Department of Elementary Science" intended to deal mainly with the practical application of science and manual training along industrial lines in the years corresponding to the tenth, eleventh and twelfth grades of school work. This three-year course is planned to serve those who cannot or do not desire to go on to college, and who are needed to go back to the farm or shop as intelligent workers, rather than superintendents and engineers.

On the coast, Tacoma has made great advancement in this line. Mr. Whitcomb, has equipped the beautiful new Tacoma High School with a department of manual arts, providing freehand and mechanical drawing rooms, domestic science laboratory, sewing room and two shops for benchwork and wood-turning. Four assistants are under his direction in teaching the three hundred boys and girls who elect this course. Two centers have been provided for the grammer grades boys and girls, the work beginning this fall.

Everett, "the city of smoke stacks", has secured G. B. Hoag of River Falls, Wis., to organize and direct the department of manual training, and Laura A. Stowell of Calumet, Mich., is in charge of the domestic science department. Superintendent Thornberg is beginning the work right by providing for the girls in cooking and sewing as well as the boys in shopwork, and in the grades as Iwell as the high school.

Snohomish, a town of 3,500 population, has made a beginning in a small but vigorous way. Superintendent Hodge, not having funds sufficient in the public treasury, secured help from the business men and began some elementary work in wood for the boys and sewing and cooking for the girls, the latter taught by Mrs. Hodge. He now plans fitting up a building formerly used as a county jail with benches, a motor and lathes for work in the high school, and expects to raise $5,000 in the town by subscriptions, the popularity of the work making such an undertaking possible.

Seattle has grown prodigously, by increase in numbers and by annexations. Four towns or districts contiguous have lately been annexed. Ballard, the largest of these, has 75 teachers, four of which are in the manual training department. To care for the high school enrollment, which now amounts to 2700 pupils, a second new high school has been provided to take care of 1000 pupils. The increase last year was accomodated in the Franklin Annex where a cooking, and a woodworking and drawing room were fitted up, and about 150 of the firstyear pupils were provided for in the manual training course. In the grammar grades there are now thirteen centers for the boys and four cooking centers for the girls. This is the first-year cooking has been taught to the eighth grade girls. The new Lincoln high school will provide for only the first two years of the manual-training course, the last two years to be given at the central building. This is done for two reasons: The cost of equipment in the last two years is much more expensive, and the classes are always very small, consequently expensive to teach. These classes can be combined and the equipment and teachers at the central building will be sufficient. It will be easier to offer special trade or industrial courses in these last two years as electives, with teachers capable, and equipment adequate for such work, and at an age in the boys' and girls education when such specialization may be safely begun if conditions require them to make the choice.

There are now thirty-four special teachers in this department. Lura Beason, formerly of the Hackley Manual Training School, Muskegon, supervises the sewing and cooking, and Clara P. Reynolds, formerly of Great Falls, Montana, and the past year successful teacher of art and design to the girls in the Seattle high school, will assist in the supervision of the manual training for the elementary grades. Miss Agnes Craig leaves the domestic art department of the high school to accept a position in the College of Industrial Arts, Denton, Texas, as head of the Department of Domestic Art, under President Cree T. Work.

A twenty per cent increase in salaries has made it possible to secure better teachers. The future is very bright for constructive educational work in the Northwest. B. W. JOHNSON.

CALIFORNIA.

There are at present twenty-seven manual training centers in the city of Los Angeles. Manual training is to be introduced into the public schools of Berkeley City this year. Venice is to have a domestic science department.

That the manual training work at Santa Barbara has taken a strong hold upon the community is evidenced by the fact that at a special bond election held recently, a new sloyd building was provided for. This will supplement the equipment of the Blake Memorial Building and will give adequate space for metalworking and domestic science as well as the special work of the normal department. In this connection, it is significant that the state board of public instruction at its meeting in December, 1906, endorsed the normal training of the Anna S. C. Blake Manual Training School and recommended the same to county superintendents, who are permitted to grant special certificates for manual training on a diploma of graduation from this school. This summer Miss Ednah A. Rich, principal of the school, taught one of the courses at the School of Education, University of Chicago and then returned home to conduct her own summer classes, which followed the meeting of the N. E. A.

