reduced in size and correspondingly in cost, and that the same would be true of handwriting.

When I took up the pen to commence this article, I intended saying something in relation to" what shall be done with the books now printed," but have consumed so much space on another topic, that I am necessitated to forbear further writing for the present. X. W.

EDITORIAL.

THREE FOURTHS of the spring institutes have already been held, or are now in session. The attendance upon them and the interest manifested in their exercises, have been thus far most gratifying. The conductors express themselves as delighted with the work. The syllabus is regarded on the whole as more difficult than that of last year, and yet it seems to be mastered by a large proportion of the teachers. The enthusiasm exhibited this season, should be carried over into the summer and fall institutes.

As IT is already known to many of our readers, the annual meeting of the State Teachers' Association will occur the second week in July next, opening the evening of the 8th of that month, and lasting until noon of the 11th. We have already noticed that this meeting will be held at La Crosse, where the teachers of the public schools, the Board of Education, and the people generally, will make the best exertions to accommodate the members, and render the exercises profitable. An excellent programme is in preparation. We expect to see a large number of the teachers of the State present.

THE annual meeting of the Conductors of our Teachers' Institutes will be called at La Crosse, on the 7th and 8th of July next. The exercises will open the first day, Monday, at 9 o'clock, A. M., and will be continued into the afternoon of the following day. Large attention will be given to the discussion of the topics furnished by the Institute syllabus for this year. It is expected that Monday evening will be devoted to the consideration of the course of study devised last year for the ungraded schools. The programme for this meeting is nearly completed, and will be published at an early day. It is desired that all who take part in conducting institutes in the State this year, should be present. Their expenses in traveling one way to La Crosse, and in attendance upon the meeting, will be paid as usual.

THE time of the annual examination for State certificates has been fixed to begin Tuesday, August 12th, and to continue four days. This arrangement will give applicants an opportunity to make some of their preparation during the

first part of the summer vacation of their schools. The examination will be conducted at Madison, in the Assembly Chamber of the State Capitol. The rule adopted last year, will be followed this year, that seventy-five per cent. be required as the least average standing in all the branches for the unlimited certi. ficate; and seventy per cent. in all the branches for the limited certificate. Heretofore, the applicants for either certificate, who were not examined in a portion of the branches or failed in any of them, could present themselves for reexamination in those branches within one year. This rule has been so modi. fied that the applicants for the unlimited certificate can pass the second examination at any one time within two years. The rule in respect to the limited certificate, has not been changed.

THE Committee on the Exhibitory Department of the State Teachers' Associa tion, have issued a circular giving full directions for the preparation of materials for the exhibit at the annual meeting in July. They call upon the "city and county superintendents, presidents of Normal Schools, principals of High Schools and Academies, and teachers generally throughout the State," to assist them in securing a liberal contribution to this object. From the information which we have received, we are apprehensive that the response to this invita tion, will not be as general and as prompt as the case merits. The small and extemporaneous exhibit at the annual meeting at Geneva Lake last year, was certainly praiseworthy and instructive. With a better organization and with a definite plan before us, we should make this year, marked improvement in this direction. Will not those who have been invited to co-operate with the committee, arrange early this spring to furnish the articles required, and the best which can be prepared? The city and county superintendents can easily for. ward the lists of their examination questions, their circulars, their records, and the monthly or term reports of their teachers. We should be glad to see the pupils' work from many of our country schools, sorted and arranged by counties, and set beside similar work from our cities. A hearty interest taken by our teachers and superintendents in this work, will make this feature of the annual meeting of the Association most attractive.

WE are firmly convinced that the instability of our teachers in their work, is a principal cause of the weakness in our public school system. Our condition in this respect is clearly and forcibly described in the following extract from the report of the French Educational Commission at the Philadelphia Exposition, on Public Instruction in the United States, as translated by Prof. Wm. Swinton, for the Educational Reporter:

In France a person enters the career of teaching with a view of creating for himself a stable and permanent position. Those who abandon it before obtain. ing their retiring pension form the exception. The young beginner expects to live and die a teacher, and, as each year adds to his previous experience, the time comes when, possessed of an adequate theoretical and practical knowledge, he is able to discipline his class methodically and successfully: so that the role of those over him is confined to giving encouragement of good-natured counsel.

