tion of life tenure is said to be very commonly evaded. In Colorado only larger towns are improving under state statutes. In Oregon requirements are loose, teachers are often elected annually, and normal certificates are not required. Utah lacks uniformity; so does Washington, where the principal of a city high school says: "The greatest curse of the public school of any State is the laws pertaining to the normal schools. Most of these are conducted by little politicians, and they in one or two short years train boys and girls fresh from farm and high school into teachers licensed to teach forever. The raw, untrained, normal school graduate has more recognition before the law than would a W. D. Whitney. The country school and teacher are here, as they are everywhere, indescribable. The teacher is not paid sufficient to dress well. He is not required to know much, nor does he often pass beyond his requirements. The average district board member is sure to have some niece, about eighteen or nineteen years of age, 'who would make a right smart teacher,' or who would be able to 'learn 'em all that their paps and mams know'd.'" However, here and there, in town, city, and country, are found individuals who could not fail in their work. They are pouring their life freely and fully into their profession.

In the mid-Western States it appears that normal school graduates are not generally successful. In Illinois good men for principals are very scarce, and it is often said that superintendencies and school boards should not be political offices. In Indiana it seems that while the superintendents are often narrow, ignorant, and corrupt men, even the good ones labor under great difficulties in trying to raise the standard of an uninterested and unenthusiastic body of teach

and county certificates are enough. In Iowa, where county superintendents are the most important school officers, they depend on politics for their position. Standards are neither uniform nor rigid. In Kansas requirements are rarely uniform outside of cities, and ignorant boards stand in the way of good work. The Kansas system, on the whole, seems poor. In Michigan want of rigid and uniform requirements is the main difficulty, although state legislation is improving. Missouri lacks state require ments, and there is more criticism of normal school graduates. In Nebraska requirements are flexible, and the su perintendency is a political office. In Minnesota, as in other States where the normal school abounds, there is much theoretical work, but requirements are uniform and rigid.

The topics of this question present peculiar difficulties. Uniformity of requirements in widely different localities, and especially between city and country schools, is almost unattainable, and certainly is not found in the best countries in Europe. The ability of classes in different localities varies, and the supply of teachers is still more inconstant. The same is true of rigidity. Even German universities raise and lower professional standards according to the sup ply and demand. It must be admitted, too, that normal schools have often but crude material to deal with, and have lapsed into formal and theoretical ways in many places. These ways are now one of the worst features of education in this country. No system of certifi cation can equal professional training. But, despite this, these are the ideals toward which legislation should strive: and in this country, at least, nearly all the steps toward centralization have been marks of progress; although in France this had been so extreme that the reverse is now true. The happy mean will unite the benefits of a large comparative view and the stimulus of local

pride. Here again, as at so many points, the incompetency of local boards is the chief hindrance. Even comparison of the schools of a city like Springfield, Massachusetts, which elects its school board on a ticket at large, with those of other cities of the same class in New England tells the story. The former method secures the services of men known throughout the city; the latter, of men known in their own wards.

The inquiry about promotions brings to view perhaps the greatest diversity of opinion and practice. Adjacent schools in the same city often announce opposite principles. The most frequent promotion is from sub-mastership to mastership; less often do promotions occur from grammar to high school grades. The general opinion is that all grades of grammar teachers should have the same pay. Most teachers prefer to work in the grade to which they are accustomed, and many say that nature fits each teacher to some particular grade where she succeeds, but she would fail if advanced. Many a good primary teacher is spoiled if transferred to upper grades. The same democratic spirit that lets a superior teacher go to a large town for a small advance, rather than break the dead level of the pay scale, favors absolute equality as between grades. Often where the method of certification puts teachers whose examinations rank lowest in the low grades, they are content to remain there unless a higher certificate improves materially their tenure or pay. How different this principle from that of the German Professor Rein, who would have teachers begin with the lower primary, and go up through all grades with the same class, for the sake of the better knowledge of individuality thus secured! But very few favor the plan of encouraging special teachers to teach the same subjects in all grades. As this is a matter to which I have given some thought, I will express the opinion that the best plan is for class teachers for lower grades

to go up two or even four years with the same class; and for higher grades, that the class teacher's functions should gradually yield to those of the special teacher.

