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education. The examinations for admission shall cover such elementary and high school subjects as may be determined by the Board.

For 1896 and thereafter, until further notice, the examinations will embrace papers on the following groups, a single paper with a maximum time allowance of two hours to cover each of groups 1, 2 and 4, and a single paper with a maximum time allowance of one hour to cover each of groups 3 and 5 (five papers with a maximum time allowance of eight hours):

1. Languages.-(a) English, with its grammar and literature, and (b) one of the three languages,-Latin, French and German.

2. Mathematics.-(a) Arithmetic, (b) the elements of algebra and (c) the elements of plane geometry.

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Candidates will be questioned orally either upon some of the foregoing subjects or upon matters of common interest to them and the school, at the discretion of the examiners. In this interview, the object is to gain some impression about the candidates' personal characteristics and their use of language, as well as to give them an opportunity to furnish any evidences of qualification that might not otherwise become known to their examiners. Any work of a personal, genuine and legitimate character that candidates have done in connection with any of the groups that are set for examination, and that is susceptible of visible or tangible presentation, may be offered at this time, and such work will be duly weighed in the final estimate, and may even determine it. To indicate the scope of this feature, the following kinds of possible presentation are suggested, but the candidates may readily extend the list:

1. A book of drawing exercises, particularly such a book of exercises as one might one might prepare in following the directions in "An Outline of Lessons in Drawing for Ungraded Schools," prepared under the direction of the

Massachusetts Board of Education, or in developing any branch of that scheme.

2. Any laboratory note-book that is a genuine record of experiments performed, data gathered or work done, with the usual accompaniments of diagrams, observations and conclusions.

3. Any essay or article that presents the nature, successive steps and conclusion of any simple, personally conducted investigation of a scientific character, with such diagrams, sketches, tables and other helps as the character of the work may suggest.

4. Any exercise book containing compositions, abstracts, analyses or other written work that involves study in connection with the literature requirements of the examination. Special Directions.

I. LANGUAGES.

(a) English.—The importance of a good foundation in English cannot be overrated. The plan and the subjects for the examination will be the same as those generally agreed upon by the colleges and high technical schools of New England. While candidates are strongly advised to study, either in school or out all the works given in this plan, the topics and questions will be so prepared for 1896, and thereafter until further announcement, that any candidate may expect to meet them who has mastered half of the works assigned for reading (or a bare majority of them) and half of the works assigned for study and practice, the selection to be at the candidate's option or that of the school which he attends.

No candidate will be accepted in English whose work is notably deficient in point of spelling, punctuation, idiom or division of paragraphs.

1. Reading and Practice.-A limited number of books will be set for reading. The candidate will be required to present evidence of a general knowledge of the subject-matter, and to answer simple questions on the lives of the authors. The form of examination will usually be the writing of a paragraph or two on each of several topics to be chosen by the candidate from a considerable number-perhaps ten or fifteen-set before him in the examination paper. The treatment of these topics is designed to test the candidate's power of clear and accurate expression, and will call for only a general knowledge of the substance of the books. In place of a part or the whole of this test, the candidate may present an exercise book properly certified by his instructor, containing compositions or other written work done in connection with the reading of the books.

The books set for this part of the examination will be:-1896. Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream; Defoe's History of the Plague in London; Irving's Tales of a Traveler; Scott's Woodstock; Macaulay's Essay on Milton; Longfellow's Evangeline; George Eliot's Silas Marner.

1897. Shakespeare's As You Like It; Defoe's History of the Plague in London; Irving's Tales of a Traveler; Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales; Longfellow's Evangeline; George Eliot's Silas Marner.

1898. Milton's Paradise Lost, Books I and II; Pope's Iliad, Books I and XXII; The Sir Roger de Coverley Papers in The Spectator; Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield; Coleridge's Ancient Mariner; Southey's Life of Nelson; Carlyle's Essay on Burns; Lowell's Vision of Sir Launfal; Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables.

