nurture. or rely on the inspirations of your nature without the sturdy, laborious co-operation of your If they are not cast before swine with a prodigal recklessness, they will be likely to become scattered to the dogs through a foolish improvidence. Hard study is a drudgery which the brilliant, lazy kind find it convenient to shirk, conscious that no training could give what they possess. But the more of that divine, unteachable gift there is within them, the greater should be the sweat of labor to put it in iron harness for noble use. Much thought, money, and muscle have mechanisms put into the problem of making the direct rush of steam drive machinery as water does, so converting its lightning speed into substantial force. But the fleet thing wants momentum; it has no weight of dead matter to give power over resisting substances, and men must be content to go back to the old way, put an iron jacket on the subtle element, to compress the throbs of its fiery heart, and give them efficiency in the world of use. Any stray comet in the heavens might have taught them the futility of the now abandoned attempt; plunging headlong into the sun, thousands of miles in a minute, it has not the force to brush one glittering dew-drop from the invisible gossamer on which great Jupiter has threaded his satellites. Genius, Inspiration, Intuition, splendid, luminous, swift things that they are, they cannot dispense with the solid, drudging muscle, the bone and sinew of work-day common sense. Meteoric they may be, as gases lying around loose, but as stars in the firmament of life, or engines of human progress, they must submit to the law of mechanical equivalents-so much combustion for so much light, so much outgo of force for so much income of result. The most successful men of genius are just the men of clear, patient, diligent, plain common sense, who not disdain to labor for their laurels as for their bread, who plant their feet firmly on this earth while their heads seem lost among the stars. One of the one-eyed who play king to the blind, argues that Shakespeare could not have written the plays that bear his name, because he was content to live in Stratford, lend money, and buy and sell with his neighbors! Let this critic open his eyes and he will see that only a man level to all human interests and human sympathies, could have produced those wonderful works, which seem to every man, of whatever condition and trade, the work of a fellow-craftsman. un The variety that supposes common labors, and humble relations with men, are worthy of great natures, makes daily shipwreck of very respectable talents that start out for the sublime Teneriffe of genius, and get lost in the fogs of isolation. It is true you see only here and there a commanding peak among the mountains of earth, but look at their basis and you will find they touch knees with all the brotherhood of little hills, and have only become vast by the more strenuous upheaval of the same substratum of primeval granite that upholds the cotter's garden-patch. A perfect work of art like the Venus de Medici, seems as eternal hitherto as it promises to be hereafter. And yet every line and contour is the product of careful, unwearying toil, where the hand wrought as laboriously as the wall-builder's breaking stone by the roadside. Observing the perfect poise of a gigantic steam engine, silent and polished in its own quiet nook, yet driving a thousand clamoring, clattering, buzzing machines, for a hundred noisy industries, you are apt to lose the sense of its power in the exquisite repose of its action. The mind that produced it impressed the unthinking in the same way. The long, hard labor of brain and hand, with the tossings of sleepless nights, and the clang of a hundred anvils, are things we are liable to forget as we look into the clear, gray eye, that has tracked one of the greatest powers of nature, from Watt's rattling tea-kettle to Corliss's last steam giant feeding a city with a river. Nothing but a broad foundation in the common elements of our humanity, can give poise and permanence to the exceptional natures that tower above us. Let a man beware of his genius, and keep well set on his two feet. Reason and common sense move on by the normal processes of mental locomotion, thought, and industry; and then if the wings of inspiration come to his help over unbridged chasms, they will be fresh for the service; and the lover of glory will get full as much astonishment out of beholders as if he had kept in the clouds, and had his meals passed up to him in a balloon. Milton could play the pedagogue as well as write “Paradise Lost ;" and Burns knew a plow-handle as intimately as he did the pen; and one Ben Franklin, after lassoing the lightning, could tell you how to make a good penny. But more than this, the very genius itself has wrought its master-pieces by patient, laborious attention to little details: and it is only by incessant toil that the thing done seems so easy to do. It takes longer to file and polish | ing reformers, who either forget, or do not seem to out the hammer strokes than to forge your great work at white heat; and yet every motion of that most wearying task goes to obliterate the records of hardship, till one might say, you have scarcely succeeded in doing a grand thing till you have made it seem easy enough for anybody. But the man who is tempted to do it will know, and every one able to do it will know, and the glory of such success will come from