THE LATIN METHOD Continued from page 402.

"O sir," was the reply, "we do not learn to use; we learn that we may have the satisfaction of knowing. I have arranged all figures known to rhetoricians according to their diphthongs and strong vowels, and in this logical way we learn them."

So the lesson dragged on, a few words, their discussion, the the repetition of machine-made names in ponderous lists and of wonderfully arranged syllabi. It could be seen that several pupils were reading ahead and enjoying other psalms within reach. For this inattention they were scolded, Mary Duprey and Leo Murphy being told that they should show an interest in their mother tongue.

At this moment the first bell rang. "Close your books. Tomorrow is composition day. This is the assignment: Write a composition on our mother tongue, introducing the first five figures in our list. Use correctly four gerunds, a negative hypothetical conjunction, a secondary principal clause, an extended complex and an unprepared sequence."

As I waited at the railroad station I thought it over. I knew that the English that I had heard was inane, inefficient and uneducative. I knew, moreover, that it was just about the kind of work that some colleges, as shown by their examinations, think desirable. Nor did I forget that this was a close imitation of our method of teaching Latin; for in Latin we read the unassimilated advance in the original. Word pronouncing,-when it would be better to become entirely familiar with the meaning of worthy passages and read them with feeling and expression. Our translation consists of the endless reading of phrases and half lines and a study of the particular minutiæ, grammatical and rhetorical, while the soul of the writing flies away. We formally classify words in every possible use, then we give them useless names and call them constructions, and after that the student must fit the literature, not to the sense of the context, but to the nomenclature that we have devised. Such terms, "subordinate clause in indirect discourse," "ablative of attendant circumstances," help not in gaining the meaning. They make an artificial load and a burden for the weary student. Had the Latinist preferred to call these two constructions "the subjunctive of second childhood" and "the ablative of unrestricted woman's suffrage" the names would have been just as helpful as the present

terms.

We give composition lessons in which senseless English is turned into Latin. We teach forms of declensions and conjugations that the student will never use and we prevent his beginning Latin till he has labored with ten times the forms that he will need for years. The second person of verbs, the imperative forms, subjunctives without measure, lists like utor, fruor, fungor, potior, vescor, are but details that

the translator would seldom have trouble with, unless he were taught that Latin is not a natural language, but a highly artificial one.

The fathers did not teach Latin so. They taught it as great literature, and their students. through life could quote and understand its forceful or harmonious lines. Then our teachers became enamored with grammatical and analytic knowledge, with the result that high school Greek died and high school Latin is in the hospital with college doctors gathered around urging more grammar as a relief.

Latin can never regain its old-time position in the high school. It can, however, by emphasizing the reading of Latin and the appreciation of literature, assume a worthy place in the curriculum.

Otherwise, the final verdict against it is that of the old negro body servant. One morning his master, the parson, heard him, by aid of his retentive memory, declaiming the ponderous words of the morning sermon. "Cuffy, Cuffy," he called to him, "that is all foolishness." "Yas, massa, yas, sir; that jest what I think when you preach him."

MCKINLEY BIRD LOVERS' CLUB

BY E. RUTH PYRTLE

Principal McKinley School, Lincoln, Nebraska

The McKinley Bird Lovers' Club of Lincoln, Nebraska, has again begun its Spring campaign for the conservation of bird life. The several hundred members of this club believe in Preparedness-not preparedness to destroy life, but preparedness that helps to preserve life. To aid in this conservation of bird life, each member of the club puts up a bird house each year The particular locality and surroundings determine whether the box shall be for wrens, bluebirds, woodpeckers or martins. These bird lovers also put out food in winter and water in summer for the birds.

The manual training department of the McKinley School have made and sold several hundred boxes in the city. The profits of this sale will pay for a concrete bird fountain for the school grounds.

This club was organized by the writer seven years ago. The membership has grown from less than fifty to more than 300. Any school child who is a lover of birds, and who shows his love of birds by putting up, each year, a birdbox, and assists in all other ways possible to conserve bird life, may become a member. It has been remarked by observers of bird life how many more birds there are in this locality than formerly. This increase is, without doubt, partly due to these juvenile bird lovers.

