educational projects. The war has destroyed their fields, and temporarily their prosperity. The people are doing all they can in this direction, and difficulties are being rapidly overcome, and good schools will soon make their own party and partisans. Out of the small pittance at command, everything possible is being done for the cause of education in the Southern States. The speaker then paid a glowing tribute to the educational systems of Massachusetts and other northern States, and especially the donation of Mr. Peabody for the glorious cause in the South, and the judicious manner in which the great trust has been discharged. After showing that the people of the South are unable to keep pace with the schools of the North, the speaker urged that something should be done to prepare the youth of the South for intelligent citizenship and self government. He referred to the munificent governmental appropriations of public lands for the endowment of agricultural colleges, embracing literary, scientific, and mechanical culture, and asked whether the proceeds of the remaining Government lands might not go for education.

Under the lead of a paper from Professor Phelps, of Minnesota, on "The country school problem," the merits and demerits of country schools were then considered, and much information was contributed by different speakers.

"Education in the South" was then resumed, George W. Warner, of Germantown, Pa., initiating it with a desire to come under the five-minute rule and urging the appointment of a committee to devise means for assisting the people of the South in their educational project.

Professor Pickett, superintendent of schools at Memphis, Tenn., indorsed the views of the speaker in regard to the improvement of the work, and mentioned some of the more hopeful movements in the schools under his charge. The point was to induce pupils to struggle in securing education, and blessed are they who search for it in earnest. In the South they are not in any rut, and will keep out if possible.

Miss Helen M. Nash, of Little Rock, Ark., gave an interesting sketch of the schools in her locality, which she declared in the main to be lamentable-sand and pointed sticks being used instead of blackboards and chalk in illustrations. A good system was now established at Little Rock, but difficulty was encountered because pupils were not inclined to depend sufficiently upon themselves.

In the department of higher instruction, presided over by President Porter, several papers were presented, chief among which was the one by Professor Sawyer, entitled "Comparative orthoëphy." Professors Sawyer, Shepard, and Hinkle were appointed a committee on comparative philology, to report at the next annual meeting on the condition and prospects of phonetic science, coöperating as far as possible with a similar committee of the American Philological Association. Also a lengthy address was delivered by W. W. Folwell, of the University of Minnesota, on "Agricultural and polytechnic institutions," arguing for the introduction of more practical branches of education in our college courses. "Full orbed education," by Dr. J. R. Buchanan, of Kentucky, and "The duties of education to crime," by J. B. Bittinger, D. D., of Pennsylvania, were two very elaborate efforts. Lieutenant Schenck, United States Army, of Iowa, presented an essay on "Military science and tactics in our universities and colleges," favoring compulsory military training in colleges and arguing for its adoption in all institutions, the points of which paper were sustained in the discussion which followed by Dr. Read, Professor Rollins, Lieutenant Coleman, Professor Clapp, and Professor Sawyer, and as ably opposed by Professor Campbell, of the Minnesota State University.

In the general sessions, "Families, past and present," was the subject of an essay written by Lewis Felméri, professor of pedagogics at Klausenburg University, Austria, in which the causes of the unhappiness of married life were pointed out and the way in which the education of children is apt to be onesided. A paper on "Caste in education," by Professor A. P. Marble, of Massachusetts, claimed that schools should be free, but systematically governed, the same as a nation. The power of the State must be supreme. The folly of people who refuse to help educate their neighbors' children in the common schools, when their own are trained at individual expense, was shown. Universal taxation is the guiding star of the nation. No dividing line can be drawn, save that the pupil who evinces the most genius and talent should receive the most attention, not to the neglect of duller scholars, however. A very entertaining but. highly idealistic essay, "The relation of art to education," was read by Miss Grace C. Bibb, of St. Louis Normal School.

Resolutions of respect to the memory of Dr. J. W. McJilton, of New York; Superintendent Gibbs, of Florida; and Superintendent W. R. Creery, of Baltimore, were offered and adopted.

Hon. E. E. White, of Ohio, then made a report, in behalf of the committee on the United States Bureau of Education. He remarked that the Bureau of Education was established in response to the wishes of the educators of the country, and, from its establishment to the present time, has received the increasing appreciation and coöperation of all who are trusted with the management of schools in all parts of the

country. It was created by the votes of members of Congress of both parties and has been supported by men of both parties.