intelligent admirers. If a man have that ancient lop-eared hack, Mediocrity-"that a woman can drive!". he may be indifferent to the reins, and take a nap as he goes; but if he have harnessed that winged hypogriff shod with lightning, which we call Genius, Inspiration, Daimon, he shall have him well in hand, work and watch, and bide no fooling-or share the fate of Phaeton. N. E. Journal Education. S ON THE SPELLING REFORM. DR. J. BOOTH. IR: One would have thought that the total collapse of the phonetic reform of spelling the English language, as advocated in, and illustrated some years ago by, a newspaper called the Phonetic Nuz, would have deterred others from entering on the same barren path of unprofitable discussion. It would seem, however, that the London School Board, besides its own numerous and special duties, has imposed upon itself the somewhat arduous task of revolutionizing the English language. The objections to any such scheme are so manifold that it is not easy to state them within the compass of a short letter in your col umns. In the first place, the phonetic system would introduce into the meaning of words and sentences still greater uncertainty than exists at present. Let us attempt to phonetize, for example, the following simple sentences: "It is right that I should write about the rite of confirmation," becomes "It is rite that I should rite about the rite," etc.; or, "he told the sexton, and the sexton tolled the bell"; or, if we spell in accordance with Cockney pronunciation, the simple sentence, "He had his hat on his head," becomes "e ad is at on is ed." It would be easy to add to these examples to any extent, but there are still more vital objections to any and every scheme of spelling reform. Dr. Whewell, in his " History of the Inductive Sciences," in the chapter on Geology, admirably observes," Though our comparison might be bold, it would be just, if we were to say that the English language is a conglomerate of Latin words bound together in a Saxon cement: the fragments of the Latin being partly portions introduced directly from the parent quarry with all their sharp edges, and partly pebbles of the same material, obscured and shaped by long rolling in a Norman or some other channel." Shall these precious fragments and memorial pebbles be ground down into powder in the mill of the spell know, that words have a history of their own? Shall we mask the Roman origin of Cirencester and Towcester by spelling them Sissiter and Touster; or shall we vary the spelling from Room to Rome, as the mode of pronouncing the name of the Eternal City has changed within the last century and a half? nunciation of the word? or shall we spell the word Shall we spell obleege, because such was Pope's prooblige because such is the modern style? Shall we spell potatoes, 'taturs, in accordance with the established pronunciation of those classes for whose convenience phonetic spelling is proposed? Instances might be added without number of changes in the pronunciation of words. As words may be spelt phonetically in different ways, who is to decide authoritatively as to the proper mode? or may every man spell phonetically as seems good to him in his own eyes? Again, let us assume that the English language has become phonetized according to some new pattern. What is to become of our great libraries? Shall the industry, learning, genius, and eloquence of those whose labors for successive generations have ennobled their country and their kind, bestowing upon them "an everlasting possession"-shall those grand monuments of our civilization be reduced to mounds of waste paper, covered with the symbols of an obsolete spelling as unintelligible to our future phonetists as the spelling of Chaucer or Spenser is to those of our own day? But, for argument's sake, let us assume that some new scheme for phonetizing the English language were by law established. It would immediately be necessary to transliterate some of our principal books. What about a phonetized Bible, or-as it would be now spelt-Bibel? How would the British public receive such a Bible garnished with Mr. Lowe's thirteen new letters (not fifteen), just half as many as the present alphabet? How would people like the new form Kriste? Is Shakespeare also to be transformed, and Milton? or are they to be left in the pristine barbarism of the exploded spelling? Only think of educated men, engaged in the hurry and business of life, going to school again, and painfully learning to transliterate the language into its new and uncouth forms! Correct spelling is just as much the result of reading, as reading is of spelling. The eye is a more faithful guide than the ear. When one who reads with facility takes up a book, he never thinks of pronouncing the words as he reads. There is a silent association between the word in the page and the idea signified. Were the spelling to be materially altered, this association would be broken, and the reader would be compelled to read the phonetized English as if it were a foreign language. Is But, independently of these collateral and incidental disadvantages, there is one objection fatal to the whole scheme. It is proposed to base spelling on pronunciation. But pronunciation changes not only from age to age, but from county to county. our new phonetic spelling to be based on the pronunciation of the present day, that is to say, on that now common in the streets of London? If so, what about the natives of our remote counties? They