get another; the first must make way for the second. Such readers seem to have learned something, but fail to get ahead. Both these classes of pupils need close attention from the teacher. The first must be taught to seek out relations, to connect the parts that interest them into a unified whole-must be taught to read constructively. The second need to be put upon going over past acquisitions until their memories become tenacious so that they add the new to the old. Unless right reading habits are formed it may well be that our school requirements prove hurtful instead of helpful.

STATISTICS in the last Report of the Commissioner of Education, which has just come to hand, exhibit again the comparatively backward condition in school matters of Wisconsin. It is classed in the North Central division of states, which includes also Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, North and South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas, and on the whole ranks third among the five divisions of the nation. Now Wisconsin expends least per pupil for education of any state in the group except Missouri and Kansas. The amount expended for schools per capita of population is less than any other of the states except Missouri$2.44. The average salary paid teachers is absolutely the lowest in the whole division$41.00 for males and $29. 50 for females. The percentage of male teachers is also lower than in any other of the states-21.3. centage of the population enrolled in the schools, 20.69 is lower than in any of the states except North Dakota and Illinois; and the per cent. of pupils in private schools, 10.04, is larger than in any of the other states except Illinois. These facts we gather from the official tables, and lay them before our readers not because they are pleasant, but because they are profitable to reflect upon. Evidently there is room for a forward movement in this matter.

The per

SCHOOL gardens, according to an article in the last report of the commissioner of education, have made the greatest progress in Sweden, where hardly a school building is found without one; they are regarded as a most important means for the teaching of agriculture. In Belgium also great interest is taken in school gardens, which are looked upon as a means of teaching truck gardening, upon which a large part of the population depend for their living. The central government contributes considerable sums annually to promoting them, and the communities are zeal

ous in their support. A considerable number of communities in Switzerland maintain school gardens, for which the government contributes aid. Here they are regarded as means of instruction in sciences and in agriculture. In Austria all the normal schools are required by law to give instruction in agriculture, and the villages to maintain school gardens for the teaching of this and of natural history. The development of fruit culture in Bohemia is attributed to the influence of these gardens. In many of the German States, Bavaria and Oldenburg for example, school gardens are multiplied, and they have gained ground in France since the introduction of agriculture into the public schools by law in 1885. dently the movement has gathered strength in Europe as the result of experience, and agriculture, flower growing, fruit growing, and horticulture, as well as the study of natural history, have been promoted by it.

THE NEW LIFE IN THE ASSOCIATIONS.

Evi

Association programs for this winter offer some striking contrasts with those common a few years ago. The Wisconsin program, for example, contains, besides the general meetings, eleven separate sections. Some of these are indicative of broader conceptions of educational work which are beginning to prevail. We have here, for instance, a library section, an art section, a woman's school alliance section, a music section and a childstudy section. By these designations we seem to be carried beyond the school room to social life, the employment of leisure, and things which make for culture without being examinable. We catch a glimpse of culture winning its way by charm instead of by required work and the machinery of percentages. In this program, moreover, these sections, except the last, are conducted almost exclusively by women, who preside over the meetings and furnish the papers. A considerable number of the women are not school teachers, but librarians, art directors and married women. This we note with great satisfaction. Certain outside forces seem to be rallying to the associations, interested in the common work and seeking to coöperate with the teachers in the expansion of the influence of the schools. It is to be hoped that the tendencies thus appearing will continue and develop. These gatherings are great opportunities for the dissemination of ideas and impulses, which may come not merely from teachers to teachers, but even more profitably from mothers to teachers and from those who have special aims to promote.

From the homes, and from organizations having kindred purposes with the school, may proceed some of the most profitable influences of such gatherings.

In the themes of the papers even more than in the names of the sections we catch the new and broader spirit. And here we speak not of the program of one gathering, but of the programs of several. Obviously art has a stronger backing as an element in general education than ever before. One significant phase of the present interest in it is the movement for school decoration. There is really no excuse for the bare and forbidding appearance of many of our school rooms. Really good pictures are now to be had at very low prices, reproductions of the works of the world's greatest artists, rich in power to refine and elevate, and attended with the choicest historical and literary associations. The silent and unnoticed influence of such things often counts for more in the formation of character than all the efforts of the teacher. We have been building and equipping school houses with too small regard for the things which refine and sweeten the inner life. Pictures may contribute to this result, but they are only a part of that larger whole, school decoration, which societies of public spirited women are laboring to promote in so many of our communities. It is well that their aims should be presented at the associations. Art study and drawing are other phases, and these are receiving no little support from the value they have as adjuncts to other studies, and especially to industrial and commercial education. Thru art and music must be reckoned with decoration and drawing our schools may escape from the lamentable error of accounting education either a mere loading up with knowledge or a mere sharpening of faculty.

