those who have failed to answer all the questions propounded to them at certain examinations. Mr. SPENCER says: “Our attention is arrested by the general fact that examiners habitually put questions of which a large proportion are utterly inappropriate. As I learn from his son, one of our judges not long since found himself unable to answer an examination paper that had been put before law students. A well-known Greek scholar, editor of a Greek play, who was appointed examiner, found that the examination paper set by his predecessor was too difficult for him. Mr. FROUDE, in his inaugural address at St. Andrews, describing a paper set by an examiner in English History, said: 'I could not myself have answered two questions out of a dozen.' And I learn from Mr. G. H. LEWES that he could not give replies to the questions on English Literature which the civil service examiners had put to his son. Joining which testimonies with kindred ones coming from professors and students on all sides, we find the really note worthy thing to be, that examiners are concerned not so much to get questions fit for students as to set questions which make manifest their own extensive learning, especially if they are young, and have reputations to make or to justify, they seize the occasion for displaying their erudition, regardless of the interests of those they examine." WHILE IN CAMBRIDGE, MASS., we visited the Kindergarten School, formerly under the charge of Miss PEABODY, and in which she is now deeply interested. We found Mrs. HORACE MANN, a very aged but sprightly lady, in charge, assisted by a young lady teacher. About a dozen children were in attendance. The number is restricted to twenty in this school-that being regarded the maximum number. The school had been in operation for a short time only the present year, which accounted for the small number present. The children were between five and seven years of age, most of them less than six years. They were evidently from the best families of Cambridge-judging by their appearance and dress. Poor people could not afford the expense attendant upon such schools. The management of the school was the exact reverse of that on which our teachers mainly pride themselves the maintenance of order. No attempt was made to keep order. There was as much freedom as in the nursery. The children chatted with each other, called to each other from opposite sides of the small room, and moved about at will. Yet there was order in all this disorder. Their play and movements were made the occasions and the means of instruction. Their little fingers were deftly weaving bright colored strips of paper in a warp of white paper, producing agreeable and even beautiful patterns, while their feet and tongues were kept in motion. The results of their play labor partially or wholly finished, were held up by each with glee for the admiration of all. Mrs. MANN told us that at certain times, however, they were required to keep still for a few moments, while some moral lesson, suited to their comprehension was impressed upon them. The exercises of the school are varied, so that no weariness of the children ensues. A genuine garden belongs to them, in which they plant seeds, tend flowers and exercise their limbs. GOING ABROAD FOR EDUCATION.-The Rev. R. G. NORTHROP, Secretary of the Board of Education, and one of our most distinguished educators, is calling attention to the matter named above, by a circular. The evil has not yet, to any great extent, affected Wisconsin, but like other fashionable follies, and like epidemic diseases, that travel from east to west, it will afflict us in time, if sanitary measures are not adopted. Mr. NORTHROP says: * "Aside from the universities, the so-called golden opportunities of continental culture have been greatly exaggerated. For our youth, American schools are better than European. To send our boys and girls away to a foreign boarding school is a great mistake-or rather one of the follies which is now having its day. * * After carefully obserying both processes and results, with large numbers educated abroad and at home, the conviction is forced upon me that the thousands of our youth schooled abroad return with an education less substantial than that afforded here; and, what is far worse, with character less matured, even if not impaired. The breadth and art, the elegance and refinement, with perhaps the assumption of foreign airs, or aping of European customs, are by no means the surest conditions of success in the practical duties and stern realities of American life. It should be remembered, too, that laws, customs, manners, and institutions educate as well as the school. Like an atmosphere this influence surrounds the child and unconsciously moulds his character. This element, healthful and invigorating in republics, is repressive in monarchies, where you witness on every hand an obsequiousness to rank, a deference to usage, an unquestioning submission to mere authority, unfriendly to the elasticity, the independence, and still more to the aspirations of the juvenile mind. * * Political freedom favors individual independence and manliness. Our youth should therefore be educated as Americans, and be well grounded in American ideas and principles. In the knowledge of men and things, in courage and aspiration, in push and energy, in solid utility, in the adaptation of means to ends, Americanism means more than Germanism or any other nationalism." * The Secretary adds more to the same point and his views are not only amply sustained, but deserving of serious attention. CORRUPTION IN SCHOOL SUPPLIES.