the elements of power and strength and health all lie in the human organism, and can be developed by hygienic methods. It is in this way the best teachers look at the matter. They say the school is a community, and can be managed on the method of a community. This is undoubtedly the key to the science of school government.

The attempt has not been to lay down one plan, but to show the principles. A school composed of rude, rough, bad boys, will need very different handling from one where politeness, culture and selfrespect prevail. To offer a cheap prize to a class of boys who are furnished with a dollar or more of spending money each day, would only provoke contempt, yet they are more susceptible to emulation than those to whom the prize might be most welcome. — N. Y. School Journal.

WHAT TO TEACH Boys. — A philosopher has said that true education for boys is to " teach them what they ought to know when they become men.

What is it they ought to know, then? First: To be true, to be genuine. No education is worth anything that does not include this. A man had better not know how to read — he had better never learn a letter in the alphabet, and be true and genuine in intention and in action, rather than being learned in all sciences and in all languages, to be at the same time false in heart and counterfeit in life. Above all things, teach the boys that truth is more than riches, more than culture, more than earthly power or position. Second: To be pure in thought, language and life — pure in mind and

in body. An impure man, young or old, poisoning the society where he moves with smutty stories and impure examples, is a moral ulcer, a plague-spot, a leper who ought to be treated as were the lepers of old who were banished from society, and compelled to cry" unclean " as a warning to save others from pestilence. Third: To be unselfish; to care for the feelings and comforts of others; to be polite; to be generous, noble and inanly. This will include a genuine reverence for the aged and things sacred. Fourth: To be self-reliant and selfhelpful, even from early childhood; to be industrious always, and self supporting at the earliest proper age. Teach them that all honest work is honorable, and that an idle, useless life of dependence on others is disgraceful. When a boy has learned these four things, when he has made these ideas a part of being -- however young may be, however rich or however poor, he has learned some of the

he

most important things he ought to know when he becomes a man. With these four properly mastered, it will be easy to find all the rest.

AN EDUCATIONAL COLUMN is an interesting feature of a county newspaper. It is within the power of teachers, by the proper and diligent use of such a column, greatly to assist each other, to excite a generous rivalry among the schools, and to secure an intelligent acknowledgment of the true relation between the home and school. Comparisons of work, reports of failure or success of plans, improved methods of management, and difficulties and encouragements, reported in such a medium of communication, would be found a great source of improvement. The unregarded toil and perplexities of the schoolroom receive too little consideration as well in the ordinary news. paper as in the home. The occasional publication of a school composition will prove interesting matter for such a column. Publishers and editors will find the increased interest taken in their papers on this new departure to be amply remunerative for any pains it may cost them. Let the schools, then, have a column, and send a copy gratis to each teacher who will contribute to it. Let the schools be known, let the teachers be helped, and a demand for more helpful literature on teaching created. — Southern Ed. Monthly.

а

a

SELF-CONTROL. - The grand moral is self-control in everything. To pass through a notion store with a full purse and not buy a pretty knickknack because conscious of needing the money later, to leave a charming assembly early because of duties next day, to close a fascinating book, or cease a much-loved occupation, in order to be fresh for work in the morning, to keep back an angry reply to a provocation, require as much self-control and should have it, as to refuse a glass of sherry when cold, or a mug of ale when tired and warm. To be provident, , to be careful for next day's work, to control self at the present for sake of the future, is rather the aim of civilization than to attempt to the impossible role of living without stimulants of some kind. We are to fit children for honest, self-supporting citizens, and to accomplish this we are not to preach to them of total abstinence in any one direction, but to practice them in self-control in everything, selfreliance and self-government under all circumstances; and there our duty ends.

POSTED. - A certain superintendent printed, quarterly, in the paper, a list of the teachers in his county, in the order of their standing, placing those who held a life diploma first, then those with the educational diplomas next, in the order of their precentages; and so on down to those who had just been able to get a third-rate county certificate. This list he also posted up in his office, and it acted as an excellent stiumlus to those with low-grade certificates; and trustees who came to enquire about teachers, would nearly always prefer those who stood highest on the list. Opposite the teachers' names, in the proper columns, were their experience in teaching; their age; the wages they were getting per month exclusive of board; the district in which they taught; when they would be unemployed; and when their certificate would expire.

