Another Philadelphia boy became so interested in gardening that he filled a tin mustard box from an ash heap, the only semblance of Mother Earth to which he had access, planted a pea, and kept all in his pocket, lest in his absence it should be thrown out.

One Philadelphia kindergartener tells her whole story on a postal card as follows:

We have a small patch of ground in the school-yard, where the children have planted seeds, both flower and vegetables; also a few plants, and one or two vines. The children delight in taking spade, shovel, rake and hoe on fine days, and in watering their garden. We have also three flourishing trees planted on as many Arbor Days. We frequently have our kindergarten games in the garden. The children seem to revel in the open air."

A St. Louis kindergartener writes of lunch parties where lettuce and radishes were served from our garden."

Miss Alexander also writes that patches of ground are being offered to suburban kindergarteners in Chicago, and she takes it as a good omen that garden tools are becoming a part of kindergarten supplies a suggestion which I hope will not be lost.

We find several additional suggestions in a letter from Boston. The kindergartener writes of raising, among other garden vegetables, a squash, and speaks also of an abundant sunflower crop, which gave opportunity for an exercise in seed-gathering in the autumn. We will remember the sunflower.

Miss Poulsson writes of her interest in this subject, and adds that the city gardener of Boston fills any school window boxes that are brought to him, if they have holes bored in the bottom!

Mr. Clapp's article on school gardens in the Popular Science Monthly, last fall, shows what valuable work is being carried on in Boston. I hope all kindergarteners will read it if they have not done so.

I have two more letters of special interest, from which I shall quote in closing.

You are all aware that the Baroness von Bulow traveled extensively through the United States last year, visiting the kindergartens in both small

and large towns. Upon her return to New York she told me that she had been surprised to see how few out-of-door gardens were connected with kindergartens, even where to her there seemed abundant opportunity to secure ground. In a letter recently received she says: "In Dresden we have many little gardens; we do not think a kindergarten a real one without at least a small piece of ground where the children can have their little beds." She describes Froebel's ideal kindergarten with a flower and vegetable bed for each individual child, and one large bed belonging to all. She speaks of Froebel's suggestion that the children make gifts from their own beds, and enjoy together the product of their mutual bed.

The Baroness offers several practical suggestions in her letter. She speaks of having the children make the paths of gravel with borders of shells for decoration; of having the seeds gathered, dried and put away in packages by the children for future use; also of having bulbs cared for in winter. In regard to having trouble with bad older boys, she says that by calling upon them for help they have become guardians of the tiny beds.

Mrs. Maria Kraus-Boelte also writes of her experiences in England, Germany and America, where she has had the ideal gardens of Froebel. In a small yard back of her house in New York City the children raised radishes, pease, beans, salad, water-cress, mustard-seed, cucumbers, wheat, rye, potatoes, etc., each child choosing his own seeds. In the flower-beds were pansies, pinks, phlox, mignonette, hyacinths, tulips, lilies-of-the-valley, etc.

Mrs. Kraus also speaks of the children's insect studies in the gardens of watching the spiders, worms, ants, caterpillars, butterflies, bees, etc., and noting their habits in their garden home.

At a meeting of kindergarteners at Clark University, two years ago this summer, kindergarteners were advised to develop the out-of-door occupations of the kindergarten. In following this wholesome advice, will we not be enabled to help in solving the problem of freer and larger movements, while still following Froebel most faithfully?

We recognize how impossible is the ideal garden for many city kindergarteners, but we are convinced from the letters quoted that much more can be done throughout the country at large. Have not too many of us contentedly

*

*In some instances cannot a plot of ground a little distance from the school be secured?

Are there not mothers living near some of our kindergartens who will open their yards to the nearest kindergarten, or to the neighborhood children?

settled down to develop indoor kindergarten occupations? Possibly we have spent too much time in determining the sizes of needles and blocks, and in learning intricate folding. These things ought we to have done and not to have left the other undone."

There is a story told of a little boy who, on being taken to a kindergarten, was disappointed. "Why," said the little fellow, "it isn't a garden at all." Let us pledge ourselves, wherever possible, to remove this reproach during the coming year.

ALWAYS SOME ONE BELOW.