-The following communication in the Chicago Tribane calls attention to a very possible evil, under our own new law. It by no means follows that Badgers and Hoosiers are to be seduced or victimized with equal facility, but to be forewarned is to be forearmed. We presume that every honest Wisconsin school officer, who should receive such a circular as that alluded to in the communication, would conclude that the firm sending it deserves not to receive any patronage from him. When op n bribery in the first argument used to induce trade, there is prima facie evidence, that goods offered are too poor to bear honest examination: "Indiana, overcoming her former backwardness, has of late been pushing forward to the front rank in matters educational. One of the late changes in the School law of that State deserves some attention, as it indicates the existence of an evil which the people have evidently attempted to check. In the act changing the office of School Examiner to County Superintendendent, it is provided that the latter shall not act as agent for school-books, or school-furniture, or any thing pertaining to schools. "The evil of allowing public officers to have any advantage from the contracts which they make with the public money, is too fatally apparent in our widespread and disgraceful corruption to need any comment here. The states have taken care to prevent this in the case of school officers by legislation which has in the main been effectual. But the exigencies of modern trade will find the week places in any barriers, and the fault of the Indiana legislation is, that it did not go far enough. It should by all means have prohibited all school-officers, Directors, and Trustees, from becoming interested in such contracts. Such interests are taken, and the law evaded on the point. "I know a leading manufacturer of school furniture in Cincinnati, who has recently circularized Indiana thoroughly, to say nothing of other states, offering to directors and other school officers liberal commissions on their furniture, if it can be introduced into the schools. "It does not require any consideration to see the evil effects of such a course, both on the schools and school officers; and the least on the former, for the harm is not in the getting of one kind of furniture rather than another, but in the corruption of the moral sense that must follow. The efforts of directors to use the public money to their own advantage, and this they cannot help being tempted to do, the inevitable tendency being to buy for their schools of the firm which pays them the best commission. Nor is it so much the small gain of $50 or $100 which the director may make, as it is in the training in political honesty which he will get the idea that the public money is merely a grab-bag, into which every public officer may thrust his hand, if it be only in the buying of school furniture or school books. "Some of these men have here received their first trust in public affairs, and from it will be advanced to other offices. This is their initiation. No wonder that, when they learn to make perquisites out of the neighboring funds, it should terminate in Credit Mobilier in Congress. Many of these men are as yet too honest to touch bribes, and have positively refused all offers of the kind; but human virtue cannot be relied upon to stand against persistent temptation, and the public, which has the highest possible interest in virtue, should protect the tender plant in the souls of all its incipient politicians by a legislative hedge strong enough to keep out all marauders in the shape of either book agents or stock brokers." PRINTER'S ERRORS.-Messrs. Editors, in the fourth line, page 133, April No. the word obnoxious is omitted between only and past. In the last line of second paragraph, p. 135, read education, instead of educating.-Leah Car. After the word coins, last line of "Worldly Influence," p. 189, May No. the word impress is omitted.-PEN. For "Chreimhold" present No. p. 227, under Neibelungen, read "Chreimhild."-ED. SCHOOL HOURS.-Just before going to press we learn that the Board of Education in the city of Madison have reduced the school hours from six to five per day. We think the movement is a very wise one. Five hours of faithful study and recitation are enough in hot weather. Educational Intelligence. DANE COUNTY, East District.—The annual Institute was held at Sun Prairie, commencing Monday, March 31st, and closed Friday evening, April 4th. Sixtyfive teachers enrolled, and a much larger number attended transiently. It was eminently successful, and highly interesting and instructive. No time was spent in wranglings and debates, but every session was filled up with earnest work in giving and receiving instruction. Prof. MCGREGOR, of the State Normal School at Platteville, won the attention, respect and high regard of every one attending the institute, and I shall be greatly disappointed if many schools are not materially better for the instruction given by him. On Tuesday evening, Prof. S. H. CARPENTER, of the State University, gave a most practical, interesting and able lecture upon "The Moral Element in Education." He also spent the day in the institute, and rendered valuable assistance. The Superintendent of Public