one-story unit plan challenging comparison with Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon. The equipment is the latest word in every respect, sanitarily and pedagogically. But what has greater significance is the fact that Superintendent E. E. Oberholtzer went to Tulsa four years ago on a salary of $2,750. Now he is on a new term of three years, receiving this year $5,500; next year he will receive $6,000, and the third year $6,500. How many city superintendents receive a larger salary? And none has better working conditions with his school board, his teaching corps, the students, the business men, and all classes of people than he has. Far back in Indian days Washington Irving stood upon the brow of the hill which is now set apart as a memorial to him, and he is said to have said, as he looked out upon the lovely valleys: "Sometime there will be a great city here." We think that was eighty-five years ago. What would he say today to see the skyscrapers, the palatial residences, the universal prosperity, the nationfamed schools! AUTHORS WHO ARE A PRESENT DELIGHT—(XX.) GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY BY NATHAN HASKELL DOLE Of Woodberry--he does not seem to need a kite-tail of given names, any more than Tennyson or Longfellow-it may be said as Wordsworth said of Milton, that his soul is "like a star" and dwells apart. There are many, but not nearly so many as ought to be, who regard that star in the poetic firmament with peculiar affection. He is perhaps the least known personally of all our living poets. He is content to live in quiet isolation in his native Beverly with the beautiful North Shore country back of him and the wide tumbling Atlantic in front of him. He rarely comes up to the city; he has not, certainly of late years, been induced to appear in public. No blatant advertising lets the world know anything about his personality. One rarely sees his work published in the magazines. Occasionally a volume bearing the imprint of "The Woodberry Society" is issued, but these treasures are semi-privately printed and are restricted in their circulation; but undoubtedly the members of that admiring coterie would all agree that he is the greatest living American poet. He would not permit such a claim for himself, but the time will come when he will take his place where he ought to be! His fine, lofty imagination, his perfect command of the art of verse, his sympathy with all that is best in life, his noble patriotism, his serenity of spirit, his wide scope and his far-compassing scholarship certainly entitle him to classification in the foremost ranks of the few who really deserve the name of poet. Mr. Woodberry was born at Beverly, May 12. 1855. After college preparation at Phillips Exeter Academy he was graduated from Harvard in the class of 77. In a recent letter he says: "I still recall as if it were yesterday the sound of my footsteps in the upper hall of Matthews! Well, much water has gone by the mill since then!" It was kind of him to remember his own footsteps rather than the disorderly crowd of 74 men who used to play ball in that upper entry; the hall more than occasionally following the laws of gravity to the ground floor. An orange was the penalty for every interjection elicited by such a fatality and the basket was kept piled high, the pious ones contributing most generously to the stock. It was a nest of fledgeling poets. Charles Wellington Stone, whose "Needles of the Pine" and hexameter translation of a part of Homer gave promise of a literary career belied by his absorption in raising athletes and brilliant scholars at his admirable school, lived there, and Theodore C. Pease, the class poet for "75--his career too early cut short by death--had a room opposite and looked on, if he did not join in, these unseemly revels. Woodberry soon went out West and became professor of literature in the University of Nebraska; from there he was called to Columbia University, where his chair was that of Comparative Literature. It was said of him as a teacher that "in all his courses and in all his relations with the undergraduates, he so infused into his teachings and his actions ideals of beauty as to inspire into all who came really to know him a finer sense of the wealth of life, of the joy and dignity of developing all the different sides rock of justice and of love." The great English of man's nature, basing all action on the firm philosopher, Carpenter, spoke of him as the professor who by his personality most influenced the character of youth. tures and he took pains to be more than a mere It was a great privilege to listen to his 'lecinstructor; he proved himself a real friend and One who adviser, directing the impulses of enthusiasm and the budding powers of youth. knew him wrote: "Mr. Woodberry has the power, as few have in any generation, of exercising the supreme function of opening to individual effort sympathetic and intelligent approach to what is lastingly true and beautiful in the writings and deeds of man. He has the faculty of getting and giving much pleasure in many ways far distant from the lecture room; at his home in Beverly the ocean and the elm trees lure his thoughts from the seriousness of life, speaking to him in accents of strength and loveliness; and here in New York, at the Players' Club or at the Century or some other favorite haunt, there could be no better part either to choose the wines or to lead the talk of comrades into pleasant channels." He was connected with Columbia