The members go singly and in small groups on frequent bird hikes through open fields and shaded woods, We believe with. our Nature Poet:

"Go out under the open sky
And list to Nature's teachings."

W. H. Olin, specialist in agriculture, brother of Professor Olin of Kansas State University, has been one of the liveliest men in the ring in the past four years. In 1912 he was in the Department of Agriculture of the State University of Idaho, a field man with exceptional popular platform power. He went to the Idaho State University from the State Agricultural College of Colorado, and went from the State University of Idaho to the Denver and Rio Grande railroad, where, as commissioner of agriculture, he had charge of the agricultural development of the country tributary to that road.

Now he goes to the St. Louis and San Francisco railroad, "The Frisco," as superintendent for the marketing of the producers of the country tributary to that road. His new field covers the entire Southwest from St. Louis and Kansas City through Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. We think no other man has had such vital responsibility in the Pacific Northwest, the Intermountain region and the Great Southwest in four years. He has always made good.

Miss Florence Ward has made a record equal to that of Professor W. H. Olin. Three years ago she was the kindergarten director of the

Iowa State College at Cedar Falls. That year she went to Rome and returned as a specialist in the Montessori system.

A year ago she went to the State Agricultural College at Pullman, Washington, as extension worker; six months later she went to the Department of Agriculture as one of O. H. Benson's field assistants, and now she has the section of Domestic Science promotion of field work. We think these promotions in ten months in such vital fields have never been paralleled in educational activities in the United States.

Melvin A. Brannon, president of the Idaho State University, Moscow, is one of the most notable successes in university leadership. He went from a professorship in the State University of North Dakota to the presidency of the State University of Idaho about two years ago. His selection was the first important act in the public service of State Commissioner of Education Edward O. Sisson.

President Brannon has not only made the university throb with the best scholarly ideais, Lut he has given the agricultural department the highest kind of vitalization, and not only so, but he has entirely captured the state, its school

men, its industrial leaders and its statesmen. We have known no man to achieve so many results along so many lines so completely in the same time as has Melvin A. Brannon.

Superintendent Ira B. Fee of Cheyenne has made that city of the plains one of the most upto-date educational cities in the country, and he has balanced efficiency in minimum essentials with the best of the latest as effectively and as uniformly as any one I know. And he has, withal, actually led the world in wall-scaling skill, which is one of the best contributions to school athletics that any one has made in a quarter of a century.

ON THE CELEBRATION OF PEACE DAY,

MAY 18

To the Teachers of the United States: With twothirds of the world at war, why should we observe Peace Day? For a dozen years past, the schools of this country and of other countries have set aside May 18 for the purpose of concentrating attention on the significance of the work of the Hague Peace Conferences. But with the threatened breakdown of civilization in Europe today, the manhood of the nations shattered, homes ruined, productive energy diverted to the one task of killing, does it not appear that the peace conference is out of joint with the times? Under the circumstances, would it not be well to suspend the customary reference to this event this year?

Quite the contrary; the system of law which the Hague Conference stands for offers the only hope to war-stricken Europe. This common tribunal is the only light upon the horizon, and it is the duty of us all to keep this light burning. The opening of the first Hague Peace Conference on May 18, 1899, is, without doubt, the starting point and the centre of international progress. This conference is described by international jurists and statesmen as the beginning of a new epoch for international law and international relations. This and the second Hague Conference, which met on June 15, 1907, have forced the recognition of the principle that the establishment of equitable law is an essential to the realization of peace. Moreover, the achievements of these conferences have impressed the world with the possibility and the desirability of "making the practice. of civilized nations conform to their peaceful professions." The hope of civilization lies in the progressive effort which has given to the family of nations the germ of an international law-making body. Law is the only substitute for war.

