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side down the hall to a vacant recitation room. She sat down at the table and Fritz took the recitation seat in front of her. She looked up at him, started to speak, but the tears gathered in her eyes, and she only smiled and shook her head.

"Don't feel bad, Miss Wilson. It was all my fault."

Miss Wilson denied the statement with another shake of her head.

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"Yes, it was," insisted Fritz. My old stubbornness came to the front and I shut up and wouldn't explain to you why I was tardy. Of course when I just said I was tardy you thought I had no reason for it."

"But I should have asked you if there was a reason and not assumed from your silence that you had none."

"You needn't blame yourself at all. I knew as soon as I got outside the building that I had acted just as I did last fall, was sullen, and wouldn't tell you that my father was taken ill after breakfast and that I had to go for the doctor."

"If you had spoken, it would have saved me a wretched half hour. It makes me very unhappy to be unjust, and I certainly was in your case."

"It wasn't anybody's fault but my own."

"It is very good of you to take the blame, but the fact still remains that I ought to be wiser than you-wise enough to see quickly that your case was not necessarily like Tom's, and so demanded different treatment."

"All I care is that you have worried about it. I came back to explain that I was not tardy just out of carelessness, and now I will go."

"No, there is no reason for your going. You will come back into the study room and go on with your work, and I am very glad that your return has given me the opportunity to right, as far as possible, my own injustice."

Together they went back to the room, and the boys and girls knew that there had been a misunderstanding and an adjustment. As for Miss Wilson, she had had one more lesson in that hardest of all truths for a teacher to learn; that no two cases that ever come up for discipline are ever identical; that in all matters of discipline, the individual must never be lost sight of; that a desire for absolute justice must govern every decision.

Fritz and the rest had had one more proof that Miss Wilson meant to be fair, and was willing to look at their side of a question; as the boys expressed it, she was "square."

Communication on Teaching Arithmetic

THE PALMER Co., 50 Bromfield St., Boston, Mass.

Gentlemen: I scan the EDUCATION every month for some of the good things that are printed therein. In the February number, I am particularly impressed with Principal Young's argument in favor of the value of arithmetic. The fact that the country is going back in instruction in arithmetic has been very forcibly impressed upon me in recent years.

There are some twelve to fifteen hundred private commercial schools in the United States. They employ from five to seven thousand teachers, and they have an annual attendance ranging from three to three hundred and fifty thousand students. I have a personal acquaintance with the majority of the owners of these schools, and with a great many of the teachers; on the other hand, I am a business man and an employer of help, consequently I speak with some knowledge as to their experiences in this connection.

Now, what are the facts? A very large majority of the three hundred thousand students who come annually to the private schools, have received their preliminary training in the public schools. Twenty-five years ago, when I began teaching, arithmetic was, in most respects, the important subject in the country and grammar schools. Five years later, when I first became connected with commercial school work, students came to us strong in their ability to handle numbers understandingly. They knew how to think, and they could perform all the caculations of the ordinary arithmetic, some of which were very complex and somewhat involved, as old-time teachers know. Their ability in this direction qualified them particularly for tackling the problems of business, because they had developed in them the very qualities brought out so nicely in Principal Young's paper.

About ten years ago there began to be a falling off in this ability of students to handle arithmetic effectively. Pretty soon, we publishers had to take note of that fact, and prepare arithmetics more elementary in their treatment of the subject; and then it became apparent that students coming from city schools were far behind students of the same age coming from the country schools, and that fact remains to-day. In fact, the commercial schools, located in the smaller towns and cities that draw largely from the country, have in every instance a class of students that are much better trained practically, and are much more competent to handle their work, than those located in the large cities.

I am simply writing you for your information, with the hope that perhaps through your journal you may assist in directing the current of thought among educators toward what seems to me to be a very important matter for their consideration.

The purpose of our public schools is to equip young people for right living and successful careers. Now, the first requisite of such a qualification is to prepare them to do the work that the world wants done. I would not condemn unreservedly that trend in our educational system which seeks to develop the ability to appreciate the beauty in nature, in art and in literature. But I have discovered that the rank and file of our citizens to succeed must first be able to secure the wherewithal to feed and clothe themselves, and to make themselves homes. Their ability to supply that which appeals to their higher natures depends first upon their ability to supply their material wants, and after that they may devote whatever opportunity they may have to the gratification of the higher requirements of their natures.

You will pardon this letter. It is really uncalled for, and of course is unsolicited, yet I shall be pleased if it may contribute, in some way, to a change in the conditions of which I have spoken.

*This interesting letter was sent to us by a well-known publisher, who prefers to have his name withheld.—ED, EDUCATION.

WITH

ITH this number of EDUCATION I bring my connection with the magazine to a close. Other interests take so much of my time as to make further editorial service impossible, at least inadvisable. My nearly six years of association with the management have afforded many pleasant and profitable hours; an active participation in important educational movements; and a sharing in plans for the improvement of college and high-school teaching, the results of which have been most encouraging. It is needless to say I break the association with regret. The particularly considerate and helpful co-operation of Mr. Palmer has been increasingly appreciated; and I bespeak for him and for the magazine the continued and growing support of thoughtful persons everywhere who are interested in the more serious problems of secondary and higher education. This is a large field, never more ready for cultivation than to-day; and EDUCATION will, I am sure, in the future as in the past, stand for what is best and sanest in school thought and practice. It shall have my continued support and confidence. RICHARD G. BOONE.

