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America to the Gulf of Mexico. There is no body of workers, no profession or class that deserves so much honor or respect as the noble army of school teachers. To a great degree their lives are given to the work of education, and there is nothing so wearing as this labor. The annual session of the National Educational Association affords them an opportunity for a trip to the Convention City. The convention of 1887 will be held in this city.

AT THE EXPOSITION BUILDING.

"There has been many a gathering in the Exposition Building which has filled the vast area of space in the homely structure with brilliant audiences. Men who frame the political history of the country have met there; fashion's devotees dancing for sweet charity's sake have enjoyed themselves there; Italian singers have warbled their notes there; the 'bone and sinew of the country' have come there to pass criticism upon bovines and porkers; merchants and industrial princes have held expositions there which may truly be termed world's bazars; other bazars have been held there for orphans and other unfortunate ones-in short, there has been hardly a gathering or convention of any kind in this great city of conventions which has not in some shape or other crystalized in the rumbling old building on the lake front. Last night the delegates of the National Educational Association met there, which means that several thousand school "marms," together with the sterner sex who hammer away at the youth of this country, metaphorically speaking, gathered in the great hall. It was a great sight, and great was the crowd. Like anything that Chicago undertakes, there was nothing small about it.

"Compared with other assemblages in which the fair sex participates, a convention of school teachers deserves to move up one higher.' Much as has been said about the hard lot of the lady teacher, she doesn't show at a public gathering that there is anything about her calling for sympathy. She rather invites admiration, and the judicious distribution of attentive squires among the ladies would seem to demonstrate that there is no lack of admirers. The rumor that there were girls who have attended every one of the thirty annual conventions of the National Educational Association must be set down as base slander, because those that could be seen in the sea of faces, as the society reporter would advantageously put it, were not half old enough. That is as near as the scribe dares to go touching the delicate question of experience.

"There is another point in which the gathering of the pedagogues compares favorably with the purely society event-the girls were promptly on hand at the appointed hour. They did not wait for the overture to be disposed of and then sail proudly down the aisle with a stage eclipse on their hair and a tournure large enough for a reserved seat, as ultra-fashion dictates. When the word was passed around that Theodore Thomas would play for an hour, beginning at 8 o'clock, before the delegates would be sacrificed to listen to half a dozen speeches, they were promptly on hand, filling every seat provided for and a good many more which had been hastily improvised. It should also be stated that they make their dressmakers work in all the material that ought to be in the front elevation of a dress. None of them was liable to catch cold on account of bare shoulders. Taken all in all, between a society event,' and a teachers' convention, the latter is by far the most respectable-looking, and as far as good looks are concerned― but then comparisons are always odious.

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"Five minutes after the appointed hour there wasn't a seat to be had in the

building; not only was the main floor crowded, but also the galleries, and not a few of the more ardent delegates had climbed upon the booths and pavilions used by Marshal Field and others at exposition times. W. E. Sheldon, of Boston, President of the Association, was right when he said in his opening remarks: "There is in this world but one Chicago; there is in this world but one Theodore Thomas orchestra; there is in this world but one city that can extend such a musical greeting as the one which has inspired our souls to-night; and there is but one body of men and women, and the one gathered here, which is so representative of glorious manhood and pure womanhood.'

"Twenty thousand people, several thousand more than could find seats, crowded into the Exposition Building last evening. It was a marvelous throng, in which there were three women to every man. The audience was a sea of bonnets and light dresses. The great gallery was as completely crowded as the floor. The night was warm, but five thousand fans were aflutter and the open windows admitted a breath of air from the lake. A few front seats were reserved for the president of the National Educational Association, the speakers of the evening, members of the National Council and local committeemen. A detail of municipal police were present to preserve order and regularity in the audience. They had no work to do except to look fine, and once in a great while to help out the ushers, when a pretty school teacher was found looking for a seat. Hundreds of men and women could not get within seeing distance of the platform, and they sat or strolled through the evergreens in the rear, crowded the restaurant, and almost mobbed the lemonade department.

"From eight to nine o'clock the programme was a Thomas concert. About half of the full musical entertainment of an evening was furnished by Colonel Theodore's matchless orchestra. The celebrated leader was applauded when he stepped to his stand promptly at eight o'clock. He looked warm, and was compelled frequently to mop his rosy face with a large white silk handkerchief. The orchestra part of the programme was arranged by request. At least, it was so said in the bill. The following was the programme rendered: Festival Overture

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"Though there was a respectable force of ushers, the aisles were soon overflown by the eager crowds, and were filled with standing women clear up to the platform. The steps to the rostrum were crowded with pretty girls. No sooner had they taken their places there, within two feet of Mr. Thomas' harper, than that nervous performer broke one of his harp cords with a loud twang. The members of the orchestra smiled, Mr. Thomas glared at the blushing harper, and that young man set industriously to work to fix his broken string. It were folly to speak of the excellencies of the music. The airs from Lohengrin and Strauss's lovely waltz were familiar to nearly all the hearers, and were, for that reason, the more heartily enjoyed. Every selection was heartily applauded.”

