Vol. LI.,

No. 9

The business department of THE JOURNAL is on another page.

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School Board Wisdom.

It is one of the curious things of a democracy that every man and any man is thought to be wise enough to go on a school board, be a member of Congress, or hold the office of president. We have sent under this firmly fixed rule a good many fools and a good many bad men to Congress and to the state legislatures and will probably keep on doing it. Our system of politics is a huge misfortune to us. In one of the wards of this city a man wanted to be nominated for Congress; he applied to a "promoter" and asked, "How much will it cost?" Being told he drew his check, gave it to the “ promoter," and was duly nominated.

The men who go on school boards have a general conception that there must be a house, desks, books, and teachers. Very often the selection of the latter is done on queer principles. In this city a teacher had done excellent work for four years, then married; the death of her husband occurred in two years; then she sought for employment again in the school and was rebuffed with this remark, "You have had your chance; there are other girls now that want to get a place and get married too." The fact of her excellent service was wholly ignored.

There are those who consider in an appointment the "backers" of the candidate-this is so well-known in our cities that the matter of qualification is quite secondary. The influence of the politician is sought; the school board man helps the politician expecting the latter to help him in return. This matter of influence cuts a very large figure in such cities as New York, Chicago, Buffalo, Cincinnati, Detroit, and a few others.

Then there are school board men who insist the appointee shall live in the city-the idea is that the money raised in a place should be spent in a place. Some years ago a principal in Ohio nearly lost his place because he bought the furnishings of his house in another city than the one he lived in. He was warned that his salary must be spent in that town and no other. In New Jersey a teacher got a place by telling the influential member that he would hire a house of him if appointed; he says his salary was raised, too, as the rent was higher than he could afford.

A member in one of our Western cities, just elected, to show his ability to manage educational matters, when the salary list was read asked with curious stupidity: 66 How many female clerks have that much? How many good and intelligent mechanics have it at the present

time?" He was a person who ranked the training of the minds of children on the same level as selling a pair of gloves or soldering a waste pipe. The delicate task of cultivating a human intelligence requires different powers from those that guide a mechanic's hand, and is to be rewarded after a different fashion. The profession is one that calls for constant study, for vigorous health, for earnest pleasure in its work; and these are necessary qualifications that cannot be maintained upon a pittance and the endless anxiety that is the result of that pittance. Where prices are resolutely kept down, or constantly reduced, there is no inducement to any one to spend years in careful and conscientious preparation, or the hours out of school in the study necessary to prevent intellectual rust.

The Cincinnati school board not long ago worried over the sinful extravagance of teachers. One member thought teachers dressed too well-they ought to wear cheaper gowns. Another said they saved their money and spent it on railroads during the summer.

These and a good many other matters are not the business for which they were elected. They are to secure good teachers, no matter where they come from, and pay them proper salaries. If these teachers choose to spend some of it on clothes, some in travel, it is a matter wholly for them to consider.

The school has heretofore been the target; that has been put on a better basis. Now let the school board look out for hot shot.

Education and Crime.

Since 1870 the number of children in English schools has increased from 1,500,000 to 5,000,000, and the number of persons in English prisons has fallen from 12,000 to 5,000. The yearly average of persons sentenced to penal servitude for aggravated crimes has decreased from 3,000 to 800, while juvenile offenders have fallen from 14,000 to 5,000.

In France the criminal statistics and the statements of the magistrates show that as schools have been. opened prisons have been filled, and that the diffusion of education has been accompanied apparently with an increase of crime, especially juvenile crime. Keeping children in school ought, apparently, to some extent keep them from the commission of petty offenses by lessening opportunity; but if this be the case, the same effect should be produced in France as in England. A French journal offers the explanation that in France, as under the republic, education is simply intellectual instruction, while in England there is not only instruction but training; moral and religious influences are brought to bear upon the minds of the young.

There is not much soundness in Victor Hugo's con

tention that when you build a school-house you close the door of a jail. The people of no other country spend more money for education than the people of the United States; but crime has more than kept pace with instruction, and it is worth our while to consider whether this result may not be in some measure due to the quality of the teacher.--The Minneapolis Times.

passed on (leaving the school with colors flying in honor of its triumph over neighboring schools, that are too conscientious to specialize in this way), the children are immediately on their feet to prepare for the supervisor of physical culture. The prescribed fifteen minutes of practice lengthens into half an hour, to be shortly succeeded by another half-hour of physical "culture." The intervals are not sufficient for recovery from fatigue. When the examiner comes, however, the children know

To his Assistant Teachers,

By ELLEN E. KENYON.

"We want leadership."

This pathetic appeal was voiced not very long ago at a meeting of a city teachers' association, and a throb of recognition that this was in truth what they needed ran through the assembly. The prevailing thought was, "Yes, we are being driven. We want to be led."

