thought not well to attach a doctor's degree to a partial and minor course. There was also a slight falling off in Arts, which was also among partial students. The students are from all over the world. The Faculty of Applied Science has them from Newfoundland, England, Scotland, Mexico, Hawaii and Italy, as well as from all the provinces of Canada. -THE Ohio State University, Columbus, has added a department of pedagogy, and placed Dr. J. P. Gordy, the noted psychologist and historian, at the head of it. -THE Indiana Board of Health has decided against the school slate. It has also issued other sanitary rules requiring that pencils, pens, and desks be disinfected daily; that the floors, windows, and all the woodwork of school-rooms be washed daily with a disinfectant; that banisters and tops of tables be treated with a disinfectant once a week; that drinking-water be not kept in open buckets; and that admittance be denied to any unwashed child, or any child. with a cough, or exhibiting cutaneous evidence of disease. -Exchange. -A SOMEWHAT amusing development of technical education that term being, by the way, a sad misnomer-is reported from the United States. There has been established at Philadelphia for the last two years what is called a Barbers' College. In a room one hundred feet in length two rows of chairs are arranged and, the institution being of the nature of a practice school, there is every accommodation for customers as well as operators. The proprietors undertake that for twenty-dollars a mere novice will be transformed into an expert barber in eight weeks. After all, the art in question is as proper to be taught as many others; but the well-known weakness of a practice school must sometimes be exemplified here in a striking manner. -THIS year the University of Chicago celebrated the fifth anniversary of its foundation. From the President's address we learn that the total gifts from all sources amount to $11,500,000, of which Mr. John D. Rockefeller alone. has given $7,500,000. The total number of students enenrolled during the last year was 1,986, and the teaching staff numbers 184. And now comes the news that Mrs. Julia Bradley, an aged woman of Peoria, Ill., has bestowed all her fortune, estimated at $2,200,000, upon the University, on condition that a branch school shall be built at Peoria. The school will be called "The Bradley Polytechnic Institute," and two of its seven directors will be connected with the University of Chicago. It is also said that, "In the proffered use of another half million dollars worth of property, the University is now in the way to possess the most splendid inland lake biological station in the world. This magnificent supplement to the Hull gift of $1,000,000 for biological laboratories is due to Mrs. Edward Roby, E. A. Shedd and C. B. Shedd, owners of the property. It makes possible for the university to control all the land and water it desires of the 3,000 acres around Wolf Lake and the channel connecting it with Lake Michigan." Chicago University, owing to the generosity of its many benefactors, is fast taking a leading place among the wealthy educational institutions of America. -ONE of the educational papers of the United States says: "In many schools of Great Britain the utility of teaching children to write with both hands is being considered. In Japan, school children are taught to write with both hands, and in this country the matter is receiving some attention." -THE London, England, School Board has at present twenty-four special schools for feeble-minded children, with a roll of a thousand pupils. Of the benefit of such schools, both direct and indirect, there can be no question. Ordinary schools are freed from a dead weight-the halt and maim who require twice as much attention as average pupils, and yield at best but half the results. And yet these children cannot be classified as uneducable and relegated to an institution for imbeciles, but, if treated in small classes and by special methods, may, as has been abundantly proved, develop into serviceable citizens. -IT is announced that the Duke of Norfolk has purchased a site, for £13,000, on which it is proposed to erect a Roman Catholic college at Oxford. It is about three acres in extent, and within a short distance of Mansfield and Manchester Colleges. Before the commencement of the Michaelmas term the Catholic bishops intend issuing a joint letter of instructions with reference to the recently-granted permission from the Pope for Catholic laymen to attend the universities. -THE editor of the Journal of Education, published in London, England, has something to say about minimum salaries, which shows that there is room for improvement. in this connection in Britain as elsewhere. He says: "There lies before us as we write a most instructive document, the multigraphed list of vacancies for mistress-ships, issued by a well known firm of scholastic agents. The yearly salaries offered range from £40 in a single instance to zero, i.e., simply board and lodging. We extract a few by way of sample:-1. Class-singing, Drill, French, Dancing; salary £10. 2. Needlework, Kindergarten, English, Arithmetic, Music, French; salary about £12. 3. German, French, and Piano; £25 and laundry. 4. German and French; £10. To sum up: the wages of an ordinary governess or assistant-mistress in a private school are somewhat higher than a scullery-maid's but considerably lower than those of a good cook." Literature, Historical Notes, &c. THE MOTIVE FORCE TO STUDY.