weakest spot in the school system. The following is his reply:

HARR WAGNER, ESQ., EDITOR "THE WESTERN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION,' SAN FRANCISCO, CAL.-Dear Sir: Replying to your letter of May 11th, permit me to say that only some thirty per cent of the teachers of California have been professionally trained, and many young persons are coming into the profession from the grammar and the high schools, through the medium of a County Board of Examination, after a few months' attendance at some cramming institution. The chief aim of an educational journal ought to be to meet this lack of professional training-particularly in those just entering the , profession-by sound pedagogical articles and practical suggestions. Respectfully,

SAMUEL T. BLACK, Supt. of Pub. Instr.

* * *

The County CALIFORNIA has a large number of able Superin- and progressive men and women at the tendents. head of the public schools. The time has passed for a superintendent to serve as a machine. He must be a thinking man; slow to adopt, but not slow to study new methods and new things. He must know Herbart, though he reject Herbartionism. The new crop of literature is essential to keep the rust out of the mind. It is a crime against the children to have men and women as their leaders whose mental indolence measures everything by the standard of the activities of twenty years ago. Among the new superintendents who are reaching out for the best things in education are Professor McPhail, of Tulare county; Edward Hyatt, of Riverside; John Garner, of San Benito; J. A. Wagner, of Stanislaus; O. W. Grove, of Merced; Miss Mogeau, of San Bernardino; Spurgeon Riley, of Los Angeles; Professor Messer, of San Luis Obispo. These people are determined to give the best. possible service. The long list of superintendents contains many names familiar to progressive educators. Thos. J. Kirk, of Fresno, who introduced many successful innovations, has given the schools of Fresno county a reputation along modern lines. Professor Linscott, of Santa Cruz; J. P. Greely, of Orange; Professor Howard, of Sacramento; Job Wood, of Monterey; Mrs. Wilson, of Colusa; L. J. Chipman, of Santa Clara; Robert Furlong, of Marin, are able educators and are doing strong work. The State has reason to be proud of its school officials. The success of the schools depends to a large degree on the superintendents being first possessed of good judgment; secondly, of rare good judgment; thirdly, of most rare good judgment.

Teachers' THE friends of education view with Salaries. alarm the tendency of the southern counties of the State to reduce the salaries of teachers. The great demand made on teachers of the present time to attend training-schools, educational meetings, and keep a full stock of current literature and periodicals, and specialize, requires both the expenditure of money and a prestige that costs. The continuous importation of teachers from the East has made competition very active. Add to this the certificated

The

teachers by county boards and the Normal School graduates, and we are likely to have competition that will be disastrous to the profession of teaching. At the present salaries, teachers are about able to meet the demands of modern conditions, and those who do not have others to aid are enabled to keep abreast of the times. There is no department of the public service. where the salary is so small or the tenure of position, except in San Francisco and Oakland, so brief. In San Diego High School the teachers must be university graduates, and the salary is only $850 per year. principal of the school in a city of 3,000 children and an assessed valuation of $14,000,000 only receives $1,300. If San Diego had cheap teachers as well as cheap salaries, it would not affect other places; but from kindergarten to high school it has thoroughly up-to-date teachers, and the results are good. The remedy must be found in the proper education of the people to believe in good salaries for good service. It will be a part of the platform of this journal to advocate the election of teachers under civil-service rules and the payment of larger salaries.

Pedagogical EARL BARNES gave the whole State an Training. impetus in pedagogical study. He came among us a student, full of magnetism, eloquent, powerful, and with a huge capacity for work. Prof. E. E. Brown was called soon after to Berkeley, calm, philosophical, earnest, imbued both with the spirit of the student and the divine gift of helpfulness. These two men have done much. Teachers have gathered about them and have caught the spirit of the new education. The desire of the great body of teachers to learn more of the child and of the philosophy of education is shown in the long list of pedagogical summer schools on this coast. Pedagogical work as followed at the two universities has a grand mission. It also has its limitations. School boards will be apt to discover the limitations if they displace a teacher of ripe and successful experience for a bright student of pedagogics. A young man or woman after graduating from the university insists on a high-school principalship or an important department. It is presumed that the graduates of the pedagogical departments will make teaching a life work. A modest start is most likely to bring good results. G. Stanley Hall has the power to equip and discipline scholars; but a school board should require more than a diploma from the pedagogical department of Clark University in selecting a man to organize and discipline a high school. The professional training of teachers is efficient but not sufficient.

