And the first step towards getting these better teachers should be the reconstruction of the act of 1867, and the elimination from its provisions of low-grade provisional certificates, so that scholarship and capacity shall outrank mediocrity, inexperience, and lack of knowledge.

KUTZTOWN NORMAL SCHOOL.

N the occasion of the laying of the cornerstone of the new addition to the Keystone Normal School, on Sunday, September 4th, after Dr. Harkey's fine address on education, Rev. Dr. N. C. Schaeffer, Principal of the school, spoke as follows:

"The ceremony in which we are about to engage will mark an epoch in the history of the Keystone Normal School. A few reminiscences in support of this statement may not be out of place. The school had its origin in a very humble beginning. In 1860 Rev. J. S. Herman conceived the idea of starting a school of advanced grade in his own house. He secured Prof. H. R. Nicks as teacher, and five pupils responded to the announcement that the school would be opened in November. Their names were: Erastus Bast, Oscar Herman, Jefferson C. Hoch, Nathan C. Schaeffer, and Clara Wanner. After the assignment of lessons the pupils were allowed to return home to prepare for the next day. People imagined that the attempt to found a school at Kutztown had resulted in failure. Next morning a sixth pupil, Pcter D. Wanner, now a member of the Reading bar, reported, and by the end of the second week the number had increased to nine. The prospect of a school building 100 feet long and three stories in height, was discussed by the boys and pronounced a dream that could never be realized.

"The old oak-tree in front of the ladies' building, then the only lofty object on the hill between the cemetery and the Kutz residence, has witnessed, so to speak, some wonderful changes. In 1863-4 took place the erection of Maxatawny Seminary under the leadership of Prof. Nicks; in 1865 a movement was inaugurated by County Supt. J. S. Ermentrout that led to the erection of additional buildings, and in 1866 to the recognition of the school as a State Normal School. In six years the growth had more than doubly realized the day dreams of the first students. A class of six was graduated in 1868. The first era, which was one of hope and lofty aspirations, was followed by

a decade of trial and struggle, of hope and fear, of doubt and disappointment. Several graduating classes were smaller than the first one in '68. A new era dawned in 1880 with the erection of the ladies' building. The chapel was built in 1884-6. Then came the stunning announcement by the architect that for safety's sake the main building should be taken down and rebuilt. The old Maxatawny Seminary, which had become the northeast wing of the first group of buildings, was removed, and in its place was erected the wing now occupied by the gentlemen. This summer, immediately after commencement, the remaining portions of the old building were removed, and to-day we have met to lay the corner-stone of a new edifice.

"The erection of the present building will give the school increased accommodations and better facilities for imparting instruction. Its completion will prepare the way for internal growth and for more efficient work in all those things that aid in making a school great and famous. Therefore we proceed to the laying of this cornerstone, in the hope that it may mark the beginning of an era of inner growth and development that will surpass the most ardent expectations of the most sanguine friends of the Normal school system in Pennsylvania.”

A copy of the Bible. A copy of hymns and chants used for twenty years in the religious services of the school. The school laws of Pennsylvania. A paper containing the names of the building committee. A paper containing the names of those of the class of '90, who donated the corner-stone. Specimen copies of the Kutztown Journal and the Kutztown Patriot, presented by J. B. Esser and Col. C. Gehring. Commencement edition of the Reading Eagle for 1891. Commencement editions of the Kutztown Patriot for 1891-1892. A paper containing the services in memory of Judge Schwartz. A copy of the Philadelphia Record, containing Governor Pattison's praclamation, fixing October 21, as Columbus day. Sample programmes of the county institutes of Berks, Le

high and Schuylkill. A programme of the annual meeting of the State Teachers' Association held at Beaver Falls, Pa. A bulletin of the meetings of the National Educational Association at Saratoga, New York. The course of study for the schools of Lehigh county, prepared by Supt. J. O. Knauss. A copy of Harvest home praise service to be held this day, presented by Prof. W. W. Deatrick. The proceedings of the Berks Co. institute for 1891, presented by Supt. W. M. Zechman. The Pennsylvania School Journal for 1892. Copies of the Lord's Prayer and the Apostles' Creed in German. A list of the citizens, headed by Dr. J. S. Trexler, who pledged their private fortunes to secure loans made to the school for the completion of this buliding.

The stone was then laid with appropriate ceremonies; the audience sang the longmetre doxology, and were dismissed with the benediction by Rev. F. B. Hahn, one of the early graduates of the school.

THE

ARBOR DAY LEAGUE.

