the shores and banks of our rivers and smaller streams, are objects worthy of the intelligent attention of our citizens.

Now, therefore, I, Daniel H. Hastings, Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, in accordance with law, do hereby designate and proclaim Friday, the 10th day of April, and Friday, the 24th day of April, A. D. 1896, to be observed as Arbor Days throughout the Commonwealth.

The selection of either of the above designated days is left to the choice of the people in the various sections of the Commonwealth, to the end that that day may be selected which is deemed the most favorable on account of climatic conditions.

Given under my hand and the Great Seal of the State. this Twenty-fifth day of February, in the year of our Lord One Thousand Eight Hundred and Ninety-six, and of the Commonwealth the One Hundred and Twentieth.

HE World's Fair, to be held at Paris

in 1900, gives promise of being worthy of France, and worthy to inaugurate the Twentieth Century. The buildings will be upon a colossal scale; twenty-two countries have already notified the authorities of their purpose to be represented in the grand display. In itself the City on the Seine is a permanent exhibition of the arts and sciences; and this International Exposition will be one of the grandest the world has seen. But the Dream City on the shore of Lake Michigan, in 1893, need fear no rival. It stands apart, unique and peerless!

THE next meeting of the National Educational Association will be held at Buffalo, New York, within easy distance of Niagara Falis. The National Council meets July 3--7, and the General Association will be in session from Tuesday, July 7th, until July 11th. The railroad rate will be a single fare for round trip ticket, plus $2.00, the fee of membership. The teachers of Pennsylvania should be well represented at the Buffalo meeting.

HORACE MANN will be a hundred years old within a few weeks, and it is proposed to celebrate his birthday. A good picture of him has long been upon the wall in our school-room. We are in hearty accord with the movement. Let the educator be honored always and everywhere, and especially when he comes to be a hundred years old. It is a poor profes

sion that will not do honor to its great men. Within a few days we had from Dr. Wm. T. Harris, U. S. Commissioner of Education, the following letter: "I presume that the readers of your valuable Journal may be aware that May 4th is the birthday of Horace Mann. But, perhaps, not all of them know that next May 4th is the centennial anniversary of the birth of that distinguished educator. A friend of mine has made what seems to me a good suggestion, namely, that the public schools of the land should celebrate by appropriate exercises the one hundredth birthday of one whose influence has been so potent for good in the common schools of the country."

Ar a meeting of the Pennsylvania Chautauqua recently held at Lebanon, Chancellor T. E. Schmauk announced the illustrated and scientific lecture courses for the next Chautauqua Assembly, at Mt. Gretna. The lectures will all be given between July 8th and August 6th, the dates of opening and closing the Assembly. While the lecture list is not yet complete, it shows that sixteen speakers will give one hundred lectures.

ARBOR DAY will be celebrated in Philadelphia by the Forestry Association, and Governor Hastings will plant a tree in honor of William Penn, on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania. The tree to be planted will be a scion of the Penn Treaty Elm, which stood at Kensington, on the banks of the Delaware. The sprout to be placed in honor of the Founder has been promised to Mr. Berkinbine by General Oliver, of WilkesBarre, who has a tree fifty-six years old, grown from a branch of the original tree.

NEARLY eight thousand copies of the Dr. Burrowes portrait have been sent out. It is received with approval everywhere. Supt. A. G. C. Smith, of Delaware county, writes under date of March 9th: "The supply of portraits of the late Dr. Thos. H. Burrowes, which you sent me, have been in hand for some days, and many of them have been distributed to our schools. They please both teachers and directors, and many already speak of having them framed so that they may remain permanently in the school rooms. I congratulate your committee upon the very satisfactory manner in which you have performed this part of your important work."

CHOOSE THE BEST MEN.

THE

HE most important of our triennial elections, that for the local supervision of our public schools, will be held on Tuesday, May 5th proximo. It is obligatory upon Directors to look closely into the personality of the candidates who may be presented for their suffrageswhether, in addition to scholarship and practical mastery of the art of teaching, they have the weight and force of character to dignify and adorn this high office, and make it respected and influential in the communities it was created to serve; and whether from all that can be known, the candidate, if elected, will probably perform his official duties with judicial firmness and impartiality and with absolute integrity of purpose.