fifty, do the same. The trustees, with a desire natural to human creatures, decide to change. Then, having so many applications, they conclude they can get a teacher at less wages. Mr. Jones, the clerk, thereupon decides to cut the teacher's salary from $60 to $50, and Mr. Smith can charge more for his wood, and Jones's girl can get $5 per month more as janitor, and everybody but the poor teacher is happy. Teachers in applying for country schools make themselves cheap. It is not the particular fault of any one teacher. The system of changing teachers every year is wrong. The teacher who knowingly attempts to displace another teacher should, in the language of the law, be disbarred. The system of offering to teach a school for a decreased salary is wrong. There should be a professional code of ethics. There are unwritten laws in the heart of every true teacher, and the observance of professional etiquette is both keen and honorable among the vast majority of teachers. The subject of professional conduct in securing schools is one, however, that should be carefully studied from the standpoint of the Golden Rule.

ANSWERS TO QUERIES.

Is a preposition a good word to end a sentence with? Yes, certainly it is. A great many of the grammars still have a rule against it. There are cases, however, where the preposition is the only word with which to end a sentence effectively.

Is it true that writers no longer follow the rules for capitalization given in text-books on rhetoric and composition?

Yes. The capital is doomed in most instances, and the poor child will not forgive the teacher that has made him learn so many rules. Teachers should watch the tendency, and be careful not to teach the rules that they were taught, if obsolete.

Is it proper for a teacher to apply for a school where there are several applicants, including the teacher of the previous year? No. Professional courtesy demands that the teacher of the school should have the first chance. A teacher should not apply for a school until assured of a vacancy.

Where can I get a copy of "Patriotic Recitations"?

Send to Whitaker & Ray Company, 723 Market street, San Francisco. The firm will supply you with any book in print. This firm is becoming the headquarters for school supplies and books for this coast. What cities in California have adopted manual training? Oakland, San Diego, Stockton, and San Francisco have it well introduced, and have special teachers.

Who had charge of the preparation of the new series of the First and Second Readers of the State Series?

Professor Raymond, the veteran schoolbook editor, is the chief of the State book editorial staff. Miss Anna Murphy, however, had the immediate charge of the Readers. She deserves the appreciative words that have been spoken of the Readers. She is a women of graceful literary talents and rare judgment.

FROM THE REPORT OF DR. W. T. HARRIS.

[The complete report of the Committee of Fifteen at Cleveland should be in the hands of every teacher. It has seemed best, however, to select certain portions which pertain to primary work and reproduce them here. It will serve to further emphasize the subject at this time, when county boards are in session, considering changes in the school man uals.-ED.]

EARNING TO READ AND WRITE should be the lead

Ding study of the pupil in his first four years of

school. Reading and writing are not so much ends in themselves as means for the acquirement of all other human learning. This consideration alone would be sufficient to justify their actual place in the work of the elementary school. But these branches require of the learner a different process of analysis. The pupil must identify the separate words in the sentence he uses, and in the next place must recognize the separate sounds in each word. It requires a considerable effort for the child or the savage to analyze his sentence into its constituent words, and a still greater effort to discriminate its elementary sounds. Reading, writing, and spelling in their most elementary form, therefore, constitute a severe training in mental analysis for the child from six to ten years of age. We are told that it is far more disciplinary to the mind than any species of observation of differences among material things, because of the fact that the word has a twofold character addressed to external sense, as spoken sound to the ear, or as written and printed words to the eye, but containing a meaning or sense addressed to the understanding, and only to be seized by introspection. The pupil must call up the corresponding idea by thought, memory, and imagination, or else the word will cease to be a word and remain only a sound or character.

ARITHMETIC.— The practice of teaching two lessons daily in arithmetic, one styled "mental" or "intellectual," and the other "written" arithmetic-because its exercises are written out with pencil or pen,-is still continued in many schools. By this device the pupil is made to give twice as much time to arithmetic as to any other branch. It is contended by the opponents of this practice, with some show of reason, that two lessons a day in the study of quantity have a tendency to give the mind a bent or set in the direction of thinking quantitatively, with a corresponding neglect of the power to observe, and to reflect upon, qualitative and causal aspects; for mathematics does not take account of causes, but only of equality and difference in magnitude. It is further objected that the attempt to secure what is called thoroughness in the branches taught in the elementary schools is often carried too far; in fact to such an extent as to produce arrested development, a sort of mental paralysis, in the mechanical and formal stages of growth. The