HE most practical plan looking towards encouragement of tree planting on the part of pupils, and then of the people,-for the pupils will soon grow into "the people" -is that presented by County Supt. M. J. Brecht, of Lancaster, in The School Forum. We expect to report excellent results from this movement. The September number of this local journal says:

"In our Aprll number attention was directed to the fact that an efiort would be made in the fall, to organize an Arbor Day Circle among the boys and girls of the county schools. The few preliminary steps necessary to begin the work have been completed, and the following card of membership has been issued and is ready for distri

bution

THE ARBOR DAY LEAGUE.

is a member of the Arbor Day League, of Lancaster county, and promises (1) to plant, or have some one plant for h . . . some tree or shrub in some suitable place about home every spring or fall on Arbor Day; (2) to report through the teacher to the County Superintendent each year, at County Institute, the number and kind of trees and vines planted in the spring and fall Arbor Days immediately proceeding; and (3) to use h.. influence to protect all kinds of trees and cultivated plants from injury and reckless destruction.

No. of membership card.

singly and in quantity, from The School Forum, free of cost, upon application. In order to keep the cost of postage at a minimum figure, the suggestion is thrown out, that the teacher make a canvass of his school to ascertain the number of applicants for admission into the League, and then send in an order for as many blanks duly numbered as are needed. On the receipt of the blanks at school the name of the pupil can be written upon the card. At the office of The School Forum, a record will be kept of every ticket sent out. The whole process is simple, inexpensive and yet complete, if carried out as indicated in this outline. No teacher can afford to be indifferent to the forestry question. It involves interests that meet every citizen on the threshold of his own home. The hand of encouragement should be extended from every schoolroom in the country."

In referring to this common sense plan of Supt. Brecht, the Lancaster New Era, an advocate of judicious tree planting, says:

We observe with much interest and pleasure that The School Forum has entered enthusiastically upon the work of championing forestry. The Forum believes that the best way to deal with this question is through the pupils in the public schools. Experience seems to have demonstrated that it is next to impossible to enlist general interest in this question, because so few take the time or the interest to investigate it as they should. But if adults are slow to take hold, it can nevertheless be done through the pupils in the schools. They must, in short, be educated up to the requirements of the situation. When that has been done, remedial measures and legislative enactments will follow. To reach the desired end the Forum has proceeded to organize an "Arbor Day Circle," and has issued and is now distributing cards of membership. These cards pledge the holder to plant, or have some one to plant for him, a tree or shrub in a suitable place about his house every spring and fall, on Arbor Day; also, to report through the teacher to the County Superintendent each year at the County Institute, the number and kind of trees and vines planted in the spring and fall Arbor Days immediately preceding; and, lastly, pledging the holder to use all his or her influence to protect trees of all kinds and cultivated plants from injury and destruction.

The idea is an excellent one. It takes but little of the pupil's time. It begins the citizen's education of foresty at the right time. It costs nothing, for the cards can be had gratis on application. The entire plan is simple, feasible and inexpensive. We hope the teachers of the country will lend themselves to the scheme. Their own interest in it will do much to make it popular with their pupils. We trust the entire teaching force of the county will fall into line and labor in the interest of this movement.

Leaving New York from pier 35 North River, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, we see fluttering handkerchiefs fade in the distance as they wave responsive farewell, and are fairly off down the harbor, heading for the Narrows, the lower bay, and the open seabound for a two weeks' trip to Florida, at least five days of which will be spent upon the steamers in going and returning. And as we look back to it, nothing could be better than so to begin and end such a summer trip. It is at a season when, as the captains say, "for six weeks the sea is as quiet as a mill-pond." The trip outward bound is comfortable, restful, and filled with much that is interesting in many ways in air, and sea, and sky, and in the life aboard the vessel; and to get back to the ship after ten days of railroad and other travel, and push out into the Atlantic for an assured rest of. two or three days homeward bound, is a most welcome close to a brief holiday. Out and return by sea, under circumstances such as these, are the vellum and gold between which lies securely bound a story of novel and pleasant experience, illustrated on every page with pictures that have become treasures of memory.

The electric lights of Long Branch, Asbury Park and Ocean Grove sparkle and gleam and quiver across the water. The coolness is refreshing; the atmosphere delightful; and the old stars shine clear in the broad and open horizon. The movement of the vessel is so easy as to disturb no one.

Next morning we are off the Virginia capes. The course of the steamer is a straight line for Hatteras, then direct for the mouth of the Savannah, the city itself being eighteen miles up the river. The distance from New York is something over seven hundred miles, and the time of the steamer from 56 to 60 hours. State-rooms on upper deck, accommodations excellent, not a crowded passenger list, a good table and the grace to enjoy it, who would not be comfortable?

