3rd movement. Again take three steps forward, this time beginning with the right foot, and on the fourth beat swinging the left gracefully forward.

4th movement.

Take four steps backward to position maintained at first, starting back with the left foot. Repeat movements 1, 2, 3, 4 (twice).

30TH EXERCISE.-1st movement.

Stretch hands above

the head and with one movement touch the toes.

2nd movement. Raise arms till again above the head. Repeat these two motions (8 times).

31ST EXERCISE.-Swing two arms, as a brakeman does, allowing the hands to touch when in front. Be careful not to bent arms at elbows in this exercise (8 times).

32ND EXERCISE.-Arms hanging at sides.

1st movement. Salute with left hand. This is done by gracefully bending left arm till left hand almost touches forehead, at the same time slightly inclining the body and head (8 times).

2nd movement. Salute with right hand in like manner as described in first movement (8 times).

(To be continued.)

Editorial Notes and Comments.

COMMENTING on a new law which has just been enacted in Pennsylvania, one of our exchanges warmly congratulates that state on the new legislation, and remarks that it is a law that ought to be found on the statute books of every other state. The enactment referred to provides for the maintenance of parents by their children. Our fellowjournal adds that "the authority of the state is properly invoked to compel unfilial children to care for their parents. The new law says that if any male child of full age, within the limits of this commonwealth, has neglected or hereafter, without reasonable cause, shall neglect to maintain his parents not able to work to maintain themselves, he shall be brought before a magistrate and bound over with sufficient surety to appear at the next court of quarter sessions, there to answer the charge of not supporting his parent or parents." We, in the Province of Quebec, have long had such a law. There is an article of the Civil Code of Lower Canada which says that "children are bound to maintain their father, mother and other ascendants, who are in

want." It will be seen that our article goes farther than does the new law of Pennsylvania, in that it provides for the grand-parents, unless, indeed, the "parent or parents" of the latter includes the grand-parents.

-A CONTRIBUTOR to the Popular Educator, who evidently does not believe in kindergarten and similar systems of child-education, says, in a recent number of that journal, that he heard lately "a finely ironical comment upon the kindergarten, the whittling in wood, and the paper-snipping craze which is the distinguishing characteristic of the New Education." It came about in this way. A professor of literature had just been giving the "elementary" teachers of the district an excellent lecture on Arnold of Rugby, and one of the aforesaid "elementary" ones, was put up to move a vote of thanks. He said that he had listened with extreme interest to the lecture, and although he had always revered Arnold as a great man and a great teacher, yet there had been many new lights thrown on his remarkable influence over boys by the lecturer that night; what he, the speaker, "failed to entirely understand was how Arnold could have achieved all he did, seeing that he had never been taught paper-cutting."

-Most of us have, no doubt, found out by experience, that self-satisfaction is responsible for a great deal of the backwardness to be noticed in the affairs of this world. Our old friend, the School Journal, has a grievance which it has taken occasion to air in the following paragraph. We do not feel competent to estimate here the amount of truth contained in the Journal's plaint.

"The most hopeless dead weight upon the profession of teaching is the satisfied person who has taught the same grade for a number of years, and knows all about it. She has no use for an educational paper and is bravely independent of teachers' meetings and summer schools. She will give the next class exactly the same dose that she is giving this, just as she is giving this one the same dose she gave the last, and the one before, and the one before that. This is the last refinement of the process for which graded systems seem to be made. And yet we must have graded systems! Even the system is uneasily conscious of the mischief wrought by this extreme result of its own organization, and helplessly bemoans the fact that these fossil teachers cannot be got rid of. If they cannot be got rid of, at least the system

can shake them up once in a while by changing their grades. A teacher of this stamp, placed in a new grade, would be compelled to collect a new supply of ideas, suggestions, and devices. This would occupy her for perhaps a year, and during that period she would consult educational books and papers and attend teachers' meetings. At the end of that time, the system should find pressing need of her services in some other part of its economy. Perhaps she would learn to teach, in time. Who knows?"

—IN this little note taken from an exchange, we think we see the old, old question of the distinction between use and abuse. "We are sometimes enjoined never to tell a child anything that he can find out for himself. Taken as a rhetorical mode of emphasizing discovery of first hand knowledge, the precept is well enough, but as a rule to be strictly followed it is both absurd and impossible."

A GREAT deal is said, from time to time, about the need of careful and thorough ventilation of the school-room, and the RECORD has more than once emphasized the importance of this item of school management. We say school management advisedly, for we believe it to be one of the sacred duties of the teacher to see that, as far as possible, the classes be carried on in a breathable atmosphere.

