THE SCHOOL JOURNAL.

LANCASTER, OCTOBER, 1895.

The best of men that ever wore earth about him was a sufferer, a soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit; the first true gentleman that ever breathed.-Decker. Ye may be ave stickin' in a tree, Jock; it will be growin' when ye're sleepin'.-Scotch Farmer.

AUTUMN ARBOR DAY CIRCULAR. "What do we plant when we plant the tree? We plant the houses for you and for me. We plant the rafters, the shingles, the floors, We plant the studding, the lath, the doors, The beams and siding, all parts that be; We plant the house when we plant the tree. "What do we plant when we plant the tree? A thousand things that we daily see We plant the spire that out-towers the crag, We plant the staff for our country's flag, We plant the shade from the hot sun free; We plant all these when we plant the tree." The celebration of Arbor Day serves a fourfold purpose:

1. It leads to the planting of trees for shade and for fruit. In response to the first Arbor Day proclamation issued in 1885, not less than fifty thousand trees were planted by the teachers and pupils of the public schools of Pennsylvania. The annual recurrence of Arbor Day has led to the planting of thousands of additional trees and to the better adornment of the grounds around the school and the home.

2. The celebration of Arbor Day has disseminated much useful information concerning the planting and care of trees and the kindred arts of budding, grafting and seedvariation. It has drawn attention to the evil effects which flow from the criminal waste of timber, and to the importance of of covering with a new growth of trees all tracts of land which are otherwise useless.

3. Arbor Day has helped to stimulate the interest of the pupils in the study of nature. Since the knowledge of plant-life is of inestimable value to the farmer and the gardener, exercises which beget an interest in this kind of knowledge can not be omitted without committing a greivous wrong against the future tillers of the soil.

4. Arbor Day aids in opening the eyes of children to the beauties of nature. Every tree upon the hillside and valley has its charms. In autumn the trees of the forest are robed in gorgeous colors. The youth who, with Pope, has come to realize that "A tree is a nobler object than a prince in his coronation robes "

will appreciate rural scenes and rural life, and will not conceive the idea that happiness is only to be found in the crowded thoroughfares of the city.

To let our children grow up in ignorance of the facts and laws of vegetable life and of the pleasure and profit derived from the contemplation of the beauties of nature, would be a sin against childhood and against the Commonwealth.

come

"Men," says Prof. J. T. Rothrock, and go, but the State is to endure. The citizen who does not recognize this fact is unworthy of the past and the future. Public prosperity will always depend upon the conditions under which men live. If these be adverse, success in life will be but partial, and even this will be won with infinite toil. We are bound to a partnership with the soil and its products. The larger our population, the closer will this union be, and the more must we maintain the surface of the earth in the best possible condition. Seedtime and harvest there will always be, so long as the promise of God endures, but how abundant that harvest will be, may depend in great part upon whether we have observed or violated Divinely-ordained natural laws. If we keep our steep and rocky hillsides bare, the water which should have remained in the soil will pour out of the country in a destructive freshet, the streams will dwindle, the springs dry up, and even the climate will become more extreme from want of watery vapor, which the trees would have dispensed had they been present in sufficient numbers. If we allow the forest fires to go unchecked, the fertile soil over which they rage will be destroyed, loosened and swept off. Even the roots will be killed and the prospective crop of timber measurably lost to the community. These conditions will become progressively worse from year to year, while a constantly-increasing population will render the struggle for life and prosperity more The longer we postpone the work of forest protection and restoration, the more costly it will become and the less will we be prepared to do it. This is the children's question. The timber may outlast the fathers of to-day; but the children who follow will

severe.

meet the trials of life under adverse conditions. He who plants a tree to day, or wisely legislates now, will bless his children's children - for the forest waters the farm."

Whilst Arbor Day means much for pupils who cannot participate in tree-planting, it has special significance for the pupils in our rural schools. Since most of these schools are not in session on either of the dates appointed for the observance of Spring Arbor Day, it was found advisable from the first to have Arbor Day exercises also in the fall

of the year. To perpetuate this good custom I appoint

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 18TH, Autumn Arbor Day, and respectfully urge those connected with our schools to observe the day with appropriate exercises. The trees may be planted out of school hours, but a part of the time, usually devoted to public readings or nature study, can be profitably spent in exercises calculated to subserve the purposes of Arbor Day.

NATHAN C. SCHAEFFER,
Supt. Public Instruction.

