their work was beautiful to see. It came from cities where art, architecture, and landscape gardening unite to create an environment and atmosphere that are in themselves educative and refining. Some work from the Glasgow School of Painting and from a few other schools showed that Scotland is alive to the true æsthetic motives of art training.

Some ten years ago the writer, being in London, went out to Harrow on the Hill and found in the great public school there the beginnings of instruction in manual training, a decided innovation for a distinctly classical school. It was therefore an enjoyable surprise to see among the exhibits at Bern some color drawings by pupils of that school from nature and other subjects which were well worthy the attention they received.

It would require too much space to discuss all the interesting features of the congress, the evening entertainments in the gardens and pleasure resorts of Bern, excursions to Fribourg and Interlaken with suppers, toasts, and speechmaking in which Europeans showed both grace and friendliness. Mutual acquaintance and pleasant intercourse made all feel well pleased that they could share in such a meeting.

Particular mention is not made in this article of the second section of the conference, which was devoted to special instruction, as it was not possible to follow the discussions in both sections. The resolutions adopted by the first section were both extensive and significant of the general trend of thought and belief. They may be briefly summarized as follows: That the self-activity and free expression of the child should be a dominant aim of drawing; that from the kindergarten thru all grades of lower and higher schools, and even in the university, drawing should be a factor, and that the cultivation of taste should be sought; that correlation should be established between drawing and other studies, and that teachers should be carefully trained in this branch.

At the close of the conference an American committee, consisting of Messrs. James Hall of New York, Charles M. Carter of Denver, and William Woodard of New Orleans, was appointed to arrange for the proper representation of the United States at the conference of 1908.

It is safe to predict that the next International Conference

of Drawing, to be held in London in 1908, will be larger and more representative than the last, and will present evidence that the best interests of the child have been largely advanced. Will it not occur to American educators that they owe it to themselves and to the cause of education in the world to cheerfully participate in organizing other International Conferences of Education so that everywhere, by comparison and criticism, the good may be increased and the bad eliminated? As education is a basal principle in national life, and as it is in the schools of the world more than anywhere else that people are uplifted and their higher life conserved, so it may be assumed that, in future, educational conferences of men of different lands will do much to develop common aims respecting the moral and social advancement of the world, thus paving the way to universal peace.

TEACHERS COLLEGE

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

SAMUEL T. DUTTON

IX
REVIEWS

Some fiscal aspects of public education in American cities (Teachers college record, November, 1905)-By EDWARD C. ELLIOTT. New York: The Columbia University Press, 1905. 30c.

This contribution is a pamphlet of one hundred pages, exclusive of the Table of Contents of more than three pages. Of the hundred pages, sixteen are solid statistical matter from the Government Bulletins of 1900, 1901 and 1902. There are also about eighteen pages of Frequency, Percentile and Variability Tables, and a few other small tables that the nonstatistical reader can readily understand,-interspersed thruout the main text. Consequently, one-third may be set down as statistical, and two-thirds as explanations and discussions. This investigation is the third report that has appeared during the year of 1905, and it covers, in some respects, a different field from the two issued under the direction and by the authority of the National Council of Education. It is not nearly so formidable and unhandleable as the voluminous and detailed report by President Carroll D. Wright upon "Salaries, tenure, and pensions," but it is far better arranged and the information is more easily got at, tho in places the discussions, instead of being straightforward statements of commonplace facts, show strong evidences of learned and technical pedantry. This accusation cannot lie against the great statistical report prepared by President Wright, who apparently gives in his minute tabulations as much weight to very small facts as to very large ones. A statistical report to be of the highest value to the average reader should show what the figures stand for and in what direction they point, because statistics can never represent or explain causes, but they indicate generally, if interpreted correctly, what causes have produced. Too often such tables, for specific purposes, reminds one forcibly and pertinently of the "proverbial needle in the haystack."

There are, broadly speaking, two kinds of statisticians, the one-and the more common-who revels in all sorts of figures and percentage facts, the omnivorous gatherer of data, who tumbles out undigested columns and pages of figures full of meaningless obscurities, and if the reader of ordinary intelligence wants to get information from such a heap, he must first pick out, arrange, classify, and then draw inferences, if possible, or turn from them as from puzzles that cannot be unraveled except by the tabulator. At Washington City, especially, this method of preparing statistical tables has taken a bulldog hold, and there are no indications in recent publications that the present obscure methods will be changed so as to make the reports really valuable, except those from the Consular Service. The other order of mind is found at the other extreme. It is a mind of a different mold and order of thinking. It is the mind that is the master of statistics, and it is not overwhelmed by the curse of details. Dr. Harris represents that kind of mind-the mind that can tell what such facts mean.

There are intermediate stages between these two extreme orders, but each has its place in a scheme of investigation and presentation. The first goes out scooping up all kinds of rubbish relevant and irrelevant, but it is no judge of the value of the material collected, albeit the gathering may be in the name of scientific induction. Such are diligent in their work as collectors; when that is said, the end is reached.

Mr. Elliott's method lies between the two extremes I have indicated. The Introductory Chapter of seven pages is an excellent presentation of the twofold aspect of education-the scientific and the economic. It will well repay a careful perusal by any one interested in either educational or municipal problems. In emphasizing the importance that attaches to municipal expenditures, the author has given expression to the thought that lies uppermost in every thinking person's mind concerning the basic factor of city, county, state, national and international governments. It is at the bottom of all governmental policies whether of Europe, America or of the Far East. The uppermost thought everywhere is the financial one, -collecting and expending taxes paid by the public to support

institutions whose burdens are constantly growing heavier each

year.

To take up a small area of the country and deal with the expenditures of 120 cities, each having a population of more than 8000 inhabitants, was to restrict and narrow the investigation. This particular territory embraced the six New England States and New York. It appears that the financial reports from these cities varied so much that Mr. Elliott threw them aside, and then had recourse to the Labor Reports issued by the Government for data sufficiently homogeneous for his purpose. This fact itself is significant, and it suggests the necessity of a uniform method of arranging and tabulating the receipts and expenditures of cities and towns in this country. Something of this sort was attempted a few years ago by a Committee of City Superintendents for the city schools, but it fell flat, being adopted in only two cities in the United States.

By taking the distributed itemized per cents. of expenditures of cities within the area covered, the author constructed his tables of Frequency and Variability. Putting this matter in a plain form, he was finding out what per cent. of the entire expenditure was consumed by the various departments and subdepartments of each city included in the list. Taking a number of cities and comparing their several appropriations, it would be seen at a glance how each stood with respect to the expenditures of others in the same or different classes. This afforded an opportunity to introduce the new terms-Variability and Frequency, as the opposite, no doubt, of constant. These could have been grouped under a more comprehensive term-Perhaps! The range or the spread of expenditures under the Frequency Tables and the Graphical Representation of Variability, on pages 30, 32, 33 and 34, is rather confusing, unless one studies out the plan of construction. Instead many will turn from these valuable tables without really knowing what they are used for. The author flew the main track again when he introduced the word "Median" for "average cost," which conveys a much clearer idea. Median is a strictly technical term, and is more frequently employed in physiology, botany and in geometry than elsewhere. Of course, it means the