then the noble Pittacus, one of the Seven Wise Men, was chosen dictator, and, like his great Athenian contemporary Solon, laid the foundation of democratic government. Alcæus was banished and took service under Pharaoh Hophra, one of his brothers enlisting at the same time under Nebuchadnezzar. It may fix the dates to say that the two may have met in some of the wars their sovereigns waged in Palestine. Perchance Alcæus heard the aged Jeremiah in his retreat at Tahpanhes, and his brother may have seen Daniel promoted to be chief of the Magi, or heard the harp of the youthful Ezekiel "by the rivers of Babylon." Such, at least, were the times in which he lived. Of his ten books of songs-political, convivial, and amatory-only a few fragments, quoted by grammarians and others, have survived. They seem to have been composed for a limited audience on festive occasions, and have furnished. models and ideas to Horace, Catullus, Byron, and other like poets. There was a younger contemporary of Alcæus, whom he describes as "violet-crowned, pure, sweetly smiling Sappho." Her character was early assailed by Athenians, but on insufficient grounds. Her manners were those of the Levant, and did not indicate what similar behavior might have done at Athens; her sentiments were passionate, but not ungoverned; the story of her Lucadian leap is unquestionably a myth, based, perhaps, on some poem in which she describes such an issue of unrequited love. She seems to have been a brunette of small stature and rare beauty, a married woman with a much-loved daughter, and the honored head of a school of young ladies studying poetry. Of the nine books she composed, only two short poems and a few fraginents survive. They are notable for intense depth of feeling and exquisite grace of diction. The ode translated by Catullus, and from him by Lord Byron, beginning: "Equal to Jove that youth must be," may serve as a sample. Anacreon, born at Teos, lived mainly at the splendid courts of Polycrates, of Samos, and the sons of Pisistratus at Athens, and well suited such surrounding. His verses lack naturalness, spontaniety, feeling, and make amends only by mechanical polish. This character invited imitation, and the dialect of the "Odes," translated by Moore, show that they are spurious, though very much in the style of the genuine. 4. DORIC OR RELIGIOUS POETRY. Three varieties are to be distinguished-the Simple Chorus, used at Sparta in worship of Apollo; the Dithyramb, in worship of Dionysus, developed at Corinth; and the Epinician Ode used in celebrating victories. The earlier authors were Alcman, of Sardis, eminent as poet and dancing master at Sparta; Terpander, of Lesbos, who completed the octave by adding three strings to the lyre; Tisias, father, son, and grandson, of Himera in Sicily; and Areion, of Methymna, whose music charmed the dolphins. The principal writers of Doric or choral lyric were two: Simonides, of Ceos, lived during and after the Persian wars, and surpassed all others in versatility, being cosmopolitan in tastes and habits, equally at home with the tyrants of Thessaly or the democrats of Athens; ready for feast or funeral, for elegy, satire or ode; doing quite well in every kind of verse, but, of course, superlatively excellent in none. His predecessors had received presents; he wrote for stipulated pay, and praised in proportion to the amount. Pindar, of Beotia, stands alone among his countrymen, but, like Epaminondas, towers high above all his contemporaries. He owes his eminence partly to native genius and hard work, partly to circumstances, among which were the introduction of orgiastic sun-worship, the growth of natural feeling during the Persian war, and the rise of tragedy, for he was contemporary with Eschylus. He was a welcome visitor at the court of Hiero, of Syracuse, but lacked the arts of a popular courtier. His fame rests mainly on odes, many of which are preserved complete, in which he celebrated the praises of victors at the Olympian or Pythian games. The successful champion was received at home with a feast and his praises sung by a comus, or band of revellers, whence comes our word encomium. His style is sententious, adorned with mythic lore, laden with imagery, and rushing, as Horace says, "like a swollen torrent." [For the JOURNAL.] The Proposed "Educational Association of Virginia." BY MISS CELESTIA PARRISH, STATE NORMAL SCHOOL. A few months ago an article appeared in the JOURNAL giving the plan of an association to be permanently organized in Lynchburg next June, and describing its temporary formation. For this reason no details need be given now. The purpose of this article is simply to call the attention. of the teachers of the State to some of the benefits to be derived from such an association. It is not easy to estimate these at their full value and in all their manifold bearings. Only the most apparent can be mentioned here. This is pre-eminently an age of combinations. The force of the truism, "In union there is strength," was perhaps never so fully recognized as now. Even farmers, the class which politicians so long believed impossible to be held together in any distinctive organization, are causing their united voices to be heard in the United States Senate. Teachers cannot afford to ignore these facts. Whatever of good may be accomplished by wise, philanthropic and patriotic school officers-and the name of these good things is legion-there are yet many things which only the teachers themselves can do, and which they cannot do individually. There are some things which can be done only by concerted action on the part of school officers and teachers, and other things still which need the added effort of the people. An opportunity is now offered for bringing about the much desired union of action. We know that teachers all over the State have groaned under what they considered their wrongs. Small salaries, short terms, insecure tenure of office, inefficiency and indifference on the part of trustees, the thousand and one evils incident to their work as it now proceeds, in truth, render their lives anything but flower-strewn; but if all the teachers of the State will unite in an association the object of which is the good of their work in all its phases, they will necessarily be able to exercise a most potent influence in lessening the evils of which they complain. Let them no longer groan, but come and work. While we may hope that through the instrumentality of the association many improvements will be wrought in general school affairs, because evils now obscure or hidden may, by its means, be brought to the notice of the proper authorities, yet, in their anticipations of the good to be done, teachers should