use in protecting your children against all these and more. You cannot shift the responsibility upon any board of education or anyone else. It belongs to you.

Again, do you choose your teacher by his recommendations? That's another broken reed. Ninety-nine recommendations out of every hundred, are without value and mean no more than the blowing of the wind. The poorest teacher usually carries the biggest bundle of recommendations. She needs them! How does she get them? Oh well, in a hundred ways. Her school board gives her one, as a salve to their consciences for "letting her out"-the minister gives her one, of course, and her family doctor gives her one, and the president of the bank wouldn't refuse, and most any of the county officers would write up a good one in a beautiful hand on a gorgeous county letter-head-even her principal and her superintendent when squarely faced, will write up a little something. They think, "Oh well, maybe she'll do better-she's going away, anyhow."

Now, all this would make quite a formidable bundle wouldn't it? Yet it would mean precious little !

Now you may ask, "How about your own recommendations ?" Are they insincere or meaningless? I answer with emphasis that they never mean any more than is plainly expressed. Every day in the office I am asked for recommendations of persons and things. Seventy-five per cent of them I decline altogether, always with the probability of learning that I am no gentleman and an unaccommodating chump besides. A few I can really and conscientiously recommend; in this case no one will be under any uncertainty as to what it means. I can make it warm enough to be easily understood, so that it will have no half-nearted ring, when I know the material to build on.

But sometimes some one says, “Won't you just write a line saying that I have a certificate, or that I taught a year in your county, or that I have a good moral character?" Now, I cannot very well refuse such a request as that if the thing is true; and I cannot very well add to the statement that my private opinion is that she is an inferior teacher, or that I think she has a bad temper, or is a little off in her upper story. I have been astonished before now to be held responsible for a weak teacher in a district because I had said she was of good moral character and held a legal certificate, and would do the best work she could. If we pay any attention to recommendations at all, we certainly should read them; and weigh them, too. What chance has this person had to know whereof he speaks? Is he one whose opinion of a teacher would have any value? Had he some interested reason for writing? What does he say?—and, still more important, what does he leave unsaid? If you read between the lines of a school man's recommendation you will learn more than from the words that are set down.

Or do you perhaps make your choice of a teacher in this way? To give no heed to the matter at all until late in the season and then open all the applications and make choice by tossing up coppers among half a dozen absolute strangers? Well, that is a very unsafe and unbusiness-like proceeding. Perhaps good teachers have sometimes been secured that way. But is it not reasonable to suppose that your applicants are likely to be mostly of the inferior class? Is it not sure to contain the ones that have no experience, the ones who have failed elsewhere, the ones who have some reason for not wishing to present their claims in person? It seems to me a weak and careless thing anyhow, for trustees to depend on those who happen along seeking a place. A merchant would never choose a man to handle his money in that way. A bank would be afraid to select an employee in that manner. Not one of us would pick up in that way a confidential helper who was to be trusted with our property, our family, our home. No, indeed! For such a one we would look long and carefully-we would inquire and write letters about him and investigate with anxious care his habits, his previous life, his antecedents, even. We should not grudge the time and money spent in finding out all there was to know about him before making the final arrangement. But what trusted manager can equal in importance the teacher who enters the inmost life of all our chil

dren, who is the pattern and model upon which many of them shape themselves? If we had a dangerous case of illness we would seek and inquire for the best physician, not carelessly take some stranger who happened along. If our fortune, or our liberty were threatened, would we be content to take a lawyer from those who happened to ask us for the job? We wouldn't even choose a man to train a horse in such a careless way! Perhaps, now, there may be those who would say, "Well, now, you know so much about it, how WOULD you choose a teacher ?"

