wrong.

Each may be right according to his understanding of the meaning to be conveyed by the author.

Do not permit pupils to be biased or narrow in their opinions. Teach them that many words may be disposed of in various ways, according to the meaning implied in the sentences where they are used.

Beware of quoting a single text-book as absolute authority. The very fact that scarcely two text-books on grammar agree throughout is a strong argument why both teacher and pupil should consult a number of authors on disputed points.

Be carefuf that pupils not only understand the rules of syntax, but that they also be made expert in the application of them to the correction of errors and the construction of sentences.

Give special attention to the practical part of grammar, sentence-construction and the correction of sentences.

Give most attention to the most important parts and to those most difficult for the pupil to comprehend.

Do not make a hobby of any department of grammar-parsing, analysis, the correction of false syntax, practical sentence-construction-all have their uses.

Shorten the work by omitting non-essentials; thus, in the declension of nouns the work may be greatly facilitated by having the pupils write the possessive singular and plural only. In conjugation much work may be saved by having the pupils give only the synopsis, writing out the first person singular in all the modes and tenses.

Variety may be secured also by having one pupil write the synopsis in the first person singular, another in the third person plural, and so on. The teacher may also require a verb written in a certain mode, tense, person, and number. This will test the pupil's knowledge thoroughly.

Remember that it is constant practice that makes not only fluent speakers, but also correct ones. Expertness comes not from rules but from practice.

Rise above the text-book. Be original; teach something beyond; no text-book can cover one-fifth the ground, particularly in practice exercises, that ought to be covered by a competent teacher.-Educational News.

An Exercise in Reading.

BY A. C. BUTLER.

Select from a paper or magazine a short narrative or article suited to the ability of the class. Almost any of the juvenile' papers will furnish good material, or selections may be taken from the dailies or weeklies. Cut into parts of a dozen lines each, number, and distribute to the class,

with directions to copy neatly on slate or paper, observing marks of punctuation, capital letters, etc. Direct, also, that the paragraph or slip be studied with a view to reading it as well as possible. In half an hour, or after the next class has recited, call the class, collect the slips of paper, and have the pupils read from their slates, each reading his own, the teacher comparing with the printed form. After the pupil has read, select a few of the hardest words in the paragraph to be spelled orally. Inspect the written work not so much with a view to correcting errors as to see whether the pupil has been careful and faithful in the preparation. This can be done in a very short time. Finally, lay aside the slates and have each pupil re-state the thought of his paragraph, not as he wrote it, but in words of his own.

What is the value of such an exercise?

1. Each pupil has definite work of his own to do. He must rely solely upon his own effort, for his work is different from that of his neighbor ; thus the pupils are reached as individuals and not merely as classes.

2. The work of preparation is definite and so clearly understood by the pupils that they actually work a result which does not always follow the command from the teacher's desk, to "Study the reading lesson." tionaries are used, fingers are busy, brains are busy.

Dic

3. As an exercise in spelling, it is above the average, for each pupil spells a few words-probably new to him-which his mind has dwelt upon sufficiently long to make the form of the word indelible. If the selection is not too far beyond the reach of the pupils, words will rarely be missed, and when they are it will be noticed that they are spelled as they were written.

4. In the reading, each pupil does his best, for he is responsible for his own. In re-stating the thought, a test is made of how well the pupil has succeeding in transferring the thought from the page to the mind. Finally, as his part is only a fragment, his interest is stimulated to know what comes before and what follows; thus he is led to cultivate what a prominent educator calls "the neglected art of listening."-Public School Journal.

Educational Notes from Abroad.

France.—Under the head of Miscellaneous Expenditures we find stated in the latest French report several interesting items-for instance, for principals of adult schools, support of ex-teachers, superior drawing and gymnastic institutions, school libraries, etc., etc. They were as follows: Communities 30,517,627 francs; departments, 4,807,611 francs; State, 4,484,259 francs-total, 39,809,497 francs ($7,961,899).

The resume of the entire finance statistics of running and miscellaneous

expenses, both obligatory and facultative, show the following totals: Communities, 70,561,085 francs; departments, 17,595,621 francs; State, 84,743,810 francstotal, 172,900,516 francs ($34,580, 103).