The social function of the school is another subject that seems to be receiving special emphasis. Too long we have been indifferent to the isolation of the school, which rendered it a wearisome factor of child life and only a financial burden to the community. How to make it contribute as much as possible to social life, on the one hand by fostering and enriching the social life of the pupils, and helping them to uuderstand and promote the social development around them, and on the other by drawing to itself the regards of the community and serving its higher interests this certainly deserves thoro and careful study. The school may elevate and enrich family life thru influences which it sends forth; the building may serve for public lectures, for a library, as a meeting place for boys' clubs and

debating societies; it may set the example of a well-kept lawn and garden which shall soon be felt thruout the town;-but it is not our purpose to enumerate ways of attaining ends which the associations have already begun to define for themselves.

This broadening of the scope of education as presented at the associations is happily attended with increased seriousness and depth in the discussion of the special school problems of the grades, the high schools, supervision and the rural schools. That spirit which has grown up in the country within a few years, and first showed itself in the work of the National educational association, a spirit of serious study and investigation with a view to a richer and fuller educational growth, appears, it seems to us, in the programs of several of our state associations, and manifests the new educational life of the times. S.

COOPERATION IN GRADED SCHOOL WORK.

Recently we called attention to the artificial line which separates the eighth and ninth grades in our schools, and makes the passage into the high school so much more difficult than that from grade to grade below. Not the least mischievous of the results of this is the separation which it works of the teachers from each other. The high school is a world by itself, and the high school teacher is divided from the grade teacher by an impassable gulf. The separation is in part due to the broader preparation demanded of the former, and demanded with greater insistence every year. It will at length be overcome by the extension of the demand to grammar grade teachers, of which there are already many indications. But the separation is far more due to plans of organization and management, which make a unit of the last four school years as apart from those preceding. High school teachers meet together every day, have common problems which they discuss, deal with the same pupils, and gather frequently in teachers' meetings. From all this the grade teachers are shut out because of existing plans of organization. Each has her own room, of which she has complete control. For a year the pupils in it belong to her, and when they are advanced at its close they pass out of her province and her knowledge. The evils The evils of this arrangement are especially great in the seventh and eighth grades. grades. Here methods ought more and more to approach those of the high school, where reflection is developed, where self-help and independence are cultivated, and where a

wider range of thot and subjects prevails. The teachers of these grades ought to be in constant touch with the high school teachers, to catch their spirit and aims, and to appreciate their criticisms so as more fully to prepare pupils for the work which is before them. Instead, present arrangements bind them in with the lower schools, whose spirit and methods they thus tend to carry forward.

One remedy for this state of things is to push the high school organization back so as to include these two grades, making the unified six year high school course recommended by the report on college entrance requirements. It is probably the best way, but must come about slowly as traditions have to be changed and buildings readjusted for such organization. Meantime something may be done in the schools as they are. If principals and superintendents realize fully the importance of the matter it is possible to cultivate closer relations between these groups of teachers by bringing them together in such ways as to make them more fully conscious of their common interests. The high school must more directly seek to know and influence these grades. Conferences, for example, to discuss the teaching of English both as to subject-matter and specific results, so as to develop a thoroly unified and practical plan of work for, say, the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth years of school, participated in by grade and high school teachers, ought to be both useful and interesting. The teaching of mathematics as a whole for the same years would give opportunity for developing, and then trying experimentally, the modern conceptions of a more rationally unified treatment of the whole field. Or let the differences in matter and method which ought to characterize the teaching of United States history in the grades and in the high school be thoroly and critically worked out by the teachers in conference. These are suggested as samples of suitable topics for such meetings, and they might easily be increased.

Such meetings properly carried on would mean not only a closer unity of purpose and ideals among the teachers, but a desirable and necessary change in relations in school work. There has been too much of the overseer and workman in it, the overseer to plan and prescribe and the workman to carry out. Intellectual work does not thrive in this way. The carrying out of the plans becomes routine and meaningless, and so fails. The workers must be made to enter into and appreciate the plans if these are to become effective, must therefore participate in the making of them. They

must not be allowed to plod on in a groove Jaid out for them, but be led to take larger views, to recognize the relations and meaning of their work, and so to become thoughtful and professional teachers instead of mere school-keepers. There is something oppressive and benumbing in much of the grade work of the present time. It shuts in the workers and shrivels them to its dimensions. They must have outlook and expansion of view if they are to be worthy of their calling. We have known a system in which the head of each department in the high school was made supervisor of the work preparatory to it in the grades. This may not be the best plan, but it led to conferences such as we have tried to describe and so to new life and coöperation thruout the system. This is the great end which intelligent supervision must seek to bring about. S.

THE MONTH.

WISCONSIN NEWS AND NOTES.

-The total enrollment of the Stevens Point normal school for the first quarter of the present year is 454, of whom 279 are in the normal department.

-The state library commission has issued in a four-page brochure a suggestive list of popular new books for small libraries. The last page of the list is devoted wholly to children's books.

