Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

EDUCATIONAL
REVIEW

Edited by Nicholas Murray Butler, Ph. D., Professor of
Philosophy in Columbia College, President of the New
York College for the Training of Teachers. Assisted by
E. H. Cook, Ph. D., Head-Master Rutgers Preparatory
School, New Brunswick, N. J.

[blocks in formation]

The road is one of the oldest in the State of Ohio and the only line entering Cincinnati over twenty-five miles of double William H. Maxwell, Ph., D., Superintendent of Schools, track, and from its past record can more than assure its patBrooklyn, N. Y.

Addison B. Poland, Ph. D., Superintendent of Schools,
Jersey City, N. J.

Contents of February Number.

The Educational Value of College Studies,
Simon N. Patten.
Is there a Science of Education? II.
Josiah Royce.
Time and Age in Relation to the College Curriculum, E. Benj. Andrews.
Heredity and Education,
Amory H. Bradford
DISCUSSIONS:-The Forty-sixth Meeting of the Massachusetts
State Teachers' Association, G. I. Aldrich-The Illinois State
Teachers' Association, Newton C. Dougherty---Public Disputations,
Thomas Hughes-The Fourth Annual Meeting of the American Eco-
nomic Association, Edwin R. A. Seligman.
EDITOKIAL:-The Prussian Commission on School Reform-Three
University Reports-A New Agent for the Slater Fund-The Amer-
ican Society of Naturalists' Appeal-Poverty and Compulsory Edu-
cation-Waste of Energy in City Supervision-Elementary Science
Teaching.

EDUCATION IN FOREIGN PERIODICALS:-The German
Emperor's Address to the Commission on School Reform.

$3 A YEAR, TEN NUMBERS, 35cts. A COPY.

HENRY HOLT & CO., Publishers, N. Y.

rons speed, comfort and safety.

Tickets on sale everywhere, and see that they read C., H. & D., either in or out of Cincinnati, Indianapolis or Toledo. E. O. MCCORMICK, General Passenger and Ticket Agent. THE GREATEST AND CHEAPEST OF ALL EXCURSIONS. The Nashville Chattanooga & St. Louis Ry. The short line to the West, will sell excursion tickets to Arkansas good to return within thirty days, at one and one-third fare for the round trip, from coupon stations. The crops in Arkansas, Texas and the West are magnificent and now is your time to see the country in all its glory. Be sure to call for your tickets over the N. C. & St. L., Ry. Great McKenzie Route, and bear in mind that this is only line running Palace Day Coaches from Atlanta, Chattanooga, and Nashville to Memphis without change, making only one change for all Arkansas and Texas. For full information and rates, write to nearest Agent of this line or W. W. Knox, T. A., Union Depot, Nashville, Tenn; A. H. Robinson, T. A., City Office, Nashville, Tenn; W. L. Danley, G. P. & T. A., Nashville, Tenn.

WHEELER PUBLISHING CO.,

219 North Cherry Street,

NASHVILLE, TENN.

HAVE THE LARGEST STOCK OF

BOOKS

SCHOOL SUPPLIES AND NOTIONS IN THE STATE.

ANY BOOK IN PRINT SUPPLIED ON
RECEIPT OF PUBLISHER'S PRICE.

Write for catalogue or price of anything wanted from a Reward of Merit to a Teacher,

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

Southwestern Journal of Education.

VOLUME IX.

NASHVILLE, TENN., FEBRUARY, 1891.

No. 12.

a salary of $324 per annum, arrive at a maximum of $636 at

Southwestern Journal of Education. the end of fifteen years, just $114 less than the amount the

[blocks in formation]

DISCONTINUANCES.--Any subscriber wishing to stop his paper must notify the Publishers, and pay up all arrears; otherwise he is responsible for payment as long as the paper is sent.

HOW TO REMIT-To secure safety, it is important that remittances should be made by checks, drafts, post-office orders, express money orders, or registered letters, made payable to the Publishers.

MISSING NUMBERS-Should a number of the JoURNAL fail to reach a subscriber, he will confer a favor upon the Publishers by notifying them of the fact, upon receipt of which notice the missing numbers will be sent.

CHANGE OF ADDRESS-When a change of address is desired, both the old and the new address of the subscriber should be given.

ALL LETTERS pertaining to the Editorial Department, and all communications for the pages of the JOURNAL, should be addressed to the Editors. All letters pertaining to the business management of the JOURNAL, should be addressed to the Publishers.

WHEELER PUBLISHING COMPANY,

[blocks in formation]

THE Toronto Educational Journal shows, in the following paragraph, which side it favors in the discussion of two questions of importance to the public schools of this country:

As we anticipated and hoped, several ladies were elected to the Public School Board at the late election in Toronto. The Mail points out, in an excellent article, that among other opportunities which these lady members of the Board will have to work out their ideas of educational reform will be that of advocating, as an act of the simplest justice, that the salaries of lady teachers be made at least to approximate equality with those of men doing the same work. As the matter stands at present, the female teachers, beginning on

male teachers commence with their first year. This is municipal law, but whether it be simple justice or Canadian fair play, the reader can judge.

