And as long as our Constitution continues to make this provision we shall ever be ready to stand by it and defend it. Now, with all candor of spirit, I put the question to you: Do our children receive a thorough religious training within our family circles? I venture the statement that if the Christian education of our children were entirely left to the family the children of ninety-nine families out of one hundred would receive but a very meager and scanty religious instruction. A large number of parents to-day are so busily engaged in the affairs of this life that they find little or no time for a proper education of their children within the family. We see fathers leaving their homes early in the morning for their places of business and returning late in the evening tired and weary. Mothers are generally engaged from morning till night in doing their housework and arranging the affairs of their homes. Where is the time and room, tell me, for a thorough Christian education of children within the circles in families? And how often do we meet with parents who are incapable of teaching their children at home even if they desired to. Nay, my friends, you undoubtedly are right in claiming the family to be a proper place for the religious training of children, but at the same time you are forced to concede that in ninety-nine cases out of one hundred the families can not and do not grant their children a thorough and lasting instruction in religion, And that is the reason why we Lutherans deem it by far the best method to establish Christian schools for the discharge of a duty for which our parents have no sufficient time at home. But it almost seems to me that I hear some one remark, you are entirely overlooking our Sunday schools; do not they afford our children a Christian education? You will allow me to say a few words in regard to the prevailing Sunday-school system. We have no inclination to detract from the merits of Sunday schools if they are properly conducted. But common sense and experience tell that the Christian education which children derive by means of our Sunday schools must needs be very superficial. Think of the little time that Sunday schools allow for religious instruction, an hour a week, 1 out of 168. If I had a boy whom I intended to be a physician and become skilled in the art of surgery so that he would be capable of performing the most difficult surgical operations, and I made it a practice to send him an hour a week to some medical college, you would be right in considering that the greatest folly. We can not be satisfied with having our children instructed an hour a week in matters that pertain to the eternal salvation of their immortal souls. We are convinced, and this conviction of ours is based upon experience, that if our children are to receive a thorough knowledge and lasting impression of the Bible, its divine truths and commandments, they are in need of daily religious instruction. The law of God will have to be called to their minds,explained to them, and brought home to their hearts by competent teachers day after day. And that is what we are aiming at in our parochial schools. In all discipline exercised in our schools we strive to make the word of God the governing element. And even the secular sciences taught in our schools are pervaded by a Christian spirit. That is what we, under present circumstances, deem the best, if not the only correct method of bringing up our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord; and that is the reason why we Lutherans make it a practice to establish, build, and maintain parochial schools.

A Presbyterian declaration.-Resolution unanimously adopted by the Presbyterian General Assembly at Syracuse, May 26, 1890: Resolved, That we affirm the importance of our public schools to the welfare of our people; that with intellectual cultivation must go moral training, or the schools may prove a curse rather than a blessing, but this moral training must be based on religion, otherwise its sanction will not be strong enough to grasp the conscience of the people or its utterances obligatory enough to shape their character; that, as the Bible is the source of the highest moral teaching, we regard its exclusion from our public schools as a menace to national welfare, and we urge the members of our Church to so arouse public thought on this subject, from the pulpit, the press, and the ecclesiastical assemblages, that this book shall be restored to its true place in our system of education.

A compromise proposed.—Dr. W. T. Harris: There is a practical aspect to this question. So long as Protestants insist on some remnant of the church ceremonial, such as the reading of the Scriptures or prayers, the Catholic may be expected to see in the public school an instrument for proselyting his children. On the other hand, the schools may be made purely secular and the Catholic may still object on the ground that he wishes religious instruction united with secular instruction. I think that most of the Catholic laity have settled this question in favor of the purely secular school. If the secular school prevented churches and church schools-in short, prevented religious instruction altogether the secular school might be condemned without the possibility of defending it; but the Catholic sees that he may have religious instruction in his church or in a church school apart from secular instruction. Now, in a community where the people desire to bring together all children in the public schools without prejudicing in any

