Geo. W. Brackenridge, of San Antonio, Superintendent C. C. Harris, of Devine, Prof. Wesley Peacock, of San Antonio, and several others.

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The House of Representatives of the Twenty-eighth Legislature passed suitable resolutions on the death of Dr. J. L. M. Curry, late agent of the Peabody Fund. Dr. Curry was a prominent citizen, a great statesman and philanthropist. He always loved Texas and her educational institutions, and it was through his generous instrumentality this State received something like $200,000 of the Peabody Fund for the advancement of the cause of education. He never ceased to give to Texas as long as he lived. We revere his

name.

The JOURNAL wants an energetic and reliable representative in every county in this State, in Oklahoma and Indian Territories, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi. We invite the attention of teachers, superintendents, trustees and all and all others interested in education to the TEXAS SCHOOL JOURNAL. Tell your trustees about the JOURNAL. We could give a long list of prominent educators who have expressed warm words of appreciation of the good work the JOURNAL is doing, but you should read a copy and be convinced that it is indispensable. Tell your friends what you think of it-it's up-to-date.

There is no diversity of opinion as to the necessity of obedience to a child's wellbeing, but in the methods whereby obedience is secured there is a wide difference in the practices, at least, of parents. In a paper in the June Delineator, Mrs. Theodore W. Birney gives some eminently sane advice on obedience and punishment. Mrs. Birney is not partial to the rod, and she holds that incorrigibility in children. is more often due to a "lack of self-control and knowledge of temperament and child nature" in the parent than to any abnormality in the child. There is, doubtless, an element of truth in that, though some may disagree. However, there are other points in the article that many parents will do well to take to heart. The author shows a wide knowledge of the nature and needs of children.

What is to become of school teachers and of school teaching? With most teachers it is a temporary employment. And so often those who continue in the work, expecting to make it a life-long vocation, are dropped by some unappreciative school board, and they must take up some other line of work. It is discouraging both from the standpoint of the teacher and patrons. Is it the fault of teachers or patrons or of school boards. that so frequent changes must be made, and that many must leave the profession, either because of insufficient compensation or because of failure of re-election? Is the work of teaching of so little importance that it may be taken up or put off in a day and no one be the worse for it? We do not believe it. But what is the remedy? This problem must be solved or both teachers and schools will continue to suffer.-Iowa Normal Monthly.

The Senate amendment to the appropriation bill, providing that the money appropriated for the Southwest Texas State Normal could be used only on the condition that T. G. Harris should not be appointed as principal, was an extraordinary procedure, and one that can not be justified from any standpoint. It was confidently expected that the provision would be exscinded by the Free Conference Committee, but one-half of the committee stood immovable, although the House sent a special resolution requesting that the provision concerning Mr. Harris be not adopted, and although the State Superintendent (in addition to previous attempts to dissuade individuals) sought and obtained an invitation to appear before the Conference Committee and endeavored to dissuade them from attempting to express any dissatisfaction with the actions of the State Board of Education anywise to the detriment of the new institution, and especially from adopting such iconoclastic, unjust, and probably unlawful means as the attempt to deprive Mr. Harris of the emoluments of the office to which he had been appointed. In spite of all this, the provision was retained in the bill as it was passed by both houses of the Legislature. The best opinion, however, seems to be that the Legislature in its action in this matter has exceeded its lawful authority, and that there is no legal

obstacle to Mr. Harris's discharging the duties and receiving the emoluments of the office to which he was appointed by lawfully constituted authority. Let all endeavor to fulfill the best hopes for the San Marcos Normal.

The recent law which requires that children between seven and seventeen years of age be admitted to the public schools free of charge for tuition, has been much misunderstood. The law nowise affects the taking of the scholastic census, which is to be taken in every respect as heretofore; but its only effect is to lower by one year the age at which children are to be admitted free of charge. Independent districts have long had authority to raise or lower the age at which children could attend the public schools free of charge, and in some of them that age has alreay been made to include children seven years old. Under the new law there can be no "under

age" charge for such children anywhere. In the second place, it may be well to point out that the matter of the apportionment of the State fund is affected practically as little as it is affected legally -if, indeed, it may be assumed that the ratio of the number of children between seven and eight, to the number of children between eight and seventeen, be practically the same in the different counties and independent districts; for, if so, the amount of money received by each county or independent district would not be changed by including in the census children seven years old, because the per capita basis of apportionment would be decreased in exactly the same ratio that the census enumeration would be increased. In short, the sole effect of the new law is to prohibit the exaction of tuition fees from children between seven and eight years of age.