THE JOURNAL is not altogether what its publisher and editor would like to have it. But there is to be considered in its favor, at least: It is published solely in the interest of educational interests generally. It has no pet schemes to work, no school to advertise, no books or maps or furniture to press before the public. The editor has nothing to sell and the publisher has no school specialties whose advertisements fills its pages. It is intended that this shall ever be an educational journal in the best sense of the word, even though it should not be the very best of all the educational journals.

COL. PARKER, the great apostle of the "New education,' has certainly fallen upon hard lines in these latter days. A recent examination of the work of the model school, or practice school, at Normal Park has set the gossip agoing and the Colonel's critics are bold as well as numerous. But that there is ground for criticism appears from the following paragraph in the report of Mr. Charles S. Thornton, who conducted the examination on behalf of the Cook County Board of Education:

"The failure of pupils is marked upon the very work said to be done in this school. They have no clear and definite ideas even upon the topics supposed to be specially studied in the school, and they do not possess the habits of mental action which will enable them to investigate new subjects."

Col. Parker's friends are now calling upon the public to be generous and not judge harshly. This is right. Justice, however, will remember that Col. Parker has never been generous or kind to one of the numerous "old fogies" that he has seen fit to assail. It will be remembered too, that some eight or ten years ago the Norfolk County, (Mass.) schools were examined and Col. Parker made the county very hot for those in authority there. It was said, too, that Col. Par ker inspired that examination, which resulted in as much credit as this recent cxamination into Col. Perker's methods. The following very just remarks are from the Educational News:

"We have never meant to be otherwise than fair in our criticisms of the so-called New Education. Having been Dr. Wickersham and Dr. drilled in its principles under Dr. Brooks in the fifties, and having practiced what we believed to be its best parts, we could not well escape seeing that there was much in it that was valuable. But at the same time we have always held that if it carried to the extreme its results would be quite as unsatisfactory as that which its warmest advocates so bitterly condemned. As our readers

know, we have always held that the good of any and all systems should be adopted in our methods.

"We have always believed that the lecturers and others who have cried most persistently for an easy, sugar coated education, have been mistaken in their demands, and that time would show this mistake in results. That our position

on this question is right has been confirmed by the results of the late examinations as reported by Chas. S. Thornton, Esq. of the Cook Connty. Ill., School Board, in his report on the training department of the Cook County Normal School."

AS TO METHODS.

It is more than possible that readers of this journal have concluded that the acting editor does not greatly rely on the value of what is usually known as "Methods" in teaching. He is a believer in method. The pupil should certainly be taught the value of method, and he should be taught methodically. But the word "methods" has come to be hacked about till its use frequently, if not generally, indicates a resort to "tricks" on the part of the teacher. The believer in "Methods" too frequently has a fixed and certain way of doing a thing and will, or can, do it no other way. Such teaching may succeed, or seem to succeed, for a time, but there will come an occasion when the "method" prescribed will not fit the case. Then the believer in "methods" is at his wit's end and declares the child just perfectly stupid."

An illustration: Ask the first medical quack you meet if ne has a specific for inflamatory rheumatism. He will answer unhesitatingly, yes. Put the same question to ten of the most enlightened physicians in your city and they answer like this: "What will cure one case of rheumatism will not touch another case seemingly similar. We have to experiment, to a certain extent, on every case."

All children are, in general, alike, but the teacher who has learned a few set phrases and mannerisms of the "new education" and undertakes to apply them in every case, proves a failure. The teacher, though, who studies the history and philosophy of education and applief the art of teaching according to its science may wisely and advisedly speak of "'methods."

WOMEN AS INVENTORS.

While those who decry women use as cne of their chief arguments the statement that women have no inventive faculty, women, it seems, from the actual official returns, go straight on inventing. Not to speak of Catharine Greene, the wife of Gen. Nathaniel Greene, who undoubtedly invented the cotton gin, and whose second husband induced her to abate her fear of ridicule and claim an interest in it; or of Mrs. Walton's achievements with noise-deadening, with smoke-burning, and with similar experiments, there are many other inventions by women of equal importance One woman has invented a method of converting a barrel of oil into ten thousand cubic feet of gas; another has invented a sewing machine that needs no threading; others have invented the ruffling and quilting attachments to such machines, and arrangements for sewing duck and leather. One such attachment made a fortune for Miss Helen Blanchard; and a new baby carriage brought to its inventor,a woman, the sum of a