And there you would have me at a disadvantage-you know more about it than I do after all-for I never in all my life have been a trustee-I don't know what I would do if I were a trustee. But it seems to me I would try to do something like this. In the first place, I would keep the present teacher as long as possible, unless he is a very bad one indeed. An average teacher who is honest and means well will do better work by staying a number of years in one place, than will an endless procession of better teachers changing every year. We suffer a tremendous loss of energy by frequent change of teachers. It takes a teacher a year or two or three to really become acquainted with a school, to learn the little peculiarities of different families, the modes of thought of various pupils, in order to do her best, her most effective work. Some schools become mere practice grounds for raw teachers to rub off their worst errors on, before getting a place in the city. Some schools have an uncontrollable mania for sending off as far as possible for a teacher each year-to San Francisco for one who was unable to secure a place there, or back East, for one who had broken down under the strain there, or to Oregon, for one who was threatened with lung trouble there. Of course, in so enlightened a county as this, we never see changes made for such things as religious views, boarding place, failure of pupils to "pass "—that belongs to the dark ages. No matter how hard we try, however, vacancies will occur; and I should prepare for the inevitable by posting myself about all the teachers in the country within reach. I should occasionally visit the school of a teacher from whom good reports had come. I should talk with teachers and other trustees, and with the county superintendent about the various teachers of the county, with a view to emergencies, so as to knew where to turn for just the right teacher. The county superintendent, by virtue of his office, is a reservoir of information concerning the teachers of his own and the surrounding counties. This fund of information is gotten together at the expense of the people, and it costs them a good deal of money. Yet the people make but little use of it. It is a rare exception for the superintendent to have any knowledge of proposed teachere, until the contracts are sent into the office; but in scores of cases he is appealed to for assistance in getting rid of incompatible or impossible teachers, who probably never would have been employed had the trustees possessed themselves of the facts beforehand.

Well, when I saw that a vacancy was coming, I should go to the teacher that my brains and common sense and inquiries and observation and inner consciousness told me would be the very best one in the country for that school. I should go to the gracious, orderly, neat, and energetic woman that I should like my boys and girls to be like the one that I knew to come of a good family and to be of good health and good humor-or I should go to the honest, manly man, in whose footsteps I should like the boys to follow as years go on-the one I knew to be of steady habits and straightforward life and of good education and skill and success in managing young folks-and to such a one I should say:

"My friend, we have been watching your course for a year or two, and we like your work. We want you to come over to our school next year, and to come with the intention of staying a number of years to help us raise up our boys and girls into good men and women, We will give you so much money, and we will give you our best support and loyalty, and do all we can to defend you against all selfish, bigoted, and unreasonable attacks. You shall be in no danger of losing your position when children, unable to go higher are not promoted, or when you insist upon the janitor doing his work, or when you change your boarding place, or when you stop short the willful career of a spoiled child. Of course, we want you to get along smoothly, and gain the confidence of the community; and we think your experience with human nature will enable you to do that-without that the school cannot reach its highest usefulness; yet we want you to do honest work, to do the things that will really be best for the children and the school; and you may always count on our sympathy and support in so doing.

D

IONYSOS and Immortality, Benjamin Ide Wheeler. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston

and New York. In this lecture given at Harvard in 1899, as "the Ingersoll lecture on the Immortality of Man," and now published in book form, President Wheeler traces the changes in Greek faith as dependent on the changes in social and civil life. In the preHomeric period the importance of tribal and family life fostered the growth of soul-worship or ancestor-worship. The relation of the living to the dead was one of propitiation, in which the living made offerings of food and blood for the purpose of conciliating departed souls, averting their wrath and persuading them to withdraw to the common cavernous abode of the dead under the earth. In the Homeric period some reaction of skepticism brought about an atrophy of the culture of the dead. The living no longer bore a direct relation to the dead. The future life was cold and scanty. The departed soul fled to the glowing "asphodel moors," and there existed as a shadow without memory, or will, or feeling, or any concern in the affairs of men, and flitted about purposeless and hopeless.

After this period of barren faith, came great change in political, social and religious life, and classic Greece was gradually evolved. From 750 to 600 B. C., there was tremendous colonial expansion; there was a marvelous development of trades, industries and general communication; there was a thronging of life to the cities, and in all a general upheaval of the old social and political ties as they had existed under the traditional aristocratic institutions. The bonds of the old tribal life were sundered and the individual emerged, responsible for his own life and welfare, and demanding freedom and justice. The rise of individualism in the social and political world was met with a corresponding rise of the personal element in religion. The old soul-worship and the later barren skepticism could not satisfy the newly-developed individual, conscious of the worth of his own personality. He craved a definite, personal, future life. The cult of Dionysos met this craving. He taught the kinship of man's soul with the divine. and that man's soul, once freed from its prison-house, the body, should join the gods in immortal divine life.