2. Study and Practice.-This part of the examination presupposes a more careful study of each of the works named below. The examination will be upon subject-matter, form and structure, and will also test the candidate's abil

ity to express his knowledge with clearness and accuracy.

The books set for this part of the examination will be:1896. Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice; Milton's L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus and Lycidas; Webster's First Bunker Hill Oration.

1897. Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice; Burke's Speech on Cconciliation with America; Scott's Marmion; Macaulay's Life of Samuel Johnson.

1898. Shakespeare's Macbeth; Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America; DeQuincey's Flight of a Tartar Tribe; Tennyson's The Princess.

(b) One only of the three languages,-Latin, French and German. The translation at sight of simple prose, with questions on the usual forms and ordinary constructions of the language. The candidate is earnestly advised to study Latin and either French or German.

II. MATHEMATICS.

(a) Arithmetic.—Such an acquaintance with the subject as may be gained in a good grammar school.

(b) Algebra.-The mastery of any text-book suitable for the youngest class in a high school, through cases of affected quadratic equations involving one unknown quantity.

(c) Geometry.-The elements of plane geometry as presented in any high school text-book. While a fair acquaintance with ordinary book work in geometry will, for the present, be accepted, candidates are advised, so far as practicable, to do original work with both theorems and problems, and an opportunity will be offered them, by means of alternative questions, to test their ability in such work.

III. HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY.

Any school text-book on United States history will enable candidates to meet this requirement, provided they study enough of geography to illumine the history, and make themselves familiar with the grander features of government in Massachusetts and the United States. Collateral reading in United States history is strongly advised.

IV. SCIENCES.

(a) Physical Geography.-The mastery of the elements of this subject as presented in the study of geography in a good grammar school. If the grammar school work is supplemented by the study of some elementary text-book on physical geography, better preparation still is assured.

(b) Physiology and Hygiene.-The chief elementary facts of anatomy, the general functions of the various organs, the more obvious rules of health, and the more striking effects of alcoholic drinks, narcotics and stimulants upon those addicted to their use.

(c), (d) and (e) Physics, Chemistry and Botany. --The elementary principles of these subjects so far as they may be presented in the courses usually devoted to them in good high schools. Study of the foregoing sciences, or of some of them, with the aid of laboratory methods, is earnestly recommended.

V. DRAWING AND MUSIC.

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(a) Drawing. Mechanical and freehand drawing, enough to enable the candidates to draw a single object, like a box or a pyramid or a cylinder, with plan and elevation to scale, and to make a free-hand sketch of the same in perspective. Also any one of the three topics,-form, color and arrangement.

(6) Music.—The elementary principles of musical notation, such as an instructor should know in teaching singing in the schools. Ability to sing, while not required, will be prized as an additional qualification.

It may be said, in general, that if the ordinary work of a good statutory high school, even if it is of the second or lower grade, is well done, candidates should have no difficulty in meeting any of the academic tests to which they may be subjected. They cannot be too earnestly urged, however, to avail themselves of the best high school facilities attainable in a four years' course, even though they should pursue studies to an extent not insisted on, or take studies not prescribed, in the admission requirements.

The importance of a good record in the high school cannot be overestimated. The stronger the evidence of character, scholarship and promise, of whatever kind, candidates bring, especially from schools of high reputation and from teachers of good judgment and fearless expression, the greater confidence they may have in guarding themselves against the contingencies of an examination and of satisfying the examiners with their fitness.

Reasonable allowance in equivalents will be made in case a candidate, for satisfactory reasons, has not taken a study named for examination.

General Two Years' Course of Study.

This course is designed primarily for those who aim to teach in public schools below the high school grade. It comprises substantially the following subjects:

1. Psychology, history of education, principles of education, methods of instruction and discipline, school organization and the school laws of Massachusetts.

2. Methods of teaching the following subjects:

(a) English,-reading, language, rhetoric, composition, literature and history.