for thirteen years, during the presidency of the late Seth Low. After the election of President Butler a storm arose which swept him and Edward MacDowell off their anchorages-greatly to the loss of the university-and since then, for the past twelve years he has lived in dignified retirement at Beverly, occasionally venturing back to New York or crossing the Atlantic to gather inspiration from the classic lands. He has had time to perform an immense amount of critical and creative work apart from his poetry. He brought out in 1882 a history of wood engraving, which is still a standard, since it came at a time when the art was reaching its period of decay. He wrote sympathetic lives of Edgar Allan Poe, of Ralph Waldo Emerson, of Nathaniel Hawthorne, of Wendell Phillips, of Swinburne, and edited the works of Poe, of Charles Lamb, of Shelley, and other writers, besides publishing various volumes of essays in criticism and his charming "Letters of an Idler," which give vivid pictures of his experiences in Europe and elsewhere. Speaking of his literary labors the Outlook said: "At heart Mr. Woodberry is one of the truest - products of the new soil and the new times. The natural note on his work has a strong and resonant tone; it is rich and full and of choral quality; it is fresh and ringing and yet harmonizing easily with the great tones of the past." His first volume of poetry, "The North Shore Watch," was published privately in 1890 and was immediately hailed as an elegy of the same type as Shelley's "Adonais" or Arnold's "Thyrsis." It is exquisitely rhythmical, flawless in construction and full of beautiful figures. The sonnets and other lyrics in the volume were marked by maturity and vision. Ten years later it was republished for general circulation and the same year came "Wild Eden" and "The Heart of 'Man"; in 1902 his collected "Poems" were issued; in 1905, his "Torch"; in 1914, his "North Africa ' and the Desert" and "The Flight." This year the Woodberry Society has brought out at least two volumes. This is not meant to be an exhaustive bibliography; if it were, many more titles would have to be added. He has not escaped recognition. Harvard and Amherst have given him the title of Doctor of Literature; the Western Reserve College has made him a LL.D. He is a member of the American Immortals, being a Fellow of the Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Academy of Arts and Letters. England also has honored him by electing him a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Poets are not often remarkable for their critical ability, but Woodberry is regarded by all who think as one of the sanest critics in the whole world of letters, and this is because he has evolved a real philosophy of life. His purpose has been "to illustrate how poetry, politics and religion are the flowering of the same human - spirit and having their feeding roots in the common soil, leep in the general heart of man." This furnishes a safe criterion for the discovering of genuineness and beauty as well as of insincerity and speciousness. There are so many varieties of flowers in Woodberry's garden that it is difficult to choose a few to represent him at his best. He clings to the classic English forms and has never been. lured away to get weird and wild orchids, full of strange colors, perhaps, but lacking the perfume of the healthier growths. What could be simpler and more musical than the song: O, inexpressible as sweet, Love takes my voice away; I cannot tell thee when we meet What most I long to say. But hadst thou hearing in thy heart Then shouldst thou walk, where'er thou art, So warbling birds lift higher notes The music fills their warbling throats With one slight defect in rhyme and questioning the change in form of the last stanza, the following poem is a capital instance of a difficult meter deftly handled-spontaneous and direct: SO SLOW TO DIE. The rainbow on the ocean All things that love resemble The violets we cherish Dead in the Spring; But love leaves slow, how slowly! O, strange to me, and wondrous, The storm passed by, With sound of voices thundr'ous Swept from the sky; But stranger, Love, thy fashionO, tell me why Art thou, dark storm of passion, So slow to die? As roll the billowy ridges When the great gale has blown o'er, From frozen branches pour; As the whole sea's harsh December So will Love's deep remember, It will be seen even by this inadequate representation that Massachusetts, that America has good reason to be proud of the North Shore poet. AN EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENT-SAV ING THE CHILD'S TIME BY ANNA CATHERINE MARKHAM (MRS. EDWIN My husband and I having both been teachers and having long felt that a bright child could easily complete the grammar school course in fewer years than are now required by law, we felt that good management could thus save the child much time for physical exercise and for general reading as well as for work in music or drawing. So we determined to educate our boy at home for a few years, giving him the freedom of out-ofdoors and of our library, and "exposing" him to music. When he was eight years old we got the regular course of study for our guide, and got the school books and several supplementary works in each requirement. We told the lad to begin study. every day at ten, asking us nothing he could find out for himself from the dictionaries and other helps, and we went about our own work. He had for a long time been a fluent reader and writer, having almost picked