Training to Accuracy.

By SUPT. A. B. COLE, Plainville, Mass. aining which our children need instilled into he feeling that nothing is right which is not ght. A railroad official brought up on "nearly ea might be justified in making a time-table the departure and crossing of trains at juncht have a latitude of five minutes, more or doubt whether the school officials who develat boy his ideas of exactness would care to be of his railroad.

draws a map in school and gets things "pretty here they ought to be. "Of course, the map into the waste basket, and so we can't spend time," says the teacher. The habits of the ever, are going thru life; and if he should Board of Coast Survey and make a chart on ple of his common school teaching, the life of or on the broad sea would not be worth the he's finger.

who has been permitted to go on without the tery of his combinations can never become proarithmetic. A boy of ten who halts on his tion tables will limp thruout his business caave fractions with the child's mind hazy, and well bid adieu to mathematics. We often expression, and some text books bear out the ver mind the decimal, if the whole number is So far as that problem is concerned and its is a disciplinary value, it would be just as seny, "Never mind the unit's period; get the right, tho."

teaching grammar school history with the oroness and clearness? Here it is very easy tive pupil to say a lot of things that sound well. ese young people are to become future citithe terms so new and strange to them in their is will later have a meaning, or ought to have almost absolutely necessary that the underciples of history be taught carefully and corVe hear of Jeffersonian Democrats. How in the rank and file can define their politics? olitical party celebrates Andrew Jackson's Why? The lives of Jefferson and Jackson orth teaching if millions of men in this counling to follow the doctrines they expounded. a good deal of the Monroe doctrine. Do we that our children can act intelligently later re we teaching the industrial growth of our uch a manner that the child can draw conclu'ding the outcome of present conditions judgpast?

many things which a teacher must handle pol-room nothing is more essential than lanall the formal definitions and rules were colI would not occupy a very large pamphlet and child has passed thru eight or nine years in itary schools, the high school principal comthe child doesn't know anything about graming what the grade teacher would call lan

il cong then the high school and enters sel

thing about English! "Woefully deficient four years of college education he secures a p some newspaper only to find that his smallest has been subjected to a bad attack of blue pe because he could not express himself in readal sition.

There are many fond theorists who proclain only way to learn to do a thing is by doing it know that the only way to get to a certain p travel and get there, but no matter how care kind friend may have directed us, the sight of sional guide board on the way inspires new and settles uncomfortable doubts.

In the child's experience in going thru ma studies might it not be that a few of the old-t and definitions would give him confidence an mind aright in cases of doubt and, perhaps, i

If there is one thing needed in our element: ing to-day, it is intensive teaching,-not ten facts lightly and superficially treated, but ten b so driven home and clinched in the child's min can no more shake them off than he can his ow

On Teaching Spelling.

By GEORGE W. DICKSON, Tilton, N. H.

Since most men are ordinary men, and are child should be such as will best fit him for t in the ordinary pursuits of life, the trainin in a long line of men and spell words orally. ary work. The ordinary man will never need need to spell only when he writes. The qu then, Does oral spelling in school produce the spell on paper as later life will demand? E teaches that it does not. It is a fact which proved by most teachers that a child may b spell correctly, orally, words which when asked he will misspell.

There is a certain amount of good to be go oral spelling, but time in school work is so valu it is not enough to do work which will result We must do work which will result in th good. Because the greatest good comes from spelling, oral spelling must be set aside as in sufficient to fulfill the demands made upon it.

From a general principle which may be illus the statement that "in always creeping a child learn to walk" we may infer that to train a ch

resent, condition of educational work exhibits

elements of vagueness and uncertainty that acterize the general political situation of China. ng missionary colleges of Chihli province have royed, and one government college at Tientsin. ther schools thruout the north and west of ve either been temporarily abandoned for at ne months or have been utterly destroyed. schools which were depended upon to supply the higher schools have met the general fate. cher parts of China, with the exception of , it is safe to say that school work has been interfered with by the troubles, and that it yet regained the secure position it previously

t.

vernment has issued imperial edicts ordering olishment of schools thruout the empire, and g the provincial authorities to carry the order Peking university has been resuscitated, tempt made to constitute a board of educasome provinces old colleges which had been have been brought to life. Small schools ng up everywhere, either to teach English or r the Chinese language in a new method. is everywhere exhibited, but it is safe to say her in the schools under the control of the nt nor in those established by missionaries is et any well-defined method of development. Chinese government either in its federal or administration decides upon its future educaicy, it will be impossible for missionary schools thing more than supply the local needs of their and communities. Neither does it seem poshe government to decide upon an educational il many other administrative policies have been he time, therefore, for a well-regulated system ion in China has not yet arrived.

