VOLUME X.

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THE CHAUTAUQUA COLLEGE.

No. 8.

The Chautauqua College, a department of the Chautauqua educational system distinct from the reading circle, offers the regular college curriculum and special college and preparatory courses to students at home who are no longer able to attend school or college. The work is accomplished through a system of correspondence between individual students in all parts of this and other countries, and professors in leading American institutions.

From time to time the instructor sends the student instruction papers to guide him in his study of the prescribed text-books and to indicate the questions which are to be answered in writing. The work of the student is carefully corrected, with such notes, suggestions, and references as may be needed in each case, and returned to him for review. The method requires more work on the part of the student, but as he must write out on paper the whole of every lesson it must be thorough. An advantage of this system is that each student may cover the ground rapidly or slowly as his own circumstances may determine, without being hurried or hindered by classmates.

The annual calendar of the college, which has just been published for this year, shows courses adapted to students of all grades, from those who have only a common school education to the most advanced. It also shows the professional record of the instructors.

Although the office of the college is located at Buffalo, N. Y., the college itself extends from the eight or ten colleges and schools where its instructors are engaged, to all the villages, towns, and cities where its individual students are working.

A COLLEGE OF FINE ARTS.

It is the definite decision of Dean George F. Comfort to leave Syracuse at the end of the present college year in order that he may enter or the work of founding a college of fine arts at La Porte, Texas, in pursuance of a plan to co-operate with which he was invited by the capitalists who have the enterprise in hand. The Dean will, however, remain in Syracuse long enough to see the department of the University which he has built up safely transferred to others, and if necessary will return there temporarily to give his successor the benefit of his advice and experience.

Dean Comfort has been abundantly honored for his varied attainments and high scholarship. In 1889 the Regents of the University of the State of New York conferred upon him the degree of IH.D.; he is a member of the Institute of Archeology of Rome, Berlin and Paris, of the American Philological Association, the Modern Languages Society, the American Anthropological Society, the Institute of Architects. and other learned societies.-Syracuse Standard, May 30, 1892.

Prof. Comfort stands at the head of the art and esthetic culture in America; and in securing him Texas has obtained the best talent this country possesses.

DISCOVERY of gold.

In 1848 James W. Marshall, who was employed in a California sawmill, was one day shutting off the water, when he discovered particles of shining dust in the race-way. He was a man in whose imagination had for a long time floated visions of gold, and now, almost beside himself with excitement, he began to examine the rocks and water. He soon collected at least an ounce of gold.

Then he mounted a horse, and dashed away to report to Captain Sutter, his employer, who was forty miles distant. It was late at night when Marshall reached his destination, and the rain was descending in torrents. Leaping from his horse, he whispered wildly :

66

Captain, I want to see you alone."

Sutter conducted him into a vacant room and closed the door.

"Are you sure nobody will come? Lock the door!" cried Marshall.

Then he stepped up to the table and poured from a pouch his ounce of metal.

"Gold, gold, it is gold!" he exclaimed, hardly knowing whether he was in the flesh or not.

"Where did you get that?" asked Sutter, and when the events of the day were rehearsed, he added, "But you do n't know it to be gold. I have my doubts about it."

After some discussion the substance was tested with aqua fortis, and was proved to be genuine precious metal. Marshall's excitement was now extreme, and he would not hear to Sutter's proposal that he should spend the night. Back to the mill he rode through the driving rain, and when Sutter in the morning followed him, he met Marshall on foot, ten miles away from the mill-race.

"What are you here for ?," exclaimed Sutter.

"I had to come, I was so impatient to see you," was the feverish reply.

When they arrived at the mill-race, they found the men employed there excitedly gathering gold. Captain Sutter called them together, and exacted a promise from them that they would keep the matter a secret for six weeks, during which time they should attend to their accustomed duties at the mill and ranch.

But such a secret could not be kept. In a few days the region was thronged with gold-seekers. Sutter's flocks were stolen, his crops ruined and his land seized upon without apology.. Before the close of the year five thousand men were at work in the mines of the new Eldorado, and the product of their labor was five million dollars. But the discoveror of the gold and the owner of the land where it was found both died poor.- Youth's Companion.

At the beginning of every year a group of little new comers, with wondering eyes and expectant faces make their appearance at the door of our school-rooms, and upon our reception of them how much depends!