Instruction, Hon. SAMUEL FALLOWS, spent the day, Wednesday, with us, to the great satisfaction of the class, and in the evening gave us one of his best lectures in his happiest manner. It is a matter of great regret that so few of the teachers from the southern part of the district were present. They lost a great help for their work, and their patrons and pupils will lose, continually, the greater efficiency they might have acquired. At the close of the institute the following resolutions were heartily and unanimously adopted: 1. Resolved, That we recognize, the agency of Teachers Institutes, a potent and effective help for teachers in their work, a means of elevating their moral and mental standard of qualifications, and fostering and building up a sense of professional pride so sadly deficient in our ranks and in the community. 2. Resolved, That we most heartily commend the wisdom of the Legislature and the Board of Regents of Normal Schools, which now furnishes such a large proportion of the teachers of the State with opportunities for Institute instruction. 3. Resolved, That we tender to Prof. McGREGOR our heartfelt thanks for the earnest, kind and able manner in which he has conducted this Institute, for the model which he has thus given us in manner, in matter, and in method of giv ing instruction; and the best assurance we can give of our appreciation of his labors among us, is the assurance of our purpose to cherish that ideal, and strive to approximate it in our work.-W. H. CHANDLER, Supt. LA CROSSE COUNTY.-Superintendent PATON writes us: "Prof. SALISBURY did his work so well and so acceptably to all in attendance, that it is their unanimous wish to secure his services again for the fall term. The results of his work here I perceive already in the increased efficiency of our teachers. Let them carp who will, at institutes, we know that ours has done us a great amount of good, and in the name of the teachers of the county, I request that this letter find a place in the JOURNAL, as a testimony of our appreciation of the stranger you sent among us, who did his work so unostentatiously and so well." MARQUETTE COUNTY.-Our Spring Institute, under the conduct of Prof. A; SALISBURY, was held last week at Oxford, with forty on the list, and was in all respects a success. Several unfavorable circumstances conspired to limit the at tendance. Most of our male teachers are otherwise employed during the summer, and Institute week found the farming portion in the very midst of their spring's work. Many female teachers had opened their summer schools, and were not permitted to close. Considering these circumstances, the Institute was as large as could be expected. I had not received notice of the change of programme in conductors, and expected Mr. GRAHAM until the arrival of Prof. SALISBURY about noon on Monday. We were naturally a little disappointed at first, but as the work went on we began to feel that disappointment was not so bad a thing after all; and at the close of the session there was an expression of universal satisfaction at the results of the week. Indeed, we did not see how it could have been bettered. Prof. S. buckled on the harness like one familiar with the work, and succeeded in keeping up an enthusiastic interest to the close. There were no drones in the Institute. All seemed willing and anxious to work. In this respect it was a model Institute. The drill and instruction given were thoroughly practical, and such as reached the immediate needs of our teachers. Those in attendance will take to their summer work an increased zeal and a higher appreciation of their duties as teachers. It is the opinion of those present, best capable of comparing and judging, that this was one of the most profitable short Institutes ever held in the county. Prof. SALISBURY has won "golden opinions" from our teachers, and many regrets were expressed that he could not remain with us another week. The people of these remote counties have reason to bless the Institute system, that brings some of the benefits of normal training to their very doors, and thus reaches the mass of teachers who most need its influence. I trust the system. will be continued, as I believe it to be the very best means that can be devised of elevating our country schools.-S. D. FORBES, Supt. RICHLAND COUNTY.-Of the institute held at Richland Center, April 24-8, Superintendent WAGGONER says: "It closed with the interest unabated. The session was 41⁄2 days and the average attendance for each of the 101 members was 4 days. Of tardiness there was very little. Prof. MCGREGOR by his reserved, though unassuming manner, his manifest zeal and ability, held the atten tion and secured the respect and best wishes of all in attendance. He will be gladly welcomed here again.” SPELLING.-The Institute at Clinton Juntion, (Rock county) among other good results brought out a good speller. Miss SUSIE A. JEFFRIES, as Prof. MCGREGOR informs us, spelled correctly the following twenty-five words and became entitled to the prize offered-the Journal of Education for one year: In the notice last month, of the list spelled by Miss SMILEY, at Monroe, the word "eyeing" is given as mis-spelled, and not as it should be spelled "eying." INSTITUTES. THE FOLLOWING INSTITUTES, short terin and normal, have been appointed: Time. Duration. .. 4 weeks.. Aug. 12 2 weeks Sept. 1 1 week... ... Conductor. A. Salisbury. A. Earthman. A. Salisbury. D. McGregor. |