not unjust in any southern state where considerable numbers of white citizens have never enjoyed opportunities for schooling, while, by the training of long citizenship, they have obtained not only a deep interest in politics, but a fair acquaintance with the principles of constitutional government. Of course, the provision was adopted as the only practical way out of the chronic peril of a state the majority of whose voting population consists of emancipated and illiterate negroes, who, by the Massachusetts law, could not be voters. We are aware that this constitutional proviso has been denounced as a mere subterfuge for retaining the votes of the illiterate white and rejecting those of the illiterate colored people.

It cannot

be denied that a perversion of the legal intent of this arrangement, every way as scandalous as the revelations of such abuses in the great cities of New York and other states on a pretext less excusable, is possible, and might, under strong temptation, become a fact. But the leading colored men of Mississippi have taken a practical view of the matter and have just formed, in one of its leading towns, "The Loyal League of Qualified Electors." This association, composed of men whose right to the suffrage and jury service is unquestioned, petition the state to extend the term of the free schools to eight months and employ only competent teachers. They also urge the colored people to unite in the effort to prepare themselves for good citizenship by meeting the full and reasonable requirements of the constitution. This movement may easily become one of the most important in the south, and of the most far-reaching consequences. No American state will permenantly deny the full rights of American citizenship to any class of its citizens as well qualified as an increasing number of the colored people have already become, and the entire body of school children of this race can become, by a generation of the thorough administration of the common school.

IN

N this connection it is pleasant to announce the fact that no southern state today, all conditions taken into account, seems to be making greater headway in popular education than Mississippi. It has long been known that this state had the least percentage of white illiteracy of any of the southern states; probably owing to the fact that it was originally settled by the more intelligent class of planters from the Atlantic seaboard, with a large sprinkling of good northeastern emigrants, and has no great mountain or unmanageable sea coast region where the lower class of southern white people have been so largely developed. Within the past twelve years the expenditure for common schools has risen from $830,000 to nearly $1,200,000. The colored pupils in the schools have increased four-fold and the

white nearly three-fold. Last year, nearly 6,000 public schools employed 18,000 teachers; and 335,000 children out of a school population of 516,000 were in school, with an average term of four months in the year. Mississippi supports, also, a state university for white and colored pupils, both co-educational; one of the best agricultural colleges, for white boys, in the south, and was the first state to establish the Free Normal and Industrial College for white girls, already copied in Georgia and South Carolina ;— one of the best features of the new southern educational movement. It has, moreover, in Honorable J. R. Preston, a most enthusiastic and efficient state superintendent, by whose tireless energy, during the heats of a south-western summer in a sparsely populated state, a thorough system of normal institutes was organized, of four weeks for the whites and five for the colored teachers, attended by nearly 2,000 of the instructors. A preliminary normal was held at the state university, with a two weeks course of. instruction for the conductors of county institutes, under the direction of Superintendent J. H. Phillips of Birmingham, Alabama, and Dr. Joseph Baldwin, of the University of Texas, two of the most competent school-men of the country. At the state Teachers' Association a uniform course of high-school work was arranged for the state. the present rate of progress Mississippi bids fair not only to make her way out of the jungle of the "race question," but also to become a leader in the educational life of the southwest.

At

OOD school-men of every political pursuasion, in all sections of the Union, will welcome the advent of the coming congress with a "lively hope" that the latter-day stinginess of that body in its provisions for the National Bureau of Education and the Public Schools of Washington may become a humiliation of the past. A cry comes up from the school authorities of the national metropolis that the congress of the United States, in proud imitation of the Tammany Hall government of New York, has stinted the Washington school authorities so that several thousand children are already seeking entrance in vain to its crowded school rooms. The shelves of the National Bureau of Education are crowded with valuable matter, already prepared and paid for, which cannot be published, because of the almost incredible meanness of the congressional majority in reducing the small appropriation for printing and the library of the Bureau one half. Just now, it would seem as if we might postpone the great meetings of the influential teachers and educators from model school cities like Cleveland and Denver, "which need no repentance," to Washington, to labor with the obdurate crowd of Conscript Fathers who seem to be still under the bondage of the ancient backwoods notion of statesmanship, knocking out the brains of the country to save money.