The present is not a time for hopeless dejection, in spite of the momentous struggle across the water which seems to demonstrate the overturning of international law. Upon close examination we see signs of very great progress. Almost all the European powers proposed recourse to the Hague Tribunal or to a conference of interested powers to avoid war, and when this was not successful every belligerent government, without exception, published its reasons for going to war, according to the Hague Convention. This appeal to the public opinion of mankind has no historical precedent. Never before have the nations on such a broad scale sought to justify their actions at the bar of this tribunal.

Our task is to strengthen public opinion, which is the only practicable sanction for international law. Nothing

No

is more conspicuous in the present war than the sensitiveness of the belligerents to the charges of violations of treaties and the established law of nations. breach of international law in this war will pass unnoticed. The combined action of modern powers, rep ́resented chiefly by the Hague conferences, has developed this sense of responsibility-a great step in world progress; and it is not a mere supposition to expect that one outcome of the peace settlement conference will be the recognition that violation of international law is a legal injury to every nation. The present sensitiveness should develop into conscience, so that the peace which ends this unfortunate war and the means taken to prevent the violation of its terms will make a new era in international relations. This peace, which follows the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the Peace of Utrecht in 1713 and the Treaty of Vienna in 1815, the three celebrated cases of combined European action, should usher in an era of law, which, as Mr. Root says, will "constrain nations to conduct based upon principles of justice and humanity."

This should be the great step forward. This is the only compensation for the terrible interruption of the processes of civilization. Should not the celebration of Peace Day this year clothe with new significance the meaning of arbitration, mediation, investigation and conciliation for preventing destructive warfare? One might well include in this observance a description of the permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, and show its effectiveness in settling the fifteen important cases which have been taken before it since 1902. The formation of a real world court, so nearly accomplished at the Second Hague Conference, should also be emphasized as an ideal for which the world has hoped and waited. A Peace Day exercise in the schools this year offers a great opportunity to take note of these solid foundations of law and order, and above all to point to the underlying spirit of co-operation and good will which has brought the world to the present stage of unification. In so far as this spirit persists will civilization achieve its ideals.

Of all the institutions working for the unification of mankind, the school stands first. On those, therefore, who administer education in this critical time rests the responsibility of preserving and advancing those ideals. for which all civilized nations should strive, and especially have the teachers of this nation-a nation founded on democracy, universal brotherhood and good-will-an important and responsible part to play. The observance of May 18 this year offers one means of stimulating the desire for law and order. Shall not the teachers of the United States take advantage of this and every other opportunity for spreading the eternal ideas of justice and humanity.

Faithfully yours,

Fannie Fern Andrews, Secretary American School Peace League.

405 Marlborough street, Boston.

For appropriate material for the observance of May 18 the American School Peace League recommends the "Cantata for Peace Day," by John Charles Donovan, director of music in the Cincinnati schools; "The Promotion of Peace," by Fannie Fern Andrews, Bulletin 1913, No. 12, United States Bureau of Education; "In the Vanguard," by Katrina Trask, for secondary and normal schools; "The Enemy," by Beulah Marie Dix, for secondary school boys; "A Pageant of Peace," by Beulah Marie Dix, for the upper grades of the elementary schools; and "Where War Comes," by Beulah Marie Dix, for the lower school grades. Literature can be obtained from the American School Peace League, 405 Marlborough street, Boston.

BOOK TABLE

ROBERT OF CHESTER'S LATIN TRANSLATION OF THE ALGEBRA OF AL-KHOWARIZMI. With an Introduction, Critical Notes and English Version. By Louis Charles Karpinski, University of Michigan. New York: The Macmillan Company. Humanistic Series XI-I. Paper. (7 by 11.) Price, $2.00. From the point of view of the history of science, no justification is needed for the publication of a mathematical text of the twelfth century, for the available material representing this period is meagre. A wider acquaintance with Robert of Chester's Latin translation of Al-Khowarizmi's Arabic treatise on algebra will perhaps contribute to a more just estimate of the services rendered to science by the Arabs. There is no attempt to give a literal translation of the Latin, but rather to express the thought in a phraseology which the modern student of mathematics will find easy of comprehension. For the convenience of readers interested in the text there is a Latin Glossary in which are noted many variations from the usage of classical writers. In the introduction is presented a study of the significance of the treatise in the history of mathematics, and a description of the manuscripts upon which the text is based. Professor Karpinski acknowledges indebtedness to Professor David Eugene Smith for having suggested the work; to George A. Plimpton for the generous use of his unique mathematical library; to the librarian of Columbia University for the loan of the Scheybl manuscript, and to the librarian of the Cleveland Public Library for the use of works from the John G. White collection.

