Johnson's Outline Maps, and built a number of double outhouses. Bushkill furnished each school with four Worcester's Academic Dictionaries in addition to Webster's International, and built a number of out-houses. Forks furnished all rooms with slate black boards. Plainfield has built new out-houses.

NORTHUMBERLAND-Supt. Shipman: The chief educational event of the month was the County Institute held at Sunbury. Day sessions were held in the court house, and evening sessions in Lyon's opera house. During the day sessions many were turned away for want of room. More interest is taken every year in the Institute by the public, directors, and teachers. In the part of the county where I visit the schools only five teachers were absent, three of whom were detained by sickness. Over 100 directors attended the different sessions; 80 were present on Directors' Day, and continued in session from 10 a. m. to 4 p. m. In addition to the discussions carried on by themselves, they were addressed by Prof. Geo. P. Bible and Supt. R. M. McNeal. As heretofore, several of our county teachers took an active part as instructors, doing excellent work and aiding materially in making it a real Teachers' Institute. Two hundred and ninety-five teachers were enrolled, not including any of the Milton or Shamokin teachers, a few of whom attended part of the time at their own expense. Northumberland borough has introduced White's New Course in Art Instruction, and will begin the work immediately. A New Year's dinner was given to the needy poor of the town by the school children. Teachers having a day off can spend it very profitably in these schools. Nature or observation work is prominent feature. of the course.

SCHUYLKILL-Supt. Weiss: Our County Institute, held at Pottsville, was the largest and most successful ever held in this county. Seven hundred and fifty-five teachers were in attendance. We had a strong and popular course of evening entertainments, and first-class talent for day instruction. Teachers and citizens were delighted with day and evening sessions. Unusual interest was manifested by all in the instruction, addresses, lectures and entertainments.

SNYDER-Supt. Bowersox: Our Institute was a grand success, intellectually and financially. Our instructors were Dr. Schaeffer, Dr. Hulley, Profs. Alberts, Buckbee and Berkey, all of whom did excellent work. Our lectures were replete with gems of thought. For the Dr. Burrowes Memorial Fund $16.75 was raised, but, as all of the teachers could not be seen, we propose to swell that amount to larger proportions. All the teachers were present at the Institute, and fifty-two directors were present on Directors' Day, a greater number than has attended any one Institute on record in our county. The schools thus far visited are getting along finely. During the month I

attended the County Institutes of Montour and Northumberland.

SULLIVAN-Supt. Meylert: The County Institute was a very successful meeting. All but three teachers were enrolled. The instruction, besides being practical and helpful, were also entertaining and inspiring. By unanimous vote the Institute recommended a graded course of study for the common schools of the county. Another year will doubtless find this plan in successful operation.

VENANGO-Supt. Bigler: Two successful Institutes were held during the month, at Clintonville and at Centreville. We have one appointed for each Saturday until the middle of March.

BRADFORD-Supt. Miller: Miss Minnie M. Powers has been elected supervisor of music for the public schools. Miss Jennie Simons was elected teacher of German in the high school. All the school buildings are crowded to their full capacity, the enrollment being greater by 200 than for the corresponding month last year.

DANVILLE-Supt. Houser: The month was more or less broken by Institute and holidays. Few visits were made by the directors. However, we are glad to note those of J. H. Montague, James McGill and W. E. Sanger. Fifty-eight visits were made by the patrons. The Board purchased a cabinet of weights and measures for each building, to accompany the new course of study in arithmetic just adopted.

HAZLETON-Supt. Harman: Miss Annie Metzger, teacher at Drifton, having resigned, the School Directors met in special session and elected Miss Carrie Schaeffer, of Jamesville, to fill the vacancy. She is a Normal School graduate, and comes well recommended. Some of our pupils wishing to prepare for a Normal School course, we have provided for them by establishing a class at Woodside, with Mr. Jesse Alden in charge. Christmas exercises were held in nearly every school in our district. I attended those held at Pond Creek. The programme consisted of songs, recitations and dialogues. The school-room was very appropriately decorated.

MT. CARMEL-Supt. Dean: Believing that progress is absolutely necessary, quite a number of our teachers are meeting regularly once a week, and considering one or two subjects under the Superintendent's direction, making themselves proficient in studies that do not fall within their grades. The work is voluntary, in addition to the regular and grade meetings. Several have already decided to attend the next summer session of the Summer School at the Philadelphia University Extension. We think the inducements are extraordinary, and we dare not neglect so rich a treat at so little cost. All true teachers of Pennsylvania should take advantage of the opportunity and go.

NEW CASTLE-Supt. Shearer: The Superintendent's best thought, outside of school

and office hours, has been devoted to selecting a pedagogical and a school library. Two months ago there was one book of Devices and Methods; now we have nearly 100 volumes in the pedagogical library. Among them are the 33 volumes of the International Educational Series, and nearly all of Heath's pedagogical books, together with a number of other standard works. The teachers are very enthusiastic over the library, and are using it wisely. A very successful Institute was held in the High School, December 30January 3d. The interest of the teachers, members of the Board and others increased each day. This is the first City Institute held here. The Board appropriated $100 towards the expenses of the meeting.