To convince himself of the effect which the united breath of a class of children has on a room, the teacher has only to leave it and return after a short time spent in the outer air. The shock to his breathing organs produced by the "stuf finess" of the school-room will be a striking lesson. If the room be not properly ventilated, the teacher will be, or ought to be, convinced of the responsibility which lies with him in subjecting a class of pupils to the vile air which so shocks him after he has taken a breath of the purer outside air. We have taken the liberty of translating from Le Canada Français, a few remarks which that paper makes on this subject. Under the heading "Let us Open the Windows," it says:

"To how many the idea of an open window causes a shiver, to how many more comes the thought of a draught as the equivalent of certain death; how often we find double windows, double doors, weather-strips at every chink and opening,—a complete system of fortifications against the assaults of the outer air! These habits, which have their origin in indolence, in the physical dread of exposing

one's tender skin to the slightest cold breath, are extremely pernicious. Twice as many persons become ill by living in an atmosphere insufficiently renewed as by exposure to the dreaded draught. The air in an occupied room will become incapable of sustaining life if it is not renewed: it becomes exhausted, losing its active constituent, oxygen, which is replaced by carbonic acid gas. Scientific men have, by numerous experiments, shown the necessity of renewing the air of living apartments. And I should like here, without wishing to hurt any one's feelings, to make an appeal to the teachers of our country schools. They may notice that at the opening of school, the children appear with fresh and rosy countenances; before a fortnight has passed the colour has vanished, their faces have become pale. What has happened? For six hours a day, these children have lived in a class room, huddled together, exchanging the poison from one another's lungs. And notice that this takes place even in spacious rooms, where each pupil has the cubic measure of air required to prevent the exhaustion of the oxygen. What must we expect when the room contains twice the number of pupils it was meant to hold? Do you wonder that the children become pale and sickly?......... At the conclusion of the class, let us open the windows and leave them open for an hour or more. The closeness will disappear, and teachers and pupils will be spared the frequent indispositions, brought on by living in an atmosphere which is unfit to breathe. Let us open the windows and get rid of this lung poison, that we are constantly distilling at each outward breath, and to breathe which again is, in very truth, to commit suicide." In reproducing the above, we do not wish to be understood to advocate the exposing of children to actual draughts while at their seats in the class room. But we think that every opportunity should be seized of airing the room during the pupils' absence from it, and every precaution taken to give the children as pure air as is obtainable. It will be for their good, physically and mentally.

Current Events.

-THE grounds and buildings, together with their equipment, of McGill University are valued at a sum very nearly equal to a million and a half of dollars. To this large amount Mr. W. C. McDonald, of Montreal, whose name is

prominent in the list of McGill's benefactors, has just added six hundred and fifty thousand dollars. This last donation is to be devoted to the erection of a new building for the departments of chemistry, mining and architecture. It is expected that ground will be broken this year, and that the new department will be ready in time for the opening of the College in October of next year.

-BY THE last annual report of the Corporation of McGill University, the total number of students in attendance in all the faculties is given as 1,241. The number of students availing themselves of the six years' course of arts and medicine is given as 16, a number which does not seem to us large enough to justify the weakening of the B. A. degreenone too strong, as it is--that must ensue from the granting of it to students who have not spent the regular four years in academic studies.

-THOSE of our readers who have followed what is known as the Bathurst School Case, may be interested in knowing that Judge Barker, of the Equity Court of New Brunswick, has recently given a decision in favour of the Bathurst school trustees and against the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs were Protestants who objected to the schools as being sectarian. The Court decided that the schools, as conducted under the authority of the trustees, are not sectarian, and that, if the rate-payers cannot send their children to them, it is their misfortune, and not the fault of the law.

--THE Educational Review, of St. John, N. B., says:Last month was announced the gift of Asa Dow to the University of New Brunswick. This month we have to congratulate Mt. Allison University on the splendid gift of $100,000 left by the late Mr. Massey, of Toronto. Where will the bequest fall next month?

-PROF. Arnold Tompkins, of the University of Illinois, is urging a new departure, in the admission to the university of students from the high schools of the state. The proposition in brief is that the university shall accept those whom the high schools send with the certificate from the principal of the high school and superintendent of the schools that they have done the preparatory work required by the University course, and are able to begin the work prescribed for university students in the department they seek to enter. -IN Russia a project is on foot for fixing a maximum to