(b) Mathematics-arithmetic, bookkeeping, elementary algebra and geometry.

(c) Science,-elementary physics and chemistry, geography, physiology and hygiene, and the study of minerals, plants and animals.

(d) Drawing, vocal music, physical culture and manual training.

3. Observation and practice in the training school and observation in other public schools.

Graduates of colleges and universities, and of high schools of a high grade and standing, who give evidence of maturity, good scholarship and of aptness to teach, may, with the consent of the principal of the school and of the Board of Visitors, select from the above curriculum of study a course which may be completed in one year, and when such course is successfully completed they shall receive a certificate for the same.

Four Years' Course.

The Framingham, Westfield, Salem and Bridgewater schools have also a regular course of four years, which includes the studies of the two years' course and the following subjects:

I. Mathematics,-algebra, geometry, trigonometry and surveying.

2. Science, physics, chemistry, botany, geology, astronomy, mineralogy and zoology. 3. Language, --English language and literature, Latin and French; German and Greek, as the principal and Board of Visitors of each. school shall decide; drawing and vocal music. 4. History, general history.

At Framingham and Salem this course for the first two years is the same as the regular two years' course. At Bridgewater and Westfield the order is different, the study of the languages beginning with the first year of the

course.

Advanced Course of Two Years.

The requirement for admission to this course is graduation from college or its equivalent.

Promising graduates from the general two years' course are also permitted to take it. It is designed primarily for those who aim to teach in public schools above the grammar school grades. It may be taken in any of the existing normal schools, but the question of providing for it in the four new normal schools recently authorized has not yet been considered.

The course comprises substantially the following subjects:

1. Psychology, the history of education, the science and the art of teaching, school organization, school discipline and the school laws of Massachusetts.

2. Methods of teaching the following subjects:-

(a) Language and literature, English, French, German, Latin and Greek.

(b) Mathematics,-arithmetic, algebra, geometry, trigonometry and surveying.

(c) Science,-chemistry, physics, astronomy, physical geography, geology, mineralogy, botany, zoology, physiology and hygiene and the preparation of specimens and appa

ratus.

(d) History, economics and philosophy.

(e) Drawing, vocal music, physical culture. and manual training.

Persons of exceptional maturity, of high standing in college, and who give evidence of superior scholarship and special aptness to teach, may, with the approval of the principal of the school and of the Board of Visitors, select from the above curriculum of study a course which may be completed in one year, and when such course is successfully completed they shall receive a certificate for the

same.

SCHOOL REPORTS. PENNSYLVANIA.

Practical Teaching in Rural Schools. The celebration of Arbor Day is part of a larger system of education which is surely coming. Said a Yale professor: "I have recently talked with students, sons of well-to-do families, who could not give the names of three kinds of trees in our streets. They have grown up as ignorant of the trees of our forests and the crops of our fields as a Hottentot grows up ignorant of the stars." To know the name of a tree is to know the one thing about a tree with which the Creator has had little or nothing to do; yet ignorance of the name is evidence of ignorance of its qualities and uses and beauties. Had the tree been observed and studied and discussed, it would have received a name even if it were not the scientific

or botanical name. Our ignorance of trees is but an example of the wide spread ignorance of our people concerning the daily marvels. which transpire around them in the natural world. France and Germany, Belgium and Switzerland, Austria and Russia have thousands of little school gardens connected with the elementary schools and the normal schools, not gardens metaphorically speaking like the kindergartens, but literal gardens in which the pupils and their teachers learn how to prepare the soil and plant the seed, how to weed the garden and destroy the noxious insect, and how by skillful tillage and the use of fertilizers two blades may be made to grow where but one grew before. Secretary Edge says that of the four million dollars which the farmers of Pennsylvania expend annually upon fertilizers, one million is wasted through ignorance of the commonest principles of agriculture. May we not hope for an era in education in which the battle of the kine and the swine will have been fought and won, so that the money now wasted upon fences may be expended upon school gardens, an era in which the rural school will no longer be satisfied with words, words, words, with figures, sums, problems and answers, an era in which the boy's eyes and mind will observe the marvels and enjoy the beauties of the farm, the garden and the forest, an era in which the average man will think it as great a disgrace to be ignorant of the common trees, plants, flowers, birds and insects as he now deems it to be ignorant of the letters of the English alphabet, or of the candidates of his political party, or of the people who have been his next door neighbors during half a life-time.

