teach children to read in primary readers we are sacrificing their ability to read in the higher grades of reading, we would better call a halt and sacrifice the lower grades of reading in the interests of the higher. In a recent article Superintendent Greenwood says: "Is it not a fact that if children be put at first spelling words and speaking them distinctly, and that they be kept at it for a half year, they will make double the progress in their first, second and third readers? It is worth considering at any rate.'

Perhaps the craze that swept through the schools a few years ago, that taught that everything in school should be made so pleasant that the child should find nothing but one unalloyed round of pleasure in the schoolroom, is responsible for the elimination of the drudgery necessary in teaching the spelling and syllabication of words in such a thorough way as to enable the child to read with some degree of ease in a fourth reader. We are of the opinion that, if a child has not learned how to get at the pronunciation of words by the time he has finished the third reader, the chances are very much against his becoming a reader, or of his taking much pleasure in reading.-Central School Journal.

are.

THE LEMON.

WAS just thinking, said Dr. John E. Gilman yesterday, "how foolish people About an hour ago I had occasion to visit a neighboring drug store. At the soda-water counter there was a score of men, women, and children, most of them drinking decoctions containing phosphoric acid. If the public were aware of the dangers that accompany the use of phosphoric acid, it would not be in such common use. When people use phosphoric acid to excess as they are now doing at soda fountains, it tends to exhaust the entire system, producing weakness and debility, which are characterized by apathy and torpidity of the mind and body. Continued use of this acid will be productive of diarrhoea and inability to resist disease. Every draught of air will superinduce cold. Finally it will affect the bones, and then-well, the jig is up.'

"Acid phosphate, Malto, and all nerve foods."

"What would you advise the public to quench its thirst with during the heated term ?"

"Lemons, by all means. They are very healthy, and good not only for allaying the thirst but will cure a multitude of disorders. The juice of the lemon contains citric acid. Acids as a rule decrease the acid secretion of the body and increase the alkaline. Citric acid, which is the acid of lemons and oranges for instance, will diminish the secretion of the gastric juice but increase very materially the secretion of the saliva. The very thought of a lemon is sufficient to make the mouth water. Thirst in fever is not always due to a lack of water in the blood. It may be due in part to a lack of the secretion of the saliva. When the mouth is parched and dry the acid will increase the saliva. When acid is given for the relief of dyspepsia it should be taken before eating. Lemon juice drunk before meals will be found very advantageous as a preventive of heartburn."

"What do I think of lemons ?" echoed E. S. Snow, one of the largest buyers of this succulent fruit in the country. "They are one of the greatest blessings that God ever bestowed upon us."

"How many are used in the United States in a week's time ?"

"About 100,000 boxes. Each box contains from 300 to 360 lemons. New York is the distributing point. They range in prices according to condition of the temperature. Oftentimes the prices of lemons vary even more than the fluctuations of the wheat market. To day they are selling for $5 a box, which is not quite 2 cents apiece.' "How does Chicago compare with New York in the manner of consumption?"

"This is a beer drinking community, while the use of lemons in New York has become very popular, particularly with the ladies. There are, I should judge, about 5,000 boxes used a week in Chicago during hot weather, and I am glad to say, speaking for the public health, that the demand is increasing every year.'

"Where do lemons come from principally?"

66 Nearly all that are sold in the United States, Germany, Russia, France, England, and the English Colonies, are raised on the island of Sicily. The whole business of the island is confined to the raising and exportation of lemons and oranges. The Sicili ans ship to this country alone nearly five

JTY has yet occupied her true

each successive age. Music, both ancient and modern, has ministered to the religious sentiments and mingled with all worship. Poetry in its best conceptions is a continual inspiration of purity and love. Who can dwell upon the various forms of beauty in art without feeling himself somewhat purified, and lifted up from the vexing cares and trials of every-day affairs? The life that seems to breathe upon us from the canvass. and the marble speaks a different language from the feverish, excited life that whirls around us in the giddy chase of business and pleasure.

Art, however, is but an effort to reproduce the beauty which exists in such fulnessthrough all nature. The human face, in its ever varying expression; the mountain scenes and meadow lands, the heavens studded with stars, and the deep waters re

which is her due. Either she has been deified and worshiped, as by the ancient Greeks, or condemned as being antagonistic to virtue as by the Puritans, or utterly ignored and set aside in the eager pursuit of wealth or fame as is too much the case is our own hurrying, restless community. We are apt to class the beautiful with the luxuries, which are well enough in their way, for such as can afford them, but by no means necessary or even important-gratifying to the senses no doubt, and exhilarating as a means of recreation, but in no way calculated to improve the mind or ennoble the character. We hear much of the use of money, the value of education, the worth of talents, but how seldom do we hear beauty spoken of as a thing of use, value or worth! Even those who prize it the most scarcely claim for it any such position, while some would hardly admit it even to this small standing place.

