teaching diacritical marks. The fundamental principle of reading is thought-getting, not word-calling. By awakening thought we arouse aspiration, and aspiration fires the soul. Instead of having the child learn long lists of words which he will probably never again see, much less use, have him spell the words he uses, and have him learn the words by using them. Don't take the time necessary to teach all the children a thousand foreign words, because one child in a thousand may want to use them, but drill into all of the children the thousand words that every child will have need to know.

We are vainly trying to make literati of boys and girls in their teens before we have taught them how, and required them as a habit, to write a respectable letter of business or friendship. Business men come to me and say they would be glad to give employment to high school boys, but they find they cannot indite a business letter or put into correct figures and form an ordinary statement or account.

In History, the best of text-books, and the State is now probably publishing the best United States Histories, are chiefly works of reference. It is the teacher behind the text-book that makes it effective. The great movements of the country must be taught, the great actors that have made and those that are now making history must be introduced as acting, living men and women. The imagination and enthusiasm of the pupil must be awakened. The subject must be touched by an inspiring teacher. Who among you that have heard the lectures of Professor H. Morse Stephens has not been aroused with a new interest for the subject of History? Out of History must be drawn the lessons of civics, citizenship and patriotism. The emotions of the pupil must be stirred. Let me remark that the period and events of the civil war, the heroic deeds and achievements of men and of armies engaged in the most formidable contest that ever occurred upon the earth, may now be studied and drawn upon for lessons in patriotism and love of country as never heretofore.

Many things in mathematics are retained and taught out of the veneration for the dogma of fundamental discipline, but this dogma is now about abandoned by thinkers, and it is generally conceded by the best educators that a child may acquire as much power by learning the things which life will require him to know, and to do as he can by dulling his interest and blunting his faculties over those things which are useful only to the man in the moon.

Our new State Arithmetic is possibly the best Arithmetic ever published. I had a hand in compiling it. But it, too, in the main is a book of reference; it contains information and things useful in one business or another of almost every kind. Every child should know just where to turn to find any particular information of Arithmetic, but to study and teach even that good book from cover to cover, with emphasis upon every page, would be tedious and tasteless, if not otherwise profitless.

It does not contain all that is essential in Arithmetic, nor is all that it does contain of Arithmetic essential to every child. Children may be taught not merely to do certain problems containing business terms, but rather should they be taught the conditions of business that give rise to such terms. Along with the problems in commission, banking, interest, etc., if not instead of many such problems, the time may often, as profitably for the growth of the boy, be spent with him in study in an elementary form the economics of money, successful investments, sharing of business risks, and the relation of capital and labor.

So it is with the other subjects in the course of study-selection, adaptation, relation are good terms to govern the teacher. The chief value of technical grammar, as I see it, is in the language studies, and may fairly be left to the high school. All that is essential of formal grammar in the grammar school may be given in the last year, more use of language and less study of rules about it would be good policy in teaching. "Correct and ready use of language, in speech and in writing, results from expressing, under guidance, one's own thoughts in one's own way." Throughout school life the chief thing is to acquire or think thoughts to express. The expression of them comes as a natural sequence. "Out of the heart the mouth speaketh" is language wisdom centuries old. The polishing up as to manner and form and style of expression is the least of the difficulties. You give me all the thoughts requisite for a good paper, or speech, to be delivered before a teacher's association, and I'll not sit up late many nights worrying about how to express them.

With non-essentials eliminated, time saved where heretofore wasted, some things cast out that never had any right to a place in the course of study, we may find it profitable to introduce more industrial training, some work with tools in wood,—sawing, planing, cutting forms, pinning or nailing together, actually making things. I fail to appreciate the value of playing at making things, and, therefore, in whatever respect Sloyd work fails to have the child actually construct something, I question its value. But I disclaim authority to give expert opinions on manual training. I only feel that I know and can see that there is value in the hand and eye training that leads to the ability and to the desire to accomplish definite results. Just now there is widespread interest in agricultural pursuits. Farming is becoming one of the learned professions, and we are being asked if the schools may not properly be required to teach agriculture. Under what we have been denominating Nature Study may we not find time and teach some of the elements of agriculture, for instance: the growing of the common vegetables, potatoes, beans, celery, onions, tomatoes, melons, etc.? Varieties, the time of planting, the quality and condition of the soil, the methods of cultivation, including irrigation and drainage, the time and manner of harvesting and marketing seems to me to offer lines for interesting and useful study.

The common grains, such as corn, wheat, barley, rye and oats might be treated similarly, adding the geographical knowledge as to places in the State where these various products are best adapted. Many city children know but little of the source and the original forms of their daily food. Some study of familiar animals, their habits, mode of life, their sagacity and means of communication may always demand a portion of the child's school time. The cause of humane education might now and then claim some of the time and thought devoted to football.

The State's new series of Geography, particularly the Introductory book, is well calculated to aid the resourceful teacher in Nature Study, which is elementary agriculture.

What the cause of public education needs today, and what it has ever needed, and probably always will need, is big tachers, broad minded, level headed, humanity loving, God fearing teachers, teachers who can take the lead in school and out of it in doing and showing how to do things.