Extravagance in School Expenditures. A good teacher is worth his weight in gold. A poor teacher is too dear at any price. Το employ an inferior teacher for the sake of saving a few dollars, is an inexcusable waste of resources because it wastes the time, efforts and brains of the children, than which there is nothing more valuable in the commonwealth. No extravagance in the purchase of books, charts, maps, apparatus and other appliances can make up for the loss inflicted upon the community by the employment of an inefficient teacher.

There is a form of extravagance of which the taxpayer justly complains. No sooner was our general school appropriation raised to five millions than the sharks began to scent

prey from afar. First came the agent with charts for teaching physiology which were sold at high figures so as to permit, when

necessary, the payment of large commissions to sub-agents and liberal fees to directors' sons. for delivering the same to the various school houses in the district. Sometimes careless directors were inveigled into signing contracts which made them individually liable for the purchase if they failed to ratify the sale at the next meeting of the board or to lift the charts at the express office. Next came the block man selling lumber at fancy prices in the shape of geometrical forms which the skillful teacher constructs out of paper in so far as she needs them in the elementary school. Finally came the map man, selling relief maps at one hundred dollars per set. The consequences were soon, visible. When school boards in rural districts invest from thirty to one hundred dollars per school house for maps and other apparatus, it means lower wages, inferior teachers, stinting of text books and school supplies, and sometimes shortening of the school term. "I am well satisfied," says one county superintendent, "that if I had the money that has been spent in the purchase of charts, globes, blocks and other apparatus which is rarely used and which lies in the closet or in some corner under the dust for nine-tenths of the time, I could supply every school under my jurisdiction with an International Dictionary, the People's Cyclopedia, a set of good outline maps and have at least ten dollars for each school with which to start a library." "Teachers and school officers," says another, "are beginning to recognize that elaborately constructed charts and complex apparatus will not take the place of a good teacher.

And unless used by one who

is skillful and thoroughly equipped, such apparatus is absolutely worthless. The purchase of expensive appliances has in a number of instances necessitated the reduction of the salaries of the teachers or the shortening of the school term. This is not only a deplorable condition of affairs, but a most reprehensible practice on the part of those who are charged with the mission of expending the money of the people in the interests of the children. Reading charts, outline maps, globes, dictionaries and books of reference are among the essential devices to aid teachers and pupils, and these can be purchased at a comparatively small cost."

"Some restriction," says a third, is needed to guard against occasional fits of lavish outlay in fancy school charts whose chief use seems to be to gather dust or to be locked up in a hard-wood case in some out-of-the-way place in the schoolroom." The Consolidated School Code of New York limits the amount which can be spent annually for charts, maps

and school apparatus to twenty-five dollars per school. This may partly explain why certain charts, maps and globes can be purchased by the school trustees for almost half the price paid by school boards in Pennsylvania. Claims against school districts, if just, can always be collected; hence the honest director ought to be able to buy books, maps, globes and charts at the lowest market prices.. So long as our state has no law to prevent extravagance in the purchase of school apparatus, the superintendents cannot be too vigilant in their efforts to counteract the seductive methods of the chart agent, the map man, the globe seller and the block peddler.

THE SCHOOL ROOM.

HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.

Born Feb. 27, 1807-Died Mar. 24, 1882.

