where the wealth is greatest and where competition is most serious. The graduate of the high school should have a definite idea of his future employment, and should be as well prepared to enter upon that employment as a two-years' active apprentice. Not only would this afford a valuable saving in time, but it would rescue many young men from aimless lives in a from-pillar-to-post existence.— Inter Ocean.

THE KINDERGARTEN.

It is to the kindergarten system that society is indebted for the most successful reassertion of the fundamental object of education, and for the most successful application of means to its accomplishment. The displays of work accomplished by children between the ages of six and thirteen years, now visible at the exhibition of the National Educational Association, are conclusive evidence of the wide, if not universal, diffusion of the artistic faculty. It is all but impossible to believe that the same young hand that made the vain effort to produce that simplest of forms, a "finite right line" in September, had acquired skill to draw and combine in original designs the segments of circles and the varying angles of many-sided figures by the succeeding June, but the work is there to show for itself; not the work of one exceptionally endowed child, but the work of many children of merely ordinary skill. Nor has the band alone been trained; the eye has been educated in the proprieties of color, the mind has been led to the orderly logic of composition of form, and from this has followed orderly arrangement of thought and knowledge of color in words. The infantile manuscripts in the La Porte exhibit are not less admirable than the infantile essays in plastic art.—InterOcean.

In discussing the relations of the university, college, and higher technological schools to the public system of instruction our educational friends presented some interesting and valuable views. It was especially gratifying to find the subject treated with such candor, for the reason that there has long been a suspicion that the higher institutions lack cordial sympathy with the public system, inclining to underestimate the actual value of the work performed, representatives of the higher institutions viewing with an air of condescending patronage what they almost regard as elementary steps. President Angell, of Michigan University, one of the most liberal of educators, showed himself one of that wise, small army that esteems education as a unit, all its branches and phases being interdependent, recognizes the fact that, though the university preceded and helped build the lower schools, standing in the relation of parent to child, the university is aided in reaching higher elevations by the growing excellence of the lower schools. President Strong, of Carleton College, Minnesota, could not separate the responsibilities of educational work into school denominations. He described the beginning and end of education to be the formation of character, to make complete and symmetrical men, morally not less than intellectually. . . . There is after all no more to education than this, that a man shall come to know and to love the beautiful. It is more important that a man should know goodness than that he should be able to conjugate a Greek verb or quote a Latin proverb. Dr. Hopkins, of Emory College, Georgia, had this idea in mind, no doubt, when he discussed the danger of making the mind mechanical, instead of creative. In his opinion the business of education is to develop the true, and it is intinitely preferable that

a man should be trained to think rightly than that he should be made the storehouse of so-called information that may be reeled off under pressure as false evidence of education. . . . . All parts of it move in unison when the machinery is in order. But the prime consideration should not be lost sight of; the colleges are for the few, while the lower schools are for the many, and if we are to have good citizens, sound men, the lower schools must, besides being brought to the highest possible educational standard, inculcate those principles of morality, virtue, and right conduct which combine to make up character. Given a proper public school system, we may let the universities take care of themselves. President Chamberlain, of the Wisconsin University, declares the business of the university to be to gather information, formulate it, and pour it forth into those institutions which look to it as a leader. . . . -Inter-Ocean.

CRITICISM.

It did not appear to occur to the members of this association that the carrying out of their recommendations might involve a larger expenditure of money than that derived from all the wealth of the country. Neither did it appear to occur to them that an army, navy, police force, local militia, courts, roads, bridges, street lights, sanitary regulations, and the support of the sick and indigent were matters regarded by others as highly important to the welfare of the community. No one ventured to estimate what the expense of sustaining the system of education they recommended would be, or how the money could be raised for supporting it, without depriving the great mass of people of the common comforts of life. The economic management of schools received no attention at the hands of the convention. It is a matter that never appears to interest educators "to any very alarming extent." It is never referred to in educational journals. It is not discussed by state, county, or city superintendents in making their annual reports. It is presumed to be unworthy of their consideration. How the great productive industries of the country would be affected by making everything subservient to a public school system received no attention. It appeared to be taken for granted that if an education was obtained "all else would be added thereto."-Times.

IN CONCLUSION.