"Never, except at the time of the great national political conventions, has there been so large an audience in the Exposition Hall as there was last night on the occasion of the opening session of the National Educational Association. And it was a superb audience, the great mass of earnest and intellectual people making a picture that will be memorable even in this city that has seen so many

tremendous and historic gatherings. The opening exercises, taking in the concert by Theodore Thomas's orchestra, the addresses of welcome and the responses, made up a programme worthy of the great occasion."

THE EXHIBIT OF SCHOOL WORK.

"The National Educational Exposition is one of the most remarkable exhibits of school work ever seen. To persons past middle life who remember their own school days-the days of 'rod' and 'taws,' of Daboll's arithmetic and Kirkham's grammar, of Latin at eight and Greek at twelve years of age-it must seem astounding. Not all the speeches and lectures that will be pronounced during the session of the association will more clearly explain the difference between the old methods of teaching and the new, and the actual achievements of modern teaching, than this wonderful illustration of what training has done and is doing for the school children of the present time.

"Such an exhibit is comparatively a new thing with the association. The first one that properly could be called such was at the meeting held in Madison, Wis., in 1884, which was principally a Wisconsin exhibit, and the next was in Topeka, Kas., in 1886, which was also mainly local. At Saratoga, N. Y., in 1885, there was an art exhibit, but not the ordinary work of the schools. When the association accepted the invitation of the Chicago teachers to hold the meeting of 1887 in this city, Mr. Albert G. Lane, the county superintendent, was appointed director of the exhibit, and it is owing to his zeal and to the efficiency of his secretary, Mr. J. W. Troeger, as well as to the hearty cooperation of teachers and educators throughout the country, that such a marvelous display has been made. Inasmuch as the meeting was to be held at a time when the centennial anniversary of the adoption of the Ordinance of 1787 for the government of the Northwestern Territory would occur, a particular effort was made to show the results of education in the five States which were formed of that territory, one of the compacts in that famous ordinance being that "schools and the means of education should forever be encouraged." While Mr. Lane corresponded with educators throughout the entire United States, he addressed himself particularly to obtaining State aid for their own school exhibits in Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio-the five States created under the ordinance of 1787. In this he was but partially successful, obtaining an appropriation of $2,500 from the legislature of Illinois and $2,000 from the legislature of Wisconsin, the other legislatures taking no action. The result is that in the exhibit Illinois and Wisconsin bear away the palm in extent and variety of work, though the other States are represented, as well as schools from the East, South, and West, as shown below. But the work exhibited shows the progress of education throughout the entire country quite as completely as if every school district in the land were represented.

"The main exhibition embraces school-work from kindergartens, from rural, graded, high, normal, and industrial schools, from colleges, and from institutions for the blind, deaf and dumb, and feeble-minded, and from reformatory schools. There is also an art department and various annexes showing all kinds of school furniture, apparatus, maps and charts, supplies, text-books, school architecture, including models, plans, and elevations, and other belongings of schools and school-houses.

Illinois has representatives from twenty-two counties, as well as the various public institutions, such as the Reform School at Pontiac, the Asylum for the Blind, and the Institute for the Deaf and Dumb at Jacksonville. Over one of the

Illinois booths is inscribed the word' Egypt,' containing a very fine display from the southernmost county of the State, and showing that however it may have been in former times, darkness no longer reigns there.

"Chicago is represented by sixty-nine grammar schools, three high schools, one evening high school, and one manual training school. The Normal University of Cook County makes also a splendid display.

"Wisconsin makes the next finest exhibit, being represented by high and graded schools from eighteen counties, and also from the School for the Blind at Janesville, the School for the Deaf and Dumb, and several industrial schools.

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Indiana is represented by schools from Lafayette and La Porte, and by the Rose Polytechnic School at Terre Haute.

"Ohio has displays of general school work from Youngstown and Cleveland, and from the manual training school at Toledo.

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"Michigan has representatives from three counties and Iowa from one. sota sends an exhibit from Winona; Colorado, one from the Institution for the Feeble-Minded at Golden Gate; Tennessee, from the Young Ladies' College at Nashville; and Louisiana, from the public schools of New Orleans.

"One of the most striking features of the exhibit is the wonderful influence of the Froebel system of instruction, as shown in the public schools, even where there are no kindergartens, the teachers seeming to have caught an inspiration from it. One cannot admire the exhibits of the Chicago public schools as shown at this exposition without being struck by the similarity of the work to that of the kindergartens pure and simpie.