The office of School Superintendent is as important in its own field of action as that of President Judge of the law courts, and the incumbent should be selected with the same scrupulous regard for capacity and unpurchasable honesty of purpose in the discharge of his duties. To Directors of large experience and high standing, who have the welfare of the public schools at heart and always act with an eye single to their prosperity and success, we need say nothing on this subject; but, as many Directors are new to the office, and have more or less imperfect knowledge of the condition and wants of the schools and of the qualities that are essential in this chief executive school officer of the county, city, borough, or other locality, we may be indulged in the suggestion that they cannot aim too high in selecting the men to fill this most honorable and responsible position. Both the law and an interested public expect that they will vote for the best and most competent man that can be induced to accept the office, if they can discover by diligent inquiry who that man may be. The office was created for educational purposes purely, and educational reasons alone should govern the selection of the incumbent. Politics should not be permitted to enter this sacred arena, nor should personal ends incompatible with the welfare of the schools be permitted to have any influence in the choice of a Superintendent.

When the law establishing the County Superintendency was passed in 1854, three methods of selecting the Superintendent presented themselves: 1. To have them

appointed by the State Superintendent, which was regarded as somewhat too autocratic and not likely to meet with the approval of the Legislature; 2. To have them elected by the popular vote, which was regarded as objectionable because the office would inevitably get mixed up with party politics and the high qualifications required be lost sight of in the interest of faction and geographical distribution of county offices generally; and 3. As a compromise it was deemed most judicious and safe to make the selection devolve upon the immediate representatives of the people-the School Directors who are clothed with the weightiest powers and authority embodied in the enactment, and it was believed that the dispassionate action of these responsible bodies would be so conservative and patriotic as to satisfy public opinion and secure the best practical results.

Experience has shown that, in the majority of cases, the best attainable results have been secured; but it is undeniably the fact that at almost every election there have been instances of comparative and sometimes almost total failure to select competent and trustworthy men. The public schools in such localities have grieviously suffered in consequence, and the reputation even of the Commonwealth has, for the time, been compromised. This is especially shown in the multitude of low-grade certificates, which should never have been issued, and with which some parts of the State have been flooded.

The responsibility for this inexcusable letting down of the bars-this lowering of the standard of qualification-rests directly with the respective County Superintendents, who, in disregard of their official duty and in violation of their solemn official oath, have betrayed their trusts and sacrificed the children in the schools under their charge. It makes no difference what their motive, or absence of motive, may have been for this betrayal of a most sacred cause. Whether a want of courage, or want of intelligence, is immaterial. The disastrous results have been the same in either case, and it is for the results they are to be held responsible. Let no such men be re-elected. Strike them down without hesitation wherever found. They have no moral or legal right to fill a high post of duty which they thus betray and dishonor. If ignor

ant and incompetent teachers are to be foisted upon the public schools, incompetent School Directors or men careless of their duty to the public can do this without the help and connivance of such general officers. It is not necessary to elect, commission, swear in, and pay, a Superintendent for that purpose.

Elect only men who know what the true standard of teachers' qualifications. ought to be, and who will maintain that standard with unflinching fidelity and firmness "though the heavens fall." What citizen would think of asking a

this point; and we feel justified in respectfully saying to these officers, soon to be assembled in convention for the election of a Superintendent of Schools to serve for the ensuing three years, to the benefit or loss of the children under his supervision, "When you have a thoroughly good man, keep him, no matter how many terms he has served."

THE ALTOONA MEETING.

favor, or tamper with the scales of justice in his behalf, because he had voted for him on election day? What Superintendent of proper qualifications and sense of character, would permit a Director, even though he had voted for him, to appeal to him to lower his standard for the accommodation or benefit of some relative or dependent who wanted the money for a few months' teaching, but who was not qualified to earn it? Pennsylvania cannot afford to have any portion of her excellent school machinery inoperative or converted into a sham with impunity.

In the line of safe precedent, which is becoming more and more a settled habit of late years, is the practice of continuing experienceed and faithful school superintendents in position as long as they are willing to serve, if they continue to be devoted and capable and progressive. Such officers are entitled to the reward of merit which continued re-election confers. Our educational policy, when properly carried out, is essentially a growth, that is not carried forward by fitful and impulsive changes, but by steadfast and logical development. Superintendents, and teachers, and pupils, all grow when they have the opportunity; and that opportunity, it is obvious, should not be cut short or denied, except for some unmistakably good reason.

