observer. Dr. Rice traverses the country with his little measuring rod of "phonics," putting on the black cap of the judge in city after city, with only now and then the qualified approval of a few secondary communities where the good work of a few admirable ladies seems to have won from his obdurate sense of superiority a half-surly recognition. The pedagogic scheme of Herbart, the successor of Kant at Königsberg, who, in the beginning of the century constructed a scheme of philosophy as full of pit-falls as the "sunken lands" of a western wilderness, having previously worked out a system of pedagogy, certainly in advance of his time, with such common sense ideas as the necessity of interesting children in their studies and opening vistas and passable highways through the tangled wilderness of a scholastic course of study for infant minds, has of late been revived by a group of educational reformers. These writers, while making haste to disclaim sympathy with his impossible philosophic scheme on which no rational system of instruction can be founded, parade his pedagogics as the last "new departure," and assail all who differ from their own interpretations thereof with the usual learned clamor of "reaction." Just now this controversy appears to be uppermost.

A

LL this is a fair subject for discussion, especially if the advocates of the so-called radical reform in education will tell us, first, do they accept the philosophy on which Herbart bottoms his educational system? Second, do they follow Herbart or his demented followers who would confine the child in school for two years to Grimm's Fairy Tales as a complete course of study? Third, do they know to what extent the valuable and workable portion of Herbart's system is now the common-place of superior American school-keeping? But we doubt exceedingly whether, in the various local and state conventions, the summer schools and the National Convention of teachers, we shall get much satisfaction on these points; while the indefinite pedagogic mirage that figured at Cleveland as "correlation" will loom up, mystic and magnificent, as the coming word in American school-keeping. We seriously doubt the policy which now seems to be established, of turning these great meetings of teachers so largely into an occasion for the ventilation of the last new radical theory of the wholesale reconstruction of the American common school. These great assemblies might be made immensely valuable as a sort of "taking account of stock" of the actual educational condition of the locality, state or nation represented, with especial opportunity for the least-proved districts to present the incorrigible difficulties of their position, with a consultation of the "Great Educators " that would send them home encouraged and enlightened for future work. But when this precious time is consumed by elaborate dis

quisitions in advocacy of methods that, at best, can only be found workable in a few of the largest and most advanced communities, we seriously doubt the value of the practice. And especially do we question the habit of packing the platform with the advocates of the last new educational fad. The place for the discussion of such elaborate themes is the educational magazine, the school-master's club, and, in moderation, the school journal. And here, one page of plain. information as to what the improved method has really accomplished under fair trial, will be worth volumes of theoretical essay reading and save a good many ambitious educators from the mistake of doing injustice to the men who, knowing the actual status of affairs, understand from long experience what can and cannot be done, and especially realize how anything good can be accomplished under the conditions of republican society in our own country.

Ifect; pre to day arises from the very superabundance of scated

fact, perhaps the most serious defects in our national school

ideals in the minds of a growing section of our teachers, and the neglect of the proper machinery to wake up the masses of intelligent people to their importance. Three-fourths of the progressive superintendents of graded schools, cities, counties and commonwealths that will assemble in Denver in July, will go back from the learned and often admirable discussions and essays of that inspiring assembly, to be confronted, at home, with such questions as whether the people of a county as big as a New England state can be persuaded to give their children more than four months' schooling in the year, or pay the man or woman in the school-house the wages of a city servant girl; or build a school-house fit for comfortable habitation with outbuildings not constructed on the plan of an old-fashioned stable or pig-sty; whether the city superintendent, who has succeeded in pulling down the barracks which have housed the school-children and getting them into a fit habitation, is to be dismissed at the demand of a few stingy and stupid men of wealth who "don't believe in being taxed to educate other people's children "; whether his corps of teachers who are expected to carry out his advanced ideals have received any professional training or have any valuable experience, but are a miscellaneous group, chiefly of young girls, pushed into a position in all ways above their capacity by the obstinate selfishness of family, church and social partisanship; whether the superintendent himself shall go, although the best available man, because of his political or religious creed, or the misfortune of being born elsewhere than within the circle of that local horizon; whether the denominational academy or college is at work for the undermining of the public school; or, as in almost every

new manufacturing centre of the South, the old curse of child labor is being fastened on the community, decimating the school-room of children above ten years of age; or whether there is any probable cure for the epidemic of vagrancy, whereby half the states of the Union are over-run with idle and self-willed children and youth in training for a career of crime.