No work in English has contributed so much to an appreciation of the Arabic Algebra of Al-Khowarizmi, which for centuries enjoyed wide popularity in the original, and simple algebraic equations are found as early as 1700 B. C. Indeed, 2000 B. C. there are known to have been the use of equations. A symbol for square root occurs in that connection. Al-Khowarizmi's activity was about 825 B. C.

The Arabic students of algebra included poets and philosophers. This book is of inestimable service to whoever is mathematically inclined, but is of scarcely less interest to every student whatever his especial field. PITMAN'S COMMERCIAL CORRESPONDENCE IN SPANISH. By R. D. Monteverde. New York: Isaac Pitman & Sons. Cloth. 275 pp. Price, $1.00. To the remarkable list of business and commercial publications offered by the firm of Isaac Pitman & Sons has now been added this thorough-going and useful work on Spanish Commercial Correspondence. It contains stock examples of practically every possible kind of business communication or legal instrument used in commerce, including circulars, requests for information, references, letters of introduction and credit, inquiries and answers, commissions and consignments, agencies, orders, execution of orders, receipts of goods, remittances, complaints and claims, shipping accounts, collections, bills of exchange, bankruptcies, insurance and every conceivable species of bills or notes. In addition the book contains a vast amount of information useful in Spanish correspondence, such as Spanish names of countries, cities, rivers, etc., weights and measures, elementary bodies, abbreviations, and an alphabetical list of articles of commerce and commercial terms. A page for page key to the work can be obtained, as well as similar volumes in French and German.

Pitman's Spanish Commercial Correspondence is a book no business house having relations with Spain or Latin-America can afford to be without. It should also be in the hands of every student of Spanish who intends to embark on a commercial career.

THE MAKING OF MODERN

GERMANY.

By

Ferdinand Schevill. Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Company. Cloth. 259 pp. Price, $1.25.

Ferdinand Schevill is professor of modern European history in the University of Chicago. "The Making of Modern Germany" comprises six lectures which he delivered in 1915, somewhat altered to present a connected story of the evolution of modern Germany. Professor Schevill takes the period from the end of the thirty years' war up to the very eve of the present war (as yet unnamed in years).

His treatment is sympathetic and not exactly the sort one would expect to see produced during the heat of the conflict. But it is exactly the kind of treatment that a true historian would give. The present Empire, he shows, is a gradual and logical development, a development in accord with the wishes of the German people, a development which has specialized in social co-opera

tion to an astonishing degree, combining solicitude for the individual with national efficiency. It is one of the truest evaluations of Germany that has been given in many a year. He does not credit the nation as a whole with virtues active partisans have claimed; nor does he lump the whole people in a denunciation as indiscriminating, as does "The Pentecost of Calamity," for example.

The appendices contain historical data of much value to students.

A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF MEDIEVAL. FRENCH LITERATURE FOR COLLEGE LIBRARIES. By Lucien Foulet. Edited by Albert Schinz and G. A. Underwood (Smith College). New Haven: Yak University Press. Boards. 37 pp. Price, 40 cents. This list of the books essential for a good library of Medieval French Literature was first compiled by Professor Lucien Foulet, now on the staff of "Romania," for the guidance of the authorities of Smith College in the upbuilding of their library in this field. Through the commendable enterprise of the Yale University Press it is now made available, and at a very low price, for medievalists generally, for beginners in the field, and for libraries. Two points deserve special mention: (1) The compiler has marked with an asterisk the most important works, and (2) he has given the cost price (actual or estimated) for every work cited. Dictionaries, grammars, periodicals, bibliographies, works on the language, histories of the literature, (and works on the literature (special phases, etc.) are listed as well as the texts proper. Additional short lists for the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and for Provençal are provided. The work is of great importance because it furnishes a reliable and authoritative guide to the maze of Old French publications.