Harrisburg, Sept 23, 1895.

tion. The schools of Berks county have already contributed over two hundred and fifty dollars towards a monument to the distinguised German, Conrad Weiser, whose influence with the various Indian tribes and whose prolonged and valuable service in other directions have made Reading, Berks county, and the State of Pennsylvania largely his debtors. This fund has been begun, and it will be increased to thousands of dollars before it is completed and this memorial stands the noblest thing of its kind within the borders of the county. It is well that the schools should be taught such lessons of

people seem to think everything ought to come in that easy way. Apple trees will not. Strawberries will not. Nor will some other things. They must be paid for-in thought and money and work-by somebody. Hast thou, O reader! ever and often been that somebody? If not, it is time to bestir thyself in a working world like this. Another Arbor Day comes on. Plant a tree! You will soon be dead. Leave the world a little better off for your having lived in it. Plant a tree! Plant a tree!

GOVERNOR HASTINGS has re-appointed Dr. J. T. Rothrock, of West Chester, Commissioner of Forestry for a period of four years. He is the man for the place above all others, doing his work with an eye single to the public good, with little regard for fame or the moderate salary attached to this very important position. The appointment also of Dr. B. H. Warren, of Union county, as Zoologist to the Department of Agriculture, could not be improved upon. Dr. Warren was State Ornithologist in the old State Board of Agriculture, is the author of the "Birds of Pennsylvania," which was published by order of the Legislature and has been widely distributed throughout the State, and prepared the exhibit of birds and other animals of Pennsylvania for the Chicago Exposition.

On the anniversary of the Battle of the Brandywine, September 11th, 1895, there was dedicated to the memory of Lafayette a monument with appropriate inscriptions. It is a handsome shaft with square base, and stands near the spot where the distinguished Frenchman was wounded. The children in the schools of Chester county contributed generously to its erec

pressing this matter upon their attention, Supt. Zechman is doing educational work of the best kind. The people who do things are the people who can do them, and both Supt. Walton and Supt. Zechman promise for Chester and Berks counties generous aid to the Dr. Burrowes' Memorial Fund.

AN Iowa man who was convicted of sending obscene matter through the mails has recently been sentenced to eight years' imprisonment at hard labor and to pay a fine of $4000 for his violations of the law. The judge in sentencing the prisoner expressed the utmost surprise at the extent to which the mails are being used for this purpose, and then said he intended to do what he could to break up the practice. He employed the right method. Men would be more chary of prostituting the mails to such uses if they felt certain of such a severe sentence in case of detection. Several cases of the same kind have of late been before the courts in Pennsylvania, and it has gone hard with the offenders. The name of Anthony Comstock is becoming a terror to evil-doers of this infamous class.

PROF. GEO. F. MULL, of Franklin and Marshall College, enclosing check for five dollars for the Dr. Burrowes' Fund, writes: "It is good to undertake this work, so eminently worthy. It is a beneficent work, far-reaching in its consequences and all for good, extending in ever-widening circles the multitude of those who, it has been wisely ordained, shall have their minds and hearts enlarged and sweetened by hearing the words and contemplating the deeds of a great good man-one of the 'immortal dead.' How true it is that those written

memorials, in which the noble dead yet | speak with us, contain, as Milton says, a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul whose progeny they are.' I wish your committee the most abundant and speedy success, knowing that in it you will find an ample reward for your generous and unselfish labor.”

THE law passed by the last Legislature providing for the maintenance of parents by their children is a measure of importance. "Honor thy father and thy mother" is a mandate that has little meaning for many people, and the authority of the State is properly invoked to compel unfilial children to care for their parents. The new law says that if any male child of full age within the limits of this Commonwealth, has neglected or hereafter without reasonable cause shall neglect to maintain his parents not able to work to maintain themselves, it shall be lawful for any alderman, justice of the peace, or magistrate of this Commonwealth, upon information made before him under oath, or affirmation, by said parent, or parents, or by any other person or persons, to issue his warrant to any police officer or constable for the arrest of the person against whom the information shall be made as aforesaid, and bind him over with sufficient surety to appear at the next Court of Quarter Sessions, there to answer the charge of not supporting his parent or parents.

MISS MARY MARTIN, of the Boys' High School of Lancaster, contributing ten dollars to the Dr. Burrowes' Memorial Fund, expresses her cordial sympathy with the movement, thinks the work should have been done long ago, and "will give more if needed." Everybody doesn't give that way. It is a rare blessing to have head, hand, and heart for any good work that needs them all. Deputy Supt. Houck also is early on the list with a check for five dollars and a hearty letter in appreciation of the educational service of Dr. Burrowes, with whom as a man and as an influential factor in the school work of Pennsylvania he was personally well acquainted.