NORRISTOWN-Supt. Gotwals: The pupils of our public schools deposited in the Norristown Trust Company during the year just closed $8,219.63, an increase of $1,889. 19 over the previous year, also the highest amount since the adoption of the Saving Bank system in our town. The number of depositors also shows an increase of 91. They had on deposit to their credit at the close of the year $13,953.89. There is no lack of interest in the system.

SHENANDOAH-Supt. Whitaker: Our library has grown so much in size, popularity and usefulness that it has become necessary to give special attention to it yearly. This annual work has just been completed, at a cost of about $360. We have had 130 old books rebound, 92 replaced, and have added 235 new volumes. This places the library in excellent condition, and makes our collection fresh and up to date. We have now 3500 volumes of carefully selected literature at the disposal of our schools and the general public for use free of cost. The circulation is very large, there having been over 5000 issues of books during the last five months. A large share of this patronage comes from the pupils of our schools. Thus, besides being valuable and beneficial to the general public, the library is an important and valuable auxiliary to our schools. We have through it awakened such an appetite for good literature that it taxes our resources to keep up with the demand. The accomplishment of all this, previously to the Public Library Act, reflects much credit upon the School Boards and the citizens, who, during many years of care and patience, and from a very small beginning, have worked faithfully and earnestly, until at last success has crowned their efforts. We are proud of our possession, and proud of the good that is being done thereby.

SOUTH EASTON-Supt. Shull: The Educational Committee cite the parents of children not attending school before them to show cause of absence. Thus far the rule has been working with good results.

SUNBURY Supt. Oberdorf: The new building is proving very satisfactory and is a decided improvement upon the old structure, in which most of our pupils are obliged

to spend six hours of each day. One has but to pass from a building thus lighted, heated and ventilated, into an old building without any of the modern improvements in order to note the contrast, and to realize how much we really need more of the same kind. We hope to secure a new central high school building during the coming year. We have probably the very poorest building in the county for high school purposes, and we are greatly handicapped in this department because of the lack of facilities and a proper amount of room for genuine work, comfort, and progress. Nevertheless, generally speaking, school work up to date has been marked by a spirit of progress, and an interest on the part of the pupils that is very encouraging. The percentage of attendance is high, the teachers are, as a rule, doing excellent work, and with all our disadvantages we are glad to note a progressive spirit on the part of the teachers, an earnest desire for advancement on the part of the pupils, and a liberal spirit manifested by the directors. We have just received an addition to our physical and chemical laboratory which will enable us to do better work in this department, and we sincerely hope that at the next borough election, our citizens will invest the board with power to erect the high school building of which we are so sorely in need. We venture to state that no high school in the country is so much in need of a good modern building as the Sunbury high school.

The

WILLIAMSPORT-Supt. Transeau: At a meeting of the School Board early in November it was determined to replace the Washington school building with a modern structure containing fourteen rooms. building will cost about $40,000, without counting the value of the lot. It is to be a building of superior conveniences in all that pertains to the comfort of those who are to occupy it. This will make the sixth large school-house erected in this city during the last eight years. The educational event for December was the annual Institute. The instructors were: Dr. W. A. Mowry, of Hyde Park, Mass., a very superior instructor and scholarly man, who was with us the entire week and the teachers were sorry to bid him good-bye; Supt. J. S. Walton, of Chester county, who did us excellent service, both as an instructor and a lecturer; Prof. I. H. Green, of West Chester Normal School, who during the one day he was with us, pleased our teachers very much; Mrs. Ella B. Halleck, of Southold, N. Y., who was with us two days and addressed the Institute a number of times on the subject of "Physiology and Hygiene;" William H. Miller, M. D., formerly principal of one of the largest schools, who delivered two addresses on "The Quarantine," and "Microbes, their Relation to Health and Disease." Dr. Miller made a favorable impression; he has good abilities as a public speaker and lecturer. The institute was a success in every respect.

A

PUBLIC INSTRUCTION

STATE TEACHERS AND OF THE ASSOCIATION.

MAN does not become dangerous because he has learned to sign his name; but he becomes dangerous both to himself and to others if he has been taught to dissociate cause and effect; if he has got it into his head that benefits may be obtained without labor; if his brain has been muddled with the notion that others are responsible for making him happy and prosperous. We dread an education which in any way withdraws a youth from the salutary influence of natural reactions and tends to give him an artificial conception of the world he lives in. We dread an education which favors the formation of indolent habits, or which confuses and enfeebles the mind by calling upon it to pursue abstract trains of thought when it should be occupied by the concrete. We dread an education which at once excites ambition and disinclination for toil; which gives a smattering of many things but no true sense of power or competence in regard to anything; which represses individuality and so robs character of a main element of strength.-Popular Science Monthly.

