-JOHN AMOS COMENIUS, his life and educational works, by S. S. Laurie, Reading-Circle edition, with portraits and a new biography with fifteen photographic reproductions from earlier editions of his works, (C. W. Bardeen, Syracuse, N. Y.; 272 pp.; $1.00), has already gained acceptance as by far the best account of the great Moravian educator which has yet appeared. It is a work of original research, based upon an extended study of the works of Comenius. The introduction of twenty-four pages gives a very brief account of the renascence which is scholarly and satisfactory to the critical student, but perhaps a little too condensed for the general reader who does not bring to it a good knowledge of history. This is followed by about fifty pages of biography, exceedingly well told and full of interest. The main portion of the book, however, is given to a detailed account of the educational theories, publications and plans of organization of Comenius. This is exceedingly satisfactory. The work of selecting, condensing and reorganizing matter so varied and prolix as the original has been one of great difficulty. Prof. Laurie has not hesitated to show the fanciful and even fantastic side of the writings of Comenius, but has properly made it his aim to exhibit more fully that body of sound doctrine and wise organization which is still valuable to us, and which gives to Comenius the foremost place among early educational reformers. The book is thus not merely full of matter of historic interest but rich in wisdom for practical guidance in education. The brief critical review and estimate at the close of the treatise is an admirable example of sound and judicious educational criticism. The matter added in the appendix of this edition is of much interest in the illustration of the text and makes it much more desirable than the English editions.

The

-PATHFINDER IN AMERICAN HISTORY, for the use of teachers, normal schools, and more mature pupils in grammar grades, by Wilbur F. Gordy and Willis I. Twitchell, (Boston: Lee and Shepard;Part I., 102 pp.; Part II., 261 pp.; $1.20.) contains a great variety of suggestions and helps for the teacher of American history. The book is in two parts. The first deals more particularly with the earlier stages of the work. It discusses such topics as the value of the story, the use of pictures, the grouping of topics, supplementary reading, patriotic poems, anniversaries, etc.; and especially enforces and illustrates the way in which history may be connected with other lines of school work, as the reading class, geography, language work, and so on. grouping of history topics is worked out in considerable detail, and quite full lists of literature of the subject, with publishers' names and prices, are appended. The second part opens with hints for conducting the recitations in history, and passes on to a detailed analysis of groups of topics, with references for outside readings, suggestive notes often of considerable extent, special topics, etc. Further bibliographical helps are furnished at the close, including valuable works of fiction and noted patriotic poems related to the field. A short list of books to buy first will be appreciated by a good many teachers. What has been said indicates clearly the value of this book as a guide and help to teachers. Those who are ambitious to escape out of routine methods and to keep abreast of the times in their work will recognize it as indispensable to them.

-DON QUIXOTE: John Ormsby's translation, abridged and edited for the use of schools, by Mabel F. Wheaton, is the latest addition to Ginn & Co.'s Classics for Children Series, (272 pp.; 60c.). The abridgment seems to have been very successfully accomplished, and all the brighter and more amusing and suggestive portions of the original so put together as to give the reader no sense of break or loss. It is a delightful book for young readers, full of simple humor and pathos which they can appreciate. Mr. Lowell has

called this romance "a human book in the fullest sense of the word; a kindly book, whether we take that adjective in its original meaning of natural, or in its present acceptation. I can think of no book so thoroughly goodnatured and good-humored."

* *

*

-EPITOME Of the World's HISTORY, Part II,-Modern. By Edgar Sanderson, revised with new matter by John Hardiman, (Boston School Supply Co.: 458 pp.), has very much to recommend it as a school manual. The narrative is fluent and interesting, and shows breadth of view in

grasping the significance of events and skill in the selection of incidents. The condensation of a manual is not a bare and barren enumeration. Modern history is conveniently organized by treating each century by itself. Besides the narrative of political events we have, with each century, an account of its great leaders in literature, art and science. The book is characterized by great impartiality, shown in the treatment of such subjects as the protestant reformation in the 16th century, the age of Louis XIV, in the 17th, and the Irish question in the 19th. Hardly any attention on the other hand, is given to the great labor and socialistic movement of the present time, although the treatment of recent events is fuller than in any other general manual with which we are familiar. The editor has added a chapter in which a summary of the history of both Americas is given in fifty pages, and a sketch of modern geographical discovery and colonization in twenty pages, and both very excellent. book is somewhat scantily equipped with maps and tabulations.

