Editorial experience 7 Issued to university tion, and two years te 3. Kindergarten Certificates. Good for two years, and renewable for five year periods. Good also in the first two grades of the primary school. Inter-county validity. Based on high school and a kindergarten training school education. 4. Special Certificates. Granted in special subjects, as in California, and based on a high school education and two years special training. Good for two years, and renewable for five year periods, with inter-county validity. II. STATE CERTIFICATES. 1. Life elementary school certificates. Good for life in any elementary school in the State, but lapses if the holder ceases to engage in educational work for three years, unless extended by the State Superintendent. Requirements. Graduation from a high or normal school, three years teaching on a first grade elementary certificate, and an examination in English, Psychology, Principles and Methods of teaching, and the preparation of a thesis on one or more elementary school problems, from a list of subjects to be prepared by the State Board of Education. 2. Life high school certificates. Same validity as the above. Requirements are graduation from a college university, three years teaching on a first grade certificate, and an examination in English, Psychology, Principles and Methods of teaching, and a thesis on some secondary school problem selected from a list. 3. Supervisory Certificates-Second Grade. Good for five years for supervisory work or teaching in town, city, or county, and renewable by the State Superintendent on evidence of professional success and growth. Requirements same as for first grade elementary school certificate, with an examination in Psychology, History of Education, School Supervision, and the school system and school laws of Illinois. First Grade. Good for life for supervisory work in town, city, county, or any high school in the State, though lapsing in three years, as provided above, if the holder ceases to engage in educational work. Requirements the same as for a life high school certificate, and examination in all the subjects required above for a second grade supervisory certificate, together with such topics in sociology and comparative school systems as may be required by the State Board. The best part of this plan is the very definite provision made for demanding personal growth on the part of every teacher who expects to rise. No life certificates are to be given for remaining alive a certain definite number of months and holding one's job. Every advance in the character of a certificate means additional preparation and new tests, and the singling out of the most proficient of all to be the educational leaders and directors for the State is one of the best features of the entire plan. The adoption of this plan by Illinois would be a step twenty-five years in advance, and the one fear is that it is so good that the schoolmen and the Legislature may fail to grasp its significance. If this plan is adopted it will give Illinois the best all-around plan for the certification of teachers and supervisors to be found anywhere in the United States. The supervisory part of the scheme ought to commend itself to the legislative committee of the State Teachers' Association in our own State. The fourth bulletin deals with township organization, and is of little interest to us here. It describes the various forms of organization in use in the different States,-town, district, township, and county, -points out the greater value of the township unit for Illinois, and recommends its adoption and the discontinuance of the district form of control. The fifth bulletin will deal with institutes. These bulletins would prove interesting read to most California schoolmen, and it is probable that the Secretary of the Commission would be willing to send a limited number to California school officials who would write for them. The office of the Commission is in Springfield. A County Superintendent in Illinois reports as follows: "One of the most heart-sickening conditions yet extant in the country schools are the filthy outhouses. Nothing will do more to stunt mental growth, disease the imagination, and corrupt the heart, than this breeder of immorality-the filthy outhouse. The teachers and directors who, on account of indifference or a false sense of modesty, fail to do their duty in this regard are guilty of criminal negligence. It is a disgrace to our county that there are still in its midst ten country schools with double outhouses." And a school official high in authority in the State, commenting on this report, adds, "It is true of every county." How is it in California? OFFICIAL DEPARTMENT State Board of Education JAMES N. GILLETT, President of the Board.. J. F. MILLSPAUGH.. ..... Governor, Sacramento President State Normal School, San Jose President State Normal School, Los Angeles President State Normal School, Chico President University of California, Berkeley Theory and Practice of Education, Univ. of Cal. ..... President State Normal School, San Diego . President State Normal School, San Francisco EDWARD HAYTT, Secretary of Board... Supt. of Public Instruction, Sacramento BENJAMIN IDE WHEELER... Little Talks by the Way (Under this head Superintendent Hyatt will try to give some account of what he sees and hears and thinks in traveling about officially among the schools of California. It will be somewhat hasty and ill-digested, being jottings on the road. It will deal with personal experiences, and so may look egotistic. It will be subject to frequent change of opinion, and will seem inconsistent. It is done as a free and easy means of communication between the school people of the State and the central