Yet beauty is, in truth, not only a powerful influence, but a potent educator to the human race. It has a definite mission to fulfill in the world, it bears a special message to every human being, which, if he will receive, will tend directly not only to cheer and brighten his life, to refine his taste, and soften his disposition, but also to exalt and purify his mental and moral nature. In the

earliest pages of history we perceive art in all its forms to have been the offspring of religion. Greek architecture and sculpture were chiefly used in making temples and statues to the various deities that were the objects of worship. Painting in every age has been largely devoted to religious subjects, and has embodied the highest ideas of virtue, heroism and love that prevailed in

tiful than any picture; indeed, it is chiefly as art suggests nature, and is true to it, that we confess its beauty and yield to its charms. The most exquisite music is that which expresses most faithfully strong or tender emotions; the sweetest poem is that which is drawn up from the depths of the poet's experience. Not only external nature, but the inner life of man, contains rich realms of beauty ever fresh, living, inexhaustible: The beauty of truth, of justice, of love, of self-sacrifice, of devotion to principle, of patient endurance, of tender sympathy, will light up the plainest countenance and shed a radiance upon all who view it. Surely it is the deepest, the purest, the tenderest and the most sacred and holy things of which we know, that contain the purest essence of true beauty.

Shall we, then, despise or ignore this element, which gives the chief charm to nature, which all art is striving to perpetuate, and which is ever co-existent with purity and goodness? Shall we give it over merely to the relaxations, the luxuries, the odds and ends of life? Shall we not rather regard it as a primary necessity of our existence, something which should enter into our daily life, and sweeten our daily toil? Shall we not cultivate our own sense of it, that we may learn to recognize and appreciate it wherever it resides? If we sought beauty with half the earnestness we now seek wealth, we should be a far nobler and more exalted nation. If we devoted to it one-half the energies that we now spend on fashion and display, we should be more peaceful, more beneficent, and happier in our individual life. There are ranks and grades in.

beauty, as in all else that is desirable, and we shall best cultivate our own sense of it by choosing and dwelling upon the highest which we are capable of appreciating. Con

tinual assocation with the finest works of art, frequent interviews with the varied scenes of loveliness and grandeur in nature, mental intercourse with superior minds, both in reading and conversation, and intimate communion with virtue, truth and love, will invariably educate our sense of beauty.-Phila. Ledger.

THOMAS ARNOLD.

BY MRS. M. H. M'CARTER.

N the presence of greatness we grow rev

Ierential, in the presence of goodness, we

are humble. It is with something of this feeling of reverence and humility that I lay hold of this subject, feeling that I write of a great and good man; of a life so fine, a character so noble, that my ability to give it even a brief description seems inadequate.

Half a century ago, in the sweetness of an English June morning, in the freshness and vigor of his own life's June, the soul of Dr. Thomas Arnold was called suddenly from things it knew to things it knew not. A little, later, and under the chapel altar at Rugby all that was mortal of this man was laid to rest by loving hands. Faithful hearts mourned long for him, and throughout England many a young head bowed under the knowledge of this death as in the presence of a personal bereavement. But the laugh of the gay and the plodding on of the solemn brood of care changed not. The great waves of life roll in and out, and Dr. Thomas Arnold passes out of memory. So it seems, but of those whom we know little we sometimes say, they are forgotten. To know Dr. Arnold well is to realize that he can never be forgotten. Why? What has he done? Let me tell you. Although you and I are teachers in humble places, although our cares are many and our opportunties for advancement are few, it is yet possible to us to be sometimes with those of our profession, most intellectual, most cultured; breathing out that refined gentleness that makes the whole atmosphere round about them sweet and good. Into such a presence do we come when we stand face to face with Dr. Arnold.

Rousseau sought to revolutionize all society. Pestalozzi was an unlettered fanatic. Dr. Arnold was an English gentleman, a writer of histories, and a minister of the

gospel. To us, however, he is best known as a public-school teacher. Head-master at Rugby, the scene of his life work, he had to do with boys very much like those of our schools to-day. For nearly a score of years he carried on at Rugby a work of reformation. In the study of Arnold as a reformer we must remember that he is not a mere theorist, but one whose ideas had been made practical by experiment.