Hence, including the facultative and incidental expenditures with which the communities burden themselves, the French State pays nearly one-half of the running expenses of public school instruction. The above total (172,900,516) represents a per capita of the inhabitants of 4.45 francs, but this ratio does not include the sums paid for building purposes.

Switzerland.-The "Permanent School Exhibition at Zurich has changed its name to Pestalozzianum. It has five departments, (1) a Pestalozzi-room, containing pictures of Pestalozzi and his co laborers, of the institution he founded and conducted, all chronologically arranged; Pestalozzi relics, manuscripts and a large Pestalozzi literature; (2) a collection of devices and means of instruction of primary and superior elementary schools, the Kindergarten and continuation schools, a library of juvenile books; school-house plans, school furniture; (3) an archive of school law and school administration, a pedagogical library with a circulating annex; (4) a reading-room for current educational literature and periodicals of home and foreign sources; (5) a bureau of information, which furnishes educational news from all parts of the world, orally or in writing, free of charge. A permanent secretary is in charge.

Germany.-A vacancy in the schools of Western Prussia, which was to be filled recently, was applied for by 178 candidates; salary, $600.

In Westphalia three miners recently broke into the school-house, overpowered the teacher and beat him nearly to death; the children fled in a panic. The crime was committed because the teacher had done his duty in handing to the police judge his list of absentees on which were the names of the sons of these miners. In Hannover recently a Samaritan Society was formed for the purpose of studying how to render aid, and, of course, for the purpose of applying the knowledge gained. Twenty teachers formed the first class.

The "Pedagogical Circle" of the women teachers in Dresden closed its twenty-sixth year of existence. The number of its members surpassed 300. The Society has listened to several courses of professional lectures, and special courses in Botany, French, Drawing, and Gymnastics, that were arranged for the younger members. The Society maintains a bureau of information for teachers without positions. It has a sick fund, from which during the year 1890 eight members were supported for several weeks and even for months.

During the Christmas vacation the Prussian teachers held their annual meeting in Magdeburg. The meeting was attended by the delegates of fifteen provincial societies, representing 38,000 teachers. They placed at the head of their resolutions this sentence: "The Peoples' School (the elementary school) must in future be regarded as the general substructure of all public institutions of learning."

The Bavarian National Society of Teachers consists of 304 local societies, representing 11,009 teachers and 2,016 members who are not teachers.

A Munich daily of January 7 contains this advertisement: A young lady who has passed all her examinations as teacher, with the highest mark obtainable, offers her services for instruction in French at 30 pennies per hour; 50 pennies for two hours. (30-72c.; 50=121⁄2c.).

England.-About the growth of technical and art schools supported by the Department for Science and Art, a recent report discloses these facts: In 1862 the Government supported seventy schools of this kind with 2,542 pupils and 140 classes; in 1882 the number of schools had increased to 1,403, with 68,581 pupils and 4,481 classes; in 1889 the number of schools had increased to 5,179 and the number of pupils to 941,522. Such an increase is phenomenal and certainly worth recording.

Notes.

THE Swiss universities are broad and liberal in the highest degree. Statutes are passed in their senates with simple reference to elevation of character and usefulness, and with no apparent thought of the sexes as separate. These statutes, when presented in council, are treated in the same spirit, and the question as to the advisability of co-education came first in every university after women had already entered and studied. The original statutes excluded no one, and consequently when-after generally a remarkably long time-women applied for admission, their names were taken exactly as those of their brothers were taken; they took their places among these and worked there undisturbed until some other consideration brought the question forward. It is difficult to see why it should have been so long after the establishment of the universities before women asked to work in them. In Zurich it was thirty-one years, in Berne thirty-eight, while Basle was disturbed first last year by the question. Lausanne, however, which begins its career as a university this autumn, begins with women students. In Zurich and Berne it may have been the development of the universities from schools originally founded for the aid of callings as yet unthought of for women which caused the indifference on the part of women toward them. However that may be, when in the sixties women applied for admission in Zurich-the first one was a foreigner-no question was raised; she entered and took her degree. Ten years later, when so many, chiefly Russians, came with insufficient preparation, a new law was passed regulating the admission of "students" into the university, and formally recognizing women.-Flora Bridges, in the Popular Science Monthly for February.

