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*In any school in which Greek can be better taught than a modern language, or in which local public opinion or the history of the school makes it desirable to teach Greek in an ample way, Greek may be substituted for German or French in the second year of the Classical programme.

vocations like pharmacy, dentistry, engineering, be filled by men who have had all the educational advantages which the nineteenth century affords? It is a wellknown fact that many of those who are making their mark in these lines have risen from the humblest walks. The many country lads who rise to prominence in the cities always hail from communities where they enjoyed the instruction of, and caught inspiration from, one or more good teachers. Trace these men to their homes, and you will find that they grew up in the proximity of schools superior to the average elementary school of the present day. Study the men who grew up in communities where these educational advantages were not to be had, and you will find many a gem unpolished and many a star unknown."

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For this reason the scheme of your Committee contemplates the extension of secondary education to rural communities by the establishment of high schools at places accessible to the advanced pupils of one or more townships. Where but one teacher can be employed, a high school of the third grade may be established, in which the farmers' sons and daughters can be taught the elements of botany, zoology, physics and chemistry, thus opening their eyes to the wonders of nature around them and to the laws of vegetable and animal growth, in accordance with which their toil in tilling the soil can be made remunerative. An inflexible course of study your Committee does not recommend. To outline courses of study in detail for all our high schools would only add to the confusion in people's minds already produced by the Report of the Committee of Ten. The four courses of study outlined by that Committee can only be considered as ideals toward which teachers and pupils may work; to bind any one of them upon the high schools already in operation would involve the loss of valuable time and effort. Instruction should always begin at the point which the pupils have reached. Their interests are superior to those of any system of grading invented by the wisest of educators. Hence, no sudden or violent changes are recommended for any city or borough high school, and after it becomes incumbent upon the Superintendent of Public Instruction to outline a course of study for township high schools it will be wrought out with special reference to the needs

of different sections of the Commonwealth.

The scheme of your Committee may be summed up for discussion under the following captions:

I. The establishment of high schools at favorable points in rural districts, as well as in boroughs and cities.

II. The appointment of legislative committees by the State Teachers' Association, and by County and City Institutes, to coöperate in securing a special appropriation in aid of High Schools.

III. The employment of at least one teacher with specified scholarship in every high school receiving special aid from the State.

IV. A standard of admission into high schools based partly upon the attainments of the pupil.

V. The adoption of a course of study somewhat flexible, so as to suit the diverse wants of different sections of the Commonwealth, which should embrace

1. The study of civics, including the constitution of Pennsylvania.

2. A daily recitation in elementary science, except in the case of pupils who study Greek and Latin with a view of entering college.

3. A review of arithmetic after the elements of algebra and geometry have been studied; a review of geography after the elementary sciences have received attention; and a review of English grammar after rhetoric and possibly the elements of Latin have been studied. Reviews should not exclude the introduction of new matter either during the recitation or during the preparation of the lessons assigned.

4. The adoption of the curricula of the Committee of Ten, as ideal courses toward which teachers and pupils may work; but in no case is a curriculum to be followed as if it were to be forced upon the pupils without due regard to their capacities and the requirements of the vocation they are destined to follow.

VI. An agitation of the question of secondary education at Teachers' Institustutes, Directors' Conventions and High School Commencements, as well as through the daily and weekly papers and the educational periodicals which are circulated among the people of Pennsylvania.

For convenience of reference Tables I. and IV. of the Report of the Committee of Ten are given on the preceding pages.

THE STICKIT MINISTER.

RENUNCIATION OF ROBERT FRASER.

BY S. R. CROCKETT.

HE crows were wheeling behind the plow in scattering clusters, and plumping singly upon the soft, thick grubs which the plowshare was turning out upon an unkindly world. It was a bask blowy day in the end of March, and there was a hint of storm in the air-a hint emphasized for those skilled in weather lore by the presence of half a dozen sea-gulls, white vagrants among the black coats, blown by the south wind up from the Solway-a snell, Scotch, but not unfriendly day altogether. Robert Fraser bent to the plow-handles, and cast a keen and wary eye toward his guideposts on the ridge. His face was colorless, even when a dash of rain came swirling across from the crest of Ben Gairn, whose steep bulk heaved itself a blue haystack above the level horizon of the moorland. He was dressed like any other plowman of the south uplandsrough homespun much the worse for wear, and leggins the color of the red soil which he was reversing with the share of his plow,

Yet there was that about Robert Fraser which marked him no common man. When he paused at the top of the ascent, and stood with his back against the horns of the plow, the countryman's legacy from Adam of the Mattock, he pushed back his weather-beaten straw hat with a characteristic gesture, and showed a white forehead with blue veins channeling it-a damp, heavy lock of black hair clinging to it as in Severn's picture of John Keats on his death-bed. Robert Fraser saw a couple of black specks which moved smoothly and evenly along the top of the distant dike of the highway. He stood still for a moment or two watching them. As they came nearer, they resolved themselves into a smart young man sitting in a wellequipped gig drawn by a showily-actioned horse, and driven by a man in livery. As they passed rapidly along the road, the hand of the young man appeared in a careless wave of recognition over the stone dike, and Robert Fraser lifted his slack reins in staid acknowledgment. It was more than a year since the brothers had looked each other so nearly in the eyes. They were Dr. Henry Fraser, the rising

physician of Cairn Edward, and his elder brother Robert, once student of divinity at Edinburgh College, whom three parishes knew as "The Stickit Minister."