On the lowest round of the ladder
I firmly planted my feet,

And looked up at the dim vast distance
That made my future so sweet.

I climbed till my vision grew weary,
I climbed till my brain was on fire,
I planted each footstep with wisdom,
Yet I never seemed to get higher.

For this round was glazed with indifference
And that one glazed with scorn;
And when I grasped firmly another
I found under velvet a thorn.

Till my brain grew weary of planning,
And my heart strength began to fail,
And the flush of the morning's excitement
Ere evening commenced to pale.

But just as my hands were unclasping

Their hold on the last gained round,
When my hopes, coming back from the future,
Were sinking again to the ground,

One who had climbed near the summit
Reached backward a helping hand,

And refreshed, encouraged and strengthened
I took once again my stand.

President Merrill E. Gates, of Amherst, has resigned the presidency of that institution, the resignation to take effect on the expiration of one year.

Chancellor MacCracken announces that an anonymous friend has offered a gift of $50,000 for the productive endowment fund of New York University.

President Andrews, of Brown University, has been elected superintendent of Chicago public schools, with the late superintendent, Lane, as his first assistant.

Dr. W. Le Conte Stevens, for several years past professor of mathematics at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, goes this year to a like position at Washington and Lee University, in Virginia.

Dr. Robert B. Fairbairn, warden of St. Stephen's College, Annandale, who has held the office for thirty-six years, has been retired by the Board of Trustees with the title of warden emeritus. He is in his eighty-fourth year of age.

S. Perry, a grandnephew of Commodore Perry, commander of the expedition of 1853, which opened Japan to association with the rest of the world, has accepted the professorship of the English language and literature in the College Keiogijuku, Tokio, Japan.

Asst. Supt. Lane, of Chicago, announces that there are over 400 married women teaching in that city. The rule there not to employ any married woman who has a child under two years old, it seems, does away almost entirely to all reasonable objection to married women teachers.

Ex-President Cleveland has decided to set aside sixty acres of his fine farm near Princeton as a school farm for boys from the city slums; not as a reformatory, but for the purpose of removing bright boys from an atmosphere of vice and crime and educating them for useful citizens.

The removal of Dr. W. N. Hailmann from the superintendency of the Indian schools is generally disapproved by representative educators. A: the same time, no one blames his successor, Miss Estelle Reel, for she refused to be a candidate until it was certain Dr. Hailmann must resign. Miss Reel has been State superintendent of the Wyoming schools, is a woman of considerable executive ability and intelligence, and she will. we have no doubt, prove herself an excellent official.

The N. E. A. has elected Principal Irwin Shepard, of the State Normal School, at Winona, Minn., as permanent secretary. Mr. Shepard has been secretary of the N. E. A. by annual election since 1892. He now begins a term of four years at a salary of $4,000 a year. He will, of course, resign the presidency of the normal school. He has held that position nineteen years. The association selected as its new president Principal E Oram Lyte, of the Millersville Normal School. Pennsylvania. Los Angeles, Cal., will probably be chosen as the next place of meeting.

The chancellor of the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Holland, has called at the navy department, Washington, D. C., and delivered to Assistant Secretary Allen a unique and elegant box, inclosing the degree of LL. D., conferred

by the University of Pennsylvania on Admiral Dewey. With the degree are the insignia of an LL. D., including a doctor's hood of rich purple velvet. The degree and insignia are inclosed in a highly wrought box made of Pennsylvania oak, lined with velvet, and bearing the university seal and colors. This is done up in a large silk American flag, then wrapped in manila paper, and the whole inclosed in a handsome outer box of Vermont pine. Mr. Allen has forwarded the box to Admiral Dewey at Manila.

State School Board Association, Glens Falls, October 5-7, 1898. H. S. Chapman, President, Lockport, N. Y.

Sixteenth annual meeting of the State Council of Superintendents, Glens Falls, October 5-7, '98. Thos. R. Kneil, President, Saratoga, N. Y. Hudson River School Masters' Club, October. Address by Prof. E. W. Scripture, Yale.

Forty-fourth annual meeting of the State Association of School Commissioners and Superintendents, Binghamton, N. Y., November, '98. George C. Royce, Gouverneur, N. Y.