At the very outset of his career, Dr. Arnold met with many difficulties. Defective methods of instruction, wrong ideas of the utility of different branches, inefficiency of assistant teachers, the limited power accorded by custom to the head-master, tyranny and cruelty practiced by older pupils upon younger ones-these were some of the obstacles that lay in his path. Added to these, and greatest of all in the eyes of a man like Arnold, was the need of a higher standard of morals than then existed in the public schools of England, the need of a Christian education.

When Tom Brown's father started Tom for the first time to the public school he said, "If he'll only turn out a brave, helpful, truth telling Englishman, and a gentleman and a Christian, that's all I want." It was the realization of just such an ideal as this that gave reputation to Arnold's name—a reputation which was but the index to his grand character. For there was something within the man, that, as Emerson says of Chatham, was finer than anything he said. From under the teachings of this man, out of the centre at Rugby, sturdy English boys, "brave, helpful, and truth-telling," went forth:

“Like spokes of wheels to reach the rim
That binds creation all about;
Till west and east, and south and north,

We hear their whistle, or their hymn,
Around the felly of the earth."

Dr. Arnold would be a great man if we considered what he did only as an instructor. Into each subject he taught, he put that enduring spirit of earnestness that precludes all evanescent enthusiasm, and insures the last day's work to be as well done as the first. It is not possible to imitate him. His pupils never did that, but they modeled their lives after his, as after a pattern of all nobleness. Among those whom Arnold influenced most were many whose political and theological views were in direct opposition to his own. They honored him, not by believing what he did, but by holding firmly to what they believed to be right.

Passing by the many other worthy attri

butes of character that make the career of Thomas Arnold one of greatness, let us think of that one need which he saw in the English schools, and which he did much to meet the need of Christian education. To the young teacher, anxious to succeed, the school presents two problems: How shall I govern, and How shall I instruct? Years of experience tend to give confidence in regard to the first question, and to correct errors as to the second. But the great problem: how shall I help to make Christians of my pupils? does not always ask for solution in the mind of the teacher. It was the burden of Arnold's work to reach this solution. must come at last to every true teacher as after all his greatest responsibility. To teach percentage by the best methods is to do well, very well. To control the restless, mischievous spirit of childhood, to make the pupil subservient to thy will, and later to his own, this is better still. But to ponder the path of thy feet, and to lead thy pupils after thee into ways wherein, through all the coming years, they "may run and not be weary, may walk and not faint," because they have "waited upon the Lord," this is best of all.

It

No success in the struggle for promotion or emolument, no reputation as a good disciplinarian, can equal the conscience-whispers, "Well done!" to the discharge of this highest duty.

Can Arnold be forgotten, then, when we reflect that he was the foremost man in England in promoting this element of education; when through him all the public schools of the realm set a higher mark upon living Christianity, upon the home-rule of the heart? Green be the memory of this man whose life was fruitful of good works!Western School Journal.

S

"LET PROCESSIONS BE MADE!"

O wrote Columbus in his triumphant message on his return to Spain. "Let processions be made; let grand anthems be sung-and Christ rejoice on earth."

It would seem as if the prayer were prophetic. After four centuries the words come to the new world like a proclamation, and set the nation upon the march.

On October 12, thirteen million boys and girls will form processions in thousands of cities and villages throughout our Republic, and in orations and song tell the glory of their country. It is a happy thought that on so grand a scale will be carried out the

| poetic appeal so characteristic of the Genoese discoverer. Many do not know that Columbus was a poet, and a student of ancient poetry. His favorite poet was the Hebrew prophet Isaiah, and he thought that this prophet had once appeared to him in a vision and directed him to sail to the West.

His poetic mind saw what was sealed to the mathematicians of Salamanca. To the day of his death he held that it was his prophetic inspiration that led him to the Antilles. Student and traveler though he was, he wrote these remarkable words, in which he places his inward inspiration above all inaterial suggestions, and adds: "It was God who made me the messenger of the new heaven and the new earth, and who told me where to find them. Charts, maps, and mathematical knowledge had nothing to do with the case."

This poetical character appears as we find him a boy on the quays of Genoa, listening to the songs of the seamen and gazing at the stars. He says that the words "Ultima Thule" in Seneca's poetic prophecy haunted him and made his feet restless.

The same trait appears in his love of the old mariners' hymn of Genoa, now sung as "Gentle Star of the Ocean," but by him as "Salve Regina." He ordered this hymn to be chanted at eve on every night of the outward voyage. When land appeared the same poetic emotion thrilled his soul, and he sang the grand Latin Te Deum.