Prof. Gustave Guttenberg, teacher of Biology in the Central High School, has prepared a very beautiful Botanical Guide through the Phipps Conservatories in Pittsburg and Allegheny.

THE SUPERINTENDENCY.

ITS BEARING UPON THE EFFICIENCY OF OUR SCHOOLS.

ROGRESS in education is seldom

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made without much opposition. The popular mind is wedded to the old. The average man is satisfied with the traditions of his forefathers. The evils which ought to be corrected are at first seen only by those who are full of the spirit of progress and reform. Improvement may involve the uprooting of prejudices, the curtailing of privileges regarded as vested rights by those who enjoy them. Among these was the right to teach and the right to have as teachers whomsoever the community was willing to accept. The creation of the office of County Superintendent abridged these rights by excluding from the ranks many who were incompetent to teach. Those who first filled the office were met with many marks of popular disapproval. In some States the law creating the office was soon repealed; and had it not been for the heroic stand of Governor Pollock, who declared that he " would see every other department of his administration go down before he would suffer the School Department to go down," it would have been repealed in this State, also.

Supervision was discussed for many years, and has an interesting history in Pennsylvania. State Superintendent Miller, during the administration of Governor Shunk, earnestly urged upon the Legislature the adoption of the County Superintendency, but without securing the passage of a law. This was a leading feature of the law of 1854, drafted mainly by State Superintendent C. A. Black and his Deputy, Hon. H. L. Dieffenbach, during the administration of Governor Bigler. It aroused such resolute and bitter antagonism that had it not been for the firm attitude of Governor Pollock in the following year, and the masterly strategy of State Superintendent Curtin and Deputy Superintendent Hickok, the law would have been promptly repealed by the Legislature. The story of that struggle is graphically told by Hon. H. C. Hickok in the issue of The School Journal for May, 1890. How much we owe to these men for preserving the County Superintendency is evident from the reports of Commonwealths without this office.

Take the report of the Connecticut Board of Education. The following sentence was dictated to children of twelve: "Whose knife is this?" The object was to ascertain whether the children were taught the use of the interrogation point. In fifteen out of twenty-three districts, more failed than succeeded, though in the county where the test was made more succeeded than failed. The minimum number of school days in a year being 150, the boy or girl has no more than this to show for six years, or 900 days, of schooling. Along with other tests this convinced the Board that the pupil has expended the acquisitive and inquiring hours of his life-4950 of these hours-in not getting information or the power of thinking, because he has not been properly taught. The reasons which the Board assigns are very significant. No adequate attainments, no special training, no general and authoritative credentials, are demanded of those who teach. "No positive attainments," says the Report, are required of the person who sets up to teach. A profound ignoramus, if endowed with sufficient assurance, is in no way excluded from teaching."

The teacher who has devoted time to special study in education, who conforms in practice to some well-defined theory, has no better chance than the pretender or tyro who does not know what education means, whose self-devised and crude methods of instruction constitute the sum total of his qualifications."

"In respect of credentials, the qualified and unqualified stand on precisely the same footing. The trained and competent teacher possessing evidence of training and competence has no advantage. Both jostle each other in the strife for positions. Meanwhile parents and the public look on with indifference, apparently forgetting, deeply unconscious that the dearest interests of their children are involved."

"There is no organized teaching service-a body of men and women of ascertained and certified competence, having definite relations to the State and town which pay them and the district which hires them. Their tenure depends not upon ability, education, training, fidelity, success, but upon the annual election with its uncertainties and probabilities of change."

"The fact that neither adequate knowledge, training, nor certificates are essen

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tial has borne its legitimate fruit. Every young person unprovided for, or plunged into difficulties and obliged to earn a living, or uncertain what to do temporarily until something shall turn up, leaps with intrepid confidence into teaching. single bound, without a single qualification, and with disqualifications natural and acquired, they profess themselves ready to undertake the practice of an art which requires knowledge, experience, tact and patience."