way the rights of any religious denominations, I think that the matter can be easily settled. There will be a spirit of compromise; not of compromise in regard to the secularity of the school, but with regard to the feelings and prejudices of the community. For instance, the Catholic children may be permitted to be absent from school one or two hours a week to attend religious instruction in the parish church. Such a concession as this is a compromise and a recognition of the convictions of that portion of the community. Such a recognition implies a tolerant regard for the right of private opinion. I believe that the Catholic ecclesiastical power desires a formal recognition of this kind much more than it desires any substantial concession, such, for instance, as would lead to the introduction of Catholic religious instruction within the school building before or after school-a compromise that has been often discussed. In a community that is largely Protestant the Catholic wishes to have his religion treated with respect. Sach formal concession carried out in good faith is all that is required, it seems to me. Meanwhile the concession made in Savannah, Poughkeepsie, and a few other places, viz, a compromise which permits Catholic religious exercises before or after school in the schoolroom, or which permits the teacher to wear the garb of some Catholic order-the garb of the sisters or of the priesthood-militates against the public character of the school, and can not be conceded as a possible compromise.

Two ways of rendering religious instruction feasible in public schools.—Archbishop Ireland, at the National Educational Association: I would permeate the regular State school with the religion of the majority of the children of the land, be it as Protestant as Protestantism can be, and I would, as they do in England, pay for the secular instruction given in denominational schools according to results. That is, each pupil passing the examination before State officials. and in full accordance with the State programme, would secure to his school the cost of the tuition of a pupil in the State school. This is not paying for religious instruction given to the pupil, but for secular instruction demanded by the State, and given to the pupil as thoroughly as he could have received in the State

school.

The archbishop's other proposition is this:

I would do as Protestants and Catholics in Poughkeepsie, and other places in our country, have agreed to do, to the great satisfaction of all citizens and the great advancement of educational interests. In Poughkeepsie the city school board rents the buildings formerly used as parish schools; and from the hour of 9 a. m. to that of 3 p. m. the school is in every particular a State school-teachers engaged and paid by the board, teachers and pupils examined, State books used, the door always open to superintendent and members of the board. There is simply the tacit understanding that so long as the teachers in those schools, Catholic in faith, pass their examinations and do their work as cleverly and loyally as other teachers under the control of the board, teachers of another faith shall not be put in their place. Nor are they allowed to teach positive religion during school hours. This is done outside the hours for which the buildings are leased to the board. The State, it is plain, pays not one cent for the religious instruction of the pupils. In the other schools let Protestant devotional exercises take place, in the fullest freedom, before the usual school hour.

XI.-REVENUE AND TAXATION.

An increase of school revenues needed.-State Superintendent J. W. Patterson, of New Hampshire: The State can not afford to be parsimonious in providing for the education of its people. It will have the same effect upon its intellectual and moral life as the drying up of its rivers would have upon its industries and wealth. The applications of science and mechanical inventions to the industries of life, the rivalries of business, the materialistic tendencies of the age, the necessity for the social advancement, all call for an increase rather than a decrease of school revenues.

To equalize district taxes.-State Superintendent Edwin F. Palmer, of Vermont: It is difficult to see how any reason can be given for the support of highways, bridges, and the poor by a tax on all the property of the town that is not of equal force in favor of supporting the schools in the same way.

Why parochial schools should have a due proportion of the public-school funds.—Rev. M. M. Sheedy:

1. Because all who pay taxes ought to share in the benefits of taxation.

2. Because to compel payment of taxes and to exclude from participation is political injustice.

3. Because to offer education, either without Christianity or with indefinite Christianity, to the people of the United States, of whom the great majority are definitely and conscientiously Christian, is a condition that ought to be of impossible acceptance. 4. Because to confer the exclusive control and enjoyment of the school funds on the

public schools alone is to create a grievance of conscience which is especially foreign to our constitutional system. A large class of our people-the Catholics-who conscientiously refuse to accept education without Christianity and schools of indefinite Christianity, are compelled to pay taxes for the support of such schools.

5. Because the parochial schools save annually the public revenues $10,000,000.

6. Because, if the parochial schools were extinguished, it would cost the people of the United States a vast sum of money to buy sites and build the schools necessary to replace them, and an annual increase in the school tax necessary to maintain them.

7. Because the parochial schools are the only safeguard of the rights and conscience both of parents and children.

8. Because they embody the freedom of the people to educate themselves in opposition to the pagan and revolutionary claim that the sole educator of the people is the State.