To lead teachers is a work of inspiration. The leader of teachers must feel the greatness of the truth toward which he leads them, must see its light continually and believe in their power to follow.

This city, in which a lack of leadership is felt, has a superintendent who could lead if he would. Scholarly, philosophical, an impressive and magnetic speaker, warmly liked by every audience that he seeks to win, cordially hated by those who have felt his scorn, this man is making about the saddest mistake that it is possible to make in a school system. He is driving instead of leading the great body of teachers under his command.

This city of H- — has introduced all the modern improvements. There is a supervisor for each, and an able one. The best system of drawing is there in operation; the best system of physical culture; the best system of music, etc., etc. A time schedule regulates the number of hours and minutes a week to be devoted to each study. Local and visiting supervision in plenty determines the relative values of the "results," in all the branches of study and in all the schools. The machinery is well-nigh perfect.

But the teachers feel driven and the air is full of complaints from overburdened pupils, though the children learn "no more than they ought to," even graduating from the high school still unable to arrange their "lays" and "lies" satisfactorily to the critical sense of the grammarian or even to steer clear of double negatives "and sich."

Some of the schools have conscientious principals. Of these there are two types. The first believes in the supreme right of childhood to wholesome culture, and does what may be done toward securing this under the system by harmonizing its parts. Friction is minimized, correlation is attempted, some economy of teacher's strength and student's time is realized, alternation of study, and recitation, with recesses, singing, and calisthenics is secured, and every precaution taken that the system shall do as little harm and as much good as possible. The second believes in the letter of the law, carries out the provisions of the course of study literally, regards any deviation from the same as the most serious of pedagogical offenses, secures, with the rest, a strict application of the time schedule and a proper distribution of the subjects of study through the hours of the week.

But there are principals in the system who are not conscientious. With those officials, that is the best teacher who wins the highest honors for self and school on examination day. In their schools, the coming event is the next examination day, and the goal to be raced for by the classes is the highest mark. Sometimes it is the supervisor of drawing who is expected soon to make a visit of inspection. Sometimes it is the supervisor of physical culture who is to drill the classes on a certain date and pass upon the work of the teachers. The time schedule is forgotten. The subject uppermost in all minds is the next to be examined upon. This demands the lion's share of the time, and the children are drilled in it ad nauseam. The supervisor of drawing having

masters (both types) pales before that of the masters of Cram. Could a better plan be devised for the precipita tion of an anti-fad war?

The New Education cannot be parceled out in this way. The key-note of the New Education is Unity. It cannot proceed except as pupils study with their teachers, teachers think and plan with their supervising officers, grammar and composition are taught with science, artistic perception and skill develop with other forms of study, physical culture proceeds with the occupations of the mind.

Only a great central human force can infuse such life into a school system. Such a force should the superintendent be. The man who sits in his office and chills his command by the issue of paper mandates that appeal to the obedience of subordinates instead of the intelligence, the hearts, the consciences of fellow-workers, fails to exert this force, whatever his ability may be. If the latter be great, more's the pity. What the teachers need is to be met on their own plane, as willing, striving workers in God's vineyard and taught by specialists in special lines, of course, and by a Parker as regards their goal. They want to be inspired. They need to be led.

Advantages of Specialist System.

By M. P. E. GROSZMANN.

Primary grades need principally the instruction of a class teacher, for a young child needs the homelike influence of one who makes her room reflect her own individual nature in arrangement and atmosphere. But even in the lowest classes it is good for the children to come in contact with more than one teacher, i, e., more than one individuality, just as at home, their intercourse with the relatives and friends of the family, constitute a broader educational environment than the parents alone would present. With older children, the class-room as the pupil's school home, must by no means be abandoned, and here, too, the class teacher will preside over the little circle, representing the specific interests and characteristic tendencies of the class. In the Working. man's school we have it so arranged that each class teacher is also special teacher in those studies in which she is particularly efficient. Each specialist has, in addition to her specialty, the charge of a particular class for which she is responsible.

There are only two exceptions to this rule. One is the specialist teacher of natural science in the intermediate and upper grades, who teaches in a room set apart for this work, which is fitted up to suit the special requirements of experimental and objective work, and which represents in its entire outfit the spirit of scien tific research. The art department, in a similar way, introduces the child into the elevating atmosphere of æsthetic refinement, while the work-shop embodies the idea of industrious enterprise and the dignity and charm of assiduous toil.