Not at all thus is it in the United States. The profession of teaching seems to be a sort of intermediate stage in one's career- a stage at which the young woman awaits an establishment suited to her tastes and the young man a more lucrative position. For many young people, this transitory profession simply furnishes the means of continuing their studies. Sometimes the desertions reach incredible proportions: in Kansas, for example, one-third of the teachers, male and female, withdraw every year. Few male teachers remain more than four or five years in the service; and, if the lady teachers show a longer term, it is not to be forgotten that marriage is usually the end of their desires, and that, once married, they almost always resign their positions. Public opinion is, in general, wholly opposed to retaining married women on the school list, and in some cities it is prohibited by rule.

It has thus come to pass, by the mere force of circumstances, that the school authorities have been led not only to establish various regulations for the application of school laws, but also to lay down detailed courses of study containing the subjects to be taught in each kind of school, in each class, often in each di vision, and this for each term, if not for each month in the year. The timetables in schools that are at all regularly attended are fixed in advance by the same authorities: the text-books are chosen by the school board or superinten dent; and finally, school manuals, often of great value, are furnished as a vade mecum, from which teachers may derive information as to methods and the various details of daily work.

We desire to make another extract, at this time, from the very able and comprehensive report of the French Commission, referred to in the previous article. This relates to our country schools, their courses of study, and their schoolhouses:

ROMANCE AND REALITY OF COUNTRY SCHOOLS.

Owing to the representations of certain enthusiastic travelers, a most lovely idea of the American rural school house is common in France: it is pictured as a nest under flowers. Thither resort, each morning, on prancing ponies, red cheeked lassies and lads, grave and proud and respectful to their young mates as our caviliers of the good old times. The mistress- herself young -- smile. ingly receives them at the entrance, o'ershadowed by great trees. How remote is the reality from this picture, this charming exception to a state of things still in its rude beginnings! We traversed the vast plains where the husbandman struggles against an unconquerable vegetation, and the still half-wild valleys in the regions of iron, coal, and oil, — and it was not our lot to find any such school idyl.

In the country, stone or brick school-houses form the exception; frame buildings, so cold in winter and so scorching in summer, are much more numerous, and the log-house has not yet disappeared. In the most flourishing States, what complaints are made against defective school accommodations! Let it not be said that, in describing the rural schools of the United States, we have sought out exceptional cases: we have tried our best to do justice to that great country, but we cannot conceal the fact that in the rural districts the school-houses are poor affairs and poorly equipped. Thus in Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, the only two States whose exhibits contained documents on this class of schools, out of twenty-two teachers' reports, fourteen stated that the class-rooms were absolutely destitute of everything in the way of means for visual instruction, that is, there were neither maps nor blackboards; two schools had one map each; one school possessed an old globe; other schools no blackboards, no reading books; a single school was furnished with suitable apparatus. The pay of country teachers is far from remunerative, sometimes it falls to a most wretched figure, to $6, $8, $10 a month, which amount in the United States does does not represent from 30 to 50 francs of our money, but scarcely half that sum. Too often, again, the district boards speculate on the necessities of the teacher, and in the language of the superintendent of Tioga (N. Y.), reduce him to the mer

est pittance. In no case is the teacher given his board, and up to this time the question of giving him a retiring pension has not even been raised. His brethren in France have, as it seems to us, nothing to envy him.

THE COURSES OF STUDY IN GRADED SCHOOLS

are still in the tentative period, not to say in a state of chaos. Some are too suc. cinct and barely outlined; others reflect the personal predilections of the teacher and show that ingenuous pedantry so often found associated with total inexperience. Sometimes a good deal less than the required course is done, sometimes it is greatly exceeded, such studies as history, music, composition, drawing, and book-keeping being taken up, and in some cases algebra, physiology, geology, natural philosophy, and rhetoric even.

As regards country schools in general, we have to say that there was nothing in the courses of study or the time tables shown at the Exposition which led us to alter our opinion, that the privilege of getting up these documents should be withdrawn from the teachers.