The bill which passed the House, but failed to come up for final consideration in the Senate before the adjournment of the Regular Session, in so far as it differed from the text-book bill enacted at the Special Session, would have made a better law; but the most important features of the Texas law on this subject, which have made it one of the best laws of its class, are retained; and the public is to be congratulated upon a satisfactory re-en

actment of the expiring law under which the State has operated during the past five years. One provision was slipped in the law, as passed by the Special Session, which is to be regarded as involving unnecessary and possibly irritating expense in the requirement that a separate book be adopted for mental arithmetic. Upon this point the JOURNAL thoroughly agrees with the recommendation of the State Superintendent in his biennial report, and although not a matter of vital importance, it is regrettable that the ill-advised change was allowed to slip through unnoticed. The explanation probably lies in the fact that the senseless contentions about the constitution of the board, which arose toward the close of the Regular Session, deterred many of those who were most unselfishly and intelligently interested in the bill, from giving any further active attention to it. The State Superintendent's advice on the subject was as follows, quoted from page 18c of his report:

I recommend the continuance of the present status-the subject prescribed, but no textbook required-with the suggestion that the Text-Book Board might be required to adopt a hand-book to be used by teachers in the public schools in teaching the subject. My reasons for this recommendation are threefold: (1) Such a provision would secure actual instruction in those valuable exercises, now often ignored in spite of the law. (2) To require pupils to purchase a text-book in "mental arithmetic" would increase the cost of the prescribed texts. (3) From the very nature of the subject no text-book is needed in the hands of the pupil, however helpful one might be in the hands of the teacher in the way of suggesting suitable problems and securing an orderly progress of the exercises. If one will reflect upon the nature of the exercises called "mental arithmetic," it will appear that no books beyond the regular arithmetic are necessary for the pupils. "Mental arithmetic" simply means calculations without the aid of written or printed memoranda of successive steps in the numerical operations required; and if the teacher were provided with abundant and well-ordered questions it is not easy to see the need of any book for the pupil. Furthermore, the exercise of powers of attention and grasp of thought in the necessity of retaining the terms of the question without the aid of written or printed record, may be well considered as a part of the discipline even more valuable than the calculating "in the head," a's the phrase goes. On the last ground alone I would advise against adopting a pupil's textbook in "mental arithmetic."

By this issue the TEXAS SCHOOL JOURNAL begins its twenty-first annual volume.

with the most encouraging outlook for prosperity and usefulness that has ever opened before it. Already congratulations upon the attainment of its "majority" have been received, and the JOURNAL begs thus to acknowledge with hearty thanks all such expressions of appreciation of the services it is attempting, with steadily increasing success, to render the teachers of Texas. It is well known that any journalistic enterprise which has maintained an active existence for twentyone years, must have struck deep and firm roots in a congenial environment; and if at the end of such a period signs appear of renewed vigor and growth, the genuine utility of the publication can not be doubted. There are abounding evidences of the TEXAS SCHOOL JOURNAL's invigoration during the last two years; but it is enough to state that its subscription list has been incomparably increased within those two years, and that it is now more than double what it was one year ago. As the JOURNAL's circulation continues to grow, its value both to subscribers and advertisers will increase proportionally; for on our side we shall never spare any expense within the JOURNAL's resources to furnish our readers with everything that is of genuine value and interest to them, and of service to the great cause we represent. We trust that the recently added "Manual Training Department,' edited by Mr. O. A. Hanszen, instructor in the Allen Manual Training Department of the Austin Schools, will be particularly serviceable at the present juncture, when many localities are interested in the State's recent offer to duplicate (under statutory conditions and regulations by the State Superintendent, published in the proper Department, on another page of this issue) funds provided locally for the institution of manual training in the public schools. In regard to the section. of the JOURNAL styled "State Department of Education," we frequently receive expressions of the growing appreciation of its importance and usefulness. All school officers, teachers and others interested in its subject-matter, are coming to depend more and more upon the regular, complete and unabridged publication each month of all decisions of the State Superintendent and of the State Board of Education in appeal cases, and of all public