up these accomplishments himself. We had read much to him of fairy, myth and easy history. By showing him how to focus: his attention on a subject, he soon learned to take a lesson at a gulp, and, generally, had his day's work done at noon when the other children were coming home for lunch, having also had his morning intermission for play. We insisted that he must clearly understand one step before he took another. So, in his number work he found no snags. Indeed, he often did more than he needed to do, as, for instance, compiling multiplication tables up to the twenties for his own amusement. In his English work he took delight in the rigor of the game, in ceremonious propriety of punctuation marks and in the classifying of figures of speech and using them in the long stories that he always had under way-stories that also taught him spelling and construction. In geography and history he interrelated the work, looking up persons and places in his Child's Encyclopedia on his Zig Zag Journeys. We encouraged his own initiative, directing him very little and speeding him along the line of his own interests, which, fortunately, were quite inclusive, so that he has not become one-sided. Whenever he announced that he was ready with a group of lessons one or the other of us heard him recite and he was responsible for all that is generally distributed over a class. As he was always eager to be off for play, or for his music, he kept the recitation periods to pretty strict time, despite the lack of a set program. We gave many tests and reviews, striving always to deduce principles and to call out generalizations, thus cultivating his reasoning powers. All this time he was taking piano lessons. We began by having a teacher come in a half hour each day. He soon left exercises for easy pieces and soon began to compose music himself--a process which called his attention quite sharply to musical structure. He was continually browsing about the library, following the ideal of Charles Lamb, getting acquainted with books, and learning where to find things, and how to place authors. Of course we saw that only good books fell in his way. He was as hearty at play as he was vigorous at study. He had none of the aloofness of the boy who is "different." He knew all the children of the neighborhood and joined in their outdoor games, and became a local star on the ball field. When he was fourteen he was about ready for high school. He was "up" with the grades and ahead in general reading and in music. He then went to the grammar school nearest us for two months of work, so as to take the final examinations and automatically enter the high school with the class. He covered the work with ease, his only drawback being a too leisurely writing of examination papers. He had missed the rapid-fire drill that the hurried school children are given. But he was less dependent than they upon notebooks and formulas. At the high school he stepped easily into harness. At the close of the school year it was announced that he had led all the school in all the grades, in his general standing, having achieved an average of over 93 per cent. He was an honorable member of the ball team and the music club, and became one of the staff of the school magazine and the debating society. The teachers told us that he and one or two others were the only ones who could read down a new page and grasp contents and relations as a grown person does. And what seems the net result of our seven years of home training? Next to the robust health, the strong physical foundation, we thus insured by plenty of fresh air (he has always slept out-of-doors nearly all year), we feel that our best gift to him was the strong self-reliance we forced him to develop. He has been able to "run down" a subject in reference books or magazines just as well as we are, and to reason out his problems for himself. He has an all-around interest in life, because he has points of apperception with many subjects. What we have done to develop strength and individuality, any family with a little leisure can do. Our boy is just an ordinary intelligent youth, eager to spend his energy in work and in play. Our part has been only to give him a free chance to let himself out.-The Nautilus. MORAL EDUCATION [Used by Ernest C. Witham, Southington, Conn., in his city.] 1. Would you rather be one of the best (smartest) pupils in your class or have someone give you $50? 2. Would you rather be the most capable pupil, or the most honest pupil in your class? 3. When you grow up, would you rather be known as one of the finest (honesty and kindness) persons in town, or the richest person in town? 4. If you are riding on a trolley, and the co ductor passes you without taking your fare, what would you do? 5. If on another trip, the conductor gave you five cents too much in change, what would you do? 6. Suppose you promised to do an errand at 2 o'clock p. m., and just before 2 o'clock a friend comes along with an automobile and offers you a ride for the afternoon, what would you do? 7. If a child about your age was bullying a smaller child, what would you do? 8. If you were one of five others who stole some grapes, and you were the only one found out, what would you do? 9. If your class were taking an examination and the one behind you asked to see your paper, would you show it to him? 10. Suppose that you are taking an examination and you are not able to answer enough questions to pass. The pupil next to you sees your trouble, and without your asking