Rotation in office is not sound policy unless it is certain that material improvement will result from the change, and such changes should be very cautiously made. Rotation for the mere sake of rotation would be so objectionable as to become a self-evident wrong to the great cause that would in nine cases out of ten be injuriously affected by it. We are sure that sagacious and far-sighted School Directors who have the good of that cause at heart will agree with us in opinion on

whose convention was held at Altoona during the first week in March, had a royal welcome from Supt. Keith and his Board of Directors. The sessions lasted two days and one evening. The Assembly hall of the New High School was placed at the disposal of the convention. The audience which greeted Dr. Brumbaugh on Thursday evening was large, enthusiastic, and intelligent. The singing by the pupils of the High School was superb. In originality, content, delivery and power to fascinate, the address of Dr. Brumbaugh surpassed anything we heard at the Jacksonville meeting. The banquet at the Logan House, which the Directors gave in honor of their visitors, was replete with good feeling, good speakers, and other good things for the palate and the soul.

On Friday morning, Supt. Henry Houck completed his sixtieth year. His friends presented him a purse with sixty shining silver dollars, each dollar symbolizing a year of his life. No other school man is so well known throughont the state, or more generally esteemed. During his long and honorable connection with the School Department, he has addressed the teachers and directors of every county in the State, always finding large and enthusiastic audiences ready to welcome him back into their midst. the heart of every educator and teacher there is a spot which grows warmer at the sight of his face and at the mention of his name. May he live long to bless the children of Pennsylvania!

In

The necessity of teaching our irregular English spelling was discussed and deplored at the last meeting on Friday afternoon. Two new dictionaries, the Century and the Standard, have been published in recent years under the editorial supervision of pronounced advocates of spelling reform, and neither one

of these standard works recognizes the new spelling as equally valid with the old. The youngest and most progressive people have made no progress on this question commensurate with that made in languages not English. The son of the mechanic must learn to spell if he would fill a clerkship or any other vocation involving much correspondence. Scholars with established reputation may spell by the new way; the rest of mankind are afraid to differ from the dictionary.

The fine address of President Mackey -which is given in full in the proceedings elsewhere in this number of The Journal-his skill in presiding over the convention, the perfection of Supt. Keith's arrangements, the assistance of the book men in making the convention successful, and the speeches inviting the Superintendents to Greater Pittsburg, will make the Altoona meeting one to be recalled with the words of Virgil, "Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit." -Aeneid, I. 203.

APRIL ARBOR DAY.

HE Arbor Day proclamation by Governor Hastings, here given, impresses the duty of the season. Spring is here. The time of the singing of birds and the planting of trees is come. The germ or the small tree of our Arbor Day planting may be the great tree of the future.

"Here," says Secretary Morton, of the National Department of Agriculture,

are a few acorns to-day; to-morrow, a century hence, they are sturdy oaks, then ships, railroad carriages, everything useful. The real of to-day was the ideal of yesterday, the ideal of to-day will be the real of to-morrow.'

If you cannot plant these great treesthe oak, the elm, the sycamore, the pine -plant such as you can, and let a large proportion of your planting be fruit trees. Do something, do it promptly, and encourage the boys and girls to follow your good example.

We have just received from Prof. N. H. Eggleston, of the United States Department of Agriculture at Washington, a suggestive and valuable pamphlet of eighty pages, entitled "Arbor Day: Its History and Observance," which is one of the very best things sent out from any of the departments during the past year or the past score of years. It should be

distributed by the hundred thousand in the interest of the good cause of treeplanting and forestry. It is the right kind of seed-sowing. Pennsylvania is represented in it by extended extracts from Arbor Day addresses delivered by Dr. E. E. Higbee, Prof. George F. Mull, and Dr. J. T. Rothrock. Can we do better than to read again these few paragraphs from the graceful pen of Dr. Higbee, who had Thoreau's love for the woods, and who is here worthily named as "the late distinguished State Superintendent of Pennsylvania ?" Associated with Arbor Day, which he introduced into the State in 1885, may his memory always be green as the trees he planted and encouraged others to plant! He says:

'Recognizing the peculiar fitness of the Executive proclamation fixing an Arbor Day for the Commonwealth, it has been our effort and pleasure to make it in every way as efficient for good as possible in relation to our public schools. Here among the children, habits of thought and feeling in regard to the benefits and uses of tree-planting can be formed, which will deter them, it is hoped, from that destructive greed which has forgotten the value and beauty of green woodlands and parks, and the glory of shadowy hills and leaf-hidden streams, where the trout snaps the unwary fly and the llverworts peep out from the dewy moss and wakerobins nod their heads to the answering ferns. Children need, in their innocent up-springing, to have room to get away from the garish sun and rest, as upon a mother's bosom, in the twilight silence of the growing woods.