The convention of the National Teachers' Association has adjourned. Considering that it was in session but three days, and that they were the hottest ones of the season, it made a good many recommendations. Resolutions were passed by the association, or by sections, recommending national aid for the public schools in the southern states, a better system of schools for the Indians, the introduction of free kindergarten instruction, the introduction of instruction in cookery and needlework in all schools in which girls are taught, the establishment of free libraries and night schools, the support of normal schools for all classes of teachers, the enactment of laws for compulsory attendance on schools, the introduction of manual training in all grades of schools, instruction in music, drawing, painting, modeling in clay, light and heavy gymnastics, the extension of the graded system of schools and central supervision into the rural districts, the increase of salaries paid to teachers and superintendents, making the tenure of service of educators permanent, and the granting of pensions to teachers after a certain term of service. They might have saved time by stating that "they wanted the earth and the fulness thereof.”—Times.

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The memorable convention of the National Educational Association stands adjourned. While it has not taken a decided position on the question of manual training, which is destined to be the education of the future, still progress has been made. At the proceedings Thursday, the President of the Department of Industrial Education made a strong plea for it, and argued that it should go hand in hand with the academical system and that manual work was favorable in its influence upon the purely intellectual. Prof. Woodward, of St. Louis, whose manual-training school has a national reputation, said : It has been found that there are methods of teaching and employing children in kindergarten schools, and I believe that boys of 14 can also be taught in manual training without the book-work suffering a loss." Numerous other instructors gave their testimony as to its value, among them Prof. Caruthers, of Cincinnati, who said that in that city 'drones had become hard working students." At the dinner given by the Prang Educational Company, which was attended by a large representation of the most prominent people identified with art and industrial education in this country, there were numerous enthusiastic expressions of opinion in favor of the new departure. At the meeting of the association yesterday morning, Gen. Francis Walker, the president of the famous Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose certificates are of more practical value to a boy entering the world of work than the diploma of any school or college, made an argument for manual training, which carried great weight with it and was listened to with unusual interest.Tribune.

A week's visit in the Garden city is worth a year's schooling to the residents of New England and other distant localities. All of them who, while here, intelligently studied what was before them, must go home with their natures broadened, their experience immeasurably increased and otherwise modified, and better prepared to deal with the problems of their various lives.

Chicago has been pleased to afford these visitors its hospitalities. Largely women, they have inundated the city with their cheerful faces, and have afforded novel attractions to the streets. The people of Chicago have been able to inspect in person the Boston school-ma'am, of whom so much has been said and so little known here in the West; and in glancing over this element, and in "sizing it up," the intelligent observer has been able to conclude that the common-school system seems to have been expressly devised for the absorption of the surplus maidens of the New England States. A school-room is not quite the equivalent of a home circle, nor is a gathering of everybody's brats a complete substitute for children of one's own rearing; and yet, in the case of the husbandless woman, the duties of the school life divert the attention from the "what might have been," and partially, at least, crowd out many of the yearnings and regrets of a spinster's lonely life. Without the benignant and capacious school system to serve as a refuge, the hills and valleys of Massachusetts would be studded with statues of innumerable Niobes who, over their failure to secure husbands, would have wept themselves to stone.

It may be that in the contact of eastern spinsterhood and western manhood which has taken place during the present week there may remain some permanent adhesions. It is to be sincerely hoped that such may be the case, and that a few, at least, of the spectacled misses from Boston may remain to grace this city with their culture. The union of the stalwart practicality of the occident with the refinement of the orient could not but result in a product of an incomparable value. The pork of the Garden city united to the beans of the Hub would afford a dish which would nourish a race of intellectual giants.—Times.

The Teachers' Convention more than fulfilled all our expectations. It was, in every sense of the word, a splendid triumph. . . . Looking at the whole from the standpoint of an outsider, and yet of an outsider who is intensely interested in all educational signs and movements, these three things seemed to be especially noticeable:

1. There is a growing sense of unity in all the departments of instruction. Workers in universities and colleges and academies and common schools lock hands in fellowship, and are evidently under an increasing conviction that they are all engaged in one great business. The old envies and jealousies and disdaiu no longer exist; or if they do, it is in a greatly modified form. It is no longer a seemly thing to be indifferent. There is an intelligent sympathy pulsing through the whole circle of schools and instructors. Quite likely a great many influences have co-operated to this end; but must not a large share of the credit go to General John Eaton and the remarkable service he has rendered to learning in this country by his administration of the Bureau of Education ?