The last question of all, asking for general remarks, has evoked a vast and miscellaneous but very interesting body of suggestions, facts, and criticisms. A Maine man wants a rule forbidding teachers to do outside work for pay. A Boston man says that not one in a hundred of the male teachers in that city is a Boston boy. In Brookline (Massachusetts), Detroit, and elsewhere, education societies, mothers' clubs, and the like are organized with the distinct aim of bringing parents and teachers together, and excellent results are reported. In Brookline there is but one session a day in all schools. This gives the afternoon for rest, recreation, and successful teachers' meetings. A Connecticut principal, who had held his place for thirty years, and failed of reëlection by the school committee last June, was chosen at a special election by a large majority of the citizens. A Minnesota superintendent urges that child study is a bad influence, as it has become a fad. Many complain of the low social status. of the teacher, and in some places it is said to be impossible for teachers to find board in pleasant families. Another insists that eighth-grade pupils might just as well be two years younger. A West Virginia teacher reports that getting in debt to school officers is a good way of insuring a position on the teachers' staff, so that the debtor may be in a position to pay. And two teachers hint at dreadful evils they might detail, growing out of personal favor and patronage.

As a whole, these returns certainly give a new point of view. Some of the questions are directly intended to bring out defects rather than merits, but the names of these 1189 teachers and superintendents, many of whom are of the highest standing, offer conclusive evidence, even if the spirit of the reports

very

did not sufficiently evince the fact, that there is almost no attempt at sensationalism, gossip, or expressions of personal disaffection. The evils are very real, grave, and widespread; whether a trifle more or less so than these rough estimates make out is of small account. They stand out in gloomy contrast with the glorification of the perfections of our system commonly heard in teachers' meetings, and by many thought necessary to insure a continuation of school appropriations. The two general impressions left on my own mind from a careful reading of the reports, here so inadequately condensed, may be summarized as follows:

(1.) Nowhere has there ever been, to my knowledge, so clear and forceful a presentation of the evils of subjecting schools to political officers who are nearly lowest in the scale of political preferment. It is worst of all when not only city and state superintendents, but even normal school principals must look to politics for a continuance in office. long as this lasts appointment cannot be wisely made, tenure is not by merit, and the value to the community of every dollar of school money is greatly depreciated.

As

The moral influence of such a system is wholly bad not only upon the community, but on every part of school work and on every person connected with it. It hurts the pupils most of all. The difference between a good and a fairly good teacher, to say nothing of a bad one, is incalculable, but, like all things of the soul, inappreciable to the general public. There are schools in my city, and other cities in my State, where I should prefer two years of schooling for a child of mine to four years in another school where the public makes little or no discrimination. The reforms needed, in my judgment, are, that the power of appointment and also of removal be given into competent and responsible hands; that school boards be elected on tickets at large; that with advancement up the

grades should go increase of pay, perma nence, and dignity, but that good teachers in all grades should be paid more than poor teachers in any grade; that there be a great but gradual increase of special teaching as pupils pass up the grades; that the selection of textbooks.be placed in expert and uncorruptible hands; and finally, that the functions of formal examinations be greatly reduced.

(2.) The question is very often sug gested by these returns, whether the many graduates of normal schools are of such value to the public school system as teachers as the advocates of these schools claim. It is time this question were discussed, and nowhere is it more urgent than in Massachusetts, where four new normal schools are liable to give to existing traditions and practices a momentum they little deserve. Most of our American normal schools, not however without a good number of excep tions, have become institutions where form is exalted above substance, and often to the lasting detriment of the lat ter. If a teacher has and loves knowledge, and has a strong and quick feeling for childhood, a few simple and easily taught rules, devices, and a few dozen lessons each on the history of education and the human soul, are enough for the rank and file. It is so fatally easy to let method glide into the place of matter, to make intricate what God made plain, to make hard and formal what nature reveals at once to tact and to the native insight of childhood by judicious hints, that it is perhaps not strange that normal school work tends, as by an iron and universal law, to degenerate. Here is the source of most of the internal evils; low politics is responsible for most of those that are external. No part of our entire educational system so needs regeneration as the normal schools. The first step in the reform of these evils would be a commission of the right kind of experts, familiar with systems in other lands, to inves tigate and report. This should certainly

be done in Massachusetts before the state board appoints principals and allows courses to be shaped for the four new normal schools. It would be wasting a great opportunity not to inaugurate a new dispensation with these new institutions. I suggest that the governor appoint such a commission without delay, before it is too late. This step would be strongly opposed by most of the existing normal schools, but I be lieve it would be heartily approved by most other friends of education in the State. If such a commission were rightly selected and its report were adopted, it would mark an epoch in the history of public education in the State.