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announcements, rulings, etc., issued from the Department of Education. In many States school journals are remunerated by the government for such official services; but the TEXAS SCHOOL JOURNAL discharges, voluntarily and gratuitously, the function of an official organ in so far as a full and accurate report of all such matters of public record is concerned. We ask for this, and all other service to our patrons, merely an annual subscription of $1.00 a year. Until the last issue of the JOURNAL, it has been sent to every county superintendent and ex-officio county superintendent, including some who had not subscribed, in order that the State Department of Education section might fulfill one of its chief means of usefulness; for the future, however, it will be necessary to exact the subscription price from all alike. The improvements in the TEXAS SCHOOL JOURNAL have involved, and its maintenance along lines of continued improvement will involve far greater expense than some of our friends realize, and it is not practicable to indulge in a complimentary mailing list. The subscription price has been reduced, although the size and matter have been improved at considerable expense; and since the JOURNAL is perhaps more directly and importantly useful to county superintendents (especially in their duties of deciding cases appealed to them, making rulings, and giving correct official information) than to any one else, we feel that there is no reason for not requiring of all who are to receive the JOURNAL, its almost nominal subscription price of $1.00 a year.

READ THIS.

This issue of the JOURNAL contains a large number of advertisements of summer schools and summer normal institutes, among them being the following: State University, Austin; Summer School of the South, Knoxville, Tenn.; Harvard University Summer School; Waco Summer Normal; Baylor University Summer School; Trinity University Summer School; Corpus Christi Summer Normal; Texas Christian Christian University Summer School; Dallas Summer Normal, for colored teachers; Sam Houston Summer Normal Institute; Garden of the Gods

Summer School; University of Chicago Summer School; Richmond Summer Normal; Cornell University Summer School; Seven Great Schools, Chillicothe, Mo.; Valparaiso College and Normal School, Valparaiso, Indiana; Martha's Vineyard Summer Institute, Hyde Park, Mass.; Angleton Summer Normal, and others received too late to classify. Read the advertisements elsewhere in these columns

and choose one summer school to attend during your vacation. While reading summer school advertisements, you might read all the ads in this issue of the JoURNAL. There is something to interest you -particularly Reed's Modern Eloquence. See also what publishers have to offer you in up-to-date text-books for summer and fall work.

J. K. Burke leaves Montague county to locate at Lockney.

Miss Mabel Brooks of Austin is teaching in the Longview schools.

On the 1st instant the Llano public schools closed. There were six graduates.

J. G. Toland has been elected superintendent of the Llano Schools, for the ensuing year.

King Christian IX. of Denmark celebrated his 85th birthday last month, and received many congratulations.

William Pickin, a colored youth, of Little Rock, Ark., lately won the Ten Eyck prize for oratory at Yale.

Orders for manual training equipment will be filled promptly if placed with Haldeman & Co., Austin, Texas.

Howard Payne College, of Brownwood, will soon begin the erection of additional buildings to cost from $40,000 to $50,000.

Recently the independent district of Sealy decided by a vote of 75 to 3 to issue $10,000 bonds for school building purposes.

Joseph Hatchitt retires from the superintendency of the Lockhart schools to assume charge of the schools at Reedville next year.

Miss Maggie Ward of Homer, La., who was formerly a teacher in the Victoria public schools, expects to return to Texas in the fall.

Notices of an apportionment of 50 cents per capita, aggregating $220,000, were sent out on the first of the month by the

The rate to the N. E. A. at Boston will be one fare plus two dollars for the round trip. Tickets may be extended to August 31st.

Supt. P. H. McInnis of Lampasas will probably teach next year in New Mexico. His many friends will regret to learn he is to leave this State.

Chicago spends $4.80 per capita on public education; Boston, $5.40; New York, $5.80; Philadelphia, $2.50; Minneapolis, $3.60 and St. Louis, $2.70.

Tyler city council has appropriated $1,500 annually for the maintenance of a library, and Andrew Carnegie has agreed to donate a $15,000 library building.

Prof. Daniels of Yoakum has been elected principal of the Kyle public school, with Misses Mary Young, Belle Schmidt, and Ada Wallace as assistants.

Recently the Legislature of Pennsylvania fixed the minimum salary of teachers at $35 per month. The salary under Texas laws could be as low as $2.00 per month.

The president and three other members of the Twenty-eighth Sectional Board in Philadelphia have been convicted of taking bribes from women candidates for positions as school teachers.

Montague held an election on the 2nd instant to incorporate for free school purposes only. It is also proposed to levy a special tax of 50c on the one hundred dollars for maintenance and support of the schools.

The following have recently incorpo