It would no doubt be presumptuous to claim that none of these evils exist in the Keystone State. How a young woman who receives for five or six months less than twenty dollars a month, can make any adequate preparation for teaching, is one of the mysteries which those unable to get other help have not been able to solve. If by the help of parents or friends she succeeds in attending a training school for half a year or more, she is enabled to earn better wages elsewhere, and she never returns to teach in the district in which she was reared. Thus the County Superintendent is compelled to grant provisional certificates to a new crop of beginners, and the sparsely-settled, poverty-stricken district is doomed forever to employ teachers poorly equipped for their duties. Here and there an exception looms up like an oasis in the desert that only shows more strikingly the need of irrigation from higher sources before a general educational harvest can be produced.

Fortunately, over large areas of Pennsylvania the efforts of the Superintendent are not thus nullified by low wages and unfavorable conditions. Where the salary is an inducement, the best talent can be selected and certified, and results superior to those specified in the Connecticut Report are attained.

The report also makes reference to the supervision of schools. "This work is entrusted in all towns but two to the acting visitors, a part of our system which beautifully illustrates how-not-to-do-it. We should say that a supervisor of schools

"1. Should know what should be taught and why it should be taught, and what it should accomplish; 2. Should have a knowledge of the best way to teach each subject; 3. Should have a thorough acquaintance with schools and school work, including ability to detect faults of management as well as of teaching.

"These being the qualifications of

school visitors, we turn with amazement to the actual qualifications in sight. We find that some have never, up to the time of their selection, set foot in a primary school, are destitute of all educational experience, and are unwilling or unable to give time to the schools. Some, it is true, are animated with interest and zeal and speedily qualify themselves; but they cannot, in two visits a term, and at most six in a year, either became acquainted with the schools or influential in their management and teaching. It is an unjustifiable experiment to put in charge of active and eager children a young man or woman without any acquaintance with the art of teaching; a still more unjustifiable experiment, if that be possible, is it to put in charge of teachers a man fresh from college or a man occupied with other business and without training. There should be supervisors who can give their whole time to the schools and direct and impel the teachers. The teachers are now unaided and irresponsible. If they were assisted, guided and then justly rewarded according to results, they would soon become eager to succeed, and in the end qualified to teach."

"Your State," said Editor Macdonald of Kansas, not long ago to the writer, is the only one in the Union, so far as I

competency, viz: the power to get things done. Many educated men and women can, during their visits, ascertain what is done and make an intelligent report thereon; very few possess the power to get done all that ought to be done by those who teach. The improvement of the teachers who are now at work in the schools, is the most difficult problem of supervision. supervision. At first sight the easiest way out of the difficulty and the one that always suggests itself to inexperienced supervisors is to eliminate from the corps of teachers all whose work is not entirely satisfactory. How shall the vacancies thus created be filled? Teachers of tried skill and superior ability are not often found ready at hand. Those who are selected, are seldom better than those who have been got rid of; and the gains are not worth the pains. The supervisor owes his teachers something more tangible than criticism and condemnation. If he can not help to clarify the aims and to perfect the skill of the average teacher, he is as ill-fitted for his duties as those whom he criticises and condemns.

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HONORING THEMSELVES.

for those who are charged with the duty of supervision." In Pennsylvania no person is eligible to the office of county, city or borough superintendent who does not hold a diploma from a college legally empowered to grant literary degrees, a diploma or state certificate issued according to law by the authorities of a State Normal School, a professional certificate issued one year prior to the election, or a certificate of competency from the State Superintendent, or has not had successful experience in teaching within three years of the time of his election. These qualifications, in connection with the fact that the Superintendent is not elected by popular vote or at the regular elections in November and February, save our State from men who are put on the county ticket because there is no other place, and elected by a party vote regardless of the fact that they are unable to pronounce correctly a list of words for spelling.

The most essential qualification for efficient school supervision is, however, too delicate to be ascertained by an examination or to be set forth in a certificate of

able memorial in honor of Thomas H. Burrowes, LL D., who was, to all intents and purposes, our pioneer State Superintendent of Common Schools, the generous donors will not only do honor to his memory, but confer honor upon themselves as well, by thus proving their loyalty to the great cause of popular education. The surviving soldiers of the late Civil War have never faltered in patriotic remembrance of comrades and commanders who fell in battle or have vanished from the scene of life's activities, and as a consequence massive and enduring monuments have been multiplied on conspicuous battle fields, and adorn almost every village green throughout the loyal States. And civilians, whose influence and means contributed to these highly honorable results, never felt themselves impoverished by their helpfulness to so glorious a cause, nor imposed upon by appeals to their liberality. On the contrary, it was felt to be a sacred duty that it would have been churlish and dishonorable to have neglected.

But "Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war," and sometimes con