mind in that case loses its appetite for higher methods and wider generalizations. The law of apperception, we are told, proves that temporary methods of solving problems should not be so thoroughly mastered as to be used involuntarily, or as a matter of unconscious habit, for the reason that a higher and more adequate method of solution will then be found more difficult to

acquire. The more thoroughly a method is learned, the more it becomes part of the mind, and the greater the repugnance of the mind toward a new method. For this reason parents and teachers discourage young children from the practice of counting on the fingers, believing it will cause much trouble later to root out this vicious habit and replace it by purely mental processes. Teachers should be careful, especially with precocious children, not to continue too long in the use of a process that is becoming mechanical; for it is already growing into a second nature, and becoming a part of the unconscious apperceptive process by which the mind reacts against the environment, recognizes its presence, and explains it to itself. The child that has been overtrained in arithmetic reacts apperceptively against his environment chiefly by noticing its numerical relations-he counts and adds; his other apperceptive reactions being feeble, he neglects qualities and casual relations.

HOW LONG SHALL ARITHMETIC BE STUDIED.-Five years are sufficient for the study of mere arithmetic -the five years beginning with the second school year and ending with the close of the sixth year.

DRAWING.- Industrial and and aesthetical drawing should have a place in all elementary schoolwork. By it is secured the training of the hand and eye. Then, too, drawing helps in all the other branches that require illustration. Moreover, if used in the study of the great works of art in the way hereinbefore mentioned, it helps to cultivate the taste and prepares the future workman for a more useful and lucrative career, inasmuch as superior taste commands higher wages in the finishing of all goods.

NATURAL SCIENCE.- Natural science claims a place in the elementary school, not so much as a disciplinary study side by side with grammar, arithmetic, and history, as a training in habits of observation and in the use of technique, by which such sciences are expounded. With a knowledge of the technical terms and some training in the methods of original investigation employed in the sciences, the pupil broadens his views of the world and greatly increases his capacity to acquire new knowledge; for the pupil who is unacquainted with the technique of science has to pass without mental profit the numerous scientific allusions and items of information which more and more abound in all our literature, whether of an ephemeral or a permanent character. In an age whose proudest boast is the progress of science in all domains

there should be in the elementary school, from the first, a course in the elements of the sciences. And this is quite possible; for each science possesses some phases that lie very near to the child's life. These familiar topics furnish the doors through which the child enters the various special departments.

AS TO ORDER OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY.-There should

be a special course in natural science, commencing each branch with the most interesting phases to the child. A first course should be given in botany, zoology, and physics, so as to treat of the structure and uses of familiar plants and animals, and the explanation of physical phenomena as seen in the child's playthings, domestic machines, etc. A second course, covering the same subjects, but laying more stress on classification and functions, will build on to the knowledge already acquired from the former lessons and from his recently acquired experience. A third course of weekly lessons, conducted by the teacher as before in a conversational style, with experiments and with a comparison of the facts of observation already in the possession of the children, will go far to helping them to an acquisition of the results of natural science.

TIME SPENT IN SCIENCE WORK.―There should be set apart a full hour each week for drawing, and the same amount for an oral lesson in natural science.

PHYSIOLOGY AND HYGIENE; STIMULANTS AND NarCOTICS.-The lessons in physiology and hygiene, with special reference to the effects of stimulants and narcotics, required by State laws, should be included in this oral course in natural science.

PHYSICAL CULTURE.-There should be some form of special daily exercises, amounting in the aggregate to an hour each week, the same to include the main features of calisthenics, and German, Swedish, or American systems of physical training, but not to be regarded as a substitute for the old-fashioned recess, established to permit the free exercise of the pupils in the open air. Systematic physical training has for its object rather the will-training than recreation, and this must not be forgotten. To go from a hard lesson to a series of calisthenic exercises is to go from one kind of willtraining to another. Exhaustion of the will should be followed by the caprice and wild freedom of the recess. But systematic physical exercise has its sufficient reason in its aid to a graceful use of the limbs, its development of muscles that are left unused or rudimentary unless called forth by special training, and for the help it gives to the teacher in the way of school discipline.

MORALS AND MANNERS.-Instruction in morals and manners ought to be given in a brief series of lessons each year, with a view to build up in the mind a theory of the conventionalities of polite, pure-minded society. If these lessons are made too long or too numerous they are apt to become offensive to the child's mind.

much as possible, and when used they should be used only for the day, and not for the year.

