The New English Reader

NUMBER ONE.

A First Reader for Children, written on a new plan. By WILLIAM H. PAYNE, PH. D., LL. D., Chancellor of the University of Nashville, and President of the Peabody Normal College.

prompt attention.

All correspondence will have

J. ELLIS,

JOSEPH GILLOTT'S

STEEL PENS.

GOLD MEDAL, PARIS EXPOSITION, 1878.

SOLD BY ALL DEALERS.

PAS

THE BEE HIVE.

Buy your Kid Gloves at the Bee Hive. They are considered the best ever sold. Try our $1.00 Kid Gloves. All colors and sizes always on hand.

Opened latest novelties in Parasols for ladies and children, at extremely low prices. Bee Hive.

We are headquarters for Fans. Japanese from 5c. up to the fine ostrich fans at $25.00. See our assortment in black and all colors at $1.00 each, worth from $1.25 to $1.75. Bee Hive.

We carry a full line of the celebrated P. D. Corsets. Elegant Summer Corsets for 49c. all sizes. Bee Hive.

See our new line of Hem stitched Linens and Art Materials. Zephyrs, 5c. Bee Hive.

Special for the week: Men's Fine Laundried Shirt, all sizes, 69c.; worth $1.00. Bee Hive.

Boys' Suits, Boys' Kilts, Boys' Pants in great variety. Bee Hive.

A PUPIL OF

VOLUME IX.

No. 6.

to very vigorous protests were entered by Prof. S. A. Link,

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,

219 NORTH CHERRY ST., NASHVILLE, TENN

It is still a question whether or not the troubles of U. S. Grant University, at Chattanooga, have been allayed by the change recently made in the executive head. Bishop J. W. Joyce has been made Chancellor, while a new office-that of President and Financial Agent-has been created for Dr. Spence, who has been sixteen years at the head of the institution. This office is looked upon as a "sop" thrown to Dr. Spence, and it is doubtful if it serves its purpose.

THE JOURNAL is emphatically opposed to the Tennessee State Teachers' Association being reduced to the position of a mere advertising medium for excursions to other great meetings; and judging from the following paragraph from the Souther Teacher, President Huffaker will use his influence to prevent such degradation:

We do not think it a good plan to have our great education meetings follow each other in such close succession as was the case this year-the State, the Southern, the National. They are separate organizations, the one independent of the other, and should be so conducted that the one does not absorb the interests which justly belong to the other.

THE greatest event of the season at the leading Southern summer "assembly" was the "conference" on Southern literature, conducted at Monteagle July 29, and presided over by Dr. W. M. Baskerville, of Vanderbilt University. The position held by Dr. Baskerville is the same as that held by Cable and Allen and other of the younger school of writers, and has been generally accepted as correct, with only here and there a protest. But on the occasion referred

Prof. Fortier was especially happy in the expression of his views, and the only report that has been given of the occurrence is that of the Nashville Banner, which is reproduced in another column. It is well that the other side of the Cable-Creole discussion should have been so well presented as it was done by Prof. Fortier.

THE following from the School Journal contains a world of truth, though, it must be admitted, some teachers will find it difficult to put into practice:

Is there a teacher, who reads at all, who has not chanced upon the quotation this summer?

"Rest is not quitting the busy career,

Rest is the fitting of self to its sphere."

They

Never was a couplet written so admirably adapted to express the inmost feeling of summer school proprietors. ought to combine in a rythmic tribute to the author who made such a poetic "hit" for their benefit. But is it true that "rest" is not to be won outside of a "busy career"? Common experience will justify the statement that to attempt to rest by persistently refusing to do anything by way of systematic work is the most tiresome sort of vacation. In one week ennui will hold its victims like a vampire, pressing all enjoyment and recreation out of the pleasantest things. Teachers need rest, as thirsty flowers need water. None, outside the work of teaching, can realize the crying out of every nerve in the system for rest. The strained tension of "examinations," "reports," "exhibitions," and "commencements" naturally react in a perfect collapse of mental and physical energy when they are all over. What should the teacher do at that time? Nothing! a blessed nothing at all, but to sleep, if such a nirvana is possible. But that Buddhistic idea of bliss comes to an end naturally, of itself, as children wake in the morning if nature is let alone. beginning of restlessness is nature's signal to begin doing something to find a physical tonic in mind employment. Then comes in "the fitting of self to sphere." Successful teachers say: "I can go all summer and not even think of school." It may be that one could "go all summer" and not think of home, friends, books, music, art, or anything with which the heart is filled most of the year; but what would such an indifference indicate?

A

It may be the fault, or the misfortune, of this writer himself, but it does seem that Frank R. Stockton's recent stories reach the climax of interest in the second or third installment and, in the language of a plain-spoken man, "taper" from that point to the end. The "Squirrel Inn" seems to have passed the climax long ago, and will drag its way through the remaining chapters.