The worst evil from which rural schools suffer, after this pedagogic anarchy, is irregularity of attendance. Teachers and superintendents bitterly complain of this. As a partial remedy, and as a means of allowing children to attend school without wholly depriving parents of their help, some States have lately established a number of“ half-time" classes, in which attendance is reduced to a single session per day. This measure has everywhere been followed by good results, and it would perhaps be advantageous to introduce it into our French system, for the summer term at least, and in the case of the older pupils.

THE COUNTRY SCHOOL-HOUSES

are still in many instances built of wood, as are many of the finest dwellings, but they are frame buildings well put together, painted and conveniently lighted. More frequently the constructions are of pressed brick with stone trimmings and slate roofs. You have only to see these coquettish school houses, in the midst of vast lawns, shaded with fine trees and surrounded by palings, to judge of the place which the school holds in public opinion. It is indeed a national institution, devoted to the education of boys whose votes will decide the fate of the Republic, and of girls one of whom may be the mother of the president of the United States."

What specially distinguishes the country school-house of the United States from that of Europe, is the absence of lodgings for the master or mistress. Nowhere in the United States is this arrangement found. It is an evidence of a state of things not without its unfortunate side: the teacher is engaged by the board for a year simply; he is paid by the month, and most frequently his certi ficate has but a limited duration. Under these circumstances he but comes and goes; when he is not a resident of the locality, he takes board for the school term and has nothing but a study or parlor in the school-house.

SPRING AND SUMMER STUDIES.

It is being found out that our school studies are too much confined to the dry things connected with reading, spelling, writing, and arithmetic, with a smattering of geography and grammar. These branches, especially geography, may indeed be rendered more attractive than they usually are, by the intelligent and ingenious teacher, but something else is needed. Or at least the information imparted under the general compass of geography, needs to be specialized, and given with some regard to method and system. The two branches of natural science which most readily lend themselves to the purposes of the teacher of children, are Botany and Entomology. Plants and insects abound, during the

warmer season of the year, and furnish a ceaseless variety, and work for successive years.

We hail with much pleasure, therefore, the series are articles from the accomplished pen of Mr. Westcott, on Entomology, of which we give installments in the March and April issues, and which are to be continued. We have selected, also, for this month, a chapter on a very curious and interesting phase of plant life, a description of the flowers that seem almost endowed with intelligence, in their action in entrapping insects.

But both these branches of study abound in evidences of the most wonderful adaptation of means to ends, and in exhibitions of grace and beauty; and ob jects for investigation are so numerous and various, so readily obtained, with so little infliction of pain upon sentient existence, and are so easily preserved, that every facility and incentive is offered to research. It is also very easy to interest a school in these things, if the teacher has the requisite interest in them, and some knowledge and experience. It need not interfere very much with the ordinary work of the school-room; the long summer days and the Saturdays furnish extra time for collections, and we should by no means consider it a waste of school hours, if little excursions were now and then made, and some out. door instruction given within the limits of those hours. Then too the older and more intelligent pupils would push their researches and collections during vacation.

Then there is a practical side to the matter: not merely in that "useful infor mation" is likely to be obtained, but in that an impulse and direction may be given to the mind and tastes and habits that will be of the greatest possible service to the pupil in after life; that will open the door to innocent and elevating enjoyments, and tend to deter from the frivolous, the dangerous and debasing. We have an impression that Supt. Baker, of Pierce county, has been doing something in the direction indicated - at least with his teachers; we should be glad to learn from him, for the general good, with what results. Others may be able to furnish us some encouraging statements. We should be glad to know just how this matter is viewed and treated in the normal schools. To them we naturally look for the earliest and foremost movements in broadening the capabilities of our teachers, and so enlarging the usefulness of our common schools. We are disposed to think there is a phase of kindergartening, if that means judicious child culture, in which the normal schools may open the way in the direction which we have indicated, for the great good of the whole State.

As germane to the foregoing article, we may note here that the Boston Society of National History have commenced the issue of a series of "Guides for Science Teaching." We think they would be found useful by teachers. We give the titles of those received:

No.

I. About Pebbles. By Alpheus Hyatt. 15 cents.

No. II. Concerning a Few Common Plants. By Prof. Goodale. 30 cents. No. III. Commercial and other Sponges. By Alpheus Hyatt. 30 cents. No. IV. A First Lesson in Natural History. By. Mrs. Aggasiz. Address Ginn & Heath, Boston or Chicago.