the artists who compose this band could not be held together in this organization unless they understood that the man who stands on the box and waves his stick is such an artist himself, so large and generous in his view and appreciation of them and their work, that they feel safe in joining themselves with him? They know that they will have a chance under his leadership to show all of their art and all of their skill." I know this is rather an extravagant illustration, but it illustrates fairly well the place in the public-school system of a trained, competent superintendent. The presence of such a superintendent or supervisor at the head of a unit of public instruction means better courses of study, greater unity in the instruction, greater co-operation of the several teachers in the various parts of the system, and a very greatly increased responsiveness of that unit of instruction to the best thought and the best ideals of what that unit of instruction should accomplish. I know that there are some superintendents, so-called, who conceive it as their function simply to sit and make life as uncomfortable as possible for the several teachers engaged in the work. That is not the kind of a superintendent I am speaking of. His or her presence in the public-school system is a millstone hanging about its neck. I am speaking of the superintendent who, having knowledge of the teaching work, who, being in sympathy with the things that are to be done, establishes the atmosphere and the conditions which will attract to the system the very best teachers, who know that whatever they are able to do will have a chance to express itself under his or her administration. I am speaking of the superintendent who, having this experience and this knowledge, will have sympathy and tact to unify the efforts of these several well-trained teachers in giving to the boys and girls the largest possible educational opportunity. I believe that this National Education Association has done much in the past years to create a sentiment for expert supervision, but our progress will not be great until this sentiment is more widely spread than it is today and we must continue the campaign which is already so well begun and so far advanced.

The last thing which prevents our practice from embodying our best theory and best judgment in public education is the presence in the publicschool system of all too many immature, ill-prepared, incompetent teachers. No one can go ahead of me in his appreciation of the fidelity, the industry, the enthusiasm of the great army of teachers at work in the common schools of our nation, but after I have said all that I can in favor of the great number who are prepared by nature and by education and by training for their work I cannot avoid saying that the machinery is clogged here and there by teachers who lack the natural fitness, who lack the vision, who lack the scholastic preparation, who lack the enthusiasm of professional skill to do the work. We may appropriate money, we may supply trained supervisors, but the educational system will never respond to its best ideals, will never be actually and effectively progressive until we have placed in every school

room of the land a teacher who by nature, in character, in personality, in scholarship, and in professional training is fit for the calling of teaching. And here, too, there is no need of blinking at the facts. If we are to work in this campaign for securing for our public-school system a better prepared teaching force, the commonwealths of the nation must realize that at least three things must be done. First of all there must be a more adequate salary provided, one that will attract the brightest and best young men and women and give them the assurance of not only a living wage, but of such financial rewards that shall translate a mere job into a calling. And when our commonwealths have arisen to that necessity we will have taken a great step in the line of progress. But there is another step to take and that is to provide abundant opportunity for these young men and women who wish to enter the calling of teaching to prepare themselves for the work. This always entails the expenditures of large sums of money to establish training schools and normal schools and higher institutions of learning in which these young people are to be prepared for their work. And this requires still another step. After we have offered such an opportunity for work and have offered remuneration that shall attract young men and young women to it, after we have given them that preparation which fits them for the work, we must see to it that our laws and legal machinery place upon them the stamp of approval, just as the professions of law and of medicine stamp upon the men and women who have made proper preparation for their work. We must say to them that,

Having thus prepared yourselves, you may go into any part of this commonwealth, wherever there is a demand for you, and do the work of education, and so long as you show the spirit of progress, so long as you show yourselves inclined to follow some expert leadership, so long as you show yourselves growing, efficient workmen there shall not be raised any further question as to your fitness to teach.

And, with these three things adjusted-adequate revenues, expert supervision, and competent teachers-I am sure that twenty-five years from this time, when we meet in a national convention, there will be no need for one to say, and no truthfulness in it if he should say, that what we are doing in public education today is at least twenty-five years behind what we think we ought to be doing.