When Robert Fraser stabled his horses that night and went in to his supper, he was not surprised to find his friend, Saunders M'Quhirr of Drumquhat, sitting by the peat fire in the "room." Almost the only thing which distinguished the Stickit Minister from the other small farmers of the parish of Dullarg was the fact that he always sat in the evening by himself ben the hoose, and did not use the kitchen in common with his housekeeper and herd-boy save only at meal-times. Robert had taken to Saunders ever since -the back of his ambition broken-he had settled down to the farm, and he welcomed him with shy cordiality.

"You'll take a cup of tea, Saunders ?" "Thank ye, Robert, I wadna be waur o't," returned his friend.

"I saw your brither the day," said Saunders M'Quhirr, after the tea-cups had been cleared away, and the silent housekeeper had replaced the books upon the table. the table. Saunders picked a couple of them up, and, having adjusted his glasses, he read the titles "Milton's Works,' and a volume of translation of "Dorner's Person of Christ."

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"I saw yer brither the day; he maun be gittin' a big practice!"

"Ay!" said Robert Fraser, very thoughtfully.

Saunders M'Quhirr glanced up quickly. It was, of course, natural that the unsuccessful elder brother should envy the prosperous younger, but he had thought that Robert Fraser was living on a different plane. It was one of the few things that the friends had never spoken of, though every one knew why Dr. Fraser did not visit his brother's little farm. farm. "He's gettin' in wi' the big fowk noo, an' thinks maybe that his brither wad do him nae credit." That was the way the clash of the country-side explained the matter.

"I never told you how I came to leave the college, Saunders," said the younger man, resting his brow on a hand that even the horn of the plow could not make other than diaphanous.

"No," said Saunders, quietly, with a tender gleam coming into the humorsome, kindly eyes that lurked under their bushy tussocks of gray eyebrow. Saunders' humor lay near the fountain of tears.

"No," continued Robert Fraser, "I have not spoken of it to so many; but you've been a good frien' to me, Saunders, and I think you should hear it. I have not tried to set myself right with folks in the general, but I would like to let you see clearly before I go my ways to Him who seeth from the beginning.

"Hear till him," said Saunders; "man, yer hoast [cough] is no' near as sair as it was i' the back-end. Ye'll be here lang efter me; but lang or short, weel do ye ken, Robert Fraser, that ye need not to pit yersel' richt wi' me. Hev I no' kenned ye sins ye war the size o' twa scrubbers?"

"I thank you, Saunders," said Robert, "but I am well aware that I'm to die this year. No, no, not a word. It is the Lord's will! It's more than seven years now since I first kenned that my days were to be few. It was the year my father died, and left Harry and me by our lane.

"He left no sillar to speak of, just plenty to lay him decently in the kirkyard among his forebears. I had been a year at the Divinity Hall then, and was going up to put in my discourses for the next session. I had been troubled with my breast for some time, and so called one day at the infirmary to get a word with Sir James. He was very busy when I went in, and never noticed me till the hoast took me. Then on a sudden he looked up from his papers, came quickly over to me, put his own white handkerchief to my mouth, and quietly said, 'Come into my room, laddie!' Ay, he was a good man and a faithful, Sir James, if ever there was one. He told me that with care I might live five or six years, but it would need great care. Then a strange prickly coldness came over me, and I seemed to walk light-headed in an atmosphere suddenly rarefied. I think I know now how the mouse feels under the air-pump."

"What's that?" queried Saunders.

"A cruel ploy not worth speaking of," continued the Stickit Minister. "Well, I found something in my throat when I tried to thank him. But I came my ways home to the Dullarg, and night and day I considered what was to be done, with so much to do and so little time to do it. It was clear that both Harry and me could not go through the college on the little my father had left. So late one night I saw my way clear to what I

should do. Harry must go, I must stay. I must come home to the farm, and be my own 'man;' then I could send Harry to the college to be a doctor, for he had no call to the ministry, as once I thought I had. More than that, it was laid on me to tell Jessie Loudon that Robert Fraser was no better than a machine set to go five years.

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Now all these things I did, Saunders, but there's no use telling you what they cost in the doing. They were right to do, and they were done. I do not repent any of them. I would do them all over again were they to do; but it's been bitterer than I thought."

The Stickit Minister took his head off his hand and leaned wearily back in his chair.

