we shall so accept it, in order that we may look further for the difficulty, that we suspect to be simply this, that there are so many teachers who have had no professional training. They are good scholars, and they are active and earnest workers; but their methods are wholly empirical. They are a vigorous soldiery in the war against ignorance, but they are rather partisans than regulars. And, as in the case of partisan troops, they are impatient of the discipline of the line, and confident of the superiority of their own irregular warfare.

For this, it is clear, there is but one corrective. This involves, not merely a better provision for the training of public school teachers in proper normal schools; something more and higher is needed. Many teachers obtain their only professional instruction in our high schools and academies. Oftentimes, too, the teachers in these higher schools have, from the very fact that they are there rather than in the common schools, had no normal school training. They have been educated in some college, in which, as is too commonly the case, instruction in the art of teaching, like instruction in the "art of speaking and writing the English language correctly,” is assumed as having been attended to, or belonging elsewhere. And yet every one knows that two so important arts as these are not to be easily won as mere accidents of progress in general scholarship. With these, as in love, the prize must be wooed and won by its individual pursuit for its own sake.

With this fact before us, we confess that in all our vigorous pushing of our university schemes, it seems to us a grave oversight that express provision is not more often made in our better colleges for special instruction in didactics. Here is the missing link in our normal school system. We provide means for the careful training of the drill sergeant of our rank and file, but not for the corresponding education of the general officers. We educate the teachers of the common schools, but not generally the teachers of those teachers. We have normal schools, but not normal departments in our colleges, from which the teachers of the teachers must largely come.

Nor is it a valid objection to this scheme that to the learned professions, a knowledge of didatics is not necessary. In the more especially forensic field of the pupil and the bar, certainly nothing could be more practically useful. In the high art of persuasive oratory, what can be more fundamental and practical than a sound knowledge of the art of instruction? Men must be fairly enlightened before they can be fully persuaded. And in other departments of a non-forensic character-as, for example, that of medicine--to know how to teach is one of the highest preparations for knowing how to learn.

As in ordinary teaching, he who has learned how to teach knows best how to pursue a new branch so as to master it for his own use; so the physician who who knows best to unfold the proper diagnosis and treatment of a known disease is best prepared to enter for himself upon the shrewd and penetrative study of some new malady. Thence, it seems to us, that the teaching of the art of teaching demands a recognized place in our higher schools, as bearing most directly and efficiently, not only on our teachers-the art of teaching-but also upon our scholars the art of learning and knowledge.-New England Journal of Education.

MELODY.

J. W. MOORE.

ELODY, properly understood, answers to the single-figure principle in the

dictum: "When the picture consists of a single figure only, that figure must be contrasted in its limbs and drapery with a great variety of lines. It should be, as much as possible, a composition in itself. It may be remarked that such a complete figure will never unite and make part of a group; as, on the other hand, no figure of a well-conducted group will stand by itself." These principles applied to music will furnish us with a complete definition of melody. A strongly-marked musical figure will no more admit of great variety in the accompanying parts than will the single figure admit of complicated grouping in a drawing. The principles of fine melody are as fixed as those which regulate the progressions and modulations of harmony. It results from knowledge as distinguished from intuition. The principle laid down by Sir Joshua Reynolds that the single figure should form a composition in itself, means, when applied to music, that a well constructed melody should, even without the accompanying parts, be gratifying and satisfactory to the ear. If this condition be fulfilled, its general popularity will be inevitable. General popularity, however, must be understood to convey a much more extended meaning than a mere hand-organ circulation. The zeal with which the unlettered crowd occasionally adopts a tune, cannot be admitted as a proof of its excellence. The hold of such productions on the public mind is always of short duration, The truly popular airs are those which have stood the test of ages; the compositions of those inspired writers, who, like all true poets, are the exponents of the eternal ideas of the true and beautiful implanted in the human breast, and who, as they tell of things already known and felt by all, though never so well expressed, have but to speak to be understood. The true poet, whether of words, tones or colors, is an oracle in which the undying spirit of truth finds a voice. It is for him alone to "strike the electric chain with which we are darkly bound," causing it to vibrate through all time.

-Philadelphia proposes to build a new high school building, to be located near the Centennial Grounds, which will have a restaurant attached, where its pupils may get cheap warm dinners. The object is to test a theory that cold dinners are unhealthy. We suggest a few milch cows and a chickenry.