Conference of Middle State Colleges and Preparatory Schools, Columbia College, New York City, November 25th and 26th. President, Dr. Julius Sachs, New York City.

Fifth annual meeting of the Association of Grammar School Principals, Syracuse, December 27, 28, 29. James L. Bothwell, Albany, N. Y.

Holiday conference of the Associated Academic Principals, Syracuse, December 27, 28, 29. J. C. Norris, President, Canandaigua, N. Y.

New York State Science Teachers' Association, New York City, December 29, 30. President, Charles W. Hargitt, Syracuse University.

Meeting of Department of Superintendents, February, 1898.

Thirty-sixth University Convocation, Albany, June, 1899.

Fifty-third annual meeting of the State Teachers' Association, Utica, July, 1898. President, Milton Noyes, Superintendent Schools, Rochester, N. Y.

Annual meeting of the National Educational Association of the United States, Los Angeles, Cal., July, 1899.

NEW YORK AGAIN.

New York City continues to rob State and cities alike of their best material to enrich and benefit its school system. The latest offense of this kind occurred this past summer, when Augustus S. Downing, long supervisor of State institutes and teachers' training classes, was chosen head of the new New York (Manhattan and The Bronx) City Training School, at a salary of $5,000. Moreover, Mr. Downing will take

AUGUSTUS S. DOWNING.

it was not increased salary, but the magnificent opportunity for training work that induced Mr. Downing to accept the New York place. A sketch of Mr. Downing's career appears in our January, '98, issue.

The loss of Dr. Jones and Mr. Hendricks will be as keenly felt and their places as difficult to fill. We take pleasure this month in presenting portraits of two and a sketch of one of this talented trio.

WELLAND HENDRICKS, A. M.

Welland Hendricks was born at Elmira, N. Y., in 1858, of a Dutch family, that came to this country in the eighteenth century. He was educated at Cook Academy and Colgate University, obtaining his A. B. on graduation and A. M. in 1883. In 1882 he was selected as principal of the Greene, N. Y., Union School, where he served seven years of solid apprenticeship in school teaching, and in 1889 was elected principal of the Saratoga High School. In this position he remained until 1891, at which time he was chosen instructor in mathematics at the Cortland (N. Y.) State Normal and Training School. His work at county institutes soon attracted the attention of the State Department of Public Instruction, and in 1893 he was assigned to the State Institute force as a conductor, in which capacity he served with rare success until elected, in August of this year, instructor of mathematics in the new New York City Training School. Besides this varied experience in teaching, Mr. Hendricks found time to compile the valuable and interesting "History of the Empire State"

so widely used in the schools of this State. Mr. Hendricks is the embodiment of vigorous manhood, and although always quiet and uneffusive, especially on first acquaintance, he is sure in New York City, as elsewhere in this State, to be known as a good man to rely on.

WELLAND HENDRICKS, A. M.

STATE DEPARTMENT NEWS.

At present writing no appointments have been made to fill the vacancies caused by the resignations of Supervisor Augustus S. Downing and Conductor Welland Hendricks. Temporarily Inspector Frank Woods will perform Mr. Downing's work, while State Truant Officer Wright will fill the gap made by Mr. Hendricks' retirement.

Those of the schools of the State that felt that they were unable to do all that they could and would like to do toward the Sheldon Memorial Fund, because of the demand made at the time by the Cuban aid and other charitable societies, have still an opportunity this fall to show their good will in this matter. While not sending out any announcement to that effect, the department will no doubt be very glad to receive additional subscriptions until such time as definite arrangements are made in regard to the memorial. The fund as it stands, while a creditable one, is quite inadequate to secure such a memorial as Dr. Sheldon should have.

GENERAL STATE NEWS.

Owing to the space taken by the Regents' and State Uniform Examinations, and especially the fact that

we are carrying the drawing questions and answers for the first time, we have been obliged to omit the county news in this issue. It will appear, however, in our next issue.

City and town superintendents, school commissioners and others interested will do well to notice the change in the date of the meetings of the Council of Superintendents and the State School Board Association. The date was originally fixed for October 19–21. It has been changed by general consent to October 5-7. There were many reasons for this, not the least being that, as long as the meetings were to be held at such a beautiful locality, the date might well be fixed for a time when opportunity could be given to see Lake George and vicinity at their best.

