best. I'd like to come out right now and show them, but Mother Nature says I must wait until spring. I mean to get up early, tho, for the children say it can't be spring until the Pussies come.' "You'll pop out early enough," laughed Mother Nature, "but now tuck up your toes, for I hear Northwind coming. He will shake down the leaves and cover my earth babies. Then he'll give the world a good airing and get it ready for my Snow Fairy, who will lay her soft white blanket over you all." Oh, Northwind is coming," said Bessie, "for I feel his breath. It is cold, c-o-l-d," and she woke up with a shiver just as Belinda slipped from her lap to the ground. "Gracious! I'm just under the chestnut tree," she said, picking up the fallen Belinda. "I do believe I've been asleep, too. But I've had a lovely dream, and I just know it's all true. Now we must go in, dollie dear, for Northwind has really come, and it is as cold, as cold." And clasping Belinda tight. Bessie ran to the house, but at the door she turned and said in a low voice: "Good night, little flowers under the ground. Good night, little leaf babies in your tree cradles. Good night and sweet dreams until spring." -Kindergarten Magazine. THE OHIO HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION. BY GEO. R. EASTMAN, CHAIRMAN OF TEMPORARY BOARD OF CONTROL, The committee appointed by the Central Ohio Teachers' Association at Indianapolis has decided upon u plan for organizing a State High School Athletic Association and has prepared a constitution and rules in which this plan is explained, and has mailed copies to the superintendents and principals of the state. It now remains for the schools concerned to make this work effective by active interest and co-operation in the actual work of organizing. This work may now be promoted best by sending in the membership blank and initiation fee. The committee believes this organization will bring about badly needed improvements in the management and control of interschool athletics. As a justification of this belief and for the enlightenment of those who are not fully informed as to the good work performed by similar organizations in other states, attention is called to the following letters from men who have been engaged in managing the affairs of their state organizations: Our organization has been running three years and has been very successful. Most principals testify that the I. H. S. A. A. has been the salvation Our experience has been highly satisfactory. Our association has been in existence four years. It has now become almost an organic part of our State Teachers' Association. It has the unanimous support of principals and superintendents who for various reasons are glad to refer certain responsibilities to the board of control. It has meant better athletics in general and it has meant better athletics in individual schools. It has cemented athletics and scholarship in a way that no preaching could do. Iowa,at her annual state meeting, has repeatedly emphasized her satisfaction with the Athletic Association. We had a little hard sledding at first, but as soon as the scope of the organization became known. towns and cities where athletics was anything of a school feature fairly tumbled over themselves to get in. I am sure that Ohio will find that our experience will be duplicated in her case. Very sincerely yours, GEORGE EDWARD MARSHALL, Principal of High School, Sioux City, Iowa; member of Board of Control of Iowa H. S. Athletic Association. The writer of the following letter, Mr. Day, is in a position to voice the sentiments of the physical directors of the country in questions pertaining to the management of athletics, for he is secretary and treasurer of the National Association of Physical Directors of the Y. M. C. A., and a member of the executive committees of their national and state organizations, also a member of the Council of the American Physical Education Association, athletic editor of Mind and Body, and athletic director of the Summer Institute and Training School at Lake Geneva, Wis. Many thanks for the copy of the "Constitution and Rules of the Ohio High School Athletic Association." I think that this is not only a step in the right direction but a tremer. dous long stride which I am confident will greatly improve the management of inter-school athletics. Yours very truly, W. E. DAY, Physical Director Dayton Y. M. C A. ROCKFORD, ILL., Feb. 27, 1907. GEO. R. EASTMAN, 31 Callahan Block, Dayton, Ohio. DEAR SIR-I have received the proposed constitution for your State Athletic Association. I have read it over carefully and I think you have an admirable set of rules. The work has certainly been carefully done and every point seems to be covered which could possibly arise. The State Athletic Association has passed the experimental stage in Illinois. The result here has been so beneficial that none of us would be willing to go back to the old way. In the first place it has raised the standard of eligibility in most of the schools. It has made the terms representative of a better element in the school instead of simply