"The story went over the country that I had failed in my examinations, and I never said that I had not. But there were some that knew better, who might have contradicted the report if they had liked. I settled down to the farm, and I put Harry through the college, sending all but a bare living to him in Edinburgh. I worked the work of the farm, rain and shine, ever since, and have been for these six years the 'Stickit Minister' that all the world kens the day. Whiles Harry did not think that he got enough. was always writing for more, and not so very pleased when he did not get it. He was aye different to me, ye ken, Saunders, and he canna be judged by the same standard as you and me."

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"I ken," said Saunders, a spark of light lying in the quiet of his eyes.

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Well,' continued Robert Fraser, lightened by Saunders' apparent agreement, "the time came when he was clear from college, and wanted a practice. He had been ill-advised that he had not got his share of the farm, and he wanted it selled to share and share alike. Now I kenned, and you ken, Saunders, that it's no' worth much in one share, let alone two. So I got the place quietly bonded, and bought him old Doctor Aitkin's practice in Cairn Edward with the money.

"I have tried to do my best for the lad, for it was laid on me to be my brother's keeper. He doesna come here much," continued Robert, "but I think he's not so ill against me as he was. Saunders, he waved his hand to me when he was gaun by the day!"

"That was kind of him," said Saunders M'Quhirr.

"Ay, was it no'?" said the Stickit Minister eagerly, with a soft look in his eyes as he glanced up at his brother's portrait in cap and gown, which hung over the china dogs on the mantel-piece.

"

"I got my notice this morning that the bond is to be called up in November," said Robert. "So I'll be obliged to flit." Saunders M'Quhirr started to his feet in a moment. Never," he said, with the spark of fire alive now in his eyes, "never as lang as there's a beast on Drumquhat, or a poun' in Cairn Edward Bank," bringing down his clinched fist upon the Milton on the table.

"No, Saunders, no," said the Stickit Minister, very gently; "I thank you kindly, but I'll be flitted before that!"

I

A COUNTRY SCHOOLMA’AM.*

BY MARY E. WILKINS.

HAVE taught school for forty-four years. Now I have delivered the keys of my school-house to the committee, I have packed away on the top shelf of my closet a row of primers and readers, geographies, spelling books and arithmetics, and I have stopped work for the rest of my life. Through all these forty years I have squeezed resolutely all the sweets out of existence, and stored them up to make a kind of tasteless but lifesustaining honey for old age. I have never spent money unless for the barest necessaries. I have added term by term to the sum on my bank-book until I have been able to build this house and have a sufficient sum at interest to live upon. I need little, very little, to eat, and I wear my clothes carefully and long.

I was never extravagant in clothes but once; that was twenty-five years ago, when I was thirty-five, and expected to

It

*This sketch is the introduction to "The Country School Teacher's Ghost Story," pub. lished in the New York World of March 11. does not represent, perhaps, a good teacher, but a safe one, surely, for she sees and feels her own deficiencies, and laments her lack of brilliant success; not sour, not harsh and crabbed, but sternly repressive, she hides the love she feels for the little ones, for fear she may seem partial to some of them, and so has resolutely squeezed all the sweets out of existence and stored them up to make a kind of tasteless honey for old age." Doubtless some of her pupils would paint her influence in much more glowing tints, and give a brighter setting to the homely picture.-Ed.

be married in the spring. I had a green silk dress then-a bright green. But I had it dyed black, and after all, got considerable wear out of it, although it was flimsy. Colored silk is apt to be. I had a blue woolen, too, a color I should never have bought if I had not expected to be married; and that faded. I also had a black velvet cloak, something that was very costly, and I should not have bought it under any circumstances, but I was foolish. However, that has made my winter bonnets ever since; and it was a good piece, and not cut up much.

Looking backward forty-four years, I cannot remember any other extravagance than this outlay in clothes when I expected to be married at thirty-five. I never have bought any candy except a few cough-drops when I had a cold. I have never bought a ribbon even, or a breast-pin. I have always worn my mother's old hair-pin, although it was so old-fashioned, and the other girls had pretty gold and coral or cameo ones.

My mother died when I was fourteen; my father, when I was sixteen; then I began to teach. My father left me nothing. Mother was sick all her life nearly, and he could not lay up a cent. However, there was enough to pay his funeral expenses, and I was thankful for that. I sometimes wonder if he would think I had done pretty well. I don't know how it can make any difference to him now; he is past all such earthly vanities, even if he knows about them, but I do sometimes feel glad I have done so well, on his account. Anybody has to have some account besides their own, even if it is somebody's that's dead.

I have built this house, with six rooms in it and a woodshed. I have a little land, too. I keep hens, and I am going to have a vegetable garden back of the house and a flower garden front. I have good woolen carpets all over the house except the kitchen. I have stuffed parlor furniture, and a marble-topped table, and a marble shelf with a worked plush scarf on it. I have a handsome dining set and two nice chamber sets, and two beautiful silk quilts I pieced from bits my scholars gave me. I shouldn't be ashamed to have anybody go over my house. And

I keep it nice, too; you could not find a speck of dust anywhere. Of course, I have nobody to put it out of order, and that makes a difference. It has always been my habit to look at all the advan

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