His report to the Castilian sovereign of the voyage of discovery reads like an epic poem. His language is stately and glowing, and his figures those of the clear poetic mind-of the " "open vision."

A writer who has recently passed over a part of the sea off the Antilles, where the Prophet Pilot penned his notes of the history of the great discovery, says: "Every adjective that he used came back to mind in all its inspired and poetic significance."

The climate was like "Andalusia in April." The tropical splendor of the Bahama Sea, tho Sargasso, the dolphins, the birds, all seemed familiar; we had seen them as it were in our "Irving's Columbus" and in the "Reports of the Discovery."

As poetic-like Samson Agonistes-is his helpless cry in the day of his degradation, poverty, and despair: "O ye who love mercy, justice, and truth, pity me!"

The spirit of Columbus is nowhere more clearly seen than in the appeal at the head of this article: "Let processions be made: let grand anthems be sung!"

One is glad to know that the Great Dis

coverer was a Poet and Prophet as well as a Pilot, and that his faith rose to the height | of his inspiration. As Goethe makes him say in the spirit of his great achievement"Trust in the God that made thee, and follow the sea that is silent."

The words of Columbus are worthy of use as a motto in the October Festivals; of all proclamations that will be issued in regard to the event, none can surpass these in grandeur of thought and dignity of language. The great appeal of 1492 will find its adequate expression in 1892.

"Let grand anthems be sung!"

"PRINCELY SUMS."

AND HOW THEY ARE MANIPULATED IN SOME SCHOOL DISTRICTS.

A

BY JAS. J. H. HAMILTON.

RECENT editorial article in the Philadelphia Press, comments at some length upon President Eliot's recent criticism of the public schools of America. The erratic President of Harvard is about as fair and just, and has about as much basis of fact for his criticisms of our public schools, as he had in his recent notorious address to the Mormons at Salt Lake City, in which he compared the "Latter Day Saints" to the Pilgrim Fathers, rather to the disparagement of the latter. As to his assertion that "the immigrants who come to our shores from abroad will be found to have a far better school training in what are denominated the common branches than the average rural population in this country," one need only to study the foreign population in our own State and compare them with the native population to see the utter untruth of such a statement. As one who has had charge of schools where the population was made up of people from nearly every European country, as one who has had under him pupils whose native lands stretched from Australia to Russia, the writer knows by experience that Dr. Eliot's assertion is not true. True, taking that class of immigrants with whom President Eliot chiefly comes in contact, and by whom, in all probability, he judges (acting upon the principle "ab uno disce omnes") that is professors, ministers and others who have had the advantage of the best education their respective countries afford—there is no doubt that they are more highly educated than the rural population of America; but is this a fair test? Compared

class with class, the comparison is in favor of America.

In a public letter to President Eliot by Dr. Albert Winship, editor of the New England Journal of Education, the latter says: "Finally as a sample test the public schools of Cambridge sent to Harvard last year twenty-five candidates, not one of whom was conditioned and the twenty five took 125 honors in their examinations; nor was that an exceptional year for the public schools of globeless (?) Cambridge. Now what private school has a better record ?"

But it is not my purpose to reply to President Eliot, nor to refute his statements. I will take it for granted that both he and Tde Press are right as to the conditions, both actual and relative, of our public schools. What I desire to do is to inquire where the responsibility for these conditions lies. The Press says: "With such princely sums given to the public schools, it is pertinent to inquire whether the money is wisely spent." Indeed it is pertinent to make the inquiry. Educators all over Pennsylvania, at least, will welcome it. The Legislature has increased the State appropriation to public schools to $5,000,000 per annum. Governor Pattison, in addressing the State Teachers' Association last July, said that it rests largely with the teachers of the State to show by the better results obtained from the schools whether the Legislature had acted wisely in making the increase. If his Excellency had had about one year's experience with many a rural school record, he would modify his views somewhat, and perhaps substitute "directors" for "teachers" in the remark just quoted. The Press, President Eliot, and nearly every one else who criticises the public schools, directs criticism against the school men, educators and teachers. The criticism is destructive, not constructive. It is a finding fault, rather than an attempt to remedy defects. Candid and friendly criticism, which is intended to improve the schools and remedy defects in them, will always be welcomed by the best educators.

LOCAL CONTROL.

One of the principles supposed to be embodied in the Pennsylvania public school system is that there shall be a maximum of local control.

While this makes the system flexible and gives it many advantages, yet in many respects it is its chief weakness; for while any district can make its schools as efficient as it pleases and raise them to as high grade