At eight bells (8 a. m.) we have breakfast, at seven bells (11.30 a. m.) luncheon, at four bells (2 p. m.) dinner, at four bells (6 p. m.) supper. These bells are at first confusing to a landsman, but he soon learns their simple method of striking the time. The twelve hours from noon to midnight or from midnight to noon, are divided into three sections of four hours each. The bell strikes the half-hours from one to eight, never striking beyond eight to indicate time. From noon to 4 p. m., divide by two and you have the hour, it being in the first section; from 4 to 8 p. m., divide by two and add four hours; from eight p. m. to midnight divide by two, and add eight hours.

One of our merry party requires that another shall learn "the bells" as they strike the half hours. No. 3 soon protests against this half-hour lesson, and insists that "the party of the first part" shall repeat certain lines from Longfellow every time the bells are called on No. 2. Nobody can be left out, and the rest of the company must "do" certain lines from Jean Ingelow. And so the fun goes round each half-hour until we all know all about the bells, and, with much mutual prompting, all the beautiful "task" lines as well. One of our party, a fine reader, entertains the rest with "The Bow of Orange Ribbon," instalments of which fill in odds and ends of time and add a charm to the Tallahassee going down and to the Nacoochee on the return trip.

We reach Savannah during the night, and are awake to see the electric lights all ablaze as we move up the river, and presently the steamer moored at the wharf. In the early morning the transfer coaches make connection with the fast mail for Jacksonville and Key West. It is a new country through which we pass, sparsely settled, and with its swamps, and rice fields, and stretches of yellow pine timber, quite in contrast with Pennsylvania. It is the rainy season also, and during the morning we have two or three sudden showers. By noon Jacksonville is reached-"Jax," as the men of the steamer and the railroad people often speak

of it. The street railway lines give us the town within an hour or more to our satisfaction. See that Crépe Myrtle! Is anything more delicate, or more lovely in tint and color, whether alone or against a mass of dark green foliage? Orange trees show fruit here and there-but we know it to be sour! Live oaks and water oaks challenge attention, and an old gentleman in the car names for us the beautiful" Pride of India." We find the post office, and stroll along Bay street, interested in the abundant display of semi tropical fruit.

Late in the afternoon we leave for Lake Como, some ninety miles farther south, to visit Mr. Wm. L. Gable, an old Lancaster friend, and his father's family. In the northern part of the State but few orange groves are seen, but as we near Palatka and pass beyond it they become more frequent. At many places along the way upon this bright moonlight night the tree-frogs, with now and then an old trumpeter from the marsh, make themselves heard clear and shrill above the noise of the train.

Our friend meets us at the station, and a short walk through open woods, then an orange grove, leads up to their hospitable Southern home. It is a marvelously clear, bright night, and the view here of glossy trees and snow-like sands under the moon, as one looks down upon it in the stillness, from an upper window-not a leaf astir-is a Florida picture long to be remembered.

Next morning the open wagon is driven up to the porch, and some hours are spent in seeing groves and other matters of interest in the vicinity. At Mr. Dusenbury's fine grove we are shown by Mr. Gable their method of sorting and packing fruit.

Here

we see also a century-plant that within a few weeks, had shot up its flower-stalk, like a young sapling in size, six inches in diameter at the base, and over fifty feet in height! It produced some seventy five flowers, remaining in bloom for perhaps two months. It was blown down but a few days before we saw it, though much of its bloom had not yet withered. Mr. Dusenbury planted it when very small seventeen years ago, so that its age at blooming may have been twenty years. The only other plant of its kind that we have seen in flower was on exhibition as a rare curiosity, at the New York Aquarium, some ten or fifteen years ago. It had perhaps 350 blossoms, though the flower stalk was not so great in diameter as this, nor probably over 30 or 35 feet in height. It was advertised very widely in the New York papers, attracting much attention.

In the vicinity of Lake Como there are many thriving young groves, the country here being well adapted to the orange culture. To the rear of Mr. Gable's, beyond the extensive pine woods through which we stroll at leisure this pleasant summer day, we are shown a grove of forty acres; and as we look down from the mansion house that occupies a commanding position on the higher ground, over the deep, billowy green stretching away in the distance, we can readily imagine what the effect will be when green is varied with globes of gold.

The owner, a Northern man of large means, will not be "at home" here for some months. But his Scuppernong grapes, as big as Chinese marbles of the olden time, are ripening; likewise his figs, Japanese persimmons, etc.; and as he is reported by his neighbors a generous, good fellow, "given to hospitality," we have respect to the Golden Rule, and sample any fruit that happens to be in fit condition. Here for the first time we see the bloom of the pine apple, a bed of which occupies a part of these spacious grounds. What untold beauty of form and color!