him, he hands you a slip of paper with the answer of one of the questions on it, what would you do? 11. Would you rather be like Lincoln or Napoleon? A DEMONSTRATION IN ELASTICITY IN BY SUPERINTENDENT C. R. COBB Those who have had experience in public school work know that the following conditions exist: Henry fails to pass in his arithmetic, is excellent in his reading, is good in geography, fair in language and fails in spelling. Assume that these conditions exist with Henry when he is in the fourth grade. In the past it has been customary to promote him into the fifth grade because he has passed in three subjects and drag him over into the fifth grade in the two subjects in which he has. failed, in which case he continues to be weak in his arithmetic and spelling, and at the end of the fifth grade we find him in the same condition prac tically as he was at the end of the fourth grade. Under the same system he is promoted in the same way into the sixth grade, and thus as Henry proceeds along the avenue of grade promotions, he becomes lamer and less efficient every year in his two "short" subjects, and finally drops his school work in the eighth grade and goes out into the world excellent in reading, fair in all of his eighth grade work besides this, with the exception of his arithmetic and spelling, and in these two subjects has vague vagaries and visions of an arithmetic. and of a spelling that was. He isn't really good even in the fourth-grade work in these two subjects. Or he is held back in the fourth grade because of failing in his spelling and arithmetic, and is compelled to repeat in his work in reading, in which subject he is excellent, to read the simplest and in many cases the most senseless sentences when he is perfectly capable of reading things that partake of the nature of literature rather than reading drills, so he fails to become interested even in the subject in which he is excellent. These other two subjects in which he has passed and is fair become uninteresting. He is thoroughly out *This was not sent as an article, but is selected from a personal letter. 12. Think of someone you dislike very much. What do you want to happen to that person? 13. If you were in a great hurry and you met a blind man trying to cross a busy street, what would you do? 14. Is there anything more noble than making the most of oneself? 15. Do you prefer to spend your pennies for candy and other good things, or do you prefer to save your pennies? 16. Do you want your classmates to obey you or to respect you? 17. A certain doctor gave up his life in proving a medical theory, thereby saving the lives of thousands of others. If you knew how to save the lives of thousands of others by giving up your life, would you be willing to do it? 18. If you did something, which cost you considerable money, for someone else, would you want a large number of people to know about it? 19. Would you rather always have your own way, or always be fair, in dealing with others? of sympathy with the subjects of arithmetic and spelling; he is "sore" at these subjects because these are the two subjects which he frankly admits he doesn't know much about, but which nevertheless have put the brakes on his educational car. Or you have an ungraded room or a special teacher. To her are sent pupils from a variety of sections, each like the negative in the photographer's gallery, hoping to be retouched a little bit and then sent back to the printer's table and then are ready to join the regular class. So the special teacher works her best, retouches a few of the high spots and recommends to the regular teacher the reentrance of this boy in her regular class work because the special teacher believes that the boy is now capable of doing the regular work; so back he goes. But his foundation in arithmetic is weak, they have only patched the wall, the cracks are still within the foundation, and the next year we find Henry again under the special teacher's care, and so he goes from grade to grade with a little retouching and a little repairing, when as a matter of fact the negative ought never to have been retouched, but thrown away and a new one made; or the wall completely torn down and a new one built. For five years I have been superintendent of a school system of fifty teachers, all of whom at the present time are graduates from some normal school. At present I am trying out a scheme whereby promotions are to be made by subject rather than by grades, that is, when a boy has finished his fourth-grade work in any subjects of that grade, he is permitted to go into the fifth grade in that subject whether or not he has finished the fourthgrade work in all of his other fourth-grade subjects. This plan of promotion worked out in definite detail is as follows: Henry fails in arithmetic. in the fourth grade, is excellent in reading in the fourth grade, is fair in language, is good in geography, and fails in spelling. This is his condition at the end of the first year in the fourth grade. Now, under this scheme that I am trying out, he will the next year recite his work in geography, in language and in reading with the fifth-grade classes, but his arithmetic he will thoroughly review with the fourth-grade class, and his spelling he will thoroughly review with the fourth-grade class. But I find that Henry is excellent in reading, that the work in the fifth grade is hardly sufficiently difficult to interest him. He is a good silent reader, a good thought gatherer, and it seems that this work