A

FULL and suggestive account of the Los Angeles meeting of the "National Education Association of the United States" (note the new name) can be found in The School Journal for July 27th. It is altogether the best account we have seen. As it is not the province of EDUCATION to be a news journal, but rather to note large educational movements, we will only chronicle here the adoption of the new name and a new charter, and the formation of a new department representing six influential women's organizations, viz.: The General Federation of Women's Clubs, the Women's Christian Temperance Union, the Daughters of the American Revolution, the National Congress of Mothers, the National Congress of Jewish Women, the Association of Collegiate Alumnæ, and the Southern Association of College Women. The special object of this new Department is the promotion of a fuller understanding and co-operation between (teachers and parents) school and home. In more detail, the Department will strive to promote the extension of opportunities for schooling, the enforcement of compulsory education laws, expert supervision, restriction of child labor, better preparation of teachers, more adequate salaries, the extension of manual training, and the teaching of civics and ethics. Superintendent Cooley of Chicago was elected president of the Association, and Cleveland was selected as the place of the next meeting.

A

LTHOUGH EDUCATION has always been, and still is, conducted

under Protestant auspices it has sought to study educational subjects in a broad and catholic spirit. Its ideal is to find the facts and interpret their meaning in the light of truth, gaining suggestion and help from all sources. When, therefore, the editor found himself providentially unable to attend the meeting of the N. E. A. at distant Los Angeles, but obliged to sojourn near to the meeting place of the Catholic N. E. A. at Milwaukee, July 9-11, he counted it a privilege to spend some time in studying the work and aims of that organization. He found much to note that was interesting and instructive.

In the first place, the magnificent and all-inclusive organization of the forces of the Catholic Church is impressive. The priesthood, the teaching orders and the charitable and ministering brotherhoods and sisterhoods touch all parts of the country and all phases of the life of the people. The whole organization is under perfect discipline, and nothing is done haphazard or on mere impulse. Such a superb organization must be largely effective. Its power is immense, its educational influence tremendous. No study of the school interests of the country can be at all comprehensive which leaves out of sight so large

a movement.

There is one thing that is especially impressive to an on-looker who has had to do with our secularized public school system, and that is the consistent way in which the Catholic schools make their instruction, first, last and always, religious. If too much sectarianism, or, if you please, bigotry, creeps in under the head of religious instruction so much the worse for the church and the schools; but, nevertheless, the ideal is right and good, and much of the Catholic instruction is not bigoted but truly religious. The spiritual faces of many of the "fathers," ," "mothers" and "sisters" are witness to the fact; and no one can visit their schools and listen to the instruction that is given about God and our supreme obligations to him as the very basis of our intellectual, moral and spiritual life, without feeling that this is the right view point to give to the children.

Just how religion may best be taught in our public schools is confessedly a difficult question. But that it has a place at the center of things and that its displacement, resulting in the complete secularization of our school system, has been our great mistake, leading to many and grievous evils, is coming to be widely recognized. Evidence of this can be found in the frequency of discussions of the subject of moral and religious teaching, and how to introduce them into the schools, in the programs of educational meetings in the past year or two; and likewise in the rise of the Religious Education Association, which has

been founded by serious and able men for the express purpose of calling public attention to this problem. The movement will not cease until we have found the right way, without narrowness or bigotry, to bring the great facts and truths of religion to bear upon the minds of the children in the susceptible, formative period covered by the years of their schooling.

A interesting discussion was participated in at one of the sessions at Milwaukee, which disclosed the fact that there are opposite wings with diversities of opinion and judgment in the American Catholic Church. The question was in regard to text-books for use in the parochial schools. An influential speaker took the ground that no textbook should be used except it were written and published under Catholic auspices. A resolution to that effect was introduced and debated. The result was the rejection of the resolution by a decisive vote. One of the speakers in opposition to the resolution took the broad ground that the thing wanted was the best books for the schools, and if a good book written by a Protestant was in competition with a poor one written by a Catholic there could be no question as to which should be chosen. But, of course, the fairness of the Protestant book on matters in controversy would be a factor in the test of its superiority.

IN

N a series of editorial paragraphs in successive numbers of this magazine we shall attempt to describe certain qualities and attainments, which in combination would make an ideal teacher. At the outset we disclaim the belief that an ideal teacher does or ever did exist. An ideal attained would cease to be an ideal. It must ever be above and beyond realization, beckoning on to effort and growth. When we cease to grow we go backward, away from the ideal, not toward it. But ideals are essential, even though unattainable. The greatest of all teachers bade his disciples to be perfect even as God is perfect. He was not in error in proposing such an impossible standard. His insight was profound, and his precept pedagogic. Any lower aim than perfection is unworthy; and the higher the aspiration the greater the attainment. Furthermore, actual perfection at a given time and in relation to specific circumstances may be possible, as when a teacher hits upon exactly the right course, and does the best thing in dealing with a given pupil in some particular emergency. So there is every encouragement to strive after the ideal, even though its complete realization may never be possible. It will be the aim of these editorial paragraphs to aid the reader in forming an intellectual ideal of what a true teacher should be.

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