These are

school age in five surrounding school sections. brought in every morning, and taken out in the evening, in eight large, comfortable, covered vans, After the preliminary arrangements were made, the management of the school was vested in a local board, which consists of the three trustees from each of the sections being consolidated.

The rate of taxation is the same as it was before the inauguration of the scheme. All the additional expense is met by the Macdonald fund. This agreement lasts for three years, or until sufficient time has elapsed to give it a fair trial. At the end of that time the building and equipment will be handed over to the local board, and they may either continue the work or go back to the old district schools as they see fit. But it is firmly believed that the advantages of consolidation will be so great that they will not wish to return to the old system.

To show how the general public looks upon the work being done, another school section applied to be allowed to join the Consolidated School, and was admitted last August.

One of the great aims of this school is to interest the children, not only in country life, but in agricultural problems. The school garden has been found to be a potent factor in accomplishing this end. Every child in the school has a little plot of ground for himself, which is his very own. Here he is given instruction as to planting and caring for vegetables and flowers. The produce is his, and is either sold or taken home. Each class has a plot in which they work together. There are also some illustration plots in which the whole school works. These are for the purpose of experimenting with good and poor seeds, spraying, fertilizers, rotation of crops, etc.

Our point of view cannot be expressed better than in the words of Professor Bailey, of Cornell.

In the rural districts the school must become a social and intellectual center. It must stand in close relationship with the iife and activities of its community. It must not be an institution apart, exotic to the everyday lives; it must teach the common things, and put the pupil into sympathetic touch with his own environment.

WOMAN'S PART IN PUBLIC-SCHOOL EDUCATION

MRS. A. E. HYRE

Member of School Board, Cleveland, O.

The thought of the day seems to be that a child shall be educated in a way that will enable him to live a worthy life; that less stress shall be placed upon the development of his intellectual powers, and more upon his qualities of character; that the school life shall be a continuation and enlargement upon the true home life, and not a training separate and apart.

In the light of these views, the question of "Woman's Part in Public-School Education" is of more than ordinary interest and deserves the thoughtful consideration of every one who is interested in school affairs. The work that woman has done, and the success that has obtained along humane, philanthropic, and educational lines, in the past twenty-five years, indicate that she has a sympathy and patience with children, and an understanding of them, that fit her to take an important part in public-school education.

I believe that woman has a part in public education because she possesses certain natural qualities peculiar to her sex, that are essential elements in the rounded up education of a boy or girl.

I shall not take your time to discuss the political or legal right of woman to a part in public education, but desire simply to call your attention to the moral duty and inherent right of woman to live out her own individuality and up to the best talent within her. Because of this, woman finds her work where children's interests are.

It is not a trade or a business that woman has learned. It is the intuitive insight into child-life and child-nature that God Almighty has given her. Woman knows a hundred ways to reach a child. It may be through his pride, his reason, his intellect or his affection, or by means of her individual tact; but whatever method is used, there are always back of it the patience and interest of woman in youth. And so, wherever children are concerned, wherever their safeguards or development are involved, the woman view-point should have expression. It is not only in a general and abstract way that woman

should enter into the public education of our youth, but in a material and practical way.

Woman has a part in public education as a student, as a teacher, as a patron, and as a member of boards of education. Woman's love and understanding of children are a natural instinct that exists in the most primitive and ignorant woman; but if we would have the larger benefits of that knowledge in our citizenship, we must educate the possessor to use it in an intelligent manner. The evolution of woman has been and is wonderful. Every year large numbers who are to be the mothers of the coming generation are filling our educational institutions. Half of our public-school population are girls, while women constitute nearly 30 per cent. of all college students.

Occasionally someone will denounce the higher education of women. Recently a woman physician said that the mental development of woman is destroying her ability to carry out her proper functions. In answer to this, let me quote Dr. J. M. Taylor, dean of Vassar College, who has made careful study of this subject:

The bearing of the higher education of women on the health of women and their attitude toward the home is of perennial interest. It has been abundantly shown, over and over again, by the most careful investigation, that the health of college women improves during the four years' college course. While that is not true in all cases, it is certainly not true in the cases of all men. Only three of 153 graduates of 1903 of Vassar did not improve in general health after entering college. The first ten years' history of Vassar shows that half the total number of graduates married, and that the proportion of children to each was from three to four. There is nothing in the college training of American women to contribute to abnormal results. A healthy mind, a natural body, and absolutely healthy and natural sentiments toward life are the general product. No work in America promises more for its future than the thorough education of its girls.