9. Because such education is the worst form of education, fatal to the independence of national conscience, energy, and character.

10. Because the effects of a purely secular or State education have proved disastrous wherever it has had a trial

11. Because no reason is apparent for excluding parochial schools from a share of the school taxes but that they are Christian.

12. Because the efficiency of the parochial-school system is fully equal to that of the public schools.

13. Because parochial schools sell good and efficient secular education to the State, for which they receive not a dollar of payment.

Taxes levied irrespective of benefits.In regard to the assertion that "all who pay taxes ought to share in the benefits of taxation," the Journal of Education says: This is in no sense an American axiom or principle. It has nothing whatever to do with the policy of American life. We do not tax a man, but his property. We do not tax the property in proportion to the share of benefit the owner is to receive. A man's property may be taxed so that thousands of dollars shall be used in highways, though he may never be able to ride upon them or see them, and may have no family to enjoy them; thousands may be used for schools, though he was never in a public school a day and may have no child to attend; thousands may go to county buildings, State buildings, etc. When a man's property is taxed there is no contract, direct of indirect, made or implied, that he is personally to be considered in its use.

The State must take further measures.-State Commissioner Thomas B. Stockwell, of Rhode Island: The average local tax for school purposes, that is, the support of public schools throughout the State, is 16 cents on each $100 of taxable property. While this is the figure for the State, we find that by counties it varies from 9 cents in Washington County to 184 cents in Providence County. But the variations among the towns are much more startling, being from 3 cents in the new district of Narragansett up to 39) cents in West Greenwich. Next above Narragansett comes Jamestown with a tax of 5 cents, then there are some eight or nine towns whose taxes vary from 8 to 10 cents. As a rule the poorer towns have to pay the highest tax, and even then are only able to provide the sum required by law to secure the State appropriation.

These figures are very suggestive, and show conclusively that no system of schools can be maintained throughout the State that shall secure to all the children a chance even to get an education without aid from the State; that even with that aid the burdens are very unevenly and inequitably distributed. It is also true, unquestionably, that these conditions, instead of diminishing, will increase, and that at some not very distant day the State must take measures for further alleviation of these inequalities; for it is not right that the discharge of a duty common to all sections of the State alike, and one in which all are equally interested, should bear so much more heavily on one than upon another.

XII. SCHOOL HYGIENE.

The public is bound to leave nothing undone.-Hon. Andrew S. Draper: No schoolhouse should be erected in any city except upon the most perfect model which science and experience can devise, and then under the supervision of the most competent professional talent. When the public asks the people of any community to surrender into its hands their little ones for 6 hours a day the year around the public is bound to leave nothing undone which will protect the health of those children and minister to their comfort. Particularly where such large numbers are congregated in one building is it necessary to look continually to heating and ventilation, and light, and sanitation, and high stairs, and all the other things of which little ones know nothing, but which may, if neglected, injure health permanently and destroy their prospects in life.

An architect who may be skilled for other work is not competent to erect a large

schoolhouse unless he knows about schools, has studied schoolhouses, and gathered his information from a broad field. None should be employed who is not especially fitted for this exacting requirement or who is not willing to learn from a practical and experienced school man who has investigated the subject. Where a man can be found who thoroughly understands the subject and knows what is needed in a building to adapt it to the legitimate needs of a great school his services will be cheap at almost any cost. Though there has been much improvement in school buildings in recent years there has not been the improvement that there should have been, and I venture nothing in saying that in the 25 years now before us there will be such a revolution in the way of erecting, of warming, of lighting, of ventilating, and of draining schoolhouses as we have never dreamed of in the generations gone by.

XIII.-SCIENCE TEACHING.

It is dangerous to pronounce useless what is now unmerchantable.-Prof. A. S. Hardy in the Chautauquan: Doubtless much of modern scientific research seems misdirected and unprofitable to those whose ideas of utility are limited to the practical. What availeth it that nonsingular cubics have twenty-seven points at which conics with a six-point contact can be drawn? None, if there is no ministry to wants higher than those of the body, no finer threads in the warp of life than those of profit and loss, no love of truth apart from its commercial value. I say none-but it is dangerous to pronounce useless what is now unmerchantable. Truths which to-day are of the greatest practical importance were for centuries held to be but idle speculations and were discovered by men who deprecated their application to utilitarian ends. Moreover, every new fact in every department of science is useful in the higher sense, for the goal of the race is the solution, so far as it lies, of the great problems of the universe. Things not only, but theories of things, the intellect craves, and every new fact may well modify theories in which as yet it has no place. As furnishing methods for the discovery of facts and of those relations between facts which constitute the preoccupation of all science, mathematics shares in the higher as well as the lower ministry-its empire extending down into the smoky atmosphere of industry and toil, and upward where breathes the ambitious spirit of pure inquiry.