"We have endeavored to keep in view, so far as possible, the educational power of such things, by urging that our school grounds be supplied with shade trees and shrubs and flowers, and that the naked walls of our school buildings be trellised over with vines. Children feel most deeply the ministry of that which charms the eye.

We are what sun and winds and waters make us, The mountains are our sponsors, and the rills Fashion and win their nursling with their smiles.

"Unconsciously each impression of such character sinks into the tender depths of their souls, and there it remains as in reflection do the willows in the placid stream. In fact, the scenes of nature are perennial companions, growing more

friendly from year to year. Those most ! familiar, wherever we may be, are ever entering the study of our imagination and often giving direction to our acts. The shepherd' as with exquisite pathos has been said by Wordsworth, is half a shepherd on the stormy sea, and hears in piping shrouds the tones of waterfalls and inland sounds of caves and trees; and in the bosom of the deep, sees mountains, sees the forms of sheep that grazed on verdant hills.'

"Arbor Day repeated in our schools from year to year, will cultivate a reverent love of nature, will lead our children to value studious walks along our streams and hills and through our winding valleys and wide, windy sweeps of harvest fields and meadows and into our bosky dells to waken courteous Echo to give them answer from her mossy couch.

"There is, indeed, a power and a culturing beauty in all this which every child may experience if he will, and Arbor Day serves to enforce it upon his thought. Why should not our school children cherish a holiday which brings them into direct sympathy with the sweet companionship of man with nature? Why should they not offer their aid in giving to our school grounds green lawns over which the wind-stirred trees may scatter gold and porphyry, where the laughing daffodills may welcome the returning swallows, and glowing clusters of chrysanthemums may soften the cold of autumn winds with thoughts of summer? Why should they not surround the school-house, which they must so soon leave for the harsh toil of business life, with all that can make the memory of it a joy forever?"

ELECTION OF SUPERINTENDENTS.

DEPARTMENT PUBLIC INSTRUCTION,
HARRISBURG, APRIL, 1896.

To the County Superintendent.

DEAR SIR: The forty-third section of an Act of Assembly approved the eighth day of May, 1854, entitled An Act for the regulation and continuance of a System of Education by Common Schools," requires official notice to be given of the time and place for hold the triennial convention of school directors, for the purpose of electing County Superintendents of Schools in the several counties of the State. County Superintendents are hereby directed to give such public notice as is required by the act referred to, for holding a convention of the school directors of the county, on the first Tuesday of May next, to elect a County Superintendent for the regular term of three years, as provided by law.

On page 350 of School Laws and Decisions, edition of 1896, will be found the proper form of notice to be published for three consecutive weeks in two weekly newspapers of the county. Insert in the public notice to be given, the hour at which the convention of directors shall assemble on Tuesday, the fifth day of May.

You will please report to this office the names of the two papers in which you have authorized the notices to appear, and request the publishers to send receipted bills for the publication of the same to this Department. Very respecfully,

NATHAN C. SCHAEFFER,
Supt. Public Instruction.

EXAMINATION OF TEACHERS.

THE THE Board of School Controllers in the city of McKeesport, Allegheny county, at a recent meeting, adopted a motion to the effect "that all teachers be required to undergo an examination, regardless of their Normal School diplomas, permanent or professional certificates." This motion was referred to the Committee on Rules to prepare a rule to govern the matter. Mr. J. D. Foster, chairman of the Committee on Rules, submitted to the Department of Public Instruction an inquiry in reference to the right of a School Board to adopt such a rule. The following is the reply to Mr. Foster's communication:

MR. J. D. FOSTER, McKeesport, Pa.

Dear Sir: School directors cannot consistently require a superintendent to examine teachers who hold valid certificates, or other legal credentials, qualifying them to teach in the district where they are to be employed. No board of directors is justified by law in the enforcement of a rule, such as is proposed by your committee, subjecting the holders of state certificates or valid professional certificates to examination.

Graduates of state normal schools hold a normal school certificate or diploma lawfully granted to them by the State Board of Examiners, which certificate or diploma exempts the holder from further examination in any of the branches named thereon.

The holder of a permanent certificate has a legal credential, granted by the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, which certificate is valid in the county in which it