admitted that progress has been made when we remember that before the metric system was introduced there were at least 400 different pounds in use in Europe alone, and probably quite as large a number of units of length and of capacity. But then no systematic effort was made to connect them. We, on the other hand, have exact scales of relations for all our different units, and to properly make all the reductions which may arise is enough to distract mathematicians, to say nothing of scholars in school.

One who had never looked into the matter would be amazed at the number of inquiries made, and reports presented in Congress, in state legislatures, and in scientific bodies on this general question of weights and measures, and the metric system in particular. It is a curious fact, notwithstanding, that interest in these questions seems latterly to be rather abating than increasing. If statesmen were willing to interest themselves formerly, why cannot some be found now who would be willing to investigate the questions involved, and to urge forward this important reform. If the time is not ripe, it ought to be made ripe. A system which has been found adapted to the needs of the great European nations besides France, and to many of the South American countries, could surely be used to advantage in the United States.

MULTUM IN PARVO.

1. Change brings rest, in brain work as elsewhere.

2.

The value of a theory lies in its practicability.

3. Your school room should not become a morgue for dead ideas. 4. Skillful arrangement of your program means a saving of mental and moral force.

5. Despotism begets desperation even in the school room.

6. Real dignity is a useful characteristic, but it may get lonesome sometimes.

7. Thoroughness is the backbone of honesty, even in teaching. 8. Do you sufficiently emphasize the bright side of your work, or do you always wear the willow, play funeral dirges, and deal more largely in groans than in singing or laughter? Then, as an honest fortune teller, I can predict nothing brighter for you than failure, nothing easier than to get left in the onward march of the profession.

Y.

ONE

EDITORIAL.

NE of the most important of recent educational publications is a document of thirty-two pages with the title, "The Trustees of the John F. Slater Fund; Occasional Papers No. 3; Education of the Negroes since 1860; by J. L. M. Curry, LL. D, Secretary of the Trustees of the John F. Slater Fund."

Dr. Curry is now the best known among Southern educators; the secretary of both the Peabody and Slater Educational Funds, and one of the most inspiring and effective American public speakers in the interest of universal education. His time is largely occupied in visitations through the Southern states; and his appearance before a Legislature is almost certain to be followed by more favorable enactments and more generous appropriations in the interest of the public schools for both races and all classes. He is one of the few "Great Educators" who have brought to the consideration of school work a long experience in public life, a broad scholarship and a generous and discriminating political philosophy. He also possesses the rare literary faculty of presenting an important subject in brief space, with such discriminating selection of its salient points as leaves nothing lacking to its correct understanding. In the present pamphlet of thirty-two pages, Dr. Curry has presented the leading facts concerning the education of the negroes since 1860. No Southern man has shown such a thorough appreciation of the work wrought by Northern benevolence for the schooling of the negroes, and nobody sees more clearly the danger of complicating the schooling of this race by the well-meant efforts of the different religious sects to build up the wornout parochial school system, as an annex to their new churches for the negroes. He also brings forward the most important fact in the matter, that, while the North has given freely of money and consecrated missionary service for the freedmen, and still supports secondary, common and collegiate schools in the South for 30,000 colored children and youths, the Southern states, since 1870, have paid, from their own poverty, with small help from the colored folk, $79,000,000 for the education of the children and grand-children of their former slaves, in common schools. Although the paper closely follows the lines of historic development, yet the writer throws in an occasional suggestion that opens long vistas of thought on the whole subject of the relation of the races in our country. Like all competent inquirers, he has no question of the general value of the work already done,

and a thorough conviction of the competence of the negro people for education into good American citizenship. Altogether, it is by far the most valuable tract recently printed on this vexed question of the education of the Negro, and in its calm, Christian and patriotic spirit is a model for the discussion of a theme which seems attractive to a multitude of writers in proportion to their lack of competence to grasp its central facts or measure its dim and distant outlines.