On the whole, many and crying as are these evils, and glaringly as they refute the Dr. Pangloss optimism and spreadeagleism so common in this country where teachers forgather, for one I am not discouraged, but would rather bid teachers hope. If a corresponding inquiry into the best points of our schools and teachers were made, and the results were massed

as these have been, the picture would be very bright. Somewhere in this great country, one feature here, another there, almost every reform in education has been successfully begun. Slowly from these vital points the leaven will pervade the lump. If I were to sum up all our needs into one great need, it would be that of sane and well-trained leaders. As a whole, American teachers are sheep without a shepherd, sadly lacking, but readily-often too readily accepting intellectual guidance. They are often sorely confused between conflicting authorities; a little too eager for novelties, a little too prone to say, Lo here, lo there; responding heartily to every genuine enthusiasm and interest in their work, but as yet without any settled method, philosophy, or consensus of any kind; awaiting half unconsciously some clear dispensation of pedagogic art and science. That its star is already above the horizon, and is visible to all who love and know childhood aright, I believe with all my soul.

G. Stanley Hall.

THE great religious movements of the past have a peculiar fascination for all readers of history. Like Hamlet and Faust, they have something in them to meet the demands of every mood. Nowhere else in history do we find such a curious interplay of human interests and passions. Religion and its multitudinous perversions have, like love, the power of drawing out the worst as well as the best in mankind. In the history of religious dissension, from the crusade against the strangely confused enlightenment of southern France in the thirteenth century to the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, many of the actors stand out as exponents of cardinal virtues and

vices, not unlike Don Quixote, Macbeth, or L'Avare. Religion has proved a most elastic term, and its heroes form a motley collection: St. Louis, Jerome of Prague, Waldstein, Joan of Arc, Alexander VI., Savonarola, Louvois, Servetus, Richelieu, Eneas Sylvius, Ulrich von Hutten, Madame de Maintenon, Torquemada, Henry VIII., a list where the contrasts are of too obvious a nature to require comment. History has shown that men may revolt from the established church because they come to differ from the majority upon more or less subtle matters of faith, or because they are losing money, or more rarely, indeed - because they are tired of their wives.

The financial motive has been much neglected by historians. But Luther does not hesitate to invoke it, and to arouse the German nobility by the taunt that the Romans commonly held the drunken Germans to be too "dead-stupid" to know when they were being swindled. In short, in so-called religious history we find all gradations from the sublime to the ridiculous, from the solemn tragedies of Huss and Savonarola to the effort of the French government under Louis XIV. to save Huguenot souls at a specified number of livres each. The story of Protestantism in France during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is in no way wanting in the peculiar interest attaching to great religious struggles, and Professor Baird can therefore rely upon the indulgence of the public in presenting the theme he has chosen.1

It is unfortunate, however, that our author should have deemed it best to devote over half of his first volume to the dreary period of Huguenot history intervening between the death of Henry IV. and the fall of La Rochelle.

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where could the work have been condensed better than here. The important events and issues were susceptible of being treated in half the space, with great advantage to the reader's patience.

Among the lesser trials of the Huguenots during the period of toleration was their official designation as adherents of la religion prétendu réformée, a term employed in the Edict of Nantes itself. Professor Baird, strangely enough, seems to be under a misapprehension respecting this title, since he consistently employs the English word "pretended" as an equivalent for prétendu, and lays stress upon the "insulting" character of the epithet. But prétendre cannot commonly, if ever, be rendered by "pretend." It means to assert, claim, or allege, and carries with it no suggestion of deception

1 The Huguenots and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. By HENRY M. BAIRD, Professor in the University of the City of New

or bad faith. It is not likely that Henry intended to insult his late co-religionists. The expression was a natural, almost an inevitable one to apply to a really small fraction of the French nation, who by assuming the title of "reformed " asserted a preeminence over the great mass of Christian believers.

While the Huguenots had much to suffer during the earlier years of the reign of Louis XIII., a time of compar ative quiet followed after the jealousy of Richelieu had been allayed by the fall of La Rochelle. The fortifications of the strong places assigned to the Protes tants as "a retreat in case of oppres sion contrary to his Majesty's will" had been demolished after the last unsuccessful revolt, and the Calvinists no longer retained the powers of resistance granted them by the Edict of Nantes. This state of inoffensiveness and the absorbing foreign policy of the Thirty Years' War resulted in the Protestants being left to their own devices. The period of about thirty years following the destruction of the military power of the Huguenots was probably the season of their greatest material prosperity. Deprived of their former political and military importance, they turned to manufacture and trade, forming the most intelligent and ener getic class of the French nation. Their numbers have been generally much exaggerated. It would appear that in the early part of the seventeenth century, of the fifteen million Frenchmen, a million, or somewhat more, were Huguenots. They thus constituted but a little over one fifteenth of the people, and were of course very unequally distributed throughout the provinces.

"In the membership of the Huguenot churches all ranks of society were represented. Persecution, however, had sifted out many of those who, in the initial stages of the history of the Reformation. York. In two volumes, with maps. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1895.