China does establish a national system of eduwever, it will be determined by national char, and must be attached in some way to the of the past. Perhaps it would be safe to deeducational method which China has followed present time as a complete freedom in submethods of teaching, combined with a fixed of examination. Teaching has neither been with nor supervised, and its only restrictions the desire of the pupils to attain that scholarwould make them successful in the examinano country has the German university Lehrreedom of teaching-and Lernfreiheit-freehe learner been more conspicuously followed ina. Schools, whether established by ProtCatholics, Mohammedans, or Buddhists, have en free to teach what they could get people to he State has only reserved to itself the right what qualifications were needed in men who its officers, and has confined itself to prescribnations for these. It is to be sincerely hoped reedom of teaching and learning will be preany new system which China may adopt. rnational characteristic which is bound to self upon the new system is the adaptation of umstances and the right of local control. royalty or each province is an organized system vernment by itself, and will be bound to control hools. Just as in Switzerland each canton conchools, because of the great differences in lanmodes of life; just as in the United States each

able," and the French are "too highly cent their tendencies" to serve as guides for China ica has too many systems to be of any guidance. can England, with its elementary board and schools, its high elementary schools, its ind Etons and Harrows and its ultra-conservative ties, furnish a guide to China until it is able to the authority of the proposed board of educat will bring order out of chaos. Some such ex Switzerland must be found, where, with no sur local freedom or local aristocratic literary guida national form of intelligent control may be

Lessons from Japanese Educa

By R. E. LEWIS.

By way of making a comparison between education in Japan and China, it will be well consider the environment of the former. The has been characterized by the seclusion of the the elevation of the emperor to supreme p inauguration of constitutional government, the lishment of Buddhism, the organization of the system of education and the entry of Japan brotherhood of nations. In all this there is a s for China. The Japanese did not attempt t education alone, and leave the other branches of the national life to go on in the old igno fatuous way. Reform in education will not b in China until all branches of the govern renovated.

In 1872 the emperor of Japan proclaimed t tional code in what may be considered the ema proclamation of the Japanese mind. This pro contained the sentence that:

"It is intended that henceforth education s diffused that there may not be a village with an family or a family with an ignorant member."

The audacity of this proposition has perhaps exceeded in the realm of education, but it has lowed by high resolves on the part of ministers tion. The present status, after thirty years shows that five millions of Japanese are in schools. It is very creditable that 72 per ce total school population are actually under in These pupils are being taught in 27,000 scho 000 teachers. The teachers are being trained nine normal schools. The gradations of the s elementary, middle, and higher schools, with developed university to crown the system. I there are 230 technical colleges with 25,000 st well as many agricultural institutions. Upon orate and highly organized system of educ Japanese people spend each year about thirty lions of yen.

In the earlier days Japan called into her se relied upon, the advice and educational in American experts. Dr. Verbeck, as first pr Tokio university, laid broad foundations. T school system, the common schools, agricultura musical, gymnastic, and nurses' training sys also founded by Americans, as was medical ed Germans. The Japanese sent large numbers to America and Europe for education, as Ch in turn sending to Japan.

The control is now vested in the Momhu

mbich

tions for schools, $5 per head. Who pays it? It is assessed mainly upon the capital in improved land, tools, and implements of the state, and, by diffusion, spread thruout the cost of all the manufacturers of the state. Why do the people stand the tax? First, because it is right and just; second, because it is the only way of digesting foreign immigrants of every race, color, and condition; third, because it pays a big profit and supplies capital, nearly every other person of this population of Massachusetts having at his or her credit in the savings banks $500 in an aggregate deposit of $500,CC0,000, of which three-quarters or seven-eighths belongs to the working classes in the narrow use of that term.

That is one side of the picture. Let us look upon the other side-the picture of the Sunny South. Your great resources have existed for centuries. Your lands have been occupied by English-speaking people, black and white or white and black, for more than two centuries. What have your great resources yielded? They have rendered a few people rich for a time. They are now rendering many more people rich. Are they rendering masses of the people prosperous? In a very limited way they may be among those who, possessing mental energy, combined with manual or mechanical capacity, work moderate hours per day and demand the highest rate of wages that the art in which they are occupied will warrant, in order to justify them in making their products at the lowest cost by the unit of product. But how is it in many of your factories and workshops? Over-long hours, promoting degeneracy; child labor, promoting ignorance; possibly big present profits, delusive and dangerous because at the cost of the future welfare of the community. What e ar your natural resources worth without the development of mental energy, beginning in the common school and ending in the high school or the technical school? How else will you enable the masses of your people to secure the largest product from your great resources with the least expenditure of physical labor and at the highest rates of wages? Why least expenditure of physical labor? Because the Sunny South does in some measure enervate. Mankind can dare to be pretty lazy in much of the Sunny South. A higher type of energy, greater skill, a stronger incentive to work is required in your Sunny South than is called for in the temperate zone, where people must work, and where thruout the long winter the most comfortable work is the indoor work of the modern, well-constructed, welllighted and well-ventilated workshop, factory or depart

ment store.