SCHOOL PROGRAM.- It will be necessary to use economically the time alloted for the school term, which is about two hundred days, exclusive of vacation and holidays. Five days per week and five hours of actual schoolwork or a little less per day, after excluding recesses for recreation, give about twenty-five hours per week. There should be, as far as possible, alternation of study-hours and recitations. Those studies requiring the cleverest thought should be taken up, as a usual thing, in the morning session,- say arithmetic the second half-hour of the morning and grammar the half-hour next succeeding the morning recess for recreation in the open air.

The lessons should be arranged so as to bring in such exercises as furnish relief from the intellectual tension between others that make large demands on the thinking powers. Such exercises as singing and calisthenics, writing and drawing, also reading, are of the nature of a relief from those recitations that tax the memory, critical alertness, and introspection, like arithmetic, grammar, and history.

AMOUNT OF TIME FOR EACH BRANCH.- An hour of sixty minutes each week should be assigned in the program for each of the following subjects: physical culture, vocal music, oral lessons in natural science - hygiene to be included among the topics under this head, oral lessons in biography and general history. And the same amount of time each week should be devoted to drawing, from the second year to the eighth inclusive; to manual training during the seventh and eighth years, so as to include sewing and cookery for the girls, and work in wood and iron for the boys.

TIME TO BE GIVEN TO READING.- Reading should be given at least one lesson each day for the entire eight years, it being understood, however, that there shall be two or more lessons each day in reading in the first and second years, in which the recitation is necessarily very short, because of the inability of the pupil to give continued close attention, and because he has little power of applying himself to the work of preparing lessons by himself. In the first three years the reading should be limited to pieces in the colloquial style; but selections from the classics of the language in prose and in poetry shall be read to the pupils from time to time, and discussions made of such features of the selections read as may interest the pupils.

COMPOSITION-WRITING. It is thought by your committee that the old style of composition-writing was too formal. It was kept too far away from the other work of the pupil. Instead of giving a written account of what he had learned in arithmetic, geography, grammar, history, and natural science, the pupil attempted artificial descriptions and reflections on such subjects as "Spring," "Happiness," "Perse

verance," "Friendship," or something else outside of the line of his school studies.

DANGER OF WASTING THE TIME.-There is some danger of wasting the time of the pupil in these oral and written language lessons in the first four years by confining the work of the pupil to the expression of ordinary commonplace ideas not related to the subjects of his other lessons, especially when the expression is confined to the colloquial vocabulary.

SCHEDULE, showing the number of lessons per week, for each quarter of each year:

Reading. Eight years, with daily lessons. Penmanship. Six years, ten lessons per week for first two years, five for third and fourth, and three for fifth and sixth. Spelling Lists. Fourth, fifth and sixth years, four lessons per week.

Grammar. Oral, with composition or dictation, first year to middle of fifth year, text-book from middle of fifth year to close of seventh year, five lessons per week. (Compositionwriting should be included under this head. But the written examinations on the several branches should be counted under the head of composition work.)

Latin or French or German. Eighth year, five lessons per week.

Arithmetic. Oral first and second years, text-book third to sixth year, five lessons per week.

Algebra. Seventh and eighth years, five lessons per week. Geography. Oral lessons second year to middle of third year, text-book from middle of third year, five lessons weekly to seventh year, and three lessons to close of eighth.

Natural Science and Hygiene. Sixty minutes per week, eight years.

History of United States. Five hours per week seventh year and first half of eighth year.

Constitution of United States. Third quarter in the eighth

year.

General History and Biography. Oral lessons, sixty minutes a week, eight years.

Physical Culture. Sixty minutes a week, eight years.
Vocal Music. Sixty minutes a week, eight years.
Drawing. Sixty minutes a week, eight years.

Manual Training, Sewing and Cooking. One-half day each week in seventh and eighth years.

LENGTH OF RECITATION.- Fifteen minutes in length in the first and second years; twenty minutes in length in the third and fourth years.

SPECIALIZATION OF TEACHER'S WORK.- This should not be attempted before the seventh and eighth years. For at least six years it is better to have each teacher instruct his pupils in all the branches that they study. The ethical training is much more successful under this plan, because the personal influence of a teacher is much greater when he or she knows minutely the entire scope of the school work.