The visitors pass from room to room, and inspect the work which is being done. There are no grinding machines there. The teachers are at their posts, enthusiastic, wide-awake, efficient, but not manipulators of cranks. No one has so many pupils but that she can fully understand the capabilities, and attend to the wants of each individual. She is not worried by fears that she may fail to accomplish a definite amount of 'work' within a specified time, or that a portion of her class will be unable to 'make their grade.' The results of her labor are not estimated by the figures scored at the monthly examinations, nor measured by the number of promotions made within the year; but the growth of each individual pupil, in intelligence, in gentleness of manners, in earnestness of purpose, determines how well she has performed her whole duty. The methods which she employs are, as nearly as possible, nature's own methods, likest unto those 'by which every genuine mother brings up her family, preserving the individuality of each, and weaving the whole into the golden web of household unity.'

Each child is given that kind and amount of intellectual nourishment that he can best assimilate, and that will most promote his strength. If the superintendent applies his tape-line measure, it is to test the child's own capacity for growth, and not to compare his stature with some arbitrary standard fixed for the class. The pupils progress step by step, from one plane of advancement to another, as their individual strength and fitness permit-the strong not being held back by the weak, nor yet by time tables, and the weak not being carried through on the skirts of the strong. No attempt is made to mould two pupils in the same pattern. All men may be equal, but they possess diverse gifts; and not only is this truth recognized in the school, but it is made the leading principle in the direction of the work both of teachers and of pupils.

'And what branches of study do you teach in this school?' inquired the admiring stranger.

'As to that,' answers the superintendent, 'we teach a few things, but we teach those few things well. All who graduate from the high school are able to write their own commencement exercises; they can read aloud to the family at home without stopping to spell the words; they can write good business letters, and keep their own business accounts; they know the principles underlying and controlling a free government, and when they are old enough to vote, they can read their own tickets; they have a taste for good reading, and an unquenchable desire to extend the bounds of their knowledge. Some

of them can do very much more than this, but the extent of their intellectual attainments, aside from this, is largely proportionable to the gifts with which Nature has endowed their minds.'

'Not all the pupils in this school,' continues the superintendent, 'will be teachers, or authors, or lawyers, or preachers, or politicians, or artisans; but all may, at some time, be obliged to earn their own living; and all can, and ought to be gentlemen and gentle-ladies. Some will be thinkers, but more will be doers; some will be headworkers, but more will be hand-workers. The school assumes none of those duties which belong distinctively to the family or to the church; it teaches its pupils neither a trade nor a religion; but it does assume so to strengthen and cultivate the mind and heart as to render the soul susceptible of the best and noblest influences, and the hand capable and willing to perform all that, in the providence of God, shall be required of it.""-Ohio Educational Monthly.

A Few Hours with Educational Journals.-Progress in Edu

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cation.

* * I have recently spent several hours in looking over the later numbers of these journals and comparing them with the earlier volumes. The comparison has been very interesting and suggestive. The improvement in the character of the Journals is very marked, and in no direction has this progress been greater than in the practical value of the articles. There is a clearer grasp of guiding principles and a more intelligent application of these principles to school work in the later than in the earlier volumes; and this suggests the value of these journals as a record of school progress. Nowhere else can the improvements made in school systems and in methods of teaching be more satisfactorily learned. In the earlier volumes will be found articles earnestly advocating measures and agencies now almost universally employed. The later volumes advocate improvements in these agencies and the remedying of defects.

But in no other respect is the change in these journals so marked as in the discussion of methods of instruction-and especially of primary instruction. Thirty years ago there were very few articles devoted to the teaching of little children, and these either described methods long since discarded, or they hinted at better methods in such terms as show that they were ideals and not methods actually used by the writers.

As a rule, the earlier papers on methods are general and indefinite, with few details, but here and there the reader finds a paper that opens wide windows into what is properly called a natural method of primary teaching-papers showing clear vision and practical knowledge. The more recent papers on methods abound in details, showing, on their face, that they are not mere theories, but are the delineations of actual school work. They map out the way and note the steps to be taken with the minuteness and accuracy of the practical surveyor.