The

-A HISTORY OF THE SCHOOLS OF SYRACUSE, from its early settlement to January, 1893, by Edward Smith (C. W. Bardeen, Syracuse, N. Y.; 347 pp.; $3.00) possesses in some ways more than local interest. Such narratives are naturally made up in considerable part of sketches of the various teachers, the erection of school buildings, and local happenings which have an immediate interest to those who are in some way related to the persons or places. But a sketch of the school history of a city whose first school house was built in 1804 contains necessarily many interesting evidences of the general progress of education in this country, Thus, in 1851, as we read, "all children using pen and ink were required to purchase sets of copies provided by the Board, and teachers were forbidden to set copies. This was regarded by some of the pupils and patrons as an arbitrary enactment. Teachers, however, considered it a great relief, for it was not an easy task for one to make from 50 to 100 pens from goose quills, some of which were not of the best, and to write the same number of copies between the close of school and the time of commencing the next morning session. It must be remembered this was before the steel pen had come into use."' The book is beautifully printed and illustrated with portraits and views of school buildings.

-THE RIVERSIDE PRIMER AND READER, (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.; 208 pp. ; 25c.) marks in its very title the direction in which we are moving. Stated in general this is to turn instrumental studies to use as quickly as possible and rely upon use for further progress in them. Reading is an instrumental study. One book may give sufficient training in it so that the learner may rely upon use of his skill in reading literary, historical, scientific books, for his further progress in the art of reading. Here, then, is the one school reader which is really necessary. From this let the learner

go on to read literature. It contains one hundred and twenty-nine lessons, and fifteen simple selections. The lessons aim directly, by numerous ingenious devices, to give the little learner the power of interpreting written into spoken language, in such a way that he shall always think for himself and form no bad habits-those bad school habits of drawling, mechanical utterance, of artificial inflections, of false emphasis-all those unnatural tricks which stupid teaching first cultivates and then prides itself on eradicating. From the first he is to read as he talks; he is to think what he reads; he is to do what his book tells him to do. The book is one of much interest to all who are interested in the improvement of elementary teaching.

-THE FIRM OF HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY, PUBLISHERS, is the title of a very beau tiful forty-seven page pamphlet, illustrated by a dozen engravings, which gives an interesting account of the origin and growth of this great publishing firm, and of the various departments of their establishment. It gives a suggestive account of the publisher's agency in giving currency to a book, an agency but little appreciated by the general reader, who is hardly able to recognize the fact which they affirm and abundantly establish, that "many books printed are never really published." Some of the very best literature of this country owes its wide popularity to the sagacity and enterprise of this great firm.

-THE FAMOUS ALLEGORIES, selections and extracts for reading and study, by James Baldwin, (Silver, Burdett & Co.; 304 pp.), is the second volume of a series of Select English Classics which the publishers have in preparation. The introduction discusses the origin of myth and of allegory in an entertaining way which weaves into the account some of the most distinguished short allegories of the Hebrews, the Greeks and the Middle Ages. The book opens with some account of The Vision of Piers Plowman. From this beginning we go on by means of accounts and extracts through the Romaunt of the Rose, Chaucer's Allegories, those of Dunbar, Hawes, Douglas, Fletcher, and others to the Fairie Queen and Pilgrim's Progress, the greatest allegories of the language. No abridgment can do these justice, and the reader of these will feel that the attempt to present them in such form was perhaps a mistake. The later examples are simpler-Addison's Vision of Mirza, Parnell's Paradise of Fools, Thomson's Castle of Indolence, Johnson's Journey of a Day, Collins' the Passions and Aikin's Hill of Science. A few famous fables told in verse by Spenser, Cowley, Swift, Gay, Burns, and Cowper complete the volume, which has variety indeed, but only the languid interest which always attaches to allegorical literature.

-SUGGESTIONS FOR INSTRUCTION IN COLOR, for public schools, by Louis Prang, Mary D. Hicks, and John S. Clark. (The Prang Educational Company; 187 pp.) interests at once by its presentation of a new theory of color by one who has given much study to the subject. The old theories were discredited by the discovery that the primary colors for pigments are not the same as for prismatic spectrums, and that the prism itself differs under different circumstances. Mr. Prang has therefore prepared a color scale from pigments, consisting of six leading colors and six intermediates, which gives a simple and easily understood arrange. ment and nomenclature. These are fully explained in the volume, which has been arranged into lessons for elementary teaching by the experienced teachers associated with him in the preparation of the work. We commend it to the attention of teachers.