From a comparatively small beginning, manual training work in the schools of Santa Anna under the direction of Albert M. Shaw has this year been extended so as to give one recitation per week to all boys in the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth years of the grammar schools. The girls of the same grades take domestic science at the same time. The work has also been introduced into the high school. A very strong public sentiment has been developed in favor of the work. Bonds have been approved to erect and equip a large new building. Supt. J. A. Cranston is deeply interested in manual training and gives every encouragement for its successful development. The outlook is most promising for a successful future.

Pamona started work in manual training two years ago. An equipment for woodworking costing about $600 has now been provided. Concerning the scope and plan of the work, the director, A. J. Pirdy, recently wrote:

"Woodwork is taught in grades five to eight inclusive. Our course of models is very similar to those of Mr. Larsson, with some changes made necessary by local conditions. All material is furnished by the Board, except where a boy wishes to make something requiring a considerable amount, when the boy is asked to furnish his own material. This is not a fixed regulation and I often

furnish the material and encourage the making of larger and more useful things for the home, but only after the boy has demonstrated his ability to do good, careful work. I find it a very wholesome incentive for a boy to have a little personal capital involved.

"As to drawings we do about as most manual training teachers-have pupils copy some drawings, make some from the model, and work directly from blue prints. We do very little drawing in the "shop", but try to have the drawing done during the drawing lesson in the grade room. In each grade, however, we have at least two models made from drawings done in the metric system. This is to encourage the use of that practical system and to corroborate the grade work. (The teaching of the metric system is here begun in the 5th grade.)"

Mr. Pirdy subjoins the following: "P. S.-I might add that only boys take woodworking; the girls, cooking and sewing."

The manual training department of the San Diego schools is beginning its twelfth year. The past year has counted for greater progress than any previous year, and this has been greatly stimulated by holding exhibitions of the work from time to time during the past two years and by placing a permanent exhibit in the rooms of the Chamber of Commerce.

The course of study includes paper, cardboard, raffia, etc., in the first five grades, supplemented by the sand table for illustrative work in history and geography. The boys of the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades are given benchwork. The girls are given sewing.

Contemplated changes in the general organization of the school system provide a room in each large building equipped for benchwork and also a room to be devoted to domestic science.

A polytechnic course will be added to the high school curriculum as soon as possible after the completion of the new building now in course of construction. The city has a well-equipped private school for the teaching of patternmaking and foundry practice. Public interest is increasing in the Manual Training School and foundations are being laid for a new demand-the evening trade school. In some quarters this is being talked of now and it is hoped that the establishment of a polytechnic high school will provide the room and teachers for a trade school.

The State Normal School at San Diego has a well-equipped shop in connection with its training school. This is to be enlarged so as to provide for the students in the normal school proper, and a special preparatory course for teachers who contemplate entering the manual training field will be added.

A movement, far reaching and radical in its significance and one that means much in the history of scientific and technical education in the west, is announced from Throop Polytechnic Institute. Throop was founded sixteen years ago and has had a wonderful growth, having at present some six hundred thirty students and comprehending five schools: elementary, commercial, academy, normal and college. The increasing demand on the Coast for well-trained men in engineering lines and the absence in the southwest of any strong college of engineering has led to the establishment of such an institution.

A new site of some 22 acres has been secured and adequate buildings are being planned. In the meantime changes have been effected such as to provide

amply for the college during the few months it is to remain in its present quarters. Electrical and mechanical engineering will receive chief attention; and some thousands of dollars are to be spent in equipment and several additional instructors are to be engaged for the coming year.

The academy, and the normal school of art, manual training, domestic science and domestic art are to be strengthened and developed. The commercial school will be merged into the academy, and the elementary school will be given a separate campus with new buildings, and will be affiliated.

Dr. Walter A. Edwards, who for ten years has been at the head of the Institute has severed his connection with the school and will identify himself with the Los Angeles High School as head of the classical department. Prof. Arthur H. Chamberlain who has been identified with Throop for several years has agreed to remain as acting president until a permanent president is installed, and Professor Benjamin F. Stacey, head of the department of history and economics is acting dean.

"The Board of Trustees", says President Chamberlain, "are a unit in declaring for college extension. We have a superb site such as shall meet the demand for years to come. The plan proposed means buildings adapted to our needs; it means an increased and strengthened faculty, and already we have forty of as well trained men and women as can be found in any institution of like character in the country; it means money, and we have assurances of increased endowment. But the thing of chief significance is the fact that the Institute is to be put upon the plane of the best engineering colleges in the country."