The opposition to the Bureau arises from three sources:

(1) There is a comparatively small number of statesmen who hold that the Bureau has no warrant in the Constitution. It is a sufficient answer to this view to say that the weight of opinion is not only against it, but the practice of the Government from its organization to the present time; and this may be accepted as a practical interpretation of our fundamental law.

(2) The Bureau is opposed as an interference on the part of the General Government with reserved rights of the States. This objection is based on an entire misapprehension of the functions of the Bureau. It has no authority whatever to interfere with the management of the school systems of the several States. The law organizing the Bureau and its administration fully answer this objection. It is simply a central agency, supported by the Government, for the collection and dissemination of important information respecting the condition and progress of education in the several States and Territories and in other countries, and it has not even authority to demand an item of information from any school officer. It is a fact that the Bureau has the support of the school officers of both political parties in the several States.

It is also urged that the Bureau, having no authority in school affairs, cannot be sufficiently useful to justify its support by the General Government. The Bureau has already answered this objection. It has given an impulse to education which is felt throughout the country, and its great usefulness is recognized and appreciated by all who take an intelligent action in educational progress.

In conclusion Mr. White complimented Commissioner Eaton on his wise and efficient administration of the Bureau, and then submitted the following resolution, which was unanimously adopted:

"Resolved, That the good already accomplished by the National Bureau of Education is a complete vindication of the wisdom of its establishment, and we earnestly request Congress to increase the usefulness of the Bureau by providing ampler facilities for the prosecution of its important work."

The following were the officers elected: President, W. F. Phelps; secretary, W. D. Hinkle; treasurer, A. P. Marble; vice-presidents, D. B. Hagar and 32 others.

This convention may be regarded as a success. The topics chosen were of practical interest and, as a general thing, ably treated. The daily press, however, and the public generally, both East and West, have not given the usual prominence to this annual gathering of American educators; a result which can be accounted for only, perhaps, by the remoteness of the place of meeting and by the fact that not the usual number of distinguished names graced the programme.-(The Common School, September, 1875, pp. 126-132; American Educational Monthly, 1875, pp. 419-422; and official report of the association.)

AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE.

This association closed on the evening of the 17th of August its session for 1875, held for a week at Detroit, Mich.

This annual gathering of scientific men exhibited about the usual features of these meetings for the last ten years. So far as the different departments of science are concerned, there has been a more decided attention given to geology and paleontology at this than at most of the previous meetings, from the institution of this organization as well as in the association which preceded it.

The more definite exposition of the old red sandstone and the other Devonian rocks in the State of New York, as brought out by recent surveys under the superintendence of Professor James Hall in the Catskill and adjacent regions, is one example of good geological work.

The announcement of the discovery by Professor Hitchcock, chief of the New Hampshire survey, of evidences that the great glacier once covered Mount Washington was received by non-geologists with some degree of incredulity; but Professor Hitchcock is too careful and too experienced in his science to be likely to be mistaken; nor is there a single improbability to a geologist in this announcement. It had before been settled that evidences of glacial action are unmistakable more than 5,000 feet up from the tide level on this mountain, so that a few hundred feet more only are added to the reach upward of the great ice cover in the glacial epoch.

Professor Winchell, formerly of the Michigan survey, cleared up, at this meeting, some of the obscure points in the geological structure of that State; but was obliged to admit the great obstacles which are presented there to an investigation of the rocks in the rarity of rock exposures. A thick layer of drift in the lower peninsula hides the rocks from view, and the uniformity and horizontality of the strata increase the difficulty. Around Lake Superior, however, all this is fully compensated for in the universality of rock exposures.

Professors Andrews, Newberry, and Whittlesey were present at this meeting, and gave interesting particulars of the progress of research in the geology of Ohio. The very

singular character of the glacial markings on Kelley's Island were referred to, as well as the discovery of new fossils in the coal measures. Dr. Newberry brought out some additional facts in regard to the properly named "terrible fish," Dinicthys, the nearly complete remains of which he has discovered, and which was the dominant fish of its period. It was more thoroughly armor plated than a modern iron clad ship of war, and quite as effectively provided with the means of destruction against its coinhabitants of those early seas. The relations, also, of this fish to other ganoids were traced. This brought out some sharp passages between Cope, of Philadelphia, and Wilder, of Cornell University, as well as a close rejoinder from Dr. Newberry. Cope, eminent as a comparative anatomist in the study of bones, and Wilder, a close student of the soft animal structures, including the nervous system, and especially the brain, were entirely at variance with regard to the division of ganoid fishes, the former claiming that no such division can be derived from the natural structure of their bones, and the latter, that the division of ganoids is thoroughly established through resemblances in their brains and other soft parts.