In explanation of our arrangement it is important to emphasize once more the apparent truism that no teacher can be found who is equally efficient or interested in all branches of instruction. Especially at present when so much of handiwork, art culture, science, etc., has been introduced, it ought to be recog nized that after all a great deal of special aptitude and study must be required to have each of these branches well taught, and that a proper division of labor is desirable in school instruction as well as in social life. Besides, it seems that the individuality of the teacher must

be respected no less than that of the child. I, on my part, have a certain horror of teachers who profess to be able to teach everything. Of course, a teacher must have received a generous general education, and have learnt to understand and appreciate all subjects of instruction; besides, he must be a teacher before he develops into a specialist; but that certainly does not imply that he can teach all things successfully and with due justice to subject and child. Whoever undertakes such a hopeless task will either do pitiously perfunctory work, or will throw the best part of his individuality and enthusiasm into those those select subjects which best express his individuality and give disproportionate emphasis to these. The latter contingency is as deplorable as the former; for the unity of conception and development of which the advocates of the class teacher system speak, will thus be badly disturbed, and the child will be handed over from one individual to another, receiving from each a more or less distorted revelation of his environment.

The unifying factor, may there be ever so many specialists, will always be the directive power of the head of the school, and the spirit and curriculum of the institution, itself will, as a rule, be of longer duration and more lasting importance than any individual teacher's influence. And when, under such powerful unify ing influences as a good school affords, as such the child comes in contact with several competent specialists he will be greatly benefited. For all these specialists, while they are jointly engaged in educational work and thus represent a harmony and unity of organization, will individually give the child the best they can offer. That which they know and master most perfectly as to subject matter and method, is that which enlists their spontaneous enthusiasm and brings forth their best energies. The child will thus, at an early age, be impressed with the lesson that this great world may be looked at from various points of view, each affording a different conception of the whole, and yet all pointing towards the same eternal truth as their common center. He learns to understand, to appreciate, and to respect the difference of individual conception and effort, and receives a many-sided knowledge of his environment.

It has been claimed that special teachers have too little opportunity to study individual children. But while they may meet an individual child as often as a class teacher would, they can follow him through several years, watch his development, and arrive at much more correct conclusions than a closer observation during a briefer period of time could have made possible. Besides, they can compare notes with their colleagues who see other sides of the same child, and thus establish his identity with a greater probability of success than one-sided observation would warrant. For many a teacher will mistake a child for being dull, irresponsive, or mischievous, that is found to be very clever and appreciative with another.

rooms which then are considered oases in the desert. Among the means to correlate the work of classteachers and specialists, the following have stood the test in the Workingman's school:

1. A carefully planned course of study in which the principle of a rational co-ordination is kept clearly in view. Detailed directions must be avoided, however. It is essential that the individual teachers should have sufficient freedom, in order that they may bring their personal ingenuity and creativeness into play. The only condition exacted of all should be that they must not lose sight of the aims and purposes of the course.

2. Weekly Advance Reports to the Principal.-In these reports, arranged by classes and placed directly in charge of the class teachers, the different teachers suggest, on the basis of the general outline of the course, such work as they intend or expect to accomplish in the course of the coming week, with such details as they desire to introduce in their respective departments. Each of these sheets thus shows in tabular form all the work proposed for a particular class. This offers to the different teachers of that class an opportunity to find out what their colleagues are doing, and to confer with them on the work proposed. Besides these,advance reports are submitted to the principal, who discusses the suggestions offered to the teachers, and aids them to re-adjust discrepancies. These reports are kept on file for constant reference and serve as a basis for a more and more detailed elaboration of the course, at least in a suggestive sense.

3. Observation of Other Teachers at Work.-Teachers should improve every opportunity to attend the lessons given by their colleagues so as to receive vivid impressions of what is going on in all departments. This practice is of great value as a stimulant towards co-ordination and unification of instruction, prevents the teacher, from becoming one-sided and pedantic in his methods, manners, and views, and broadens his mental and moral horizon in more than one way. The classteacher, whose every minute from the opening of school in the morning till its close in the afternoon is spent in the one class, has no such opportunity, and the result is that she degenerates, as a rule, into a mere lesson-giving machine whose cut-and dried methods are apt to become an abomination to herself, into a narrow, cross, and hypercritical schoolma'm, whose efforts to unify the branches of instruction will generally lead to a mechanical routine in her practice and a conventional system in her, and her pupils' world-conception, in which her own preferences, opinions, and prejudices, petty as they may be, reign supreme and are reflected in the too-easily molded preferences, opinions, and prejudices of her children. And this drawback becomes all the more serious, the more pronounced the individually and the more strongly developed the character of the class teacher is; so that, as someone has paradoxically suggested, under the class teacher system, "The better the class teacher, the worse for the class."