Richard le Gallienne, in a recent article in the Boston Transcript, laments the flood of rubbish that is poured out in the name of children's literature. Good! let le Gallienne mingle his tears with those of victimized children. But when the gentleman quotes A. M. Parsons of Colorado in support of the fact that the three greatest classics for children-Robinson Crusoe, Gu liver's Travels, and Pilgrim's Progress-were not written for children but for adults, and seeks to conclude from this that the proper literary food for children is all literature produced for adults, let us stop a moment; what arrant nonsense is this! By the same sort of reasoning we might conclude that because infants in arms drink milk, of which also adults are fond, that therefore children can eat all food intended for adults. By such logic, we could as easily conclude that because a cait and horse are seen moving up a hill, that the cart is pushing the horse. The true status of the matter seems to be this: the adult is an outgrowth of the child; the child as a branch of the race trunk is nearer the race than the adult; the child is more truly the race than the adult who grows out from the child, and becomes more or less the sport of the changing winds of environment. For milk, the race has a universal taste; so has the child, perhaps in a slightly varying degree, because he is an immediate branch; but some adults, being further removed, and more played upon by force of special environment, do not drink milk as a steady diet. So it is with literature-the child sucks directly from this sap that flows thru the race trunk. It is because Robinson Crusoe, Pilgrim's Progress and Gulliver are expressed in the fundamental emotions of the race that they appeal to children, and because some adults have lost their racial emotions these do not appreciate these works. In short, we must fall back on the contested definition of the best literature and the best act in general, as that which appeals most widely to the race. That which appeals only to adults bears upon the stamp of that which is the product of a local. specific, or temporary environment. Children will always welcome race literature-for example, Homer, folk stories on anything else which uses the original sap of race emotions-but they will not and cannot follow the later adult forms, preserved merely by social traditions, which many adults possess. Whatever the purpose in the minds of the authors of Crusoe, Pilgrim's Progess or the Iliad, their products nevertheless belong to the race and therefore to children. If adults choose to sup at the same dish, they are welcome, but they must remember they are the children's guests and must not develop the untruthful notion that, on the contrary the children are their guests, and that children can consequently enjoy anything that adults enjoy.

THE WHITAKER & RAY COMPANY, PUBLISHERS. Entered at the San Francisco Postoffice as second-class matter. The Official Organ of the Department of Public Instruction of the State of California.

The Spelling adopted by the National Educational Association is used in this Publication.

The report of the Educational Commission will be found in this issue. The certification of teachers, the change in reference to high schools; in fact, every part of the report is of special interest, and is worthy of the closest study.

The official bulletin No. 2 of the N. E. A. contains information about rates to Charleston. The rate is fixed at one fare for the round trip-plus the twodollar membership fee. The bulletin also contains a description of climate, resorts, etc., of South Carolina. The partial program contains several names of special interest to our readers. Earl Barnes, Margaret Schallenberger, Jas. A. Foshay, and Will S. Monroe. The notable speakers promised are: President McKinley, Booker L. Washington, Gereral Gordon, Dr. Curry, President W. R. Harper, and others. It is urged that there be a large attendance from California.

The Teachers' Annuity Association of San Francisco deserve the gratitude of all for the effort to increase the pension fund. There were so many sneers and remarks about the teachers seeking charity, that it is but just to say that this pension is not charity; it is justice, it is the laborers' hire, it is the deferred payment for service rendered. The age has long since passed, when teachers of our cities use the schools as an open door to matrimony or some profession. An election to a position in city schools is equal to a sentence for life. There are exceptions, but they are few. Again, the demands upon the slender purse of the teacher requires the expenditure each month of the entire salary received. Where then, is the provision for a restful old age? The county provides a place, but the stigma of the poor farm is over it still. Until the State takes care of its honorable and worthy servants, as well as it takes care of its idiots, insane, and criminal classes, it is necessary that large working forces like the teachers create a pension fund. The business man takes out a twenty-year endowment life insurance policy, in a big life corporation. Why should not the teacher, on the same principle, provide for an endowment by a mutual plan? It is wise. It is just. It is necessary.

EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATIONS, TEACHERS' INSTITUTES.

Western School

Superintendent Anderson of Manila, reports very satisfactory progress in the schools there.

Professor U. G. Durfee, principal of Redding High School, and Professor Ferguson, have resigned.

President Black of the San Diego State Normal School is making preparations for holding a summer session for teachers.

sons Snedden, will spend several years in study biological laboratories are equipped. It has a