[ocr errors]

hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Another woman has invented a superior street-sweeper, another a spinning-wheel carrying as many as forty threads; another a plan for heating cars; another a screw-crank for steamships; and a chain elevater, a horseshoe machine, a reaper and mower, a danger signal, and so on without end, owe their existence to the brains of women. It was Miss Knight who invented a complicated machine for making the square bottom paper bag, and who refused fifty thousand dollars for the patent, and who also invented another machine that does the work of thirty pairs of hands in folding these bags. It is Mrs. Armstrong who has invented a machine for feeding cattle on trains; it is Josephine Davis who has invented an arrangement of lamps and rubber cloth for a hot vapor bath at home; Mrs. Beastly, a machine for turning out complete barrels by the hundred; Anna Conolly, a practical fire escape; Mrs. Bailey, an attachment to beds by means of which the patient can raise or lower himself. And among all these inventions none is perhaps of a more pleasing and grateful character than that of Mrs. Nancy Johnson, who invented the ice cream freezer, but who, not so wise as some of her sisters, sold her patent for fifteen hundred dollars, all ice creams previous to her crank having been made by a slow and laborious stirring.

And this is merely skimming over the surface and selecting a few instances that most easily strike the eyes, leaving a multitude unmentioned. Nor are these inventions confined, it is evident, to the walks in life most familiar to wom en, as, among the others, the grain elevator, the screw-crank for steamships, and the barrel maker testify. And while the existence of all these patents and their results ought to confound the careless speaker who thinks so lightly of feminine capability, it does something far more important in showing how greatly enriched the whole world will be when the feminine mind as well as the masculine is brought to the work.— Harpers Bazaar.

FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON.

It does not seem improbable in the course of events that the earth and the moon may become more intimately acquainted. A few years ago scientists held that the moon was a dead planet, without atmosphere, and consequently uninhabited. The theory has recently been entirely controverted. The work begun by Professor Holden at the Lick observatory upon Mount Hamilton, has been steadily continued, and the photographs taken by him and his assistants have revealed certain facts hitherto unknown. Photographic observation show a perfect map of the moon, and upon the summit of one of the highest mountains is a white spot which has the appearance of a glacier, proving the presence of at mosphere and making the theory of the habitableness of the moon tenable. It is claimed by Professor Holden that by a continuous series of photographs he is able to detect any changes upon the surface of the moon, and that a building fifty feet in height would cast an appreciable shadow. If the moon is inhabited the fact will certainly be discovered sooner or later, but the question of the establishment of communication is still unsolved, although in the case of scientific achievements of the last century we will not predict that it is unsolvable.-Chicago Graphic.

[blocks in formation]

The proportion of women whose daily lot is hard labor of some kind or other is not greater now than it has been in other periods. On the contrary, it is probably smaller. But at no former time has the wage-earning woman been so distinct a social and economic factor. Woman's work was formerly hedged in very closely by domestic conditions. Her life was a part of the life of some family, and as an unattached industrial unit she was practically non-existent. Newer conditions have obviously changed all this; and every city has its army of young working-women seeking an independent livelihood, just as it has its larger army of young men. army of young working men in great towns-young men wholly unattached and fighting the battle of life upon their individual resources-has not been very long recognized as a distinct social element, and one for which peculiar provision should be made. But its recognition has been more general and there has been better provision made for the other army of young working-women.

The

Yet the position of the young women is much the more difficult. The kinds of work open to women are not half so numerous as those that young men can enter. And women's wages average little more than half as much as their brother's. The practical difficulties in the way of procuring

employment are especially great for young women, and con ventional obstacles lie everywhere. The rights, the needs, the wants of working girls call for agitation and for organized action. And in many ways the movement has begun.-From "A Model Working-Girls' Club," by Albert Shaw, in Scrib

ner.

TITLES OF BOOKS GIVING THE LIFE OF COLUMBUS.

Life of Columbus, Washington Irving.

Life of Columbus, A. Coodrich.

Ferdinand and Isabella, W. H. Prescott, Vol. II.

With the Admiral of the Ocean Sea, Charles Paul MacKie.
Story of Liberty, C. C. Coffin, pages 97-122.

Our Great Benefactor, S. A. Drake, pages 175-181.
Half hours with Early Explorers, T. Frost, pages 40 51.
Man Upon the Sea, F. B. Goodrich, pages 128 166.
Stories of the Sea, E. E. Hale, pages 5 73.
Spanish Conquest in America, A. Helps, Vol. 1, pages

[blocks in formation]

Miss Alice C. Fletcher has her headquarters at Fort Lemhi, Idaho, where she is making the allotment of land to the Nez Perces Indians. Much of her time she is going over mountains and through canyons, living in a tent at night.

Mrs. Juana Neal, of California, has been placed in charge of the woman's department, established by two leading life insurance companies of New York City, at an annual salary of $10,000. Nearly all life insurance companies have ignored or discriminated against women. This movement makes them eligible to all the advantages of these protective agencies.

RETORT IN KIND.

An eastern educational paper says that Michigan pupils pronounce "Arctic," "Artic." We deny the allegation, and defy the allegator. Of course some may, but the practice is by no means general. Because we once heard a geography class in Massachusetts call our neighboring state Westconsin we did not announce it as a general practice of the beaneaters. -Michigan Moderator,

« ForrigeFortsæt »