But woman's part in public-school education has its greatest manifestation, at the present time, in the large number of women teachers in the public-schools. In 1880 the percentage of women teachers was 57. In 1903 it had increased to 74, and we naturally ask why this has come about. I venture one suggestion. At one time in the history of teachers the only equipment necessary was a certificate. If an applicant before a board of examiners maintained an average of 70 per cent., he was a teacher, and nothing could prevent him, if he could delude some weak board of education into giving him a school. The time is not so far distant when physical strength was

of greater value to the schoolmaster than intellectual power. It was necessary for him to control and break the spirit of the biggest boy in his room, or else he had not been a success. Experience has taught us that this influence did not stimulate the pupil's respect for law and order, but destroyed it. But there came a change in the sentiment of the public; they began to wonder if there was not some other way to reach children. Here and there a slight little woman would succeed in a school where a strong man had been employed and failed. By moral suasion, by studying the boy, by giving her woman-nature full sway, she would capture the boy's heart, perhaps touch his pride, secure his co-operation, stimulate his gallantry—in a word, win him. Educators and the thinking public at last realized that woman's way was the best way of reaching children.

At this period moral suasion supplanted the birch whip. The sentiment of the public became so strong against physical punishment that laws prohibiting it were placed upon the statute-books of a number of states. The teacher, in preparing for his calling today, does not have to measure his professional value by his ability to administer corporal punishment. The teacher of the present, who makes a success of his work, loves it. He studies and trusts his pupils, and by that very faith wins their love and confidence. He has an understanding of and sympathy with child-life, and he has tact to manage it.

The teacher must also have the ability to discriminate. The doctor, as he goes about his practice, cannot send out a general prescription to apply to all cases; he must have the skill to discriminate. The commercial man who is a successful one must study his men; he must approach them in as many different ways as there are minds; he cannot commit a speech and repeat it to every business man he may approach; he must have the acuteness to discriminate. The nurse who goes into a sickroom fully determined to put into effect the theories she has learned, without considering whether the case is one of typhoid fever or a critical operation, will soon find out that she has mistaken her calling. She, too, must have the quality of discrimination. The teacher is no exception to the general rule. He must surpass the others in tact; he must have the ability to find out each child's individual make-up and temperament; he must discover the avenue through which he may influence him; he must reach down

and interest the child-mind; he can lift it up to his own mentality only as he leads it on, year after year. This requires a comprehension of childhood; and woman's nature fits her peculiarly to enter into a sympathetic relationship with children and to teach them properly.

But the business man complains of lack of confidence and individuality in our city-taught boys. Educators themselves are somewhat disturbed over the apparent shortcomings. Some of them give as a reason that there are too many women teachers in the city schools, and that boys, as they enter the adolescent age, need, in greater degree, masculine influences. I believe this is true; but that does not prove anything, because the average boy at that age is in high-school work and comes under the direct influence of both men and women. In substantiation of this it is a fact, interesting to note, that out of a canvass of the 60 grammar buildings in Cleveland, the average age of the graduating classes of 1905, or 3,222 grammar pupils, was found to be 14.08 years. There was only one building where the average age of the class was 15 years. In 23 buildings the average age was 13+, and in the other 36 buildings the class age average was 14+.

It is in the cities that there is complaint of a lack of individuality among pupils, but I believe this is not because there are so many women teachers, but on account of the close organization and the lack of freedom for each teacher to work out his own problems. Technical training is the foundation of a teacher's work, but it depends upon his individual interpretation and application of that training whether or not he shall succeed. I believe that it is the teacher, irrespective of sex, who goes on, year after year, surrounded by limitations and restrictions, that makes him little more than a machine to grind out so much work per day, that fails to create individuality in pupils or instil into boys any vigorous manhood.

It is, however, not only as a student and teacher that woman has a part in public education, but as a patron also. We cannot get far in advance of the people in any movement; and so, if we would secure the best equipment for our public schools, and the greatest benefits for the youth who attend them, we must keep the patrons alive to their needs.

It is the duty and mission of the school to develop a child, but the greatest work lies in bringing him into harmony with the community