All this indicates the progress actually made in elementary instruction. The better methods known to a few superior teachers thirty years ago, and later taught in normal schools and teachers' institutes, have widely worked their way into the American school, and are now skilfully used by thousands of progressive teachers. This has been the work of no one man or score of men. Hundreds of wise teachers have been solving this problem of child teaching, and, as a result, the methods of the primary school have been radically improved-not in all communities, but in many communities. The progress made in embodying sound theory in successful practice in the schools has, it is true, been slow-an illustration of the wise remark of John Stuart Mill, that "a reform even of governments and. churches is not so slow as that of schools, for there is the great preliminary difficulty of fashioning the instruments-of teaching the teachers." It is for this reason that improved methods of teaching are usually worked out by individual teachers or by a body of teachers under the instruction and oversight of a superior teacher. It is for a like reason that such improved methods are disseminated largely by what may be called the training process, and hence the importance of supervisory school officers who have a clear grasp of the principles of education and a familiar acquaintance with the best methods. The American people are slowly learning that improved methods of school instruction involve the training of the teachers, and, in the present condition of education, this devolves largely upon school superintendents, aided in the larger cities by training schools, and elsewhere by normal schools and teachers' institutes. A live man at the head of the schools in a small city, with power to carry out his plans, can work wonders in a few years, provided he knows what superior teachers have done and are doing in the most advanced schools.

Those who suppose that any method of primary instruction has been evolved and perfected within the past fifteen years, are com

mended to the pages of the educational journals. Here they will find evidence that what they supposed to be a very recent discovery is much older than the supposed discoverer-older not merely as a theory, but as a method successfully used in many schools. acquaintance with the literature of education would open the eyes of many of the ardent advocates of the "New Education" (whatever this may mean). I have often been amused to hear methods advocated as "new" or sharply criticised as "new-fangled," which, to my personal knowledge, have been successfully used in American schools for a quarter of a century. In a recent heated discussion of the spelling book question in a teachers' institute in the East, the proposed non-use of such a book in elementary grades was both advocated and opposed as a "Quincy idea." I think, Mr. Editor, that it would not be difficult for you to name a score of cities in whose schools no spelling book has been used, especially in the lower grades for over twenty years, to say nothing of the practice in German schools.

As many of your readers are aware, the past eight years of my life have been devoted to the practical solution of the difficult problem of higher industrial education; and so arduous have been my duties that I have been able to give very little attention to the pro gress of elementary education. I now turn to the educational journals and to school reports to learn what improvements have been made since my last visits to some of the most advanced public schools in the country. The first thing that strikes me is the frequency with which the term, "The New Education" meets me, and I am trying to find out what is meant by it. I have been familiar with the term as first used by Dr. Eliot, now President of Harvard, to designate a higher education in which the physical sciences have a large place and the modern languages take the place of Latin and Greek; I have also heard the term applied to industrial education, both elementary and advanced; but this use of the term to designate a method of primary instruction is novel and to me confusing. It is true that Dr. Eliot's higher education, based on the sciences and modern languages, and technical or industrial education, and the natural methods of primary education, are all correlated parts of one system of education? If there be such a system, it seems proper to designate it "The New Education," but the application of this term to a method or system of primary education strikes me as akin to the applying of the title "Professor" to an elementary teacher with a year's certificate or license. The term is too big for the thing it covers. What is

the explanation of this tendency to apply big names to small things, and new names to old things?

What is meant by "new" as applied to this primary method? Thirty years ago drawing and music were systematically taught in all the grades of the Cleveland schools, and the "word-method" as an initial process in teaching reading had superseded the a-b-c or letter method, and twenty-five years ago the word-method, or the phonic-method and the letter-method were united in scores of schools as a practical method of teaching the child the art of reading. More than twenty-five years ago technical grammar was put up at least three years in the Cleveland course of study, and more practical instruction in language was begun. Over twenty years ago the writer gave a systematic course of language lessons in teachers' institutes. Are these and other like improved methods of primary instruction, used in the best schools for twenty years or more, included in “The New Education?" Cannot the educational journals help perplexed teachers to determine what is new in "The New Education?"

By the way, have you read Miss Patridge's "Notes" of Col. Parker's "Talks on Teaching?" I recently read the little book with some care, though not in a critical mood, my special purpose being to learn what is characteristic of the so-called "Quincy Method." I was specially pleased with the eight talks on the teaching of reading and spelling, though they contain little that is new or that can be characteristic of the Quincy schools. The methods sketched are rational and natural, and, what is important, have been successfully used by hundreds of wise and skillful teachers. It seems to me important to keep in mind when reading these talks that the principles and methods advocated by Col. Parker relate to elementary instruction, and not to secondary or advanced. He clearly has in mind the primary pupil, and not the pupil in the grammar school, or in the high school. The talks on "School Government," "Moral Training," and several other topics, are less satisfactory. The book contains some statements that need qualification, but those who have tried it know how difficult it is to condense an hour's talk into a few terse paragraphs and not omit explanatory and qualifying sentences. Moreover, the making of too broad generalizations may be a weakness of the Colonel. Positive men are quite apt to be sweeping in their statements. But I feel more disposed to applaud than to condemn any one who uses a free lance in his efforts to drive stupid routine and dull rote-work from the primary schools of the country. The reformer often feels that he has a new light which he dare not hide under a bushel. Let us be thank