Those interested will notice the name of Mrs. Friedman as instructor of primary work at the Teachers' Institutes. This is no newcomer, but the general favorite, formerly Miss Anna K. Eggleston, who was married during the summer vacation to a well-known newspaper man of Buffalo.

The trustees of the State Normal and Training School at Plattsburgh have elected as principal of the school, to succeed Dr. Edward N. Jones, the well-known and capable instructor of mathematics in that institution, Prof. George K. Hawkins.

Miss Frances C. Hayes, formerly supervisor of kindergartens in Albany, N. Y., has been chosen to organize the kindergarten in the Borough of Queens, and has been elected supervisor at a salary of $1,800 per year.

Dr. Wm. McAndrews, who presented a very strong paper on the "Theory of Salaries" at the Rochester convention, and who was then principal of the High School Department of Pratt Institute, was about that time elected principal of one of the largest grammar schools in Brooklyn. Now it transpires that Mr. McAndrews was one of the four out of thirty-seven that took the civil service examinations for city examiners under the Central Board of Education of New York City to pass the rigid and exhaustive examination given those applying for that position. Dr. W. E. Hervey, formerly president of the Teachers' College, was another successful candidate.

Prof. L. H. Bailey, of the Cornell University College of Agriculture, has returned from Germany. While abroad he gave some attention to the study of the common people of Germany and the condition of their children.

Of the six attaches of the State Regents' Department who attended the annual meeting of the National Educational Association, held in Washington, four were honored with offices.

Inspector Charles Cobb was elected president of the science department of the association; Inspector Charles F. Wheelock, vice-president of the art department; Miss Avery, secretary of the library department, and Examiner I. O. Crissey, first vice-president of the business department.

STATE OF NEW YORK.

Department of Public Instruction.

Questions and Answers.

UNIFORM EXAMINATIONS

FOR

Commissioners' Certificates.

Second and Third Grades.

Thursday and Friday, August 11 and 12, 1898.

CIVIL GOVERNMENT.

Each Question has 10 credits assigned it except where otherwise specified.

Questions.

1. What powers under the National Constitution are reserved to the States?

2. State one restriction which is placed by the National Constitution upon every State in regard to its treatment of its citizens. 3. State (a) a principal duty and (b) the term of office of the secretary of state of New York.

4. State two exclusive functions of the Senate of this State.

5. (a) Of what political division is a justice of the peace an officer? (b) What is his jurisdiction in regard to criminal cases? (c) How is he paid?

6. (a) What constitutes the legislative body of a county? (b) What is the term of office of its members?

7. State two conditions under which a State law is subject to nullification.

8. (a) What qualification must a person possess in order to vote for a representative in Congress? (b) By what authority is this qualification determined?

9. (a) In whom is the treaty-making power of the United States vested? (b) In whom is the power to declare war vested?

10. State two guarantees made by the government of the United States to every State in the Union.

Answers.

1. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution nor prohibited by it to the States are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

2. The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States. (Other answers accepted.)

3. (a) Answers will differ. (b) Two years. 4. To confirm appointments for office made by the Governor, and to constitute a part of the court for the trial of impeachments.

5. (a) Town. (b) Minor offenses. (c) By fee. 6. (a) Board of Supervisors. (b) One year. 7. When it conflicts with the National Constitution or with the State Constitution.

8. (a) The qualifications requisite for an elector of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature. (b) United States Constitution.

3. By a two-thirds vote at an annual meeting or a special meeting called for that purpose.

4. For at least as many hours of each day as are required of children of like age at public schools.

5. New Year's day; February 12, or Lincoln's birthday; February 22, or Washington's birthday; May 30, Memorial day; July 4, or Independence day; the first Monday of September, or Labor day; General Election day; Thanksgiving day, and Christmas day.

6. Collect school moneys and pay out the same upon a written order of a majority of the trustees.

7. Fifty dollars.

8. School commissioner and town supervisor. 9. They shall attend upon instruction during the period between the first days of October and the following June as many days as the public school shall be in session, when not regularly and lawfuly engaged in any useful employment. 10. Town board.