NCIDENTALLY, this publication brings before the thoughtful reader a contemplation of the most prominent fact in the progress of popular education in Christendom, within the past thirty years. We do not forget that the period between 1865 and 1870, when the two Virginias established the common school for all children, was also notable for the new departure of popular education in England. We also remember the great progress in the same direction, especially in Italy and France, and in several of the South American republics since the close of our Civil war. But, certainly, there has never been a movement so radical and so fraught with untold advantages to a people hitherto only known as barbarians or slaves, as the organization of the American common schools, during this generation, in all its departments, in every state hitherto connected with slavery, including the emancipated race, and the wonderful persistence of all these commonwealths, despite the hindrance from prejudice, poverty, the exasperations of civil war, and too often the lack of national appreciation in this good work. A table, furnished by the National Bureau of Education, covering the sixteen years from 1876 to 1892, quoted in this pamphlet, is wonderfully suggestive. During these years of recovery from a calamity that might well discourage all effort, the common school enrollment of the South has risen from 1,827,139 white and 571,506 colored pupils, schooled at an expense of $11,231,073. in 1876-77, to 3,607,549 white and 1,354,316 colored scholars, with an expenditure of $27,691,448 in 1891-92. The total amount expended in the twenty-four years since 1870 for the common school by the Southern states, reaches the enormous sum of $300,000,000, beside a large outlay in rebuilding the academical and collegiate institutions of the old time, with the establishment of many new agencies and institutions for the higher education, representing an endowment of several millions; among which may be named, as specially important, Johns Hopkins, in Baltimore; the Washington University, in St. Louis; Vanderbilt, in Nashville; and Tulane, with its annex, the Sophia Newcomb College for women, in New Orleans. A change so radical and complete, so resolutely entered upon and persisted in, mainly with remarkable wisdom and courage, with such remarkable results in one generation, certainly entitles the people of

these sixteen states to the post of honor in the record of achievement in the field of popular education in all civilized lands. Here is the most potent element of hope and confidence for the favorable outcome of our Southern Commonwealths in their conflict with the peculiar dangers and difficulties of their exceptional situation. In itself, the history of the establishment and steady growth of the people's school in these states, under these circumstances, during the past thirty years, is an unanswerable argument in behalf of republican society and government.

N the line of the suggestion seconded in a recent editorial in this

conditions of the Boston schools. Trained physicians have for a month past visited every school daily, inspecting the scholars, selecting any doubtful cases for further and more careful examination, and quarantining any who may be centers of infection. For instance, one child was found who merely felt a little ill, but showed no sign of serious indisposition to an ordinary observer. The trained specialist however, detected some obscure signs of diptheria, took a "culture" from the child's throat and found multitudes of bacteria. The child was at once removed from the school and undoubtedly a serious epidemic was averted. One such case is enough to justify all the expense of the experiment and we understand that there have already been a number of such cases. Along with this most praiseworthy movement in the schools a thorough examination is being made, under the auspices of the cattle commissioners, of all the cows in the state, with a view to stamping out that dreaded and fearfully prevalent disease, tuberculosis. The "tuberculin" test, pronounced practically infallible by scientific men, is being systematically applied under state authority, and many cows which have been furnishing milk for home and market are being killed as seriously infected with tuberculosis.

What is being done in Massachusetts in these two lines of experimentation will be of immense value as object-lessons, and when the full statistics shall have been gathered, we believe one of the greatest, movements of modern times will have been inaugurated for the preservation and prolongation of human life.

THE REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF TEN.

THE MATHEMATICAL CONFERENCE.

PRES. H. H. SEERLEY, CEDAR FALLS, IOWA.

There have been sundry attempts, recently made, to ridicule the conference report regarding mathematical study in secondary schools. Several prominent, thoughtful superintendents have appeared in print, in leading educational journals, treating this conference report as if its makers were either ill advised and ignorant, or thoughtless and indif ferent of what good schools are now actually doing.

It might be well to remember at the outset, that this report was not prepared for the sole benefit of large cities and towns, such as these writers represent, but for the benefit of multitudes of schools which have very little professional supervision, and which do not claim to be leading the world in progressive methods of educational thought. College men know that their students are more likely to come from the country districts, than from the thriving, prosperous cities and lively business centers, and these destructive critics ought to take this into consideration in discussing the report, and treat its recommendations honestly on its merits. Even if it is granted that the large cities are up to the standard required by this conference, and that they are under the direction of presumably well-qualified and practical, common-sense superintendents, needing no such instruction as this report presents, yet it must be conceded that there are multitudes of public school children remaining, who are taught by teachers whose only guide is the text-book; and certainly it cannot be denied, that the majority of the most used text-books contain much work and instruction of the very kind condemned so strongly by the conference.

No sensible person can deny, that the so-called commercial arithmetic, that has assumed so much prominence in works on practical arithmetic and in the teaching of the schools, has really been barren of the expected results, and the time and strength given to it might have been more profitably expended on other lines. The emphasis put upon a sort of book-keeping, and upon sundry applications of percentage, assumed to be in accordance with business methods, has really developed a sort of work and study that possesses no similarity to actual business used in the counting houses of the country, and has not developed the accountants or the mental power needed. The great popularity of the commercial or business schools, and the seeming demand for the supposed practical, has induced the secondary school