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—an initiative that is not limited by such petty and puerile legislation as forbids the appointment of married women or persons who reside outside the city limits."

The character and efficiency of the superintendent will in most cases determine the degree of authority to be conceded to him by the board of education. When the sole purpose of the board and the superintendent is to bring the schools to the highest degree of efficiency, and when both are working with an eye single to the best interests of the schools, the board will not hesitate to delegate to the superintendent all the authority he can exercise with wisdom and profit. John T. Prince, agent of the state board of education of Massachusetts, sums up the matter in the following words: "The powers and duties of a superintendent should consist mainly of matters directly relating to the teaching and training of children, including (1) advisory power with respect to the building and alteration of school houses, the selection of equipments, the adoption of a course of studies, the election and dismissal of teachers and the expulsion of pupils; (2) full power with respect to the choice of apparatus and supplies, the preparation of course of studies, the nomination of teachers, the filling of temporary vacancies in the teaching force, the supervision of teachers' work, the calling and conducting of teachers' meeting, and the classification and promotion of pupils."-Supt. Dudgeon, Madison, Wisconsin, Annual Report.

JOHNNIE'S GOBLIN.

BY FRANCES MARGARET FOX.

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the fairies, there lived the most accommodating boy ever known. His name was Johnnie Jump-up, and there was a time when he wouldn't willingly do anything for anybody. His father often said there never had been such a lazy boy in the Jump-up family. If his mother wanted him to do an errand, she had to punish him before he would move, which made it unpleasant for both of them. His school teacher gave him a switch when she wanted him to stir.

Fortunately for Johnnie, the fairies in the neighborhood were fond of him. Though no one knew it, they had at

tended his christening, and anybody who knew Johnnie Jump-up when he was a baby was sure to remember him always, and to hope he would be a good man when he grew up.

Many and many a time the fairies had tried to make Johnnie a better boy by putting it into his heart to mind his mother; yet even they could do nothing with him.

As the days went by, and Johnnie grew worse and worse, it happened that a goblin fell into the power of the fairies. He was a mischievous, merry-hearted fellow, and loved to play tricks on the fairies. He used to break their toadstools, tear their spider-webs, and empty all the dew out of the buttercups.

One night, when he was too tired to keep awake after his pranks, a fairy managed to touch him with her magic wand, and, as every one knows, if a fairy can touch a goblin with her wand, he becomes her prisoner immediately, and must do as she bids him.

Not wishing to harm the goblin, the fairies put him in a green bower with a rose-leaf carpet, where the poor fellow almost died of homesickness. He wanted to go back to his cave and live with the goblin folks, but the fairies were afraid to set him free. Finally they thought that his love of mischief might be turned to account, and he was summoned to appear before the Fairy Queen. She told him about Johnnie Jump up, and promised him his liberty if he could teach the child to mind. The goblin, forgetting how to behave in the presence of a queen, tossed his pointed cap high in the air, and turned a somersault.

"Your Royal Highness," said he, bowing low, "I give you my word as a goblin that Johnnie Jump-up, under my care, shall obey his parents, and be lively as a jumping jack inside of a week, or I will return to my prison."

"You may go," said the Fairy Queen, well pleased.

Nobody ever saw a goblin, so, of course, Johnnie Jump up didn't know when his goblin slid down the chimney, and snuggled up beside him on the couch.

The goblin had been in the house but a few minutes, when Johnnie's mother called him to bring her some wood.

"Oh! I don't want to-I'm reading," whined the boy. "Why can't Sammie? I don't"-But he did, for the goblin caught him by the shoulders, kicked

him, pushed him, blew in his neck, and sent him flying to the woodpile.

"Why, Johnnie!" said his mother, "you don't need to rush like that. Now don't sit down again; I am going to bake cookies, and must have the wood-box full."

"Oh, dear!" began the boy, "I don't" -But he did, for the goblin sent him with such force he bumped his nose on the woodpile. The goblin laughed, and so did Johnnie's mother.

All day long, whenever any one asked poor Johnnie Jump-up to do an errand, he did it. His mother and father couldn't understand the change in him, and his teacher was amazed. He kept the school children in a roar of laughter-though he, poor child! felt sad enough, and was punished three times in one day for minding too suddenly when he had first said

he wouldn't.

It wasn't long before Johnnie stopped saying that he didn't want to do things. It was so much pleasanter to get up and quietly do what was required of him, than to go flying through the air as though shot from a gun.