May I venture on an old story which would hit you rather hard if in the last twenty years you had not changed all that? It was related to me by a very witty member of President Grant's Cabinet who was invited to attend a celebration upon the heights of Harper's Ferry, where he met some of the most courtly gentlemen of the old school, one of whom, clad in the customary black dress coat, ruffled shirt and high hat of a former day, all rather rusty, dilated at great length on the immense natural resources of that section. The secretary got rather tired, and quietly remarked: "All that you say is true, but there seems to be something wanting here." "What is it?" said the old F. F. V., to which the secretary quietly replied, "Brains and industry." Whereupon the old gentleman, with a twinkle in his eye,responded, Wal, Jedge, I ain't very fond of work myself, I confess."

66

Now about agriculture. We don't boom it much in

Massachusetts but a few comparisons may be instruc

do.

o the common school, kept nine months in the the primary to the high school?

the exclusion of children from the factory and hop, and to their protection by law from the heir foreign born parents until they also learn ce their children to work?

the reasonably short hours of labor, high res of wages, with the consequent low cost per oduct in the factory and workshop, whatever ct may be?

o the establishment, support, and constant use ublic library in all but ten or a dozen of over and towns in the state?

o the manual training in the common school ubsequent technical training, for which the chool makes the necessary preparation?

your constant work in booming the South, e old F. F. V. in Virginia, it sometimes makes tired, and it has led me to blow off this final st on the school problem.

e English method of conducting discussion as en witnessed it in the Old Economy Club in unded by Tooke more than fifty years ago, and radical met on equal terms, suppressing miration, giving hard hits without gloves or the foil, and maintaining mutual respect and I hope we of the North and South may also

fully concur in the paramount importance of ial education advocated by Principal Washby the Manufacturers' Record, nevertheless ood reasons why colored men of superior cald have the opportunity to gain the full unication. There are many lawyers and doctors nd experience among the colored people. No fully qualified in the practice of either prohout an adequate knowledge of Latin and knowledge of Greek. That they are capable g a high standard in the university course to me by the presence at the last Phi Beta er at Harvard, of which I happen to be an ember, of a colored lawyer of great ability. principal speakers of the class day of the class also a colored man, and I recently met at a tival a colored Cuban and his wife, who had same class with the bridegroom, and who 1 qualified to meet ladies and gentlemen as uests who were present on that occasion. He actice of the law in Boston.

ws may be very shocking to persons who have

most satisfactory. For about two decades struggle has been made to bring the sand table I have yet to meet, however, the geography tea persists in its use after a fair trial. The sand tab multitude of disadvantages that more than offs service-this not by any means adequate-of v relief. Pictured relief, while free from the ings of sand modeling, far exceeds the lat possibilities for suggesting topographic for: of such surpassing value in this direction that books in geography are now published withou of pictured continental reliefs. It must be said however, that they lack the suggestion of re plaster cast lacks interest for the student b carries the least possible feeling of reality with if such a plaster cast is photographed for rep on the text-book page this shortcoming rem should therefore be greatly encouraging to the to reflect that her own modest attempts at t board are likely to carry her pupil closer to a r of structural relief than are the more pretentio sentations on the text-book page.

The value of such use of the blackboard, i the children's attention and interesting them study is very great. And the teacher has only a beginning in this work to find it, out. One said that, as she sat day by day with a pictured North America on the board before her, it seemed to dilate and become populated with forr

The value of the drawn relief over the mec produced one lies in precisely that touch that fest in any piece of handwork. it is the differ tween a Greek vase and a cast bottle. Or bet actual marble as it leaves the sculptor's tool stamped metal replicas that greet the moder every turn. In any work performed directl human hand there is that vibrant throb of alone can express thought su Tused with feel other thought is of value, in an educational sen this high criterion of all art is no less applicab humble device of geographic relief sketching. The Board.

By long odds the best blackboard for our p the natural slate. And those teachers are to

whe find themselves in communities so progr to fit their schools with such conveniences. however, that less fortunate ones shall not discouraged, I have purposely drawn some of th panying maps upon the poorest possible type board, to wit, a painted plaster wall. The ma fornia (Fig. 14), was drawn upon such a "blac

A Substitute for Blackboards.

Frequently our students draw maps of too m to be summarily erased at the end of the da And often it is desirable to preserve such map a series of lessons; and again it may be des carry them from room to room for use befor classes. The discovery of black pattern paper fore of considerable value in the case. This black paper used by tailors in cutting patt comes in sheets two feet by three feet, and ea Rocky mountains costs a cent a sheet at pa

houses.

This black paper takes the chalk in a most tory way and the marks are readily erased wit Maps and pictures drawn on this black pape carried from room to room or from school t Or they may be rolled up or hung up and pres definitely. When such an extended preservati