CHARLES LAMB said that a laugh was worth a thousand groans in any state of the market. Hume said "he would rather possess a cheerful disposition than with a gloomy mind to be the master of an estate of £10,000 a year." Cheerful teachers make cheerful scholars, and both not only do more and better work, but do it with less friction and less strain to physical or mental powers. Cheerfulness in a school-room is worth more than costly furniture and liberal appointments. A grumbling, whining, fault-finding teacher, forever complaining of the natural disposition of youth, is out of place in a room which should be filled with the sunshine of cheerful faces and happy hearts. — La. Journal of Ed.

A CHILD's knowledge must of necessity be of the concrete and not of the abstract. Words are signs, symbols of ideas, in the mind of a child, only when they have been associated with visible objects and their qualities. But after the earlier stage has been passed, children must be taught to use their own powers, and use them vigorously. The attempt to make education a mere past-time is an absurdity that should be scoffed at as idle and visionary. There never has been any thorough education, nor can there ever be, without hard workers. The powers of the mind as well as those of the body, acquire strength and vigor only by use. And the highest function of a teacher is to instruct the pupils how to use their powers aright, by a wise and healthful exercise.

а

OFFICIAL DEPARTMENT.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.

PRINCIPALLY ABOUT DISTRICTS.

Q. If a newly formed district neglects or refuses to meet and organize, what is to be done - put the territory back where it was?

A. First, another meeting is to be called, under the provisions of section 419. It is not merely the privilege, but the duty of the electors to organize.

Q. (1) A new district being formed and organized this month (September), is the clerk to report the children to the town clerk ?

A. There is no report to be made until the close of the school year. The reports sent in this month are for the year ending August 31 last; at that time your district had no existence.

Q. (2) Do we draw school money this year?

A. If the district from which you have been set off maintained school five or more months, the past school year, then, in apportioning school money next year, the town clerk will give to your new district an amount proportionate to the number of children set into it from the old district. Sec. 558, p. 115.

Q. If a proposed tax is to be voted upon at a special meeting, can a vote be taken on any other amount than that specified in the notice, under section 427?

A. A larger amount could not properly be voted, as that would go beyond what was proposed to be done in the notice; there would be no reasonable objection to voting a less amount, if thought best. If found insufficient, there could be more voted at another meeting.

Q. Can a school district join with a religious society to erect a building to be used by both, at different times, as a school-house?

A. It cannot. The most it can do is to have its school-house with separate entrance, under the same roof with some other tenement; and this is seldom advisable (Code, pp. 28, 29). It must be sole owner of its school-house, if it has one.

Q. Can a tax be collected that is voted by a school district for "incidental purposes " merely?

A. It was held by the Supreme Court that to vote such a tax was a good exercise of the power given to districts to raise money for repairs, fuel and apparatus (25 Wis., 468, 26, 485). It should be with

a

a

a

the understanding, however, that the tax was for such purposes as have been mentioned, and it would be much better in all cases to vote, record, and return such taxes under the proper specific heads.

Q. In case a district holds a meeting to re-organize the district, by the election of officers, how should it proceed ?

A. As it would in a first meeting and first election, under section 431.

Q. After a new district is set off, and its share of value of property raised and paid over, on the award of the town board, some money comes into the hands of the treasurer of the old district as delinquent taxes collected. Is the new district entitled to a share?

A. In equity, perhaps, it is, but unless the old district is willing to hand over a share, it is doubtful if any action to recover it would be successful.

Q. If the district neglects to vote payment to the clerk, can he demand and recover payment for his services?

A. He cannot; it is optional with the district to pass the vote or not.

Q. Are married women, under 20, who do not and probably will not attend school any more, to be enumerated as school children of the district ?

A. All persons, married or unmarried, under 20 and legally resident in the district, are to be enumerated, and to count in drawing money.

Q. If the resolution to change the time of annual meeting to August is not placed on file for more than a year, and it is then filed, will it then be legal to hold the meeting in August?

A. The vote takes effect, as soon as it is filed. The delay changes nothing. As soon as the filing is done it becomes unlawful for the district to hold its annual meeting at any time except on the last Monday in August.

THE BOARD.

Q. Can the board use money raised for another purpose, and left on hand, to buy apparatus without a vote of the district ?

A. The board has no power, under the existing law, to buy apparatus, without the previous action of the district. The district may vote a tax for apparatus, or, if money raised for some other purpose is not all needed, that may be appropriated.

Q. The clerk signed a certificate of adoption of certain books, in the school house; the director signed by the road side; the treasurer