Unless Johnnie started the minute he was spoken to, the goblin was sure to help him.

Saturday afternoon Mrs. Jump-up wanted to give Johnnie a bath. She got the water all ready before she called him. "Oh, dear!" said Johnnie, "I don't" -That was too much for the goblin, who was quite out of patience with a boy who wouldn't learn to do as his mother wanted him to. He lifted Johnnie right off his feet, and threw him into the bath-tub, clothes and all. The boy splashed and struggled in the water until his mother pulled him out.

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"Why, Johnnie Jump-up!" she exclaimed, what ever makes you act so? You ought to be severely punished. Look at your shoes!"

"Oh, dear!" wailed Johnnie, "I couldn't help what I did. Unless I mind everybody quick, it seems as if something gets behind me and makes me mind so fast I can't hardly breathe."

"Then why don't you mind, little boy?"

"I am always going to after this," sobbed Johnnie. And ever since that time Johnnie Jump up has been so accommodating the neighbors say he seems full of springs.

The goblin went up the chimney with

a roar one day, and never troubled Johnnie or the fairies again.

Some stories are true, and some are not. -Sunday School Times.

TAXATION FOR SCHOOL PURPOSES.

DR. NATHAN C. SCHAEFFER.

I containing a chapter on National Education, in which he announced the doctrine that the taxation of one man's property for the purpose of educating another man's children is robbery, and that the State has no more right to administer education than it has to administer religion. He states the doctrine in syllogistic form. The following is his own language:

N December, 1850, Herbert Spencer

Inasmuch as the taking away, by government, of more of a man's property than is needful for maintaining his rights is an infringement of his rights, and, therefore, a reversal of the government's function toward him; and inasmuch as the taking away of his property to educate his own or other people's children is not needful for the maintaining of his rights. the taking away of his property for such a purpose is wrong.

The philanthropist, Samuel Morley, reprinted the chapter for general distribution. tion. When a second edition of the pamphlet was called for, Mr. Spencer added some further arguments, which are appended to the original chapter in the edition of Social Statics revised by his own hand, and dated in the preface London, Jan., 1892.

This fact shows how hard it is for a philosopher working in his cell to adapt himself to the events of history, when these run counter to his original conclusions. As a matter of curiosity and as a specimen of felicity of style his line of argument may be worthy of consideration in the lecture-room of the University, but it no longer receives attention from school men who must get things done and whose interests lie beyond the formulas of the printed page. The absurdities in which, according to Spencer, the alleged right to education at the hands of the State would entangle its advocates, have been found to have an existence only in the imagination of the philosopher.

The theory of the State upon which

Spencer founded his doctrine has been cast to the winds by the statesmen of England. He assumes that government has no functions beyond the police power of the State; that there is no cause for interference on the part of the State until the children's rights have been violated, and that these rights are not violated by a neglect of their education. In contrast with this narrow and heartless theory a larger view of the functions of government has gradually forced itself upon the public mind. When the State took away from the father the power of life and death over the new-born child, it was considered an infringement upon his rights. When the Arkwrights and the Peels were amassing fortunes by the employment of little children in mines and factories, giving rise to conditions that called forth Cobden's scathing book on "White Slavery in England," the government enacted mining and factory laws designed to secure to the child not merely the right to live but also the right to grow, although such legislation was branded as an interference with the natural rights of parents and employers. The statesmen of to day regard the child's mental growth as of equal importance with his physical growth, and the several States are just beginning in earnest to enact and enforce legislation designed to secure to the child its right to know as well as to grow. The civilized world has accepted the dictum of Macaulay that "Whoever has the right to hang has the right to educate." The new theory of the State assumes that the government can justly impose taxes to secure to the child its right to know; that the State can levy taxes for the establishment and maintenance of schools and the enforcement of compulsory attendance, just as it can levy taxes to maintain almshouses, factory inspectors and orphan asylums.