is too easy, so in reading we let him advance into the sixth-grade reading class; and so our pupil Henry is doing work in sixthgrade reading which he is perfectly capable of doing, and in fifth-grade language and geography, and reciting in the fourth grade arithmetic and spelling. Of course this plan does not completely answer the criticism of adjusting the course to the needs of the pupil because even at this it may be that the grouping of the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades may not be absolutely the proper grouping for Henry. This question, however, will be answered more nearly correct as we decrease the number of pupils in the room in which Henry is and if we continue to decrease the number until we decrease the number to one pupil, Henry, we will have completely answered the criticism of inelasticity; this, of course, is a practical though not a theoretical impossibility, and the average number in the room where Henry must remain will not likely be less than thirty. As far as adapting the various subjects to the varying capacities of Henry is concerned, I believe that this scheme answers fairly well. Now, I am finding that it is not a difficult matter to arrange this schedule so that this can be done, for instance :- Have all of the arithmetic classes in the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grades recite at the same time; have all the classes in reading recite at the same time; all classes in language recite at the same time; all classes in geography recite at the same time; all classes in spelling recite at the same time. Then if Henry is seated with the fifth grade group, when the time comes for arithmetic work he simply passes to another room where the fourth-grade arithmetic work is being done. When the time comes for reading he simply passes into the room where sixth-grade work is being done. And by this means you are giving Henry the kind of work that Henry ought to have in geography, language and reading, and the kind that he ought to have in arithmetic and spelling. It may be possible that Henry never will bring his arithmetic up to the same grade as he brings his reading, he never will in life. I believe it is a generally conceded fact that nearly ninety per cent. of our citizens never use any arithmetic that is more advanced than the sixth grade, and by all means Henry might better know thoroughly arithmetic of a fourth-grade character than to attempt to know in a vague and misty way arithmetic of the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grades. And the same may be true of spelling; he may never be a good speller, but he can, if we continue him under this process, be able to spell the majority of the words correctly that he in his life will ever have to use. I The question may be raised, what are you going to do when Henry has finished the eighth grade in reading, in history, language, but is still back in the fifth grade in arithmetic and spelling? Are you going to let him go on into the high school? My answer is yes, for before this system is thoroughly worked out the universities and colleges will admit that it is not fair to say that every girl and every boy that goes through the high school must know algebra or must have geometry. have for three years taught an eighth-grade arithmetic class, taught a beginning class in algebra, and a class in geometry. I am thoroughly convinced that I have pupils at the present time in my geometry class to whom geometry is a real live, interesting subject, and others for whom geometry will forever be a closed book. What little geometry they will ever get will be memory work, and as soon as they have gotten their credits, if they succeed in getting their credits, the subject will be relegated to the oblivion of forgotten things. Now, I am aware that this can be carried to the extreme, and so at the end of the fifth year if Henry had finished his sixth-grade reading and his fifth-grade geography and language, and was not capable of doing fifth-grade arithmetic, I should question very carefully the methods of my fourthgrade teachers, because it does seem very, very essential for the boy at least to be capable of adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing; of handling in a simple way fractions; and he ought to know when to divide, when to multiply, when to add and when to subtract in simple problems. If I was absolutely sure that the teacher had done her best and her best was really good, and that Henry was born absolutely and lamentably "short" in this subject of arithmetic, I should let him go on with the subjects that he could do and do well. And dur ing this year in which he was repeating his fourthgrade arithmetic I should advise and talk to his parents, and so be sure that Henry was putting forth his best efforts in that subject. The question may be raised as to what would be done with the schedule of the special teachers in drawing, penmanship and music. I introduce here a rotary schedule, and whenever the music teacher comes into the room the room ceases its regular operations and has music, and by this rotary schedule she does not arrive in the same room at the same time, every time she makes her rounds of the system; but her arrival would vary so that the time for music or for writing or any of the other special subjects would not be taken entirely from one of the regular subjects, but exch of the regular subjects would contribute some portion of their recitation time in the maintenance of the special subjects. |