-MANY County Commissioners have forwarded addresses of their teachers as subscribers to THE ECLECTIC TEACHER on the condition that they will take the price of subscription from the funds first due the several subscribers, and forward to us. We hereby inform all Commissioners that they can with pleasure have he same privileges. We truly thank you for your encouragement.

MERRY CHRISTMAS.

Words and Music by J. H. L.

105

EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT.

Tour County Institutes and Teachers' Associations we have frequently heard it suggested and discussed that we should add other branches to our present list of common school studies. The question of qualification on the part of those who are to teach, not only the common branches, but also the higher branches, does not find room to enter the mind, much less time to be debated. We are in favor of a high standard of qualification, and believe it to be the best channel by which to increase the qualification of teachers.

How shall the standard be raised? In whom does the power rest? We shall venture the opinion that it can be raised by adding other branches to those in which teachers have been examined for a quarter of a century. Spelling, reading, writing, arithmetic, geography and grammar are usually called common branches, and it no doubt is the history of almost every State in the Union that these were called the legal branches. Many States have taken a step in advance, but even some of our States older in educational systems, are standing where they did a generation ago, having frequently discussed the propriety of adding something more.

All hands agree that one or more additional branches should be included in the legal list, but a difference of opinion and debate hinges upon what branch or branches, they should be. The State of Illinois, a few years since, lavished upon her teachers a profusion of new branches, viz: Physiology, botany, geology and natural philosophy.

Many other States have been satisfied with the addition of algebra, while a few have added algebra, history and physiology.

How many of our teachers are qualified to teach thoroughly and successfully the old curriculum! What we need more than an increased list is increased ability to teach those branches that form the basis of a liberal education. Admitting the propriety of adding algebra and physiology, does that increase the teaching power? Even the fact that a teacher must undergo an examination in algebra and physiology would drive many from the ranks. Very true. Our point is gained. Who are driven from the profession, if profession it may be called? Thousands of those old teachers who have been treading the mill of routine from twenty to thirty, and perhaps even forty years, and yet other thousands are kept from entering the ranks because they never studied those new branches. Examine the body left to do the work and compare with former examinations, and the result is apparent. We have increased the qualifica

tions by raising the standard. In answer to the question, In whom does the power rest? we find it delegated to State Boards of Education to increase the number of studies, but that act alone will not be sufficient. The County Boards of Examiners, or County Commissioners, who make the examination of teachers, have the privilege of granting or withholding certificates. By a rigid and impartial examination, many persons who usually pass examination would be rejected. It would be better to let our schools go untaught than to have our youth manipulated by an ignorant boy or girl, or by one who has taught many years without any apparent progress. A school officer should demand a well qualified teacher, and in turn such a teacher should demand a good salary, and he would get it. We need school officers with advanced ideas, and school teachers with advanced qualifications.

THE Normal School question is receiving a round of attentions in Wisconsin, not as to whether we should have Normal Schools, nor even as to whether they are a necessity. The affirmative of both these questions is too generally admitted by all educational workers to permit of discussion. The difficulty is found in trying to define the proper functions of the Normal School.

When a young man enters college, it is for the purpose of fitting himself for life. It is to educate himself up to the standard of true manhood. When he goes to the university and enters upon his legal, medical or theological course, it is for the purpose of fitting himself for a special part of life. It is to educate himself for a particular work. These special courses are demanded. They are absolute necessities. Is the profession of teaching of such inferior importance as to demand no special training? Certainly not. While the theological school prepares men for the pulpit, the law school for the bar, and the medical school for the bedside of the sick, so the Normal School ought to prepare men and women for the teacher's desk.

The professional schools above named would not receive students who were not able to enter at once upon the special course of training. By a parity of reasoning the Normal School should act upon the same principle. But to what Normal School can you point in this whole country, where we do not find all grades of pupils?

Normal Schools with only a purely professional course may be an ideal. But we are approaching that ideal. The thoughtful intelligence of the people in most of the States is longing for its consummation; and

"What longing molds in clay,

Life carves in the marble real."

The Wisconsin Journal of Education credits Miss S. A. Stewart with a paper upon this subject, from which we collect the following points: 1. The law of development has not been regarded in the Normal Schools. Their work ought to be to prepare the scholar for a special work; not to make scholars. 2. There has been a mistake made by the State in erecting large edifices, then lowering the grade of attainments in order to fill those edifices with students. 3. Educa-. tional supervision in the State, county and local boards, should be more systematic and authoritative. 4. Educators ought to note and systematize the results of their observations and experiments on the development of the mind.