The

After tea we cross in a row-boat to a wooded island in the lake, a quarter to a half mile distant, for a new surprise. sun is sinking, its level beams fall aslant the leaves, and following uncertain footways through the undergrowth and beneath overhanging branches, suddenly we stand in the midst of what, at this evening hour, is a solemn temple of Nature. A large open space below, with lofty magnolia, live oak and other trees intermingling and interlacing their branches high overhead and shutting out the sky, while pendent from their mighty limbs and smaller branches everywhere is the Spanish moss in weird, fantastic drapery. Now dense, in places almost columnar, masses hanging twenty, thirty, forty feet, suggesting great stalactites, or the ice drip of some high waterfall in its winter glory; again light, airy, and delicate, with all the charm of pensile grace and elegance. Now swaying gently to the soft breath of the dying day; now still as if done in stone, and ghostly and solemn. And yet, as we stand there and look upon it, and return to it, and go back in fancy to view it again and again, the effect upon our mind is always that of the lofty cathedral.

some

But we must leave this pleasant home, where Marechal Niel roses clamber over secondstory windows with wealth of bloom; and the Cape Jessamine, great flowering shrubbery, loads the air with its sweet fragrance;

and the noble Eucalyptus proclaims itself the wonder-tree of all that grow within this well-kept orange grove or for many miles around. Next morning we say a grateful good-bye, hoping soon again to see both. place and people, and are off for St. Augustine.

66

Is it, indeed, August 6th?"-this delightful day of balmy breezes, cool and refreshing-we ask, as we stand at the sentry's outlook in one of the round bastion towers of old Fort Marion-nearly 1200 miles south of Philadelphia. We cannot realize it, in this air, by this water, under this sky. We sit in the old slave market, or under the cedars by the monument on the plaza, and catch the strong salt wind from the sea which lies two miles off, beyond the island yonder. Yet the calendar shows the date as above. And we are in the South, clearly enough from this soldiers' monument to the Confederate dead, with its unique epitaph not readily forgotten: "They have crossed the river and rest under the shade of the trees." And in the far South too, for many of the names of the soldiers here inscribed are Spanish.

The great hotels are closed, but we find very comfortable quarters on the plaza, and after dinner stroll along one of the narrow streets of this foreign town, without sidewalks or curb, until we reach the old Spanish gateway, still in excellent preservation. What the Round Tower of the Northmen is to Newport, Rhode Island, this Gateway, all that remains of the original wall, is to St. Augustine-rising at once before the mind of the reader as a representative picture, and investing the place with a remote historic interest.

The same is true in far greater measure of the old Spanish fort, known as Fort Marion since it came into possession of the United States in 1821. A short distance from the Gateway we chance upon the winding footpath which leads up the gentle slope to the fort. There is no challenge from an armed sentry as we pass within. A bevy of children are enjoying a lively game near the entrance within the outer wall. One noncommissioned officer is now the entire garrison of this once formidable San Marco fortress, which could mount a hundred guns and provide quarters for a thousand men.

It was built by the Spaniards, begun in 1592 and completed in 1756. The material used is coquina (shell) rock found near by, on Anastasia island. The walls are twenty feet high and twelve feet thick. It is a massive structure, and the most interesting

in all Florida. What tales of fiendish outrage these old walls might tell! But dungeon and torture chamber have long been unused and deserted. In this place, as we think of those old Spaniards, enterprising, daring and resolute, but cruel and merciless as devils in their greed, it is the old story"where every prospect pleases, and only man is vile."

When here some years ago, the fort was occupied by several hundred Apache Indians, as prisoners under a guard of troops; and though we went up to have a look at them, and recall with interest how they crowded the walls above and below to see and hear the brass band of a minstrel troupe that was passing near by, we made no effort to obtain admission.

The view at sunset from what is now the open promenade above, from the sentry towers upon this level, through whose small ports generations of Spanish soldiers scanned the near and distant horizon, and from the second story of the higher tower at the northern angle-is of itself worth the trip to Florida. Water and land and city and sea, and over all a sky of light pearly blue upon whose fleecy clouds is poured the sunset glory: In all the wide world is any spot this night more fair? We linger until the sun is gone, and the full moon has risen.

The broad sea wall, which was built by the United States government some fifty years ago, extends from Fort Marion to the U. S. barracks. It is nearly a mile in length, and is a favorite and famous place for an evening stroll. The Spanish cathedral, which was said to be the oldest church in the country, has been burned down since we saw it, but another more modern and more spacious occupies its site, the old walls having been utilized as far as possible in its erection. Near the old church were the representatives of the Salvation Army, conducting service in the street with a respectful hearing. And not far beyond we attended Sunday evening service at a colored Methodist church. Across the plaza from the cathedral stands the Episcopal church. Close by this church are four large trees in marked contrast with one another: an American elm ("alum," the natives call it), a sycamore or buttonwood, a large palmetto, and a fine live-oak tree. Mr. Flagler, who has done very much to make St. Augustine a place of winter resort, has built two fine churches, one Methodist and the other a Memorial Presbyterian church, a noble structure whose tower gives character to the entire landscape.