ERE we confront the real questions that must be faced, and the

HERE real difficulties to be overcome everywhere outside the more

favored communities; often as rampant in the metropolitan city of the North and West as in the swamps of Louisiana or decayed plantations. of South Carolina. And our great educators, aforesaid, may as well understand to-day as to-morrow that these prodigious difficulties can never be overcome by inaugurating the European continental system of despotic expert control, but only can be modified and gradually eliminated by a thorough system of popular enlightenment of the masses of intelligent people, whose verdict is final in this, as in every department of American life. In short, it would seem, just now, to be the proper work of the Denver convention to rest content with appointing new committees to investigate instruction, and, for one week, give solemn, prayerful and common-sense attention to suggesting and, perhaps, launching, a scheme for a grand revival of missionary work in city and country, with the object of bringing the better sort of our people up to some intelligent comprehension of their superior teachers, and trying to inaugurate a substantial, resolute and progressive policy of supporting genuine reform in the schools.

LATEUS.

RUTH WARD KAHN.

How little of our lives do others see;
How slight, at most, of all we do or think.

There's none can see the hidden pain

Or pierce into our hearts and pity us;

Because we will it so.

How little of our lives can this world keep ;

"Tho' we are kept forever busy, and no time is left.

Yet, while the body toils, the spirit rests

And learns, and groweth beautiful.

How little of our lives do others see.

We weep and pray in secret, while to our friends,
Our smiles and joy and gladness all do lend;
And they, because they never see us weep,
Think we are always gay.

THE POWER OF SURVEY.

IDA M. STREET, DES MOINES, IOWA.

Both as student and teacher, I have found the reductio ad absurdum method of proof unsatisfactory in mathematics. As a student, I never felt sure of the results of my proof, though I might see each step as it was explained to me; as a teacher, I found pupils avoided using the round-a-bout method of proof, even when they said they understood it. It was not till I read an extract from Grassman's New Exposition of Mathematics that I clearly saw where the difficulty lay. Grassman says: We give a scientific character to a method of treatment when the student, on the one hand, is of necessity led by it to the recognition of every single truth, and, on the other hand, is placed in a position wherefrom he is enabled, at every point in the development, to survey the course of further progress.'

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It is this last part,- the power of survey- that is lacking in the reductio ad absurdum method.

It is just the difference between the old metaphysical method of thought, which prided itself upon its intricacy, and the modern scientific method which goes directly to its point. This change in taste, dependent upon intellectual method, is noticeable in the effort to abolish from college curricula the old formal logic and substitute real logic, or the formation of direct judgments. The new is the science of thought.

This power of survey is more than scientific, it is the philosophic attitude. Philosophy is a study of relations,- a part to the whole, or one object to its class, and that to the universe. Every science has its philosophic side, so mathematics, although the most abstract of sciences, must have its philosophic side,- its relations to the universe. Thought is not mere form, it is reality, and, therefore, its laws must be similar in all sciences. The mind, to be convinced, must follow along these common methods of thought. The advantage of modern thought over that of former and more speculative times, lies in its clear definition of terms. The careful classification of all kinds of phenomena, psychical as well as physical, helps to make definitions easy and clear. Thus, with data well arranged and analyzed, the direct proof is the most natural and easy. It is when we cannot grasp our data that we are obliged to prove a proposition by its contraries. The revolution in logic and philosophy of the last quarter century will not be complete until the proof by contraries is abolished. from our mathematics and our argumentation.

DEPARTMENT OF PROFESSIONAL STUDY.

THE TEACHERS' INTERNATIONAL READING CIRCLE.
MONTHLY SYLLABUS FOR THE THIRD YEAR.
PREPARED BY DR. CHAS. J. MAJORY, NEWTON, N. J., SECRETARY,
FOR THE USE OF CORRESPONDENCE MEMBERS.

NINTH

The three years' graded course of professional reading and study, as outlined originally by United States Commissioner Wm. T. Harris, is completed with the work of this month's syllabus. Many hundreds of teachers, representing all the states of the Union, have registered as members of the International Circle, and it is evident that for next year and the years following the membership will greatly increase. This increase will enable the managers to meet the needs that have become apparent in the development of the Circle work but which could not be duly provided for as they have first arisen.

There have been added to the International Education Series several new books edited by Dr. Harris. From these books there may be arranged a valuable supplementary course of reading for such teachers as have completed the regular course. A special Primary Teachers' Course will also be announced, covering three years of reading with three or five books each year as distinguishing a regular and an advanced course.

It is probable that other special courses will be similarly arranged to meet the professional needs of teachers under various conditions as to work and opportunity for study. Every teacher, whatever may be his or her circumstances, needs the stimulus and the assistance of definite professional study, but all cannot most profitably follow the same specified course. It is the ideal of the International Circle to provide a suitable general course covering the common features of professional knowledge with due provision beyond this for the immediate circumstances of each teacher as to special grade of work or special experience and prior training. Through all will be held the prime purpose of advancing the efficiency in actual class-room work of each member as a result of the broader view of conditions and relations in education, and the suggestive helpfulness of clear principles underlying theory and practice.

Teachers desiring to improve in their work, and principals or superintendents seeking the advancement of their corps of teachers, are urged to consider the value of the International Circle. Correspondence should be addressed to 72 Fifth Avenue, New York City.