all have their own peculiar forms of pronunciation; why should they not have their own peculiar forms of phonetic spelling? The uneducated and untraveled natives of one county can scarcely understand the spoken language of a distant county. The Som ersetshire man cannot well understand the York-the existence of works and tables in the old divisshireman, neither do the men of Kent know much ion-was established by law; valuable works were about Tim Bobbin's dialect. Are provincial newspa- published based thereon-amongst others, the Mécanpers to fashion their systems of spelling in accord-ique Céleste, the immortal work of Laplace-yet, notance with the pronunciations of their different locali- withstanding the numerous arguments in its favor, ties? How are we to deal with the Colonies? or the French themselves for several years past have with the English-speaking settlements scattered over gone back to the Sexagesimal division of the circle, the face of the globe? Is the London School Board and relegated the Centesimal to the obscure position to impose on them the peculiar system of phonetic of an example in a Trigonometry for school boys! spelling it may adopt, without giving them any voice Shall the proposed new spelling-which has not a thousandth part of the arguments in its favor that the Centesimal Division had-be partially adopted, to run the same course, and figure as an Exercise in the Examination Papers of our boys and girls in the year 1900? in the matter? In one respect, the English language is not unlike the Chinese. Place a page of a common English book before a native of any part of England, he will understand what he reads. Let him read aloud the same page to the unlettered natives of different counties, they would scarcely understand what he was saying. Still further, there can be no doubt that a duodecimal scale of notation would, in many respects, be better than our present decimal scale: for instance, 12 has many more divisors than 10; and there would be only two new symbols required to represent 10 and Though often recommended for use, it has never been adopted, the decimal notation having been too long and firmly established. II. Some years ago strenuous exertions were made to The spelling of the English language has become stereotyped, so to speak, for the last 150 years. In a volume of a common book now before me (Rapin's History of England, printed in 1720), on turning over the pages, I find but two words in which the spelling differs from that now in use, peny and republick instead of penny and republic. During the pre-introduce a decimal system of coinage into this counceding century, changes in spelling were very much greater. It is proposed to base spelling, which is fixed and stable, on pronunciation, a loose and shifting foundation. Whatever change for the future may be made in the spelling of the English language must be effected by the slow and imperceptible influence of usage of the usage which has made it what it is, and which controls and guides all living languages; as Horace truly said, Neither the Reports of Royal Commissioners, nor Acts of Parliament founded thereon, nor the regula tions of Governments, still less the action of School Boards; will have the slightest permanent effect to modify the established spelling of the English language, not even though we were to act on the suggestion of a Bishop, one of the promoters of the scheme, and "form societies who would pledge themselves, both in writing and in print, to spell phonetically, and so discard the present system." try. The florin was put into circulation, and the half-crown suppressed. The Committee of Council on Education recommended that the system should be fully treated of and explained in the school-books on arithmetic. Now, after the lapse of several years, this system of decimal coinage, with all its signal advantages, seems to be cast aside, and the half-crown, an anomaly in decimal coinage, has lately been again issued from the Mint. I mention these instances of failure in projected reforms which had much to recommend them, in order that our phonetic reformers may not be too sanguine of securing immediate and signal success. London Educational Times. THE GOLD OF THE WORLD. Tthough the amount is but roughly approximated. A Ten years ago it was estimated at about $5,950,000,- What would be the result of establishing such a To attempt to alter long-established forms or systems in literature and science is by no means a novel idea. The French mathematicians in the first French revolution agreed to alter the Sexagesimal division of the circle, and to divide it into 400 degrees; thus decimalizing the divisions of the circle. This new division, which had everything in its favor save one 46 These 660 cubic yards would be contained within a room about fifteen feet high, twenty-four feet wide and forty-eight feet long; say, a good-sized parlor or a store of moderate size. But," says some one, "gold is so very malleable that even this small bulk of it would gild almost the whole earth." But he either overestimates the malleability of gold, or, more likely, underestimates the size of the earth. It takes 1,280,000 leaves of the thinnest gold foil to make an inch in thickness or about 15,333,000 to make a foot, or 46,000,000 to a yard. A cubic yard of gold, then, could be beaten out so as to cover 46,000,000 square yards, somewhat less than 10,000 acres, for there are 4840 square yards to the acre. Then, as there are 640 square acres to the square mile, the whole 600 cubic yards of gold could be beaten out so as to cover about 10,000 square miles; that is, a tract only 100 miles square-less than the extent of Vermont, and a little more than a fifth of either New York or Pennsylvania. KINDERGARTEN TRAINING. [THE following account of the closing exercises of Miss Burritt's training school for Kindergarteners, in Philadelphia, is from the New Education, published at Milwaukee.