A powerful shock in the form of loss or threatened loss of military and commercial prestige was needed to awaken Prussia, Austria, France and England to a sense of the importance of educating the children of the masses as distinguished from the classes. In this connection I may be permitted to quote somewhat at length from my own article in the Philadelphia Record of February 22, 1902:

No sooner had the issue of the wars of 1866 and 1870 shown the superiority of Prussia over Austria and France than statesmen

began to inquire into the cause. They found in the school system of Prussia an essential element of her military greatness. Casting the arguments and objections of Spencer and others to the winds, the British Parliament set to work to banish illiteracy from England and to make ignorance impossible among the masses. When it be

came apparent that the educated labor of Germany was winning from Great Britain not merely a portion of the home market, but also some of the best markets in other lands, the movement in favor of popular education became irresistible. The proceeds of a special excise tax amounting to three and a half millions in our currency were set apart to disseminate scientific knowledge among the industrial classes. In a speech at Colchester, as reported in The Times, Lord Rosebery said: "Germany has long been-twenty, thirty or forty years-ahead of us in technical education. I am afraid of Germany. Why am I afraid of the Germans? Because I admire and esteem them so much. They are an industrious nation; they are, above all, a systematic nation; they are a scientific nation, and whatever they take up, whether it be the arts of peace or the arts of war, they push them forward to the utmost possible perfection with that industry, that system, that science which is a part of their character. Are we gaining on the Germans? I believe, on the contrary, we are losing ground. The other day one of the greatest authorities on this subject went to Germany, being stirred up by what he had seen of alarm in the newspapers on the subject. He came back and told a friend of mine that he was absolutely appalled by the progress made in the last twenty years by the Germans in technical and commercial education, as compared with what was going on in England."

To the peasantry of Europe, America is a word synonymous with opportunity. In making secondary education free to the common people, we have gone a step beyond the Old World. In Germany, the sons of the peasantry cannot afford to pay the extra tuition fees required of those who attend the high schools (Gymnasien and RealSchulen). Only in rare instances does a bright boy of the peasant class find his way to the university. In England, the upper classes attend private schools. The clergyman who supervises the parish school would not think, it is said, of sending his children to the same school. They get advantages which are beyond the reach of the common people. In the United States, the high school is free to all. By free text-books Pennsylvania has gone far to make education beyond the common branches possible for the average youth in the average home. The sublimest sights are witnessed in humble homes where father and mother, and sometimes the older children, toil from early dawn till dewy eve in order that some talented member of the family may be enabled

to take advantage of the high school maintained by municipal taxation.

The advent of the high school brought to view new phases of taxation for school purposes Shall the common people be taxed in order that the sons of well-to-do people may have an opportunity to study Latin and Greek and geometry? It was not at first perceived that the high school taxed the rich man for the purpose of giving every boy and girl the opportunity which the rich can easily secure for their children. Again, we were gravely told that the fathers, in establishing the common school system, 'did not contemplate instruction beyond the common branches; that a common school education was all that was necessary for good citizenship, and as good citizenship is the chief concern of the State, the government should not be expected to provide education beyond the common branches. But the good sense of the teachers and patrons prevailed. It was perceived that the State exists for the sake of the individual, and not the individual for the sake of the State; that schools sustained by taxation should fit their pupils for life, and that as civilization advances more education is required for complete living than was required when the system was founded.

Governor Horatio Seymour, of New York, rendered the nation a great service by the stand he took in favor of secondary and higher education. His reply to an able address which charged that colleges and high schools supported by the State are fungi upon the common school system was so masterful that it was circulated as bulletin No. 26 by the regents of the University of the State of New York. The same Bulletin contains an address by Superintendent Kennedy, which shows conclusively how the arguments against the high school are in essence the arguments by which Herbert Spencer sought to rule out the primary school. The day has almost passed when the utility of taxation for high school purposes is seriously questioned. Never was it more clearly shown than in this controversy that "the aggregate wisdom of an enlightened people has a more sure foundation in eternal truth than the most ingeniously constructed philosophy of an individual."

From taxation in aid of high schools there is but one step to taxation for college and university purposes. The state needs well-educated physicians, lawyers, chemists and engineers. If the welfare of the people demands governmental assistance in the establishment of institutions for the teaching of medicine, law, science, technology, the right of the federal and state governments to levy the necessary taxes should no more be questioned than its right to raise money for the Military Academy at West Point and

the Naval Academy at Annapolis. The arguments that would rule out taxation for university purposes, would also be valid against taxation for the maintenance of free schools, including the high school and the kindergarten. Granted that taxation for school purposes is right, the question arises: How shall the taxes be levied? Here is a point wherein we are all like George Washington, and yet far ahead of him. He never rode on a trolley car, never traveled in a Pullman, never sent a telegram, never spoke through a telephone, never listened to a phonograph, never studied by electric light, and never paid a school tax. In these particulars we are far ahead of the Father of our Country. But in another respect we are just like him. The clerk of a county in which he held property made the following entry: "It appeareth that Geo. Washington doth not like to pay taxes." Is not the highest evidence of patriotism found in a willingness to pay a just share of tax for the support of the government and the education of the people?