In an over-crowded, or even a well-filled school-room, it is no easy matter to give careful attention to the many needs of these little men and women. It takes but a moment, however, to give a kindly glance, or say the gentle word of greeting which may be the golden key to the child's heart. Do we put each in his place with a sigh, perhaps, that so many are intrusted to our charge, or do we meet the child's glance with one full of kindly interest, which he will be quick to feel and appreciate ?

The first week in school is a most important one, for teacher and pupil. Interest and desire must be awakened on the part of the child, and to do this the teacher must have a large stock of inventive power. Short talks on subjects familiar to the child-things which he can see, for the object must be present in his mind-soon dispel the reserve, and he can be lead to talk freely about animals, toys, colors and models to be studied-in fact he can be made, if skillfully directed by the teacher, to find out for himself ficts which he is to learn. It is such an easy and delightful task if we but stoop to conquer, and descend to their level of childish imagination. Busy work for the little ones can be found in so many useful ways. The older children cut out pictures from papers, and these, put into large envelopes, may be used as busy work and language helps. A box of tooth picks, a quart of shoe pegs and a bundle of splints may be easily gotten, and are very cheap. With these the wee folks may outline squares, triangles, oblongs, and with these as a basis proceed to more complex forms. They can reproduce with slate and pencil or paper and pencil, what they have made.—Intelligence.

TOO MANY STUDIES.

The pupils in public schools just now are busily engaged in being ground or crammed for the mid-summer examinations, and the work done is what is called going over, reviewing and repeating the lessons that have been learned in the past. In this respect our public school system is regarded by many as a failure. There are too many examinations, and too many subjects taught to make a child proficient in any of them. The time allotted to common school education is so short that at best only a comparatively small field can be covered adequately. But the majority of pupils have even that brief time more or less shortened by necessity. With them the time is so short that if more than a very little is undertaken nothing is learned well. This fact is not sufficiently recognized in our graded system. The assumption is too general that each pupil will go through the whole forms or classes. Beginnings are made in too many things, and if the course is cut short these beginnings leave the pupil with little to show for his work, and if he leaves school, the pupil has confused ideas of everything, and knows nothing perfectly. The key to all knowledge is the ability to read intelligently. In view of the facts of life among the pupils, the first care should be to teach that art and its handmaid, writing, as thoroughly as possible in the briefest time, so that if the pupil's school course is cut short he will at least carry away with him the instruments of self-education. Yet, as a matter of observed fact, neither reading nor writing is well taught in the lower grades of our schools, and, indeed, both are very imperfectly taught even in the higher grades. In order to learn to read fluently and understandingly one must read much. The pupils in our schools read nothing-as a rule-but fixed lessons of brief extent (and are sometimes kept two weeks and a month on one lesson), the greater part of the time being given to other things. As a result, they read badly in the lower grades, and often even when they pass for the High School. With writing the case is still worse. No person can learn to write easily, rapidly and legibly with character in the result except by much and continuous practice. The schools ought to give such practice, as a few private schools do. Instead, they set the boys and girls the task of laboriously imitating an engraved copy or blackboard lesson for a certain time each day, and when their schooling is over the best they can do as a rule is painfully to draw an uncertain imitation of their copies as they remember them. They have no facility in writing and there is neither character no dignity in what they do. In the teaching of English grammar the fault is still greater, and of one hundred pupils taken from our public schools not ten can or do speak correctly. It should be the care of the schools to teach the pupils to speak and write English with propriety. This is really the sole aim of grammar. But they teach nothing of the kind to the great majority. They muddle the brains with an attempt to make a philosophical analysis of the language. The result is profitless, the time misspent. Every merchant, banker or other person who employs boys in his business knows from experience that the boys who come to him from the public schools bring very little to his service beyond more or less limber legs, with such natural shrewdness as they chance to possess. Their education has not fitted them in any valuable degree for work. In too many cases they can not read well, write

"Please take this poor little pussy; I took it out of the gutter; I think it is hurt," said a pretty little girl to the officer on duty at the Society's headquarters one rainy morning. The child was on her way to school, but the sight of the forlorn kitten had made her klnd little heart go out in pity to its wretchedness. "You will be late for school," said the officer. "Yes," I know I shall,' 'she replied, "but teacher will excuse me, when I tell her what I have done. She tells us to be kind

to all animals." On receiving an assurance that the kitten would be kindly cared for, the little humanitarian, with a pitying look at the dumb waif she had brought, went on her Such incidents are of almost daily occur

way to school. rence at the Society's headquarters, and they are pleasing evidences that the work of animal protection, no matter how insignificant the object may be, is engaging the rising generation more than ever. Brutal and cruel men can be made to realize the character of the crimes they commit, only by the hard teachings of fines and imprisonment. On the young, the quality of mercy" does not need to be constrained. Their finer feelings are easily roused, and their fresh young hearts can be easily trained to the love and practice of mercy. - Our Animal Friends.