THE strongest light on any sea coast of the round world will soon be in working order on the Jersey shore. It will have no rival for power anywhere here or in Europe. This great electric light will have 2,500,000 candle power, and its warning rays will be sent forth from the top of Barnegat Lighthouse. This huge light was exhibited at the World's Fair at Chicago, and it was purchased by the United States Government, to be placed

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on Fire Island. This project was, however, abandoned, as a lightship has been substituted for the Fire Island Lighthouse. The Government officials then decided to place the new and powerful light on the next most important point on the coast, which is Barnegat. The present light at Barnegat is 165 feet above the level of the sea, and it can be seen under ordinary circumstance 19 nautical miles. The new light is so powerful that it will not only be seen a great deal farther than the old one, but it will penetrate haze and fogs, which often make the present light invisible. All old sea captains know the Barnegat light as showing a white flash every ten seconds, and the new one will have the same characteristics. Many important additions have been made to the Barnegat lighthouse to prepare it for the new light, and it is now one of the best-equipped structures of the kind in the world.

IN a teachers' institute, held in the mountain country recently, the question was placed on the black-board, "What is the object of school government?" The following represent the written answers submitted by the teachers: 1. To secure an interest in the work of the school. 2. That the child may learn to govern himself afterward. 3. To show the child that punishment follows all wrong-doing. 4. To make loyal, intelligent citizens. 5. To obtain the best results in school work, and to teach the pupil self-government. 6. To make school work effective. 7. The making of perfect citizens. 8. (The

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same.) 9. To draw out and develop all that is truest and best in the pupil. To arrive as near as possible at perfection in the mental and moral condition of the rising generation. II. To make lawabiding and self-governed citizens. Moral, mental and physical advancement. 13. To develop the moral and intellectual faculties. 14. To enable the pupils to govern themselves and others in after

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15. To develop all the highest traits of character and purpose. 16. To fit the pupils to become good citizens.

THE philosophers have figured out some queer problems since the time of Horatius, but none of them are more curious or more appropriate in a department of this character than that relating to the amount of time it would take an object to fall from the sun or moon to our earth. It has been decided, after an immense amount of figuring, that if a boulder weighing a ton should fall from the sun, it would take it 99 years, 9 months, 7 days and 2 hours to reach the earth. The same boulder could make the trip from the moon to the earth in four and a half days.

MORE than 60,000 signers petition the Chicago Board of Education to restore the Bible in public schools. Eminent Catholics favor it. A committee from all the prominent sects has been appointed to select non-sectarian passages.

EDISON'S definition of electricity, "a mysterious fluid about which nothing is known," is not quite new, as a Kentuckian applied the same description to water long ago. Still the wizard is right. But, then, what is gravitation? We know its laws and nothing more, and within this we get along very well. The same can be said of electricity. If we can control and use it, it does not matter so much that we shall know what it is in itself.

THE detection of the gas argon in the atmosphere is being followed by a rapid series of discoveries of great interest, says a London dispatch. Chemists have long known, theoretically, of the existence of another element which has been called helium, and which was revealed by the spectroscope in the sun's rays. It was not known to exist in this planet. Professor Ramsey a few weeks ago, in order to find whether there was something in the world with which argon

would keep company, was examiuing an extremely rare earth found in Norway and known as cleveite. When this mineral is treated with weak sulphuric acid it gives off a gas which has hitherto been regarded as nitrogen. The Professor found by close examination that it was not nitrogen, but argon, and, moreover, there was associated with it another gas which he found to be, to use his own words, gas which had not yet been separated. He submitted it to Professor Crookes, and the result is to show that the gas thus found is helium. M. Berthelot, continuing his experiments in Paris, found that in manipulating argon he developed at an ordinary pressure a magnificent fluorescent substance greenish yellow in color and characterized by a spectrum similar to that of the Aurora Borealis. From this he deduced that the northern lights are caused by fluorescent matter derived from argon and engendered through the influence of electrical emanations developed in the atmosphere. Still another scientific triumph is the liquefaction of hydrogen by Prof. Olszewski, of Cracow, Prof. Dewar's rival. He finds that the lightest of all gases liquifies at 243 degrees below zero.

IT is interesting to know where ships' masts come from. The spars from which the masts of the Defender and Valkyrie were made were cut at Kamilchie in the state of Washington. That state annually sends out at least 100 vessels timber laden, in every direction, all the way from Corea to Australia and the Hawaiian islands, and even to the Kimberley diamond mines and the Johannesburg gold mines, in Africa. It is stated that the flag of the Emperor of Japan flies from a stick of Puget sound timber, and it is known positively that the flagstaff on Windsor Castle, from which waves the union jack in the daily view of Queen Victoria, is a Douglas fir from Puget sound-a Yankee contribution to the furniture of the monarch of the British Isles. It is also true that the largest flagstaff in Maine, the Pine Tree state, is at Lewiston, and it came from Puget Sound. Nor is it a remarkable piece of timber, as one comes to think who lives in Washington. It is the Douglas fir, known abroad as Oregon pine.

A WALDORF Hotel group were discussing the extent of British territory a few evenings ago, when an experienced