THE COUNTRY AND CITY SCHOOL COMPARED.

[Extract from a paper read before the American Institute of Instruction, by S. R. Thompson.]

First Pupils in the country schools pursuing certain studies are usually older than pupils in the city schools pursuing the same studies at the same stage. In the primary schools, this difference of age is not marked, but it increases in the higher grades. In the period covered by the last third of an ordinary graded school course, it will amount to from three to five years.

Second. Pupils who have advanced to the word of the upper grades by studying in the country, and who afterwards enter their proper grade in a city school, generally show more working power, greater energy, more power of concentration, require less aid from thefteacher, and will go further in over. coming obstacles by their own inherent force than students who have come up regularly through the lower grades of the school. The country trained pupils make more rapid progress, compleeting two years of the course in one more frequently than city pupils.

In the third place, pupils who receive their early education in country schools usually make stronger students in the colleges and universities than those trained in cities. Of course there are exceptions on both sides; but the rule is as started.

The fourth point is, that a large majority of men in public life and in the learned, professions were country born, and received their early education in country schools. The condi tion of things found by the Rev. Washington Gladden in a New England city might easily be paralleled elsewhere. elswhere. Similar investigation made in a city of fifteen thousand souls, the capitol of a Western State, showed that every state officer, from the Govenor down, two of the three judges of the Supreme Court, the judges of the United State District Courts, the United States District Attorney, all but one of the professors in the State University, the Mayor and town Council, and two-thirds of all the lawyers and leading merchants of the city, had been born and received the rudiments of their education in the country.

Just here I am reminded of a remark made to me by a western judge, himself a fine scholar a friend of education. The city in which he lived prided herself on her public schools, and at this time possessed as good a corps of teachers as could be found in the country. He said, "I wish I had a good country school to send my boy to." To my surprised inquiry for his reasons, he replied, in substance, that he had observed the superior chances in life posessed by country over city boys; and though he could not clearly point out the reasons, he felt that it was an advantage on the whole to have a boy brought up in the country.

It would seem that such results as these are exactly the reverse of what might have been expected. It cannot be doubted that city schools are, as a rule, better housed, have more illustrative apparatus, are provided with more skillful teachers, are more comfortably arranged, and taught more months in the year, are under more efficient supervision; in short, are better equipped in all ways than are the country schools. Yet, with all these advantages, the pupils of the country schools, in the race of life, distance their town-bred competitors.

Now, it is not to be supposed that these things come by chance. There must be somewhere adequate reason which, when found and understood, will account for them. Can such reasons be found?-Indiana School Journal.

OLD METHODS ARE NOT ALL BAD.

There is quite a general complain among teachers, principals and superintendents that pupils in the higher grades are not able to read with ease and expression, they have so little mastery over words that an exercise reading becomes a laborious effect at word calling. *** There can be no good reading without the ability to call words readily, and it may be well to consider whether the methods of teaching primary reading are not at fault in preparing the pupil for the advanced reading.

We are inclined to think the inability of pupils in the higher grades to call words is the legitimate outgrowth of the teaching of the Word method. By this method the word is prepresented to the child as a whole, and the teacher either tells the child the word, or by skillful questioning leads him to use the word.

Later, when phonics have been introduced, the teacher writes the new and difficult words on the blackboard and marks them. The general results of these methods on the mind of the pupil are about the same. He soon learns to think he can do nothing with a new word without the help of the teacher in some way. While he should be learning independence in making out his works, he has learned dependence, and his dependence increases with the increase of difficulties.

We are wont to laugh at the old-fashioned teacher, who, when his pupil halted at a word, said, "Spell it." But it is worth while to consider whether the oft repeated command of "Spell it" did not beget more power over new words than some of our vaunted later methods. It at least taught a child to make an attack upon a new word, and any method that teaches a child to try has some merit in it. If in our haste to teach children to read in primary readers we are sacrificing their ability to read in the higher grades of reading, we would better call a halt and sacrifice the lower grades of reading in the interests of the higher.

In a recent article Superintendent Greenwood say: "Is it not a fact that if children be put at first spelling words and speaking them distinctly, and that they be kept at it for a half year, they will make double the progress in their first, second and third readers? It is worth considering at any rate."

Perhaps the craze that swept through the schools a few years ago, that taught that everything in school should be made so pleasant that the child should find nothing but one unalloyed round of pleasure in the schoolroom, is resposible for the elimination of that drudgery necessary in teaching the spelling and syllabication of words in such a thorough way as to enable the child to read with some degree of ease in a fourth reader. We are of the opinion, that, if a child has not learned how to get at the pronunciation of words by the time he has finished the third reader, the chances are very much against his becoming a reader, or of his taking much pleasure in reading.-Central School Journal.

IS SUNDAY A DAY OF REST?