—ED.] IT 'T was an eminently refined and intelligent audience which was gathered together in the upper school room of the Friends' building, Fifteenth and Race streets, Saturday afternoon, to listen to the commencement essays of the latest normal class of Miss Ruth R. Burritt's training school for Kindergartners. The bright, airy room, with its Quaker look of spotless primness, the sunshiny day, the motherly, earnest, thoughtful faces of the women, and the subdued manner of the few men present, made one think of that meeting of the pilgrims in the upper chamber of the House Beautiful, which Bunyan tells about. The assembly was called to order by Miss Burritt, who presided. She is the same who attracted so much attention during the Centennial, at the kindergarten attached to the Woman's Pavilion. She is a tiny bit of a woman, not young, not beautiful, but with a face so full of earnest purpose, a soul so enthusiastic, a will so indomitable, and a spirit so energetic, that one forgets in watching her that the gray is beginning to come in her hair, and the graceful outlines and fairer tints of former days have passed away. When the hum of many voices was silent, she said: of him may be truly said, that not since Jesus of Nazareth lived upon the earth, taking little children in His arms and blessing them, has one so loved, so well understood and provided for the child and its childish needs. To so educate these little ones that they may fulfil their destiny-which is to return to God and dwell with Him forever-is the aim of Froebel's kindergarten education. That we may, in our humble way, show you the means he uses to accomplish this, is our object in appearing before you at this hour." Then followed the essays, four in number: the first, entitled "The Kindergarten, the Basis of Physical Development," was by Grace E. Spiegle. Starting with that well-known fact, the restless, resistless activity of the little child, she showed clearly that the reason for this lay in the inherent nature of things, for man is at the beginning mostly physical, and his physique needs development and will have it; hence it is as natural for the child to be constantly in motion as it is for it to breathe. Froebel, she said, not only recognized this fact in common with other thinkers and educators before him, but he was the first to make this spontaneous activity a means of education as well as of pleasure, which he did in his marches, ball games, and movement plays. Louie Blatz followed, her paper treating of the "Moral and Religious Culture of Childhood." She began by a reference to our criminal records and some statistics showing that those convicted of crime were for the most part ignorant as well as vicious. But since all breakers of the moral law are not convicted, since dishonesty is found among the learned, too, and fraud and corruption are high in power in our land to-day, it would seem that education does not educate mankind out of evil, implying a fault here-a lack of moral and religious culture. This lack the new edu. cation supplies, training the child from its ear. liest years to consider and fulfil its duties both "It has frequently been asked by persons to God and man. The third essayist on the ignorant of the principles of the new educa-programme, Angelina Brooks, answered most tion,' What can there be in this system to study? Do persons need a course of training to prepare them to teach children? In every other department of life preparation for a special vocation is recognized. In nature all the organisms below man, from the smallest atom up to the connecting link,' have found able exponents in such men as Tyndall, Humboldt, Agassiz, and Darwin. Is a little child, made in the very image of God, of less importance? We think not. Thanks to a kind Providence, in the person of Frederick Froebel, the child, too, has its interpreter. For clearly and pertinently the oft-repeated query, 'Why is reading not taught in the kindergarten ?" This lady's arguments were so logical, her conclusions so reasonable, and her points so well put, that certainly not one of that audience would ever ask the question again; and if they could not answer it as well as she did, they could at least give the gist of her reply, which was: "It is not that we are doing so little, but that we are doing so much, that we decline to teach reading in the Kindergarten." The closing essay was by Lelia E. Patridge, and was upon "Woman's Work in the GRAMMAR.-10 questions, 10 credits each.-1. What is the difference between a relative pronoun and a conjunctive adverb? 2. Why are intransitive verbs not used in the passive voice? 3. When a verb has two subjects, differing in person and number, how are these subjects arranged, and with which should the verb agree? 4. Parse the italicized words in the following sentences: He felt disposed to go. He brought me some fruit. We are come too late. Would it not be better to remain? The problem seemed easy to solve. I saw him coming. 5. How can you change a complex to a single sentence? Give an example. 