IN MEMORIAM-JAMES ORMOND WILSON

THOMAS W. BICKNELL, PROVIDENCE, R.I.

In the passing of James Ormond Wilson the National Education Association parts with one of the last of "The Old Guard" of the eastern states. His immediate associates in educational work were Richards, of Washington, Hagar and Philbrick, of Massachusetts, Wickersham, of Pennsylvania, Camp and Northrop, of Connecticut, White and Rickoff, of Ohio, and Newell, of Maryland, all of whom he outlived in his record of eighty-five

honorable years. A few only of those splendid pioneers of a half-century ago survive. Mowry, in New England, and that grand old man of the Central West, J. L. Pickard, are the surviving leaders in the National Education Association before the Madison meeting of 1884.

Mr. Wilson was a true educator of the best type. He was broad, liberal, brave, sympathetic. He delighted in his work as a teacher as the service of greatest value to society. Youth loved the man who carried a warm heart in a manly breast. He knew no race, class, or social distinctions. He knew men as brethren under the great Father.

Mr. Wilson was progressive, and won his successes by a frank, straightforward optimism. He accepted new ideas hospitably and indorsed new plans that called for faith and foresight. He was one of the first to indorse the formation of a National Council of Education, and, as president of the National Education Association at Chautauqua in 1880, did all that he could to install the new movement.

He was a strong, sane, healthful, hopeful man, and our national capitol, his life-long home, was the scene of his greatest works. Here he wrought and died, and his works rise up to bless the earnest workman. Presidents, senators, congresses, came and went, but James Ormond Wilson stood at the post of duty in Washington more than sixty years. He lived as a Christian citizen and educator should live. He died as a Christian hero must always die, harness on, on his eighty-sixth birthday.

Best seemed the thing he was, and joined

Each office of the social hour

To noble manners, as the flower

And native growth of noble mind.

We give the following outline of his life:

James Ormond Wilson was born in Royalston, Mass., April 2, 1825. His father was James Wilson and his mother Chloe Thursting Murdock. Robert Williams, an ancestor on his mother's side, aided in establishing the first free schools in Roxbury, Mass., in 1645 (now the Roxbury High School).

He was educated in the schools of his native town, West Brattleboro, Vt., New Salem Academy and Williston Seminary, Mass., and Dartmouth College, from which he received the degrees of A.B. and A.M.

He settled in Washington in 1848, where he conducted a private school with great success for two years, studied law, and was admitted to the bar of the District of Columbia in 1853. In the same year he was married to Sarah Ann Washington Hungerford, of Westmoreland County, Va. Then followed several years in the service of the United States government, in the Treasury Department; he received his appointment thru the influence of Daniel Webster, whose ability he appreciated and whose memory he reverenced thruout his entire life. While in office he served on the Board of School Trustees from 1862 to 1870, taking an active part in all its pro

ceedings. In 1870 he was appointed superintendent of the public schools, and continued to hold that office until 1885, when he resigned, owing to ill-health. During that period he served as treasurer and committeeman and was elected president of the Department of Superintendence of the National Education Association in 1874, and president of the National Education Association in 1880; and was a life member of the Board of Directors. A school exhibition was sent to each of the great International Expositions of Vienna, Philadelphia, and Paris. In each case an award of the medal of the highest honor was conferred on the work of the schools and the superintendent was decorated with the Three Silver Palms of the University of France and the title of "Officer de l'Academie" by the French government during the Paris Exposition.

The schools of the District of Columbia are greatly indebted to his intelligent exertions and well-directed efforts, both as trustee and superintendent, for their present high standard of excellence. He was unusually successful in securing public interest in the schools and awakened public sentiment for the necessity of better school buildings.