-Descriptive Geography TAUGHT BY Means of Map DRAWING. Teachers' Edition, by Eva Wilkins (C. W. Bardeen, Syracuse, N. Y.; 129 pp.; $1.50) announces itself as "a text book for the use of teachers' examinations, Regents' examinations and entrance examinations given in Normal Schools." The scheme of map drawing is the Apgar system with its approximate outlines drawn from a base line, etc., and the book consists mainly of lists of mountains, rivers, cities, capes, etc., to be memorized and represented in the map. It gives one a wearying sense of the machine in education to look this book over and think of it as adjusted to the purposes for which it announces itself.

-ELEMENTS OF ARITHMETIC, for primary and intermediate classes in public and private schools, by William J. Milne, (American Book Co.; 240 pp.; 30c.) may be said to combine successfully oral and written work for beginners, and to conduct them systematically through common and decimal fractions and denominate numbers. To this is added a brief chapter of five pages on simple interest. The book is characterized by its practical aims and by the large number of examples which it presents.

-THE NATURAL METHOD OF WRITING MUSIC, by Levi Onser, (Eastern Publishing Co.; 68 pp.; 50c.) sets forth the plans of a new system of notation which the author claims is based upon "the physical relationship of the musical intervals, which are immutable and never change." Besides an account of the notation, which it is claimed greatly abbreviates the work of learning to read music the pamphlet contains seventeen popular songs written in the new notation.

STUDENTS' EXPENSES, by Frank Bolles, Secretary of Harvard University (published by the University; 45 pp.) is a valuable study, based upon some sixty letters by recent graduates of Harvard detailing their expenses. The letters

are published in full, and seem to show that $500 per year will comfortably and easily meet a student's necessary expenditures.

-ENGLISH KINGS IN A NUTSHELL, an aid to the memory, by Gail Hamilton, (American Book Co.; 81 pp.; 60c.) was composed, the author tells us, to help a little girl in learning about the rulers of England. It is a sort of rhymed chronicle, which devotes from two to a dozen lines to each sovereign, truer to fact than to meter, but sometimes remarkably happy as in this couplet on Queen Mary: "Then his sisters-poor Mary! ill-nurtured, ill-mated, Learned, stupid, sincere, and right heartily hated." The illustrations are excellent. A page is given to each King, containing besides his likeness suggestive devices and pictures relating to the events and conditions of his reign. The little book is handsomely bound in red and black cloth with gilt ornament and title.

-Recent additions to D. C. Heath & Co.'s Modern Language Series are UN CAS DE CONSCIENCE, par Paul Gervais, edited with notes, vocabulary, and appendix by R. P. Horsley, (84 pp. ; 25c.); UNE Aventure du Celebre PIERROT, par Alfred Assolant, edited, also with notes, vocabulary and appendix, by R. E. Pain, (96 pp.; 25c.); and LES ENFANTS PATRIOTES, par G. Brunn, similarly edited by W. S. Lyon, (94 pp.; 25c.).

-FORTY FRIDAY AFTERNOONS, by Seymour Eaton and Florence A. Blanchard, (New England Publishing Co., Boston; 51 pages; paper; 25c.) contains provision for schoolroom games, matches, observation lessons, recitations, imaginary travels, biographies, experiments, debates, puzzles, search questions, etc., in fact a complete outfit of pleasant and profitable exercises for public afternoons.

-In their English Classic Series, Effingham, Maynard & Co. issue STOries of CroESUS, CYRUS AND BABYLON, taken from Prof. Alfred J. Church's "Stories from Herodotus," which are adaptations keeping pretty close to the original. They are edited for schools with maps, a few foot-notes, and a pronouncing vocabulary, (94 pp.; 24c.).

LITERARY ITEMS.

-The Oswego State Normal School is discussed historically in an illustrated article in the May Popular Science Monthly. Japanese Home Life, The Inadequacy of Natural Selection, Growth of our Knowledge of the Deep Sea, etc., are other titles.

-Education for April is noteworthy for an interesting article (with portrait), on James G. Blaine, by Ex-Gov. Long, of Massachusetts. The really valuable series on The Scottish School of Rhetoric is in this number devoted to Blair. The English Lake Country and The Evolution of the American Dollar indicate the wide range which this publication has entered upon in its topics.