His father was a lawyer and member of congress, his mother, Zilpah Wadsworth, was a descendant of John Alden. He was a second son in a family of eight children; graduated at Bowdoin College in 1825 second in rank in his class, and began the study of law in his father's office. When nineteen years of age was elected Professor of Modern Languages at Bowdoin, and five years later was called to a similar position at Harvard. His life was uneventful. Whittier says of him: "Pure, kindly, and courteous, simple yet scholarly, he was never otherwise than a gentleman.'

PROSE WORKS. Outre-Mer, "A young poet's sketch book;" Hyperion, "The companion of all romantic pilgrims to the Rhine," and Kavanagh, a story of New England life.

HIS POETRY.-Part of his popularity is due to his healthy mind, his calm spirit, his vigorous sympathy. His thought, though often deep, was never obscure. His lyrics had always a grace that took the ear with delight. They have a singing simplicity, caught, it may be, from the German lyrists, such as Uhland or Heine. This simplicity was the result of rare artistic repression; it was not due to any poverty of intellect. As he understood the children, so he also sympathized with the poor, the toiling, the lowly-not looking down on them but glorifying their labor, and declaring the necessity of it and the nobility of work. He could make the barest life seem radiant with beauty.-Mathews' American Literature.

His verse is peculiarly open to the test of Milton's requirement, that poetry should be simple, sensuous, passionate. Simple, even

elementary, it manifestly is, despite the learning which he put to use. It is sensuous in much that charms the ear and eye, and in little else; for the extreme of sensuousness is deeply felt, and feeling results in passion, and passionate the verse of Longfellow was not nor could be. His song was a household service, the ritual of our feastings and mournings, and often it rehearsed for us the tales of many lands, or, best of all, the legends of our own. -Stedman's Poets of America.

One peculiarity of the short poems is at once noticed. Each contains a single idea. The most conspicuous feature of his style is the constant use of analogy. He is always discovering points of resemblance and suggesting comparisons. To him

"The hooded clouds like friars
Tell their beads in drops of rain:"

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So comes to us at times from the unknown
And inaccessible solitudes of being
The rushing of the sea tides of the soul;
And inspirations that we deem our own,
Are some divine foreshadowing and foreseeing
Of things beyond our reason or control.

It Is Not Always May.

The sun is bright, the air is clear,
The darting swallows soar and sing,
And from the stately elms I hear
The bluebird prophesying spring.

So blue yon winding river flows
It seems an outlet from the sky,
Where, waiting till the west wind blows
The freighted clouds at anchor lie.

All things are new;-the buds, the leaves,
That gild the elm tree's nodding crest,
And even the nest beneath the eves-
There are no birds in last year's nest.

All things rejoice in youth and love
The fullness of their first delight!
And learn from the soft heavens above
The melting tenderness of night.
Maiden that read'st this simple rhyme,
Enjoy thy youth, it will not stay:
Enjoy the fragrance of thy prime,
For O, it is not always May.

Enjoy the spring of love and youth,
To some good angel leave the rest,
For time will teach thee soon the truth,
There are no birds in last year's nest.

LONGFELLOW'S SERVICE AS A POET.--But they are wrong who make light of Longfellow's service as an American poet. His admirers may form no longer a critical majority, yet he surely helped to quicken the New World sense of beauty, and to lead a movement which precedes the rise of a national school. I think the poet himself, reading his own sweet songs, felt the apostolic nature of his mission

that it was religious in the etymological. sense of the word, the binding back of America to the Old World taste and imagination. Our true rise of poetry may be dated from Longfellow's method of exciting an interest in it, as an expression of beauty and feeling at a time. when his countrymen were ready for something. more various and human than the current meditations on nature. Puritanism was opposed to beauty as a strange god and to sentiment as an idle thing. Longfellow so adapted the beauty and sentiment of other lands to the convictions of his people as to beguile their reason through the finer senses, and speedily to satisfy them that loveliness and righteousness may go together. His poems, like pictures on household walls, were a protest against barrenness and the symptoms of a new taste. -Stedman's Poets of America.

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