Extract from Gov. Geo. C. Pardee's Message to the Legislature, 1905

PUBLIC EDUCATION.

I think it is safe to say that there is no State in the Union that offers to its children any better educational advantages than does our State of California. Gauged by the monetary standard, California does much more for education than the average of her sister States. For, while all the States, including ours, pay, on the average, 16 per cent of the cost of their public-school system, California, to her credit be it said, pays about forty-five per cent of the cost of hers.

We had, in this State, in the last school year 407,398 children who ought to have been at school, as provided by law. In the public schools, however, there were but 298,520 enrolled. Of the remainder it is estimated that 37,226 attended the various private schools, leaving 71,652 California children who, for one reason or another, did not attend school at all. While this number is, by comparison with other States, by no means excessive, it is too large for California. And there ought to be some means devised to reduce it greatly. For it is to the decided interest of the State to see to it that its children shall all receive, as nearly as may be possible, at least a common-school education.

Looking toward this end, California has been very liberal toward education. Last year she spent from the State fund $3,715,706 on the

primary and grammar schools. To the high schools she contributed $232,386. To the five normal schools she gave $289,798. The Institution for the Deaf, Dumb and Blind received $68,528 of State money. And to the University was given $621,363. Even the farmers' institutes received $300 to educate their members. So that it will be seen that, first and last, the State paid out of its treasury last year the very respectable sum of $4,930,781 for education. And when it is remembered that the average yearly income of the State from all sources is about $10,000,000, it will be seen that nearly one-half thereof was spent last year for education.

The law provides that there shall be raised by taxation $7 for every child of school age. Last year this required a tax levy of 17.8 cents per $100 of assessed valuation throughout the State. On account of this law the State tax must be increased by $120,799 this year over what it was last year, because there were 17,257 more children of school age last year than there were the year before. This will compel an increase of about 1 cent in the tax levy automatically fixed by law, providing the assessed valuation of State property shows no great increase. The University also receives, under the law, 2 cents on every $10 of assessed valuation, and the high schools receive 1 1-2 cents on the $100, making in all 22.3 cents on the $100 required for education out of a total State tax rate averaging something over 50 cents on the $100.

THE COMPENSATION OF TEACHERS.

It requires nearly 8000 teachers to carry on the primary and grammar schools of this State. And it is only with great difficulty that boards of education and school trustees are able to find enough teachers to supply their wants. There appears to be at least two reasons for this dearth of available teachers. In the first place, we require more preparation from teachers than we did a few years ago. This is a good thing, because, like doctors and lawyers, our school teachers should be well educated in their profession. The other reason for the dearth of teachers is that the pay offered them is not sufficient to induce very many persons to devote their lives to teaching. We cannot expect that men and women will spend years of time and large sums of money to prepare themselves for a profession in which it is possible for them to receive only meager salaries, without the possibility of increased pay as experience and devotion in other walks of life provide. Therefore, our young men especially do not become teachers, and our young women, in too many instances, look upon teaching as an expedient which will enable them to live until something more alluring calls them from the school-room.

In line with this there is a widespread discussion among teachers and those who are non-professionally interested in education looking toward

an increase in teachers' salaries.

To do this it is proposed by some to raise the State school census per capita from $7 to $9. As there were last year, as before stated, 407,398 census children in the State, this raise of $2 per child would call for an increase in the State taxes of $814,796 per annum for the next two years (involving an increase of about 5 cents in the annual tax levy)—a sum altogether too great to raise by State taxation under present conditions, and the demand for which would not be so pressing if the State school fund were distributed in such a manner as to do the greatest possible good.

DISTRIBUTION OF STATE AID.

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This brings me to another matter connected with the salaries of our school teachers, to which during the past year I have given considerable attention, and that is the manner in which, under our present law, State money is distributed to the teachers. I find, for instance, that last year the teachers of Alpine county each received $249 of the State's money, and that the teachers of San Francisco each received $783 from the State Treasury, while between these two limits the State's money was distributed in varying amounts to the teachers in the various counties, those of no two counties receiving the same amounts. As a result of this I found also that in addition to the State school fund tax, which all counties pay alike, the counties were compelled to tax themselves at rates varying from 62-5 cents to 50 cents on the $100 to sustain the county end of the school burden. And it appears, too, that in several instances the poorest counties are compelled to tax themselves the heaviest to raise county school funds. Mono county, for instance, is compelled to put on a county school tax of 50 cents per $100, the limit allowed by law, to raise in addition to what the State gives her enough money to carry on her public schools. San Francisco, however, on the other hand, had to impose only 62-5-cent county tax rate to add to the money she received from the State.

So we have these rather anomalous conditions: First, the poorer and more sparsely settled counties of the State, as a rule, get less of the State's money per teacher than do the rich and thickly settled counties, the amount varying between $249 in Alpine county and $783 in San Francisco; second, we find that the poor and sparsely settled counties have to pay, in common with all the other counties, a fixed tax into the State Treasury; last year this tax was 17 4-5 cents per $100 assessed valuation. In addition to that, the poor counties have to raise relatively very large county funds to eke out the school money they receive from