not forget the many beams to be cast from their own eyes. Far be it from me to underestimate the teachers of Virginia. I know their patience and their long-suffering under privations and difficulties. I know their heroism and self-sacrifice, their high mental and moral worth. But I know, too, that there is a need among them of a greater esprit du corps, of a broader culture, of higher ambitions and of a pervading belief in the dignity of their calling which would drive from. their ranks all unworthy pretenders. Many of them need, too, strange as it may seem, to be convinced that there is a science of teaching which may be learned just as other sciences are, and which can best be applied to practical purposes after, not before, it is learned. The people, also, perhaps more than the teachers, need to be taught that teaching is a profession and not a makeshift; that it is not provided by the State for the benefit of young ladies whose sole purpose in taking it up is to earn just enough money to buy a trousseau, or as a temporary employment for young gentlemen who condescend to yawn and grumble over it until a more remunerative occupation can be found; that the neighborhood school is not a philanthropic institution established for the exclusive purpose of paying a neighborhood boy or girl a monthly stipend, which stipend is to be scrambled for and won by the strongest or most persistent scrambler. These same good people need to be put into an attitude toward the teacher more like that which they assume toward the doctor or the preacher—i. e., into a confident assurance that the teacher, having been trained for his work, knows somewhat more about it than the parents of his pupils can be supposed to know. There are a few lessons, too, that district school officials might learn, and just now and then a moral precept or an educational maxim which might fall with new force upon the ear of a county superintendent. For all these things what better opportunity than the meetings of an educational association? It is proposed to have always, at the meetings of the one now projected, lecturers from the ranks of the best educators in the country, so that all who attend may have actual instruction; but, in addition to this, there will be opportunities for the freest discussion of all subjects connected with the schools. The humblest teacher will have the same privileges as the most gifted. He can, if he will, gain the ear of all the other teachers and officers of the State, and to a certain extent he may have the ear of the people at large. Besides all this, however, there is a greater good to be accomplished. At present we are more or less chaotic in our educational theories and practice. We have been imitators and have copied from models widely different in character. Some of our city schools, having taken their shape from schools formed under circumstances and for a population different from their own, have found this borrowed system lose its vitality when transplanted, and they have crystallized into shapes which, though fine in many respects, are perhaps not the best which might have been or might still be assumed. In many counties of the State the schools are conducted upon no fixed pedagogical principles whatever, because the county superintendent, himself, either recognizes no such principles or is at sea with regard to conflicting beliefs. Recognizing fully the fact that we are sharers not only with the whole country, but with the world, in a pedagogical ferment, we should wish to assist in producing, and most especially in determining, the form of the new crystallization of truth which is beginning even now, and which will inevitably succeed the unrest of this transitional period. If, by means of the work of the association. which is now proposed, there can be developed a plan of education which, while it has a broad basis of pedagogical truth and embodies all the good known to our neighbors, is yet in one sense our own, born of our needs and capable of growing with our growth; a system free from the shackles of sex and class prejudice, yet not wildly radical in its tendencies, which shall place us side by side with our proudest neighbors in intellectual progress, yet will not destroy our individuality as a people, this will be its highest achievement. But to accomplish this or any other good work the co-operation of all the teachers and school officers is needed. Let us hope that the association will begin its life with an enrolment of a large majority of the teachers of the State. Each teacher should feel it his duty as well as his privilege to be at the meeting in June. If he is weak, the good he will receive will be his share of the work. If he is strong, his shoulder is the one needed to give the wheel the precise degree of force necessary to set it moving. Dr. Curry on the Manual-Training School. [The following letter from the Hon. J. L. M. Curry comes to us through the City Superintendent of Public Schools, to whom it is addressed.] WASHINGTON, D. C., February 14, 1891. PROFESSOR WILLIAM F. Fox, Richmond Va. : My Dear Sir: I thank you for the pleasure which your excellent address before the principals of the Richmond city public schools [published in the January JOURNAL] gave me. Your presentation of the progress of the public-school system in our city from feeble beginnings to its present high standard has much historical and educational value, and was a just tribute to the City Council, the officers and teachers, the press, the general public for establishing, and, in the face of strong opposition, sustaining the schools and making them "to rank fourth in efficiency among the schools of the country." I wish especially to thank you for this portion of the last paragraph: "Again, the persistent presentation all over the country of the manuallabor question indicates a popular need for manual-training schools. This question has not been specially pressed in our city. *** But methinks it will not be very long before we shall be called on to consider the claims of the manual-training school. Here our youth may acquire, along with their intellectual training, that control of their physical powers and that mastery of the ordinary working tools which will enable them to enter with advantage any of the mechanic arts, and in briefer time and with greater thoroughness acquire the skill necessary to conduct satisfactorily its more important branches." You will doubtless recall in the frequent conferences we have had in reference to different questions affecting our free schools, my earnest anxiety for the incorporation of manual training as an organic part of our school system. Subsequent reflection and observation have confirmed |