T is a significant testimony to the estimate of high educational service in the upper story of the national life still prevailing, that, among all the testimonials in the press and even the historical associations, state and national, there have not been half a dozen pages containing an intelligent estimate of the great service of educational statesmanship rendered by the late Robert C. Winthrop, as President of the Board of Trustees of the Peabody Education Fund, during the last twenty-eight years of his crowded and distinguished career. Indeed, it would seem as if, even among his own associates, this, the most unique and, in many ways, one of the most influential and useful agencies in building the common school through half the Union, had already been forgotten or ignored. When the history of this great beneficiary organization is finally written, it will be understood that its work, in leading the great movement for popular education in the south. has been by no means the most and in some respects the least valuable feature in its administration of nearly thirty years. The great original gift to education by George Peabody, of which this fund was the largest item, amounted to nearly $10,000,000, and was not only, a generation ago, the greatest individual benefaction on record for such a purpose, but has stimulated contributions at home and abroad many times in excess of itself. The Board of Trustees, originally consisting of sixteen and, including by reason of substitutes for members deceased and resigned, twenty-seven members, properly including also the two general agents and two distinguished presidents of the Peabody Normal College, was such a School Committee of thirty-one as, for large ability, distinguished public services and eminent professional character, has never been called and held together for a generation to consider and administer on the subject of the schooling of the whole American people. It is the one Board of Common School Trustees that has never made a notable mistake, and whose sayings and doings, as recorded in the four stout volumes of its records, are the best guide in this difficult and complex realm of national life. At the head of this body Mr. Winthrop presided from the first, in no sense a mere figure-head, but with true statesmanlike wisdom and comprehensive patriotism, the right man in the right place, and that place not inferior in dignity and usefulness to any in American public life. Happily, his name and fame can be safely left in charge of the people he served so grandly, and in due time, his illustrious service of educational statesmanship will receive its fit appreciation and ample commemoration.

Even teachers have some rights in this land of the free and rights which others are bound to respect.

DEPARTMENT OF PROFESSIONAL STUDY.

THE

TEACHERS' INTERNATIONAL READING CIRCLE.
MONTHLY SYLLABUS FOR THE THIRD YEAR.

FIFTH

PREPARED BY DR. CHAS. J. MAJORY, NEWTON, N. J., SECRETARY,
FOR THE USE OF CORRESPONDENCE MEMBERS.

The progress of the public school system of to-day is a necessary result of the persistent effort that has been made to advance the professional spirit and rank of the great body of public school teachers. In reciprocal action this advance demands a body of teachers still further imbued with professional spirit. At no time less than at present will it be necessary that the teacher, by carefully selected reading, shall keep in touch with the most advanced educational thought. More and more will it be necessary that the progressive journals and the books recording ripe thought and successful experience shall be studied. The teachers who fail to meet this requirement cannot but retard the progress that should be made, and will. when too late for remedy, find that they have been left behind by their more earnest co-laborers. The sole purpose of professional reading is to enlighten and stimulate progressive school room. practice.

I. ROUSSEAU'S EMILE. PAGES 131-160.

38. Is the normal boy, at the age of twelve to fifteen, possessed of physical and mental strength relatively greater than his desires? 39. Is Rousseau right in ascribing the exception to such rule to faults in educational training?

40. In what sense is it true that it is only necessary to know that which is useful?

41. What are the necessary objections to the doctrine that the child "is not to learn science, but to discover it?"

42. Can the child who does not read think more clearly than the child who reads?

43. How may Rousseau's doctrine concerning the sign and the thing be best observed in modern school work?

44. What prevalent error violates his "fundamental principle " concerning the teaching of sciences?

45. What are the advantages in using simple and "home-made " apparatus rather than that which is more elaborate?

II. HERBART'S PSYCHOLOGY, PAGES 74–96.

31. Upon what distinctions are the three kinds of feelings. classified?

32. What examples may be cited of feelings which arise wholly from the nature of that which is felt?

33. With respect to the relation of desire to the feeling, as cause or effect, how does the second class of feelings compare with the first class?

34. Upon what characteristics is the third class of feelings based? 35. In what essential do the emotions differ from the feelings?

What phases of mental condition or action must be included under the faculty of desire?

37. What forms constitute the lower and what the higher faculties of desire?

38. What psychological explanation is presented of "freedom of will?"

39. How are the senses and the powers of reproduction related with reference to the mental life?

40. How are the inner sense and outer action related with respect to the formation and retention of habits and the acquirement and maintenance of accomplishments.

41. In what two views should the practical teacher observe the series of concepts in teaching and training his pupils.

III. ADLER'S MORAL INSTRUCTION, PAGES 80-105.

36. What condition of society must be regarded as giving rise to the tales commonly known as the Fables of Æsop?

37. What spirit do they generally tend to foster?

38. In what two classes of fables is non-resistance to oppression and to hurtful influences especially illustrated?

39. What class of the fables illustrate the insecurity of tyrants? 40. What class tend to ridicule certain types of character likely to appear under despotic class rule?

41. Why should fables of these four classes not be made use of in our schools?

42. What two classes may be properly used in the moral instruction of children?

43. How do the fables differ in use from the fairy tales?

44. What general method should be followed in the use of the fables?

IV. FROEBEL'S EDUCATION OF MAN. PAGES 140-187.

37. Religion defined in respect to three distinct and harmonious phases.