-The suit for libel brought by Dr. Isaac K. Funk against the N. Y. Evening Post for calling him a "thief" and "pirate" because he reproduced the Encyclopedia Brittanica, protected only by a foreign copyright, resulted in favor of the Post. This appears to justify legally the application of these terms to those who reproduce foreign publications without authorization from their owners.

A

-The May Scribner's is an Exposition number, with a new design on the cover, an increased number of pages, and a wealth of beautiful illustrations really surprising. dozen full page drawings and a production in color of Robert Ihmri's pastel, "A Japanese Girl." There are stories by Bret Harte, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, G. W. Cable, Sarah Orne Jewett, and others, and poems by Aldrich, Stevenson, and Closam. The drawings have been contributed by the artists, each selecting his own subject, as their most representative work. It is a remarkable number.

-The Atlantic for May recognizes the Exposition in "The Columbian Exposition and American Civilization," by Henry Van Brunt, and "Tis Sixty Years Since in Chicago," by Justice Caton, of Illinois. "European Peasants as Immigrants," by Prof. Shaler; "The English Question;" "Hawthorne in North Adams;" "The Japanese Smile;"' "'Individuality in Birds," are other titles.

the offer will be seen to be a very liberal one. The JOURNAL will be especially useful to the circle, as it will give space to their work in every number, after the circles begin. A little effort by members can do a great deal to make this offer known, and secure new subscribers on this basis. The JOURNAL was never so useful to teachers as it is now, and letters on hand indicate that many readers appreciate this. Help us then to extend the field of its influence.

ENGLISH IN THE SCHOOLS.

English study in the schools is at present undergoing a searching examination. Three years ago the Boston Herald offered college scholarships as a prize for the best two compositions offered by pupils graduating from preparatory schools, and published an account of the results. This was like a peal of thunder from a clear sky. The incapacity for writing correct English displayed in these papers was colossal. Teachers seem not to have realized the defect; colleges if they knew of it kept the secret to themselves; it remained for newspaper enterprise to develop the fact. This year the reports of the examiners for Harvard University are again compelling attention to the weakness. The papers submitted by candidates are thoroughly discreditable. In penmanship and spelling they are full of errors, and in correct and intelligible sentence-making they are woefully deficient. Boys ready for College translate Latin and Greek into a barbarous jargon, which is oftentimes not even intelligible. What is the reason for this? Cornell has taken up the same line of complaint, and proposes to insist that those who enter her classes shall at least be able to use English correctly and clearly. The same subject has been receiving attention at hands of the faculty of the University of Chicago.

In the last number of the Harvard Graduate's Magazine is a symposium on this subject, containing brief articles from the head masters of six preparatory schools in Massachusetts. They all lay the chief blame for the evil at the doors of the colleges. Other causes for it are considered, such as the insecure tenure of the teachers in the preparatory schools, the irregular and conflicting courses of study prevalent in them, the immaturity of pupils and their lack of home training, but they all agree that the failure to insist upon excellence in English as a condition for admission to college is the chief cause of the evil. The remedy seems to be therefore the setting up of a proper standard and rigid administration upon it.

The

recommendation of the Harvard committee that "the student who presents himself for admission to college, and who cannot write the English language with facility and correctness should be sent back to the preparatory school to remain there until he can so write it," appears to meet approval, notwithstanding the effort of one or two of the writers to decry the value of examinations as tests of knowledge. We allow ourselves to quote some sentences from one of these articles which seem to us very suggestive: "As to reading to themselves, there is singularly little of it done, outside of school books, by boys either under or over ten. Few could tell more of Washington than that he was 'the Father of his country,' and 'couldn't tell a lie.' So also of Biblical characters who used to be familiar to children. Once I asked a large class of boys seventeen years old or more, one of whom had asked the meaning of Exodus, what the book of Exodus was about. None could tell, until one lad exclaimed: 'Isn't that the book where Adam and Eve are fired out of Paradise?' As it is, I often have brought to me for admission boys ten years of age who cannot read simple English fluently, have not the faintest idea of grammar, and know only the first four processes of Arithmetic, frequently not so much." S.

WASTE BY THE DRILL.