2. There is an evident drawing closer together of those who hitherto have opposed and those who have favored the introduction of manual training into the course of our public school instruction. Five years ago, as was said by President Sheldon on the platform, it was not possible to secure a place in the programme for the discussion of the claims and merits of manual training in the public schools. But at this meeting General Walker and Miss Fay had the house with them; and when the vast concourse of teachers present was asked to vote on the question whether they deemed manual training a matter of importance to all who have the fashioning of school policies, the affirmative had it unanimously. At the same time the approbation accorded to President Peabody, of the University of Illinois, when he ventured to call in question the high moral value of manual training insisted on by the extreme advocates of the system, showed clearly that some people have not yet got so far along as to expect manual training is to usher in the millenium. Perhaps these people who were disposed to go along with President Peabody in his mild suggestion of criticism, were thinking of some contractors, or of some carpenters and masons whom they have known, who, in spite of all they have learned about the absolute necessity of having bricks and stones and timbers accurately adjusted in order to meet the requirements of the case, will yet lie, and cheat, and do sham work.

3. There is a deepening conviction that more must be made of the religious element in our American educational system. Those who have been in regular attendance upon these annual meetings of the Association, did not hesitate to say there was a marked improvement perceptible in the religious tone of the papers and addresses, and in the temper of the whole body. A capital proof of this was the reception given to Dr. Strong's paper on the Christian College. He was cheered repeatedly, and in the debates which followed, the views of the paper were enthusiastically endorsed over and over again. There were doubtless some materialists in the convention; but only one man of all whom we heard speak ventured to announce a theory of materialism and to put it forward as a proper basis on which to stand and work the cure of human selfishness. The overwhelming sentiment of the convention set in the direction of Christian truth and Christian methods and Christian aims. Materialism, atheism, infidelity, agnosticism, are clearly at a discount in the estimation of a large number of our educators. It is one of the shining tokens of the t me that there are so many in this great body of teachers whose influence is simply measureless, who feel that they cannot get on without a personal faith in a personal God. -Advance.

The editor of Intelligence, in careful review of the meeting, says,

The meeting

of 1887 has passed into history as the largest meeting of the kind ever held. The treasury shows that there were over ten thousand paying members; which means that there were at least twelve or thirteen thousand persons in attendance.

A very common sentiment seems to be that we do not need another big meeting for a long time to come; that enough has now been done for the treasury and that the next few years at least should be devoted to "education." There is good reason why any set of officers and any local committee, may ho'd to this sentiment. If any one wants to know what the reason is, he is referred to some of the last local committee who put in three or four solid weeks of hard work. But why this sentiment should prevail so generally is not so plain as might appear at first. To us it seemed as if from a purely educational standpoint the meeting was as successful as the meetings of the Association have generally been, if not more so. The audiences were large, attentive, and interested. The subjects discussed were as practical and timely as well could be. The speakers stuck to their texts with exceptional fidelity and presented good papers. To be sure a person loitering at the hotel or Exposition, or on the street, found himself surrounded by such a large number of companions that it seemed as if the various meetings which ought to be going on must be disorganized or deserted. But the loungers had only to bestir themselves a little to discover their fallacy. The meetings lacked nothing that they ever have when the attendance is smaller. In fact, will not this sentiment against big meetings, when driven to its last retreat, be found lodged mainly in some selfish disappointment in not being able to appropriate one's friends so exclusively, or make oneself so conspicuous, as in a smaller crowd?

On the other hand, beyond all doubt, large meetings are a great help to the cause of popular education. They airest the attention of the public. Teachers were never thought about and talked about by the commercial classes so much before. The daily papers spread the full proceedings before hosts of readers as they would not have done for a meeting of a few hundreds. If sound educational ideas were not planted widely in the public mind it was the fault of the educators themselves. Why is not a big meeting every year under like favorable conditions desirable? Nobody should claim that these meetings are the product of educational enthusiasm or ardor. But they certainly tend to beget enthusiasm, and more than all, they give with the populace a prominence and standing to educa tion and teachers which is of large value.

The praise of President Sheldon as a presiding officer was in all mouths. No such convention ever had a better moderator. Prompt, decisive, invariably good natured, every speaker had to come to time and the audience did not once feel imposed upon. Had a man of a little less vigor and ability been at the helm, it is not pleasant to contemplate what would have been the result of such a mammoth meeting.