No more interesting matters were presented than those discussed by Dr. Dawson, of Montreal. He has thoroughly wrought out the structure and the history of the Eözoön Canadense, that early and abundant fossil of the lowest stratified rocks; so that there is no longer any room for doubt as to its history, and very little obscurity as to its structure and functions. In other respects Dr. Dawson's recent discoveries, as narrated at Detroit, are valuable, while his objections to every phase of the special evolution theory are strongly and shrewdly urged.

The most directly practical, in some respects, of all the matters presented at Detroit related to the predatory insects. Messrs. Riley, of St. Louis; Le Conte, of Philadelphia; Grote, of Buffalo, and others discussed matters in this relation that concern immediately the productiveness and the well being of the whole country. The various suggestions of Professor Riley were most important as to the Rocky Mountain locusts, which descend upon the fertile fields of Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, &c., and destroy every trace of the verdure which they can eat, leaving nothing of the crops and only the animals and the reserves of dry grain. He insists that these pests shall be attacked in their original breeding places; that their whole history shall be studied out and the warfare upon them directed accordingly; that the destruction of the various harmless and useful animals that prey upon them, like the prairie hen and others, shall cease; and that in this country, as on the eastern continent, the military power shall be brought to deal with them, since a few regiments of soldiers would be well able to cope with them. He suggests to the farmers that the young locusts bred in their midst cannot pass a perpendicularly sided ditch with cross section two feet square; that poultry and pigs may be fattened on the locusts, and that these locusts are susceptible of being cooked and eaten by man as an agreeable and wholesome food. The locusts, he shows, cannot maintain themselves permanently in the regions which they devastate, but must come there from their original breeding places on the flanks of the mountains; neither can they ever pass eastward beyond the Mississippi.

In chemistry, at this meeting, many interesting things were brought forward. One of the most notable was the exhibition of half a pound or more of coesium alum, by Professor J. L. Smith, of Louisville, extracted by him from lepidolite, or lithia mica. This alum is remarkably soluble in hot water and very slightly soluble in cold water. Professor Smith's exhibition of Clamond's thermo-electric pile, as an instrument requiring no acids and capable of furnishing, at an unobjectionable cost, a permanent force for electro-plating, &c., was another interesting dissertation. Kirkwood's discussions on the groupings of the asteroids and various abstract mathematical papers were brought out in this department of science.

Ethnology and archæology received some interesting contributions from the searches in the western mounds, and especially from the long abandoned dwellings seen in our southwestern regions. The stone houses, found by hundreds, perched on the crests of the rocks in New Mexico, as reported by Professor Cope, whence perpendicular precipices descend on one side for a thousand feet or more, with a steep slope on the other of an equal descent, show a population which protected itself in this way from incursions of an otherwise overpowering enemy. These residences most likely were temporarily resorted to or else great physical changes have intervened, for no water supply is now to be found within many miles of this region. The study of insectivorous plants and of leaf structures, brought up at this meeting by Professor Beal, of the Michigan Agricultural College, and that of the flowering season of plants, by Professor James Hyatt, of New York, were the only botanical matters presented.-(American Artisan, September, 1875.)

EDUCATION IN SUNDAY SCHOOLS AND MISSION SCHOOLS. 545

EDUCATION IN SUNDAY SCHOOLS AND MISSION SCHOOLS.

SUNDAY SCHOOLS.

The following statistics of Sunday schools in the United States were collected under the auspices of the international Sunday school convention held at Baltimore, Md., May 11, 12, 13, 1875. Thirty States, with at least one Territory, have so organized their Sunday school systems as to furnish reports to this association. The greater part of the statistics given, however, with reference to even these States, are only partly from direct reports, partly from estimates:

*Report of East Tennessee Sunday School Association, with estimate added for the western portion of State.

MISSION SCHOOLS.

It was hoped that statistics on this point, kindred with those presented respecting Sunday schools, might be presented with this report. Efforts have been made to collect these, and some of the more important missionary societies have very kindly given the information sought. Others have failed to furnish it; and the statistics, although interesting, are hence too incomplete to warrant publication of them as a fair showing of educational missionary work abroad.