6. Compare humble, square, much. 7. Define case as 8. What is meant by "govthe property of a noun. ernment," and "agreement?" 9. Syllabilize convenient, pecuniary, genius, gnome, 10. Give an example of a sentence, phrase, and clause. World." The idea developed was that God having created woman as a helpmeet for man, she had always striven to become such, and had sought through the ages of history her place and work in the world. What this is, or rather, what this should be, is the perplexing problem of the present generation, which the kindergarten is destined to solve. The child is to be the bond of peace and harmony between the two sexes, and in the training of children -the men and women of the future-according to this grand system, woman finds at last her true vocation, and because those so trained shall be perfectly developed and harmonious she shall accomplish what she has long ARITHMETIC.-10 questions, 10 credits each. 2. A sought the elevation of the race. At the merchant bought 240 metres of silk at $2 per M, and close of her essay the speaker addressed a few sold it at $1.95 per yard. Did he gain, or lose, and how much? 3. How many wine gallons will a cisparting words to her classmates, and an expres-tern contain which is 92 feet long, 42 feet wide, and sion of appreciation to Miss Burritt for her 51⁄2 feet deep? 4. Sold lumber on commission of 5 wise and faithful teachings, and then, turning per cent. Invested net proceeds in dry goods at 2 to Miss Elizabeth Peabody, the celebrated per cent. commission. My whole commission was educator, through whose influence Froebel's $70. What was the value of the lumber and the dry goods? 5. A dry goods merchant sells cloth for system was first introduced into this country, $168, by which he gains 20 per cent. What must be who occupied a seat upon the platform, she the advanced price so that he can deduct 5 per cent. said: "To our venerable kindergarten and still make the same profit? 6. A broker invests mother, whose white hairs are a crown of $3000 worth of gold in Ù. S. 6's, which were worth 102 per cent. in currency. What was his annual inglory, our grateful thanks are due, and we come from the investment, gold being at 134 per cent.? are glad and proud to belong to that large And what the rate per cent? 7. What relative quanband who shall rise up and call her blessed." tities of silver 34 pure, 5-6 pure, and 9-10 pure, will Here followed a few words from Miss Pea- make a mixture % pure? Prove. 8. What is the body, explanatory of the object of the As- circumference of a circle whose diameter is fifteen sociation called "The American Froebel of land in the form of a square, than in the form of a rods? 9. How much less will it cost to fence 40 acres Union." Miss Burritt then dismissed the rectangle of which the breadth is 4 the length, the audience, and after glancing at the remarka- price per rod being $1.40. 10. Explain the required bly fine samples of kindergarten work displayed method of teaching Arithmetic in the public schools. about the room, it filed down the stairs, and is the season of the year at Cape Horn in July? 2. the Froebel commencement was over. GEOGRAPHY.-10 questions, 5 credits each. 1. What What advantages are derived from ocean currents? 3. Draw an outline map of the locality which is the field of the present war? 4. What are isothermal lines, and do they follow lines of latitude? 5. What rivers and lakes of the Pacific side of the continent have no visible outlet? 6. Name the dairy, lumber HE following were the questions prepared and mining counties of California. 7. Where is the EXAMINATION QUESTIONS. Tby the California State Board of Exami- Isle of Man? Prince George's Islands? 8. What nation, and used in all the counties at the recent quarterly examinations for teachers' certificates: ORTHOGRAPHY.—(100 credits.) 1. What are diacritical marks? Place the proper marks over the following words: Often, dessert, mercy, finale, allopathy, Colorado. (10 credits.) 2. Spell correctly the following words: Ricochet, elysian, calliope, Yukon, phrenzy, adze, idyl, criticize, peer, diaphragm, Meiggs, Guernsey, depot, precious, alias, Lynn, gorgeous, orthepy, monopolize, arch, buttress, peasant, exceed, chaos, contumacious. (50 credits.) 3. Give three ways by which derivations may be formed. (10 credits.) 4. Give two examples of primitive, two of derivative, and two of compound words. (10 credits.) 5. Give all the ways of spelling the following words: Or, (ore, o'er) seer, (sere, cere) you, (yew, ewe) site, sight, cite) fain, (feign, fane). 10. are the commercial products of the Phillipines? 9. Name ten of the principal rivers of California. Name ten of the principal mountains of California. READING.-25 credits. 1. What is meant by a folio, a quarto, and an octavo volume? Give proper abbreviation for each. 2. What are the uses of the apostrophe, hyphen, caret, and cedilla? Give examples. 3. Give analysis and method of teaching “The Hare and the Tortoise," as found in the Fourth Reader. 4. How do you know that your pupils understand what they they read? 5. Why do you hear a reading class read? ORAL READING.-25 credits. The examiners should require each candidate to read a few stanzas in poetry, a few paragraphs in prose, and mark the credits considering three things, viz.: Ease and expression, also accent and emphasis. THEORY AND PRACTICE.-5 questions, 10 credits each. 1. Name the characteristics of a good question |