-Assistant State Superintendent McClure, of Michigan writes: "We are in receipt of your paper for December, and are much pleased with the excellent and valuable reading matter it contains."

-At the state examinations held in Madiison, Dec. 26th-28th inclusive, the following were granted certificates: County superintendents' certificates, Mary B. Miller, of Rio, and Jean M. Wilson, of Poynette. Limited state certificate, Ralf C. Klotz, Mt. Sterling. Life certificates, Alvin B. Cook, of Mill Creek; George P. Hambrecht, of Grand Rapids, and Edward W. Harris, of Ardoch, North Dakota.

-In Michigan Deputy State Superintendent D. E. McClure has interested himself in organizing county school officers' associations, and rural lecture associations. An interesting movement is that for cultivating a portion of the school grounds of rural schools by enlisting the pupils to form and care for small gardens or beds of their own. This interests the parents, and thereby opens the way for further improvement of the schools.

large attendance. The Gazette says of a recent one: "The parents' and teachers' meeting which was held last evening at the Woelz school was very successful and so well attended that many were unable to find a seat and some were turned away. The rooms in which exercises were held were decorated for the occasion, and specimens of penmanship, composition, and note-book work which were displayed, were very fine and attracted much attention. The work in claymodeling, the folding and cutting of paper, and the work in colored pencil drawing, water coloring, and pen and ink work, was of such a high order and displayed so much real merit, that patrons were heard to remark that had they seen such work elsewhere, they could hardly have believed it to be the work of children. Three distinct programs were carried

out."

--The Rock county teachers' association, held at Janesville, Saturday, Dec. 2d, was as much of a success as in the past. A large number of prominent educators participated in the discussions and there were fully 400 persons in attendance. Supt. Andrews, of Chicago, presented "Reform in Teaching Geography." Mr. Colin W. Wright, president of the school board at Monroe, gave his views on "What Constitutes Good Teaching." Prof. Tawney and Dr. Eaton, of Beloit, discussed the "Imagination as a Factor in Education," and State Supt. Harvey urged the importance of "Learning How to Study." In the afternoon the meeting resolved itself into four sections viz: Primary, Intermediate, Grammar, and High School. The attendance in each department was large and much interest manifested. Prof. H. F. Kling and Miss Myrtelle Boyd were reelected as president and secretary. Miss May Clark was elected vicepresident and Prof. R. E. Loveland, treasurer.

-At a meeting of the Evanston, Ill., AntiCigarette League, Principal Boltwood, of the Evanston Township High School, said that the habitual users of cigarettes among high school boys were, as a rule, inferior in scholarship, deficient in sense of moral responsibility, and physically unfit for school athletics. He stated that the failure of his school athletic organizations to win the highest honors had been due, in more than one case, to the fact that members of the athletic teams, on whom much depended, had lacked the endurance necessary to carry a game through, because of their positive refusal to give up cigarettes while in raining. This statement was confirmed by

ubers of the teams themselves. He also

called attention to the fact that one of the Evanston physicians had treated, in one year, twelve boys under sixteen years of age, for heart disease, brought on by cigarette smoking. The fact was emphasized that, aside from the evil effects of the tobacco itself, the cigarette is especially dangerous because of the glycerine which is used in them to prevent the tobacco from drying too hard. The glycerinein combustion produces an empyreumatic acid which, when inhaled, has a powerful effect upon the heart. Of all forms of using tobacco known, the cigarette is most insidious and dangerous.

-President Eliot, of Harvard, in a late number of the Atlantic Monthly, relates a suggestive incident illustrating the all-powerful influence of practical experience in life as the real developer of mental and moral culture. "When the class of 1853 graduated at Harvard College," he says, "photographs of the whole class were taken and preserved in book form. Forty years after, the photographs of all the survivors were taken and placed in a similar book, each older photograph opposite the younger photograph of the same person. The resulting volume was lying on my table at home, when a French gentleman, who had been for some years the librarian of the Argentine Republic, called to see me on his way to Paris. As I was obliged to keep him waiting a few minutes he picked up from the table that book of photographs, and soon became absorbed in examining it. When I joined him he was full of eager inquiries about it, and concluded by saying that it was the most optimistic human document he had ever seen. A perfect stranger to all the men, and of a different race, he nevertheless appreciated in the older faces the immense improving effect of the experience of life. It is safe, then, to rely on the development of good mental and moral quality out in the world after leaving school, college, or professional school, provided that the preliminary training has been sound and well directed. Secondary schools need no longer feel that now or never is the time for their pupils to acquire useful information. It will be enough if they teach them how to get trustworthy information, and to desire it.

THE CHAOS IN HIGH SCHOOL THEORY AND PRACTICE.

Wisconsin High Schools. May, 1899.
[Reprinted from a small circular.]

Summaries of reports received from 105 principals of high schools, all having courses of four years.