the athletic element; and has brought it about that boys compete only with boys of their own age and strength instead of with grown men as often used to happen. It has reduced the liability to accident by requiring physical fitness and by placing the work entirely in charge of a responsible person; it has removed the objectionable features common to school athletics, so that now there is scarcely a community which objects to athletics as now conducted. The formation of this association gives each principal more power to enforce the requirements, because, instead of standing alone he is backed by the entire association. It is much easier to enforce it when other schools are enforcing it than if you are trying to do it alone. Any school which has tried to maintain a high standard in athletics, when the schools with which it has to compete have maintained a low standard, will understand the force of this point. I am sure your constitution is a workable one and that you will be more than pleased with the result of the organization. With best wishes for its success, I am Sincerely yours, E. U. GRAFF, Principal of High School, Rockford, Illinois. SOME CONSIDERATION IN ARRIVING AT A NEW BASIS FOR PROMOTION AND TRANSFER OF PUPILS. BY SUPT. M. G. BRUMBAUGH, PHILADELPHIA. [In this day of all sorts of "schemes" for determining the fitness of pupils for advancement in their work, and when educational quacks are found ready to announce some "cure-all" for each and every type of mental sickness or weakness which may be found in any community, it is encouraging to read a sane discussion of the promotion problem furnished by a superintendent of schools who sees the problem from all its new points and whose experience in nearly every kind of educatioanl work serves as a safe guide to his theory and practice. Believing that our readers will appreciate Dr. Brumbaugh's discussion of Promotions, we take pleasure in publishing the following from his recent report to the Board of Education in Philadelphia.-Editor.] Among the desirable results of the educative process is that of self-help or self-mastery. The power to gain knowledge for oneself is a generally accepted good. At the outset of his school career he must possess the power of self-direction and of selfeducation. The school is not so much an agency whose function it is to feed the mind as it is an agency whose function it is to create an appetite to know. At the outset the pupil is almost entirely dependent upon the guidance of the teacher. At the end the pupil should be practically independent of the teacher's guidance. This transition is slow. But it must be constantly planned for and as constantly realized. The supplanting of objective guidance by subjective guidance is the best evidence of healthy growth in the spiritual unfolding of the child. This may be converted into the maxim: The business of the teacher is to make herself increasingly unnecessary to the pupil. The teacher's skill and efficiency alike are conditioned in no small degree by this maxim. To promote the objects of study, pupils may be grouped in many ways, but no merely mechanical grouping is of worth. No grouping based upon any external circumstances or condition is adequate. The true basis of grouping must be found in the spiritual consonance of the group. This consonance is to be found in two important directions: (1) in the social harmony that makes for unity; (2) in the intellectual qualities that may with propriety be characterized as intellectual democracy, by which one is to understand not intellectual identity of power but equality of opportunity to perfect what each one by nature and environment may fairly be capable of achieving. We cannot give to each pupil an equally valuable education; but we can give to each pupil an equally valuable opportunity to make the most of his talents, whatever these talents may be. Not equal results, but equal opportunity is the aim of the school. No tight and fast classification of mental traits can be made. All types are found and each type has endless variants. The only logical outcome is a scheme of education which may be called individual instruction-a • scheme that is both unsystematic, hence uneconomic, and also unsocial, hence unworthy. We may, therefore, dismiss at once that extreme view of grading pupils which both for economic and for social reasons is impossible. It is also to be dismissed because of its unmoral if not immoral aspects. There can be no school morality that is not essentially social morality. Isolation is educational blight. Nor is it possible to maintain uninterruptedly, the steady progression of any group of pupils as a group, through the various grades of the school. Not only varying capacity and varying rate of work, but also sickness and other misfortunes prevent anything like uniform progress in the group. Consequently the basis of promotion must be found in some system of classification that permits from time to time readjustment in the groups. This readjustment is now made in the schools of this city annually. Both the arrangement of the materials