SCHOOL-ROOM HINTS-At a history class last winter, I found a hint on school discipline. The passage that gave me the suggestion was this: "The people are best governed where there is the least outward show of government." It seems to me if we change the word people to pupils, we have an excellent thought for the school room. A little pleasant attention shown to a rough boy, who has had little experience of kindness, and who, we might think from his outward appearance, would be incapable of regard for his teacher, has sometimes a happy effect. I had an amusing illustration of this a short time ago at the State primary school, where I was teaching. Many of the boys there are boys whose early associations have not only been almost entirely without refining influences, but have been an education in evil. A large, rough boy came into school one afternoon, evidently the embodiment of ill-nature. The exercise that day was letter-writing. He did not seem inclined to begin his work. I did not appear to notice his idleness or crossness, but called him by name and asked: "Wouldn't you like to sit at my desk by me to-day to write

your letter?" Strange as it may seem, this simple device banished for the time his ill-nature and secured a good afternoon's work. He even wished to write at recess, which at this school is an intermission of half an hour. Children in public schools too often come from homes where they suffer from too much rather than too little attention, but possibly there may occasionally be a child, like my poor State primary boy, who can be allured into doing his best by the privilege of sitting beside his teacher for a few hours and sharing her desk.— Evelyn S. Foster.

THERE is a class of women to whom the counsel in this article will be very distasteful. The career of a wife and mother has little appreciation in their eyes. It is not enough appreciated by a large share of both sexes. But the remedy for this is in the women's own hands. If they would have an honorable profession, they have only to do a quality of work that is worthy of honor. Surgery was once a branch of the barber's trade, and certainly no more honored than housework is to-day; but men have made a study of it, have given it a broad, scientific basis, invented instruments and processes to increase its efficiency, and arranged a systematic mode of learning its practice, with the result that the surgeon of to day has one of the most honorable of professions. In a similar way dressmaking-which is a trade in the hands of women—has been made a profession in the hands of one man. The ordinary dressmaker gets little respect; Mr. Worth is held in high esteem, and the difference is that he does work which compels esteem. The ordinary housewife and mother takes little pains to learn her business; she follows rule-of-thumb methods handed down from her great-grandmother, introducing no improved processes or appliances, and feeling no shame if her home is ill-managed or her children ill-trained. If women doubt that competent administration in the home would win the same esteem that is paid to the competent surgeon, or lawyer, or merchant, or college professor, they should recall the Roman matron, Cornelia, whose fame has already lasted for nearly a score of centuries. With her spirit the modern woman should say of her home, "This is my diploma"; and of her children, "These are my degrees."-From the Editor's Table in the Popular Science Monthly for March.

THE change that has taken place in the estimate in which the teacher is held is well stated in the opening sentences of a response lately made by Captain S. G. Pierce, of Rochester, N. Y. He said that "an obscure seventeenth century author, describing the manners and customs of the people of his time, outlines the duties of a tutor in a nobleman's family something affer this wise: 'He shall curl my lady's hair, brush my lord's wig, look after the sick dogs, and, by the by, he shall instruct my lord's children.' And old Roger Ascham, Queen Elizabeth's instructor, thus bewails the low estate of the teacher of his day: 'It is pity that, commonly, more care is had, yea, and that among very wise men, to find out rather a cunning man for their horse than a cunning man for their children. But God rewardeth them as it should; for He suffereth them to have tame and well-ordered horses, but wild and unfortunate children.'

"Who has not laughed over the mishaps of Ichabod Crane, the long, lank, stoop-shouldered Yankee schoolmaster of Sleepy Hollow, and has not seen, in Irving's graphic sketch, the low estimate which the people of the early years of this century put upon the teacher and his work." It is a good sign that all of this has passed away, and we have entered upon an era in which the true teacher is held in high esteem.-School Journal.