"Take it altogether, the kindergarten department is perhaps the most interesting, for the reason that the work is that of children from four to seven years of age, and shows the harmonious development of all the various faculties of a child, and in strange contrast to the old A B C system. There are three booths which exhihit the work of the Froebel Association and the Free Kindergarten of Chicago, and the Training School at La Porte, illustrating all the uses of the "gifts and occupations." The other booths show the actual work of the children. While all these have particular features of interest and show the individuality which the system gives to every child, the description of one of them will convey a good idea of all. It might be said perhaps that to the casual observer the work is not attractive, but when it is understood that it is a fair average of the pupil's unaided effort, and that in no case has the pupil been aware that the work would be exhibited, it increases in attraction. Entering the booth where Mrs. Loring's display is to be seen, after examining the usual and regular work of the children, one's attention is attracted by several specimens of a very unique kind. One is the portrait of Washington decorated by the spontaneous invention of the children to illustrate such knowledge as they had acquired of the Father of his Country. One child made his hatchet, being perhaps most influenced by the wonderful incident in Washington's life connected with that implement. Another made a three-cornered hat for him, and another presented his idea of the Presidential chair. These articles are made of jointed slats, one of the kindergarten 'gifts.'

"Children's illustrations in clay from the Iliad are also rather curious. The children in school were told by the teacher one day a story from Homer. Of their own volition they attempted to reproduce the story in clay. They accordingly made Priam's palace, Hector's home, and Paris's house, as they named them. Marks of the chariot wheels are also shown in the plain before Troy. They made also the ships of the Greeks, and the famous wooden horse that was the final cause of Troy's downfall. They also show the

cave of Polyphemus; and the halls of Circe, so unfortunate for the companions of Ulysses, they show by a pigsty, so great was their contempt for that classical place. These things were the work of children of five years of age, and, being somewhat out of the ordinary line, are mentioned to show the scope of a training which seems confined to a few simple gifts.' The other booths in this department represent work of children in the Chicago charity kindergartens, in the Muskegon kindergartens, and the kindergarten in the school for the blind at Janesville, Wis. This last is a wonderful illustration of how this sort of instruction, which deals in form, dimension, and color, may be taught children who have never seen the light of day. Here may be seen maps, clay models of various animals, and a very interesting story of Jack and the Bean Stalk,' modeled in clay representing Jack, the man with the beans, the bean stalk, Jack's mother, the giant and the giant's wife, the bag of money, Jack's hatchet and house. There is also the goose with the golden egg, and jack in the oven. The other work is that of weaving and sewing and other things quite as perfect as that of the little ones who can see.

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Going from this department one is next interested in the work of the feeble minded children, on very much the same line but in some respects more mechanical. The several exhibits in this department are worth much more than a mere passing examination. The work of the deaf and dumb children has also many features of great interest, showing specimens of pen and ink sketches from nature; charcoal studies from nature and the casts; crayon, water-color, and oil studies from nature, still life, and the casts. A very fine portrait of Prof. Gaulladet, of the Deaf and Dumb Institute at Washington city, adorns one of these booths. They also have a fine display of wood-carving and clay-modeling, and in the industrial department cabinet-work, shoe-making, and printing.

"The Reform School exhibit is mainly industrial work, and makes an excellent display.

"The various manual training schools make a very remarkable display, showing the great strides this system of education has made in the last few years. They deserve much more than a passing notice, and are worthy of a careful study by all visitors to the Exposition.

"The Normal School at Normal, Ill., has also a splendid exhibit, showing the work done at that institution under the management of Col. Parker. It is very interesting and instructive.

"The art exhibit in the galleries contains a wider representation from the various States than the main exhibit. It shows constructive, representative, and decorative drawing, modeling in clay, carving in wood, painting and designs from nature. It is all the work of pupils in the various graded public schools throughout the country. Those who are interested in the way children are taught in these days can do no better than spend a day in this marvelous exposition of children's school-work."

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As a sample of newspaper comment on this collection of school handicraft, the Erening Journal said, The Exposition Building itself would not contain the books that might be written in praise and otherwise (but chiefly in praise) of the wealth of juvenile effort now gathered together inside the walls of that vast structure. A mere catalogue of the schools and institutions from whose brains and hands have come examples of adult care operating upon youthful industry, and of infant power made evident by reason of kindly tuition, would almost tire an average auctioneer. It is pleasant, however, to dart from one corner to another of the exhibition, and to make note, however imperfectly, of some of the interesting testimonies to tutorial assiduity and boyish and girlish power which meet the

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