of the course of study in yearly increments and the simplicity of organization necessary to annual promotion, would seem to justify this annual system. But the schools do not exist for the interpretation of any course of study, nor for any convenience or simplicity in organization. We may, then. disregard these factors in aim ing at our conclusion and in formulating our procedure. There are certain types of pupils for whom no adequate provision can be made in any system of grouping that may be devised. These pupils must be cared for by incidental promotion,as now provided in Rule XI, Section 4; or by transfer to special schools of a character best adapted to care for these unusual pupils. The Course of Instruction is an attempt to measure in objective data the amount of mental activity a pupil ought to receive in order to attain the necessary knowledge and mental power to pursue the next higher related orders of truth either in the same subject-matter or in related but differently classified subject-matter. Our mistake arises when we consider the mastery of this entire Course of study the the basis of promotion. It is not only conceivable, it is actually true, that some pupils will, with mental exercises less than the quantity prescribed in the course of instruction, acquire all the mental power necessary to master the next higher related orders of truth, while others will need not only all the details of the course of study, but also additional facts upon which to be drilled until the requisite strength of mind is attained. The basis of promotion is thus seen to be not a quantitative mastery of subjectmatter as found in the course of instruction, but a qualitative result in terms of mental power acquired. The basis is not objective, but subjective. If in this analysis the value of knowledge imparted in the grades is given less emphasis than it seems to merit, one must not forget that the value of the knowledge acquired in the elementary grades is likely to be overestimated (1) because it is the readily tested result of teaching and (2) because we do not always recognize the educational laws underlying all good teaching, that power to acquire knowledge is vastly more important as an end of instruction than mere accumulation of facts. It is also true that teachers are prone to overvalue the worth of data and undervalue the worth of mental power. This is especially true of the poor teacher, whose insight is so meagre that only quantitative measures, in terms of an examination upon the facts, is within the range of her power. It is further believed that a properly trained mind will always gather to itself the necessary data to furnish the materials for the right exercise of such a trained mind. There are three fairly well defined groups of pupils in any school community. It is not necessary here to comment upon the conditions giving rise to those groups. Such a study in some other connection would be of great value. It is sufficient for our purpose that we define these groups in our own minds and think of their need and possibilities. 1. The dullard, backward in book learning, whose power of initative is slight. 2. The mediocre, ordinarily endowed with the power of initiative or self-direction. 3. The genius, extremely gifted in the power of initiative, and capable of self-direction in the mastery of facts. The first of these, the dullard, may possess many admirable traits, but lack the ability to keep the pace set by the group. These dullards are not necessarily dull pupils, they may only be slow in mental reaction to external stimuli, but for the purpose of the school they do not lend themselves readily to the groups' demands or needs. The patient, discerning teacher will carry some of these to a successful promotion. But many of them will remain for special treatment in smaller groups, under what might be the most favorable auspices as to teacher and equipment and under a different order of study. The second of these, the mediocre, is the largest group. For these the school as now constituted does its largest service. These need external guidance and stimulus such as the teacher can provide, and, if they attend the school regularly, they should be fitted in any given space of time to advance to the much higher order of truth as expressed in the curriculum. For these it is only necessary to provide competent teachers, to keep the pressure of effort steadily upon them, and to guard them from sickness and other retarding influences. These best of all test the adequacy of the course of instruction, since these most of all should "fit the formula" therein defined. The last of these, the genius, is the rare group for whom no adequate provision can be made. The genius has initiative sufficient to insure his intellectual progress, and he is likely to fret the school by refusing to yield to the presented order of study and sometimes to the system of government in vogue. This group needs to be directed by indirection, needs to be led by the gentle persuasion and the fine discernment of rare teachers to follow the law of the school and |