Certainly it is not to many thousands, who labor as hard on that day as on any other. But the question is now asked concerning Christians and others who profess to observe the Lord's day as a day of rest. Are they doing what they profess to do? Does attendance at four or five religious services of a Sunday constitute it a day of rest? We know churches, not a few, that begin with Sunday-school or a prayer-meeting at 9 A. M. Then follows the morning service and on the first Sunday of each month a communion service follows that never closing before 12:30, and often not till 1:30. Then comes Sunday school at 2:30 or 3 o'clock, followed generally by teachers' meeting, "because the teachers' cannot all be got together at any other timer" After that committee meetings are in order. By the time a hasty supper can be swallowed there is a young people's meeting at 6:30, and evening service follows. During the large part of the year there is an after-meeting, and after that conversation with inquires' lasting till 10 o'clock or later. Day of rest, indeed!

Some may say, This picture is overdrawn. But it is notit is the accurate description of the regular routine in many churches. It may also be said, But not all the people at. tend all the services; some go to one, some to another. To a certain extent that is true, for only the exceptionally vigorous have the physical strength to go through such a day. But many members actually attend every service, and would feel conscience-smitten if they omitted one save for illness. And what is worse perhaps, the burden of obligation to attend is laid on all, and many a tender conscience reproaches for non-attendance those who are physically unequal to such a hard day's word.

"Re

There is not

In an article on another page, a California pastor maintains the Christians there make a mistake by attempting to hold too many Sunday services. We go further. Not only in California, but all over the land, the churches of Christ are weekly inciting people to break the Fourth Commandment. member the Sabbath day to keep it holy. . In it thou shalt do no work," is the command. a word in the the Bible about the obligation to worship on the Sabbath; too command is rest, rest, rest. It is indeed, a most fitting thing to use part of this day in the worship of God and in the study of his Word, and the Church of all ages has done right to use the day thus. But for this there is no direct divine command, and there is a most positive and explicit command to rest. Plainly then, the voluntary worship must not be permitted to nullify the commanded rest. But who can honestly say that most of our churches do not encourage an amount of religious work on Sunday that is utterly incompatible with making it a day of rest in any proper sense? Thousands of Christian people go to bed Sunday night more tired in body and brain than on any other night of the seven. Blue Monday is by no means an exclusively ministerial possession.

Do we not need again to hear the message of him who said, "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath?" Are we not in as great danger of making Sabbath observance a burden too grievous to be born as were ever the Pharisees of Christ's day? And do we not pervert the

Sabbath from its original intent with precisely the same spirit they manifested—a professed zeal for religion and the service of God? No doubt the zeal is honest, but so was that of many Pharisees. Paul was not the only Jew who was "blameless" in keeping the law, nor was he the only one who could say "Men and brethren, I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day." But his zeal and good conscience as he saw when his eyes were opened, had led him to sin against God. May we not be deluding ourselves with the idea that we are rendering God acceptable service when we are in fact breaking his commandment?— The Examiner.

CURIOUS FACTS ABOUT THE OCEAN.

A mile down the water has pressure of a ton to the square inch.

It has been proven that at a depth of 3,500 feet waves are not felt. The temperature is the same, varying only a trifle from the ice of pole to the burning sun of the equator.

At some places the force of the sea dashing upon the rocks on the shore is said to be seventeen tons to the square yard. The water is colder at the bottom than at the surface. In the many bays on the coast of Norway the water often freezes at the bottom before it does above.

If a box six feet deep was filled with sea water, and the water allowed to evaporate in the sun, there would be two inches of salt left at the bottom. Taking the average depth of the occean to be three miles, there would be a layer of pure salt 230 feet thick on the Atlantic. Waves are very deceptive; to look at them in a storm one would think the whole water traveled.

The water stays in the same place, but the motion goes on. Sometimes in storms these waves are 40 feet high and travel 50 miles an hour-more than twice as fast as the swiftest steamer.

The distance from valley to valley is generally 15 times. the height; hence, a wave five feet high will extend over 75 feet of water.-Publib School Journal.

CHINA.

A country where roses have no fragrance, and the women have no petticoats; where the laborer has no Sabbath, and the magistrate no sense of honor, where the roads bear no vehicles, and the ships no keel; where old men fly kites; where the needle points to the south, and the sign of being puzzled is to scratch the antipodes of the head; where the place of honor is on the left hand, and the seat of intellect is in the stomach; where to take off your hat is an insolent gesture, and wear white garments is to put yourself in mourning; which has a literature without an alphabet, and a language without a grammar.-Selected

Ever since 1812, the mining of cedar has been an industry of some importance in Cape May County, New Jersey. The largest cedar trees on the gobe, are there found imbedded in the mud of the swamps. The theory is that the sea covered the swamps on which the great forest stood, and that the heavy winds uprooted them from the mud into which they afterwards sunk, and were preserved from decay.