet such responsibility requires that he have authority over teachers. Without this, his efforts must be ineffective. He cannot enforce discipline or command respectful attention. The result is confusion and demoralization.

How to choose good teachers and what conditions are best adapted to secure their fidelity and to stimulate them to strive for professional excellence, are the supreme questions on which the success of every system of public education depends.

ant.

Scholarship and moral character alone are not sufficient. Other qualities of mind and heart greatly affect the fitness of the teacher. Temperament and disposition are importThe mental and moral atmosphere of the schoolroom created by the teacher are of very great influence upon the development and future character of the pupil. The welfare of the child should be the paramount consideration in the choice of the teacher. And no one is more competent or more likely to choose wisely and for the best interest of pupils than the skilled and cultured head of the school department, on whom rests the chief weight of responsibility for the good or ill results of every teacher's work.

The appointment and control of teachers by school boards is fruitful of evil results. It introduces political and

personal methods and motives, tends to favoritism and patronage, and to the destruction of discipline, and of all healthy ambition in the body of teachers.

Wise policy, and the highest interests of publication require:

Ist. That all examinations for teachers' certificates shall be conducted by the superintendent, or under his direction by persons selected by him, and that the results shall be determined by him independently of the school board or any committee of its appointment.

2d. That the superintendent shall have absolute and exclusive authority, to appoint, transfer and promote teachers, or at least his written approval shall be made essential to the validity of every appointment, transfer or promotion.

3d. That he shall have absolute authority to discharge any teacher for inefficiency, inattention to duty, or other cause which in his judgment disqualifies such teacher for the service required.

At the conclusion of Mr. Stark's paper, President L. D. Harvey said the paper had so fully set forth the case and proved its points that there was little to be said. In a large number of cities and states men are chosen for superintendents who are not qualified. They are put in to fill a vacancy and they hardly fill it. This is a point that the paper omitted to touch, and with this amendment, it is complete. Unless the superintendent is given the authority claimed for him by Mr. Stark, his position is a farce. Give the school board authority to discharge a superintendent if he fail of his duty and the school system would be on a business basis. To give such power to the superintendent might seem like a centralization of power. But there must be a centralization of power. It must be reduced to the system that obtains in other enterprises and not be left to the mercy of the ward politicians.

Superintendent W. H. Elson of Superior said: Some superintendents like to escape the responsibility and permit the board of education to share it with them. The superintendent should be a capable business man as well as be versed in the technicalities of teaching.

An examination is not the best test of a teacher's efficiency, but rather what are his powers and capabilities to promote in the child right ideals of life?

Committee on Enrollment.

At this point President Burch announced the following committee on enrollment: Frank Kroening, Albert E. Kagel, P. T. Nelson, F. A. Lowell, G. W. Gehrand, Myron E. Keats, and as ex officio members, G. G. Williams, C. P. Sinnott, F. S. Hyer, T. W. Boyer, C. D. Kipp, H. L. Terry.

On resolutions: W. H. Chandler, Rufus C. Flagg, J. C. Freeman.

President Harvey moved that the President send greeting to all state associations now in session, and invite them to the N. E. A. to be held in Milwaukee next July, which was carried. In compliance with this resolution the following telegram was sent to thirteen states:

"Wisconsin teachers, twelve hundred strong, in convention in Milwaukee, send greetings toand cordially invite her teachers to this city in July, 1897." (Signed) ARTHUR BURCH, President W. T. A. Dr. J. H. Kellogg, of Battle Creek, Mich., was introduced and read a carefully prepared paper on "Physical Deterioration during School Life, Defects and Remedies.' During the reading of this paper, Dr. Kellogg illustrated his subject, not only with charts, but by sitting in different positions to show how the evil effect complained of was brought about. Among the salient points of the paper are the following:

Physical Deterioration Caused by School Life.

The writer claims that the difference between city boys and girls, young men and women, and those who are country-born, is largely due to the deteriorating influences of school life. The claim is made that there are annually turned out of our public schools thousands of crippled and deformed young men and women whose constitutions have been weakened for life by the unhygienic conditions to which they have been exposed during the fifteen to twenty years which they have spent in the schoolroom.

Chief among the bad and unhygienic conditions which surround the child during his school life are mentioned the following: bad air, lack of active muscular exercise, and bad positions in sitting. Bad positions result in numerous internal deformities of a grave character, such as prolapse of the stomach and bowels, floating kidney, narrow chest, and a variety of diseases and weaknesses.

A series of outlines of the human figure in health and disease graphically illustrate the relation between internal weaknesses and external deformities. The paper insists that physical work should hold a very prominent place in the exercises of the schoolroom; every teacher should be cognizant of the principles of physical training; that it is the duty of the teacher to have an oversight over the physical health of the student as well as his moral training, that every public school should be regularly visited by a physician for inspection in relation to its sanitary condition; and that the health of the student should be inquired into regularly by a physician competent to make inquiries of this sort. The remedy proposed to combat the evils spoken of is to introduce the health work as an essential feature of our educational system for all grades.

Professor Geo. C. Shutts of Whitewater said: "Physicians are legally responsible for malpractice, and I trust the day will come when teachers will be held to account, so far as they are responsible, for the physical defects that grow out of improper conditions during school life. Teachers should consider themselves called upon to look after the eyesight of pupils, to take as much care of the ventilation of the room as of the arithmetic lesson. They should attend as carefully to the round shoulders of the pupil as to his bad English. It ought to be considered cause for annulling a certificate if a teacher catalogues a pupil stupid, when it is only a case for the optician.'

"

President Albert Salisbury of Whitewater said: “May not the reason why children sit improperly in school be traced to the lack of physical energy at the very start of the childs career?" He also thought the bicycle might do harm by giving the boy a hollow chest.

Dr. Kellogg replied: That he recognized the force of what President Salisbury said, but regarded it as a part of the duty of the teacher to teach the child how to become strong, inasmuch as they could not go back to the child's grandmother to remedy the defect. He then defended the bicycle and showed how a person could even ride a racer without violating any essential condition of health.

Mrs. J. R. Williams asked: "Should a child be compelled to sit at the desk and write three-fourths of the day and maintain a correct position when he is in constant fear of failing to pass because of illegible writing?"

Professor Emil Dabbrich, of the German-American Academy of Milwaukee, thought Dr. Kellogg overdrew the picture. He said: "Doctors have a habit of accusing us of many vices of which we are never guilty. Teachers are more careful than parents about the observance of the laws of health. Is not the startling deterioration of our children due to improper food in the home?"

Dr. Kellogg: I accused the schools of so many things that I did not dare to say anything about eating. There are few homes that give the child so many favorable conditions of proper growth as are found in the schools. Sound minds come from sound bodies. Right conditions at home would go far to correct the defects found at school. The German proverb says: "As a man eateth so is he;"' another proberb says: "As a man thinketh so is he;" I suggest

that these two be united to form this new one: "As a man eateth so thinketh he."

Tuesday Evening.

The evening session was held at Calvary church, beginning at 7:30 o'clock.

After a pleasant half hour of song, by Richard Thomas, Hugh Williams, Mrs. Springer and Mrs. J. A. Bigelow, Charles R. Skinner, President of the National Educational Association, delivered an interesting address on "Education for Citizenship." Following the address was a reception of the Association at the Ivanhoe Commandery. The parlors and large hall were decorated with roses and Christmas holly. Bach's solo quintette was present and rendered several pleasing numbers. Dainty refreshments were served. There were about six hundred teachers present.

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