MERIMEE'S COLOMBA. Edited, with introduction and notes, by J. A. Fontaine. New edition with vocabulary. Boston: D. C. Heath & Co. Cloth. 244 pp. Price, 45 cents.

"Colomba" has been a favorite reading text in American classes for more than a generation, and Professor Fontaine's edition has been widely used during most of that time. The present is a new edition of the old standby. The story deals with life among the Corsicans, where the vendetta is a religion. The notes are full and the vocabulary is adequate.

BOOKS RECEIVED

Schools and Classes for Exceptional Chil 'ren." By David Mitchell. "Measuring the Work of the Public Schools." By C. H. Judd. "Department Store Occupations." i'. By J O'Leary. -"Overcrowding Schools and the Platoon Plan." By S O. Hart-. well. Cleveland: Survey Committee of the Cleveland Foundation. "History of Education in Iowa." (Vo'.III.) By C. R. Aurier. Iowa City: The State Historial Society of Iowa."

"Business Employments. By F. J. Allen. Price. $1.00. "Selected Readings in Rural Economies." Compiled by T N. Carver. Price, $2.80.-Young and Field Literary Readers." (Book One.) Price, Boston: Ginn & Co.

36c.

Lese Ubunzen Für Kinder." By M. Schmidhofer. Price, 35c. "Plane and Solid Geometry." By Wells and Hart. Price. $1.30. "English Derivatives." By B. K. Benson, Price, 4ic. Boston: D. C. Heath & Co.

Jeffery Amherst." By L. S. Mayo Price, $2.00.-Longmans' English Grammar." Edited and revised by G. J. Smith. Price, 65c. New York: Longmans, Green & Co

"The Insect Note Book "By Nee lham and Kephart. Price, 30c. Ithaca, N. Y.: The Comstock Publishing Company

"The Story of the Map of Europe." By L. P. Benezet. Price, 60c. Chicago Scott, Foresman & Co.

'The Story of Old Europe and Young America." By Mace and Tanner. Price, 65c. Chicago: Rand McNally & Co.

"Industrial Art Text Books" (Parts One, Two, Three and Four) By Bonnie E. Snow and H. B. Froehlich. New York: The Prang Company.

"The Universal Kirgship." By J. H. Moore. Price, $1.00. -"Savage Survivals." By J. H. Mcore. "The Struggle Between Science and Superstition." By A. M. Lewis. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Co.

"Story of Young Abraham Lincoln." By W. Whipple. Price' 75c. Philadelphia: Henry Altemus.

The Victorious Attitude." By O. S. Marden. Price, $1.00. New York: T. Y Crowell & Co.

"Present Day Geography." By Mrs. R. E. Brown. Syracuse, N. Y.: C. W Bardeen.

"The Pillar of Fire." By Seymour Deming. Price, $1.00. Boston: Small, Maynard & Co.

"The History and Significance of the American Flar." By E. K. Ide. Price, 45c. 65 Rutland St., Boston: E. K. Ide.

A Practical Course in Touch Typewriting." By C. E. Smith. Price, 60c.-"Pitman's Spanish Commercial Reader." By G. R. MacDonald.-"Pitman's Commerical Corresponden ce in Spanish." By R. D. Montverde. New York: Isaac Pitman & Sons. "Handbook of Athletic Games." By J. H. Bancroft and W. D. Pulvermacher. Price, $1.50. "What Shall We Play?" By F. W. Dunn. Constructive Geometry." By E. R. Hedrick New York: The Macmillan Company.

YOUR OWN DRUGGIST will tell you Try Murine Eye Remedy for Red, Weak, Watery Eyes and Granulated Eyelids, No Smartingjust Eye Comfort. Write for Book of the Eye by mail Free. Murine Eye Remedy Co., Chicago