The four systems of schools (the white schools of Washington, the white schools of Georgetown, the county schools, and the colored schools of Washington and Georgetown) were consolidated under one board; the pupils were classified and arranged in their present grades; industrial drawing was introduced into all the schools; in 1873, a normal school was established; in 1876 came the first high school for girls; in 1877, the first high school for boys, when military training was inaugurated; manual training in sewing, cooking, woodwork, shoemaking, floriculture, etc., were introduced into the Industrial Home Schools. The motto of his administration of the schools was a thoro mastery of a few things rather than a smattering in many. (Non multa sed multum.)

An editorial published on the morning of his death in reference to the naming of the new normal school "in honor, not in memory, of James Ormond Wilson," says:

Every Washingtonian will be glad to join, in spirit at least, in the celebration today of the birthday of J. Ormond Wilson, the patron saint of the district public-school system. As trustee of the district schools from 1862 to 1870, and as superintendent from 1870 to 1885, Mr. Wilson built for himself a monument that can never be forgotten or destroyed. He organized the graded schools, and established our normal-school system. It is an appropriate though but slight recognition of his services to name the new quarter-million-dollar normal school on Harvard Street, the James Ormond Wilson School. Mr. Wilson is eighty-six years old today. Washington wishes him many happy returns.

The giving of this name to the new normal school was unprecedented, as no school buildings had ever been named for living men or women.

From 1870, Mr. Wilson was connected with many educational and charitable institutions and societies. He was among the incorporators. of the Industrial Home School and the Garfield Memorial Hospital, and was an active member of the Columbia Historical Society, a trustee of the

George Washington University and the society for the Industrial Education of Colored Youths, a director of the National Metropolitan Bank, and a trustee of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church.

Since his retirement from the School Board he had actively interested himself in affairs pertaining to education.

From 1892 to 1910 he served as secretary of the American Colonization Society, issuing each year two bulletins in the interest of Liberia.

His death occurred on April 2, 1911. He was in his usual health up to a week before, when suddenly he became very weak, and gradually grew weaker until he passed peacefully away, being unconscious only a few hours. He often said that he was sick with no disease-only with eightyfive years.

He is survived by three daughters, Miss Clara Wilson and Miss Anne Wilson, of Washington, D.C., and Mrs. Elinor Wilson, wife of Dr. A. L. Wilson, of Lynchburg, Va., and three grandchildren, Mary Hungerford Wilson, William Lyne Wilson, and Chloe Murdock Wilson.

His death comes at the end of a long and honorable career which he met like a ripe shock of wheat ready for the garner.

Out of respect to the memory of James Ormond Wilson, the president of the Board of Education ordered all flags on buildings under the jurisdiction of the school officials to remain at half-mast during the week, and the schools to be closed the afternoon of the funeral. The zeal and love shown in his philanthropic work is appreciated in the following tributes:

"In placing upon record a memorial of the death of J. Ormond Wilson, the Board of Directors of the Industrial Home School of the District of Columbia feels profoundly grateful that the grief of its members is softened by the reflection that more could not have been done than had been done by our departed friend and associate. He was an original incorporator of the institution, was for many years the president of its Board of Trustees and, from his first connection with it over a third of a century ago, he was earnest in the prosecution of its work because he loved the children committed to its

care.

"Seldom does a man conspicuous in public activities, as was Mr. Wilson, find the time or possess the inclination to add to his manifold duties by assuming thruout such a large proportion of his life the added burdens and obligations of such a trust. Yet during all this period he has remained a member of its Board of Trustees, and has been active in advancing the interests of the institution, and has energetically given his time and best thought in accomplishing so much for its welfare. Until the infirmities of age only recently prevented him from attending our meetings, we have had there the benefit of his wise counsel.

"While his public educational work has commanded the admiration and gratitude of many of the men and women of the District of Columbia who were children under his administration of the public schools, it is those less fortunate ones who in their tender | years have received the training and care given at the Industrial Home School, who have particularly loved and revered him and felt touched by the inestimable value of his life.

"We of the Board of Trustees, with a full realization of our loss, shall proceed with our work aided and inspired by his example and with a feeling of sincere gratitude that he was spared to us so long."