-Emulation became the great force in securing work to the schools when the power of the rod first declined. Every one knows that in the Jesuit schools, which were celebrated for the mildness of their discipline, this motive was plied with the utmost ingenuity and vigour. What with prizes and honours and rankings it has played and still plays a most important role in our schools. But its defects as a controlling force begin to be apparent to our best teachers. These are essentially that it misdirects interest and so tends to pervert scholarship. Real interest arises from the subject of study itself. The utility, the relations and the meanings of this ought to come out and exercise a subtle allurement upon the mind of the pupil. He should become absorbed in it, led on from point to point by curiosity, finding a constantly fresh charm in the vistas it opens up to him, and the questions it enables him to answer. There is a joy of discovery which he ought not to be baulked in by premature telling on the part of the teacher, a sense of growing power delightful in itself and the sure source of future efficiency in him when he comes to deal with the practical problems of life which ought to be the constant and sufficient reward of his efforts. These three things then, the natural allurement of a subject prop erly unfolded, the delight arising from discovering new relations and new meanings, and the inspiring sense of increasing power make up the genuine interest which the teacher's art is to arouse and make effective. In how many ways false methods thwart and destroy a right interest can now be clearly seen. The learning of a text instead of a subject puts the memory to a dead strain which exhausts the energies. A deadening effort to memorize is substituted for quickening insight, which is always interesting. This taxing of memory instead of facilitating the play of insight until it becomes quick, sure and recurrent, is the most fundamental error. Following upon that comes the quenching of curiosity by pouring in information before the need of it is felt, by feeding before the appetite comes, so that the faculties of the pupil are overlaid and smothered, instead of quickened through healthful activity. Finally, these processes beget a sense of the dreary and heavy weight of unintelligible or only partially intelligible knowledge to be acquired, a fruitless or almost fruitless struggle from which the spirit sinks back disheartened, and finds more alluring fields for its natural play, where a sense of power may take the place of despair. When such a condition results emulation is found to give a semblance of life. The boy who experiences no joy in his studies finds it in the effort to outdo his rival. He becomes industrious, accurate, keen under the spur of it. He works to win instead of to know, and so develops a fondness for competition instead of for the things of the understanding. In our colloquialism, he becomes "smart." The real character of this result is best seen in our debates. They are the legitimate outcome of emulative instruction, and in them not truth but victory is the end sought. The debater accumulates material and arguments which he hopes will win his side of the case. He is not critical as to his material save in so far as he dreads exposure by his antagonist. Whatever is plausible, whatever will "take," is heartily welcomed, and his whole effort is directed to winning the judges, instead of to seeing and presenting things as they really are. So powerful is this one-sided tendency that garbling facts, concealing testimony, misrepresenting authorities and perverting justice are notoriously the ripe fruitage of advocacy. More than one person in a position to form an intelligent opinion has expressed the belief that debating, instead of helping one to become an investigator, positively unfits him by destroying in large measure his sense of truth and his power of calm unbiased judgment. This, it seems, is the legitimate outcome of the general use of emulation instead of natural interest as a motive in school work. And this illustrates what we mean when we say, as above, it misdirects interest and so tends to pervert scholarship. It is not our thesis that a limited use of it always produces such results, but only that this is its tendency, and that therefore right development is away from it and towards the promotion of natural and inherent interest. Wisconsin Journal of Education. LAUGHTER A GREAT TONIC.-"I presume if we laughed more we should all be happier and healthier," writes Edward W. Bok in the Ladies' Home Journal. “True we are a busy and a very practical people. And most of us probably find more in this life to bring the frown than the smile. But, nevertheless, it is a pity that we do not laugh more; that we do not bring ourselves to the laugh, if need be. For we all agree that a good laugh is the best medicine in the world. Physicians have said that no other feeling works so much good to the entire human body as that of merriment. As a digestive, it is unexcelled; as a means of expanding the lungs, there is nothing better. It keeps the heart and face young. It is the best of all tonics to the spirits. It is, too, the most enjoyable of all sensations. A good laugh makes us better friends with ourselves and everybody around us, and puts us into closer touch with what is best and brightest in our lot in life. It is to be regretted, then, that such a potent agency for our personal good is not more often used. It costs nothing. All other medicines are more or less expensive. Why,' said an old doctor not long ago, if people fully realized what it meant to themselves to laugh, and laughed as they should, ninety per cent. of the doctors would have to go out of business.' Probably when we get a little less busy we shall laugh more. For, after all, the difference between gloom and laughter is but a step. And if more of us simply took a step aside oftener than we do, and rested more, we would laugh more. By laughing I do not mean the silly giggle indulged in by some women and so many girls. There is no outward mark which demonstrates the woman of shallowy mind so unmistakably as that of giggling. There is |