It must be admitted that whilst we all believe in taxation for school purposes, we prefer to let the other fellow pay the taxes, especially if the other fellow happens to be some rich corporation in which we own no stock. One of the most practical things which the educators of the N. E. A. can do for the schools, is to teach, by example as well as precept, the true doctrine of taxation for school purposes.

The land-grants by which the federal government sought to make education possible in the newer states and territories, no longer suffice for the educational needs of their growing populations. The boasted school fund of Kansas, for instance, is barely sufficient to keep up the fires in the school stoves. The amount per scholar of school age received from this fund is 78 cents. The great bulk of the revenue for the support of the Kansas schools comes from local taxation. tor John MacDonald claims that the people of Kansas now tax themselves more heavily than any other people for the support of the common schools. No scheme or system of school maintenance should exclude the idea of local support, for this serves to keep the school near the people.

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The older states got no land grants except for their agricultural colleges.

The statesmanship of Senator Morrill | and others has resulted in the establishment of colleges for the study of agriculture and the mechanic arts (without excluding instruction in the ancient languages), whose equipment far surpasses the most sanguine dreams of our forefathers previous to the Civil War. The federal government has wisely refrained from the erection of the necessary buildings and thrown this burden upon the states, requiring them to raise, by taxation, the funds for buildings and equipment, and thus bringing these institutions nearer the people.

The best method for aiding the schools out of state funds, is by a special levy, the proceeds of which can not be used for other purposes. This lets the taxpayer know for what purpose he is giving his money and stimulates his pride in the institutions which he helps to support.

Prof. Ely reports that in talking with two men who were digging stumps he was told that the tax in support of the State University was the tax which they paid most cheerfully!

Invested funds depreciate in value as the rate of interest diminishes, and leave an institution poorer unless it holds real estate in cities like New York, where the volume of trade enhances year by year the value of property near the business centres. Hence, endowed institutions are always begging for money, because while their needs are growing, the rate of interest is decreasing. On the other hand, the taxable property of a Commonwealth is constantly increasing, and the college or university supported by millage taxes grows in wealth as it grows in attendance.

The University of Michigan, for instance, gets a levy of one-fourth of a mill, which now yields an annual revenue of $349.500. The income of the University of Missouri represents an endowment of from six to eight millions. Of this income $120,000 is derived from a collateral inheritance tax (up to one-tenth of mill).

The figures for Iowa, which is an agricultural state, are not merely significant but redolent of hope for the future. At the recent session of the legislature a bill was passed granting the Normal School at Cedar Falls, for building purposes, a tax levy of one-tenth of a mill on all the property of the state for five years. This means about $60,000 a year. By similar bills the State University and the State Agricultural College are each to receive

one-fifth of a mill tax levy for five years, which will mean for each of them about $120,000 per year. By like methods of taxation Ohio not only gives liberal support to the State University at Columbus, but also provided, at the last session of the legislature, for the establishment of a Teachers' College on a liberal basis in connection with the State Universities at Athens and Oxford. Other instances of like liberality could easily be given. The plan saves these schools from uncertainty with respect to their income and enables the authorities to pursue a fixed policy.

The same method of taxation is in force in some states for the support of the public schools. New York State, for instance, levies about one mill for general school purposes throughout the state. By this plan New York City, before it became Greater New York, paid 48 per cent. of the money distributed by the state and received 16 per cent. in return. It is an instance of the richer portions of the state helping to support schools in the more sparsely settled sections. The schools of New York City have been well provided for by a similar levy. While I was at work on this paper Supt. Maxwell wrote me that the four-mill tax on the valuation of the real and personal property in the city of New York (which is $3,787,970,873), amounts for the year 1902 to $15 151,883.49. This is expended for the payment of salaries of teachers, superintendents, supervisors, attendance officers and fees of lecturers. The money for buildings, etc., known as the Special School Fund, and representing the physical side of the system, is not raised by special tax as in the case of the general school fund, but the items of appropriation contained within the special school fund are appropriated by the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, and it is within the discretion of this Board to name such amounts as it sees fit. I have not been able to ascertain whether this works as well as the Pittsburg plan, by which each local board levies the tax for building purposes and tries to surpass every other ward whenever a new school building is to be erected.

The Pennsylvania system of taxing railroads and other corporations is of interest. The railroads pay a percentage of their earnings into the State Treasury. Thence it is distributed among all the school districts, so that the township

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