4. Teachers' Meetings in which the general policy of the school, the course of instruction in all its details, new suggestions and experiments, observations on chil

A well organized school in which the child is the center of a many-sided educational influence, as represented by a group of different individuals, is apt to bring out the child's moral powers with greater force than one where the child is annually handed from one individual class teacher to another, and where the one with whom he comes last in contact may undo a great deal of what his predecessors have endeavored to build up in the child's soul and character. If there are in a school a few teachers of unusual moral power and influence, their presence will surely be more benficial if they can reach, as specialists, all, or almost all, pupils for years in succession than if they are shut up in class

the teachers of one class, or of one department, or of more directly related dpartments, exchange their opinions and experiences and discuss their plans; and last, but not least, the personal advice and direction of the responsible head of the institution, will produce a degree of unification which no class teacher system can ever accomplish. For, in the class teacher, such unification will forever be of a personal, and therefore more or less narrow, and too frequently prejudicial, character; while in the arrangement for which the Workingman's school stands, the idea of unification assumes at once a larger and deeper significance, namely that of a leading principle in which the individual conceptions whose specific dignity and value receive full recognition, blend into the fuller harmony of a well established educational system.

Working man's School, New York City.

University Extension.

By FRANCIS W. SHEPARDSON.

The idea of what is known as University Extension had been dominant in America long before it took definite shape and received a name in England twenty-two years ago. In a land where there' were two great institutions of learning, which stood far above the people, being essentially aristocratic in their nature, it was not surprising that some friend of the masses should have hoped for better things for them, and should have sought to have some of the learning of the cloistered walls of Oxford and Cambridge used for the benefit of those who were deprived of collegiate training and yet longed for a drink from the Pierian spring. Three classes of people were especially considered: ladies, and other persons of leisure who desired instruction; young men of wealth and leisure and clerks who had only their evenings free for study; and artisans.

James Stuart, now a member of parliament, but then a modest young fellow connected with one of the colleges at Cambridge, was the real founder of the system. Mindful of class distinctions in his country, he hesitated to attempt to correct or to discuss, when face to face with a company of wealthy ladies, so he asked them to write their questions, promising to examine them and answer them before his next lecture. Thus came in a feature known as "written exercise," which was a third element in the system of instruction, the lecture itself, and the printed outline, known as the syllabus, being the other two. A few diagrams left upon the wall of the room where lectures were given, attracted the attention of certain hearers, who examined them during the interim of lectures and then asked the lecturer to come a little early next time and explain them. Granting this favor, Mr. Stuart developed the fourth feature, a class, or review, when questions might be asked and further instruction given, without destroying the continuity of thought of the lecture proper. And so, through University Extension, educational advantages were given to many, hitherto denied them, university extension meaning a system of lectures, accompanied by a syllabus or outline, a class, or review, and written exercises from the students, the work being in charge of itinerant teachers who went to the people, instead of having the people come to them as in an ordinary college or university.

Nearly a score of years passed before America took interest in the new educational machinery. This was not because America was a score of years behind the times, but because other methods in use here had supplied much of the need felt in England. A well regulated system of public school instruction, in many places with compulsory attendance until the child reached a certain age, afforded opportunity of education to all. Where the high school failed to give advanced instruction, there were academies, public and private, some of them well endowed. Denominational colleges and non-sectarian institutions for higher education abounded. State universities opened their doors to all citizens at trifling expense. The man, the woman, the youth, who in England rejoiced in the opportunities afforded by university extension, in America was in the high school, the college, the university. America was not behind the times because it failed to use the machinery which was adapted to the conditions of England,

Under different conditions there has been new development in America, and after four years of occupation

THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON. (Courtesy of The University Extension World, Chicago.)

of American soil, University Extension has shaped itself to its environment, and is doing its work to the advantage of a large constituency. tage of a large constituency. The circulars issued by the largest of the institutions which have taken up this work among us, show that instruction is given in four ways through the University Extension: by correspondence lessons, where the individual gains the benefit of the careful study of the teacher, but loses the advantage of personal contact with him; by class-study opportunities, where the individual receives personal attention from the teacher, the recitations being conducted in the evening or on Saturday, and generally away from the university grounds; by club-study, where members of literary clubs receive instruction and suggestions from trained teachers, who make club work a specialty; and finally-and this is usually known as University Extension-by lecture-study, where lecturers, specialists in particular lines, go from place to place, giving courses of six or twelve lectures to miscellaneous audiences, comprising many who seek only to be entertained, as well as many who seek added knowledge by earnest study with the help of the syllabus.

University Extension in America does not attempt to reach those who never had any advantages, because the state has provided advantages for all. It finds sufficient reason for existence in the busy rush of American life, where the merchant, the banker, the housewife, the artisan, the day laborer, has little time to give to painstaking study, and yet wishes to keep in touch with movements of thought of the nineteenth century. Some one has happily named University Extension the "University of the Busy."

These are its claims: 1. That it enables busy men and women to keep in touch with educational work, conserving what has been secured in public school, academy, or college, fitting the idea, which makes part of the system, that education is not a thing, which can be limited to a certain period of school instruction, but is to be continued through all the years of life.