school office. If it provokes retort or comment, that will be printed, too, provided that it be brief and interesting.) Upon the Stanislaus Miss Florence Boggs, Superintendent of Stanislaus County, called her institute during Thanksgiving week at the high school assembly room in Modesto. Modesto is the county seat and is situated on the Southern Pacific railroad. The origin of the name is said to be this: When the road was building this town was to have had the name of a certain high promoter of railroads; but he refused and disclaimed the honor with such promptness and vigor that "Modest O!" seemed to express the situation; and Modesto it has remained to this day. The institute was divided into sections and continued for three days with vigorous and harmonious effect. Among the instructors were Professor Newcomer of the English Department at Stanford University, D. R. Jones of the San Francisco Normal School, F. F. Bunker, City Superintendent of Berkeley, and Dr. Ernest B. Hoag of Pasadena. There was a rain storm in progress during a part of the session. This is always disheartening to the wearers of gay plumage, of course; but it is good for the farmers. One of the leading figures of the institute was Thomas Downey, the long-time principal of the Modesto High School. He is a strong, thoughtful, determined man, with a singularly clear cut, forceful speech and a light of self-forgetful enthusiasm in his eye. I suspect that he is an exacting task master, that he makes the evil-doer suffer for the error of his ways, that he deals out stern justice; but his spirit will be a moving factor in that part of the State for a hundred years, I doubt not, after he is dead and turned to clay. The Biennial Convention of Superintendents was held at Tahoe early in September. The program was made to illustrate one feature of an institute-the feature of breaking into sections to give scope and opportunity for different interests, various activities-then coming together for the broad lectures and discussions of interest to all. During the Convention some remarkable discussions were held upon the County Institutes, bringing out this and other features and building up the institute in a way I have never seen or heard before. Some of the brightest minds in the State took part in these discussions. And now to the point: I have been to many institutes since then; and nearly every one has been built upon the plans brought out at the Convention-the result has been an institute of a distinctly higher type. Probably no one else has had a chance to see so widely the California institute; and I am entirely convinced that the Tahoe Convention made a deep and lasting impression upon that institution as a whole-an impression for good and for future improvement. The moral? 'Tis this. The Superintendents of this State are not at all the mere self-seeking political creations some folks would have us believe. They are open to good influences, ready and eager to adopt improved plans, capable of assimilating and using all things their leaders can bring forth. Wherefore, Sir Leader, waste not your time in repining, complain not that the times are out of joint, say not "what's the use"; go ahead and do your work-originate your good things-express your great ideas. If your work is really good, if you can express it with skill and strength, you will be heard and heeded fast enoughand followed, too, never fear. Miss Laura Marshall is the special drawing teacher of the Fresno schools. She is specially interested in color work and has lately painted some beautiful water color studies of California flowers and plants, specially adapted for children to use in school as copies. There are two portfolios of them, about a dozen sheets in each, one for little children, another for larger ones. These have been printed by the Milton Bradley Company. They seem to me very beautiful and to be just what many a teacher would be glad to get hold of. Now very likely some carping curmudgeon will say I shouldn't write such a thing as this; that it is booming an article of merchandise, and puts my motives under suspicion. To which I reply that anyone who knows anything about it knows that there is not enough money in California to buy one single line of LITTLE TALKS; and that when a thing seems to me one the teachers would like to know about, I shall not feel bound by anyone's hide-bound notions of etiquette. * * * Superintendents "Nota Bene" The law requiring 60 per cent of the County School Fund to be spent for teachers' salaries, leaving only 40 per cent for other purposes, has been in existence nearly two years. Now, how does it work? Is it a good thing or a bad job? Does it work for the solid good of the schools? Or does it hinder real progress? I am asking these questions for a purpose, and I trust they will be frequently and vigorously answered, from all sections of the State. For why, there will surely be strong efforts to repeal this law in the coming legislature. If it be a good thing, to be preserved, you must send me the ammunition to use. If it be bad, we want to know it. I went to the Washington School District, four miles south of Fresno, a short while ago. There is a rural school of four teachers and a Union high school with four teachers. The grammar school was a handsome structure painted white, standing in the middle of a three-acre lot. Adjoining it is another three-acre lot belonging to the school and covered by a magnificent grove of gum trees. In the grove is a large pavilion with stage and an amphitheatre of seats, where the school holds its exercises and where the whole country congregates for picnics and other neighborhood festivities. A little way off the school owns four acres more. Originally |