"Be noble! and the nobleness that lies In other men, sleeping, but never dead, Will rise in majesty to greet thine own."-Lowell.

MEN AND WOMEN.

Scribner's Magazine for September discusses editorially and at some length the question, "Are we less respectful to women?" The subject is really of more importance than a careless reading would indicate. Only yesterday two young women were discussing the relative position of women in the United States and in Mexico. "Mexican men are not cruel to their wives, as the word cruel goes," said one of the talkers, "but they are persistently, and, I am tempted to say, studiously, neglectful of them. And this to a woman is the very refinement of cruelty."

"I am proud of the men of America," responded the other, for they are the most respectful men in the world to women."

But here comes this woman editorial writer in Scribner to say, in answer to the question printed above, that it depends a good deal upon the point of view, whether consideration for women in public places be not vanishing as a characteristic of American men. "There are those who insist that it is not," says the writer, "but I fear that their point of view is not that of the passenger in the conveyances or on the streets of our large cities. To one who is daily forced to observation in this extensive field there is little chance for doubt. It is not that women do not receive the prompt and unfailing courtesy that was formerly accorded to them, but they are treated with a cool and impudent rudeness, with a lack not merely of gentleness, but of respect, that I believe would have been impossible to our fathers. They are not only allowed to stand in public vehicles when men are seated, but they are subjected, in ways that it is as needless as it would be offensive to describe, to annoyance, and, not to put too fine a point on it, to insult."

From this statement of fact-and it is undoubtedly of a fact the writer concludes :

"It is easier-and safer-to speculate on the cause of this humiliating change than to find-and apply-a remedy. The great increase in the population of persons of foreign birth or descent, and of the uneducated classes, has something to do with it. The immensely greater volume of humanity in motion on public thoroughfares and on the passenger lines, and the corresponding greater difficulty in enforcing the standard of conduct held by the minority, is another cause. The fact that the behavior of employees and the officials of corporations, as of the municipality, reflects the 'average' impulses and ideas of the mass, counts for much. But the disagreeable fact remains "-El Paso Times.

THE RIGHTS OF ANIMALS.

It is granted as a general premise that animals have a nervous system of acute sensibility, rendering them susceptible of pain as great as that which human bodies feel. Even their scientific tormentors admit this, and no one can doubt it who has seen them suffer. Yet in actual fact scarcely any one who has to deal with them remembers this, or is in any way influenced by it. Animals are usually treated as if they were without any feeling, mental or physical. They are sold from hand to hand, bartered from owner to owner, torn from their homes and from their habits, forced into alien and unnatural

ways of existence, flogged, struck, chained, over-driven, often starved as well, and, unless in some cases of extreme cruelty, the law does not interfere; in many countries it does not interfere even then.

Societies for the defense of animals are ridiculed, and even where they exist in some force are almost useless through the apathy or reluctance of tribunals to which they appeal for authority to act. Of the hundreds of thousands who use and profit by animals there is not one in ten thousand who cares how they are treated, or would incur a personal danger or a passing opprobrium to save them from suffering. The whole attitude of man toward the animal is mean and unworthy it is simply the bullying brutality of the stronger over the weaker, or rather of the cunning over the frank, for the dominance of man over the larger animals is entirely obtained by the exercise of ruse and ingenuity. No kind of warfare is deemed too treacherous to use in the pursuit of wild animals, and no usage too barbarous to be given to tamed ones, if the interests or pleasures of the human race are thereby promoted. This may be natural, it may be inevitable, but it is certainly ignoble; and the boastful self admiration with which men speak of it is singularly out of place.

The whole attitude of that nineteenth-century god, science, is surely most unscientific toward animals Science man is to the scientist merely like all other forms of life, a thing of gases and of phosphates, alive a little while, to be blown out like a spent match in the dark, wherein does he differ so greatly from all other animals that these others should be sacrificed in tens of millions to him ?—Ouida, in the Animals' Guardian.

SHORTER YEARS OR SHORTER DAYS.