Drill is of prime importance in elementary teaching, but it hardly admits of question that the unintelligent use of it is the chief source of waste in school work. In reading, for example, children are kept for seven or eight years to a daily exercise which gives a surprisingly small result. At the close they are unable to get out of a book what there is in it. One great difficulty with high school pupils is that they cannot read. To pronounce the sentences which they meet they are competent, but they fail in grasping clearly the content of a paragraph or a chapter. They do not see the parts in their relation to the whole. This is the result of a senseless drill, which concentrates effort on the vocal rendering of sentences, instead of exacting mastery of organic wholes of thought. The remedy seems to be just as early and fully as possible to recognize reading as a means for getting the content of books. Hence there is reason in the move to crowd out reading books after two years of schooling, and to bring in literature, history and science in their place. Spelling is another field of aimless dreary drills. Even in institutes the wooden spelling exercise, with its "how many had only one mis

take? only two?" etc., still holds its place. It creates a measure of infantile interest by affording occupation for the hands and promoting a petty rivalry-primary school stimuli. The truth is that spelling ought to be learned before entering a grammar grade, so that regular work in it should be imposed in higher grades only as a reproof and help for the few incompetents. It is tested in every written exercise, and the student who knows how to spell common words, and will not write one which he does not know without first looking it up, needs no further drill. School work therefore should aim sharply and persistently at these two results. Penmanship-what a dreary waste! Copy books in which the copy serves only as a starter; and the one exercise per day with these is assumed to more than counterwork the mischief of slap-dash in three or four others-spelling, language, arithmetic,

etc.

In arithmetic too, indispensable as drill is, what a waster of time it is! Slothful drills; drills with ill-written, sprawling, ill-arranged work; drills that promote inaccuracy; drills with weak, round-about processes and the use of the chalk instead of the mind;-all these may be witnessed, as if to show how mischievous and wasteful it is possible to make a valuable form.

The consideration of all this serves but to emphasize the familiar truth that no school exercise is of value which has not a well defined purpose, skillfully adjusted to the need of the pupils, and directly and completely secured by the recitation.

S.

PROFESSIONAL COURSES AT THE NORMALS.

This sentence from the last report of the State Superintendent (p. 67) may well challenge attention: "The features chiefly to be deplored (i. e., in the Normal Schools) are misdirected effort of the students, in the excessive devotion to practice work, study of methods, theory and art of teaching, science and philosophy of education, history of education, and pedagogic psychology, which consume the time and energy of the student and prevent the attainment of real scholarship." The professional instruction of the schools is here criticised as in large measure a waste of energy, and the ideal of scholarship in rivalry of the University held up as their more appropriate aim. This is a radical departure from our traditions. It seems to take from the Normal Schools their distinctive purpose and affirm that their proper work is that of higher scholastic training. The sentence following the one we have quoted partially corrects this inference: "It is the opinion of the superin

tendent that the most impressive work in methods that the pupils receive is the good teaching to which they are subjected; that the best teachers among the graduates will reproduce both in their manner and in their methods the strong teachers in the faculty and not the critics and supervisors of practice. It is this conviction which prompts him to urge an abridgement of the so called professional work and to recommend a more liberal course and superior teachers." We have said "partially corrects" because the professional end is retained, but as incidental to the scholastic one. In this, as it seems to us, the whole theory of normal training is involved. What characterizes this theory is that it seeks to substitute science and reason in school work for mere imitation. These schools arose because something more far-reaching and progressive than mere imitation was felt to be needed. Principles must be found and applied, the spirit of the teachers must be quickened and directed by acquaintance with the history of educational theories and practices, and systematic and rational criticism must be introduced to secure advancement. We must make teaching a profession, it was said, not merely an art or a trade. That is impossible, was the reply: the teacher is born, not made, said some objectors; you cannot teach to teach, as it is not a matter of rules but of imitation, said others. This paragraph seems, therefore, like an abandonment of the normal position and a return to the old lines. Does experience justify such a move? That is an important question, which ought not to be answered affirmatively until after full investigation. Meantime, that young teachers begin by imitating their strongest leaders proves little. Do they stop there? Is the professional training unproductive of rational growth?

In attempting to answer this question we scan the enumeration of subjects, and find but one which seems likely to beget formalism and irrationality. This is called methods. We can see how in others time may be wasted by verbiage, and dreary advice which makes much of commonplaces and trifles. Fortunately this is soon forgotten, but the loss of time may be serious. In methods and practice work there is a real danger. is a real danger. Unless ably managed they tend to woodenness. The value of practice work has been challenged by competent critics, and deserves thorough examination. That too much time may be given to it seems to us very evident, and equally so that it tends to the magnifying of trifles. If this work and that in methods is to be really valuable it ought to be in the hands of the ablest and ripest teach