Some of the school authorities of our state are discussing the question of reducing the term of school. It seems to us that the question is not looked at in a broad light. Why do we have the school at all? Surely for the education of our children. Why educate them? Surely in the hope that they may become better men and women. Why, then, dɔ we have school only a few months in the year? Does a man conduct his store for eight months and close it for the remainder of the year? Does a lawyer keep his office open for two-thirds of a year only? When it comes to business we are actively engaged for the whole year. Men may take a short vacation for recreation but the business is not usually stopped. But if rest and recreation are needed for our children is it wise to work them hard for nine or ten months of the year and then turn them loose upon the streets for the remainder of the year? Would it not be wiser to distribute the rest more throughout the year? If it is economy to educate our children, then why not keep them under the healthful restraint for a longer period? When two-thirds of our children leave before they reach the seventh grade it would seem to be in the line of economy to keep them in school eleven months rather than ten. The same could be urged against our short college years. Neither the college student nor the professor needs twelve or fourteen weeks' vacation. We are inclined to believe that the interest of all would be advanced if the school year could be lengthened and the school day shortened. Five hours should be the maximum day and ten months the minimum year.-North-western Jour. of Education.

Contributed by The Youth's Companion. THE ODE FOR COLUMBUS DAY.

"COLUMBIA'S BANNER."

"God helping me," cried Columbus, "though fair or foul the breeze,

I will sai! and sail till I find the land beyond the western seas!"

So an eagle might leave its eyrie, bent, though the blue should bar,

To fold its wings on the loftiest peak of an undiscovered star! And into the vast an 1 void abyss he followed the setting sun; Nor gulfs nor gales could fright his sails till the wondrous quest was done.

But O the weary vigils, the murmuring torturing days,

Till the Pinta's gun, and the shout of "Land!" set the black night ablaze!

Till the shore lay fair as Paradise in morning's balm and gold, And a world was won from the conquered deep, and the tale of the ages told!

Uplift the starry banner! The best age is begun!

We are the heirs of the mariners whose voyage that morn was done.

Measureless lands Columbus gave and rivers through zones that roll,

But his rarest, noblest bounty was a New World for the Soul! For he sailed from the Past with its stifling walls, to the Future's open sky.

And the ghosts of gloom and fear were laid as the breath of heaven went by;

And the pedant's pride and the lordling's scorn were lost in that vital air,

As fogs are lost when sun and wind sweep ocean blue and bare;

And Freedom and larger Knowledge dawned clear, the sky to span,

The birthright, not of priest or king, but of every child of

man!

Uplift the New World's Banner to greet the exultant sun! Let its rosy gleams still follow his beams as swift to the west they run,

Till the wide air rings with shout and hymn to welcome it shining high,

And our eagle from lone Katadin to Shasta's snow can fly In the light of its stars as fold on fold is flung to the autumn sky!

Uplift it, Youths and Maidens, with songs and loving cheers; Through triumphs, raptures, it has waved, through agonies and tears.

Columbia looks from sea to sea, and thrills with joy to know Her myriad sons, as one, would leap to shield it from a foe! And you who soon will be the State, and shape each great decree,

Oh, vow to live and die for it, if glorious death must be ! The brave of all the centuries gone this starry Flag have wrought;

In dungeons dim, on gory fields, its light and peace were bought;

And
you who front the future-whose days our dreams fulfill-
On Liberty's immortal height, Oh, plant it firmer still!
For it floats for broadest learning; for the soul's supreme re-
lease;

For law disdaining license; for righteousness and peace;
For valor born of justice; and its amplest scope and plan
Makes a queen of every woman, a king of every man!
While forever, like Columbus, o'er Truth's unfathomed main
It pilots to the hidden isles, a grander realm to gain.
Ah! what a mighty trust is ours, the noblest ever sung,
To keep this Banner spotless its kindred stars among !
Our fleets may throng the oceans-our forts the headlands

The wide-awake teacher will draw lessons from any current events that are engaging the attention of the public. It is easy to talk about what everybody around you is interested in. Is a great strike in progress? How opportune the time to discuss the labor question and point a lesson in civics! Has a bank failed? Let teacher and pupils investigate the causes and get a clear idea of the conditions attending the collapse. Has the price of cotton gone down? Then why and wherefore? Is there a famine in India or a plague in Russia? Incite inquiry concerning the causes of famines in the East, discuss some of the world's great famines, and cultivate the benevolent side of the child's nature. The live teacher will find plenty of topics fresh from daily life to teach sterling lessons in civics, business, philanthropy and what not.-The Southern Educator.

In constructing school buildings, this rule is good at all times Plenty of air when it is warm; plenty of warmth when it is cool,