From report of the committee on physics-teaching of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, T. C. Mendenhall, chairman: It is the opinion of the committee that instruction in physics may begin, with profit, in what is generally known as the "grammar school." At the same time it is decidedly opposed to any general recommendation that it must begin there or in the primary school. Here, perhaps, more than anywhere else, nearly everything depends on the teacher. One who has a strong liking for and a good knowledge of physics will be tolerably certain to succeed, while another not thus equipped for the work is equally certain to fail. Teachers belonging to the first class constitute an extremely small percentage of the grand total. In science-teaching in grades below the high school, much should be left to the individuality of the teacher. As a result of personal taste or previous training and study, one may give elementary instruction in botany or in geology or in physiology so as to be a real inspiration to his class, while his instruction in physics might be so intolerably poor as to be unprofitable in the highest degree. The prevailing custom of many public schools which requires all teachers of a certain grade to teach physics is greatly to be regretted, and every effort should be made to show school superintendents that it is a mistake which can not be too quickly remedied.

The rapid advancement which is constantly being made in real scholarship among public-school teachers will result in an increased and increasing number of those who are competent to teach physics, and while the committee is convinced that, as a means of real, honest mental discipline, no branch of natural science is superior to physics, it would deprecate its forced introduction into the grammar school under circumstances likely to prove disastrous to the best interests of the science.

2. When taught in the grammar school and by a competent teacher it should be done mainly by and through illustrative experiments.

These may be of the simplest character, involving and exhibiting some of the fundamental principles of the science, and they should generally be made by the teacher, the pupil being encouraged to repeat, to vary, and to extend. Habits of observation and of thought should be cultivated and such facts of the science as are based on or relate to the principles illustrated and developed should be presented. It is neither desirable nor necessary that any particular order should be followed in presenting the various divisions of the subject. The teacher should be guided by circumstances, such as the means at his disposal for experiment and illustration, and often by his own taste and predilection.

The ease with which apparatus for the illustration of the most important principles of physics can be improvised, even when the stock of material at hand is very slender, puts the science in the front rank as to availability, and it is especially adapted to the requirements of certain schools both in town and country which, through their situation and surroundings, are restricted in their choice of a science subject. If to these facts we add another, which is universally admitted, that the physical properties of matter are the first to be recognized, the laws relating to which being, therefore, the first to arrest attention, it needs no argument to show that a competent instructor will find the study of physics one of the most important educational forces, even in the grammar school.

3. In any discussion of the character of instruction in physics in the high school, one fact of the utmost importance must not be lost sight of. It is that a large majority of the young people who are educated in the public schools receive their final scholastic training in the high school.

Its course of study must be in harmony with this fact, such provision as may be made for those who continue their studies in college or university being merely incidental.

The high-school course in physics must include, therefore, a general treatment, which must of necessity be elementary in its character, of all the great divisions of the science. It is likewise important that the student should be made acquainted, if only to a limited extent, with the methods of physical investigation and that he should be able himself to plan and carry out an attack upon some of the simpler problems of the science. The value of this work as an educational factor can not be overestimated; it is the "walking alone" of intellectual infancy.

It is believed that these two very desirable ends can be reached without giving an undue share of the time and energy of the pupil to the subject. Assuming the highschool course to consist of four years of three terms each, it is recommended that the study of physics should begin not earlier than with the third year; that it should continue through one year, three hours a week being devoted to it, not including the time necessary for the preparation of the lessons; and that during the first two terms the work should be text-book work, accompanied by illustrative experiments performed by the instructor and made as complete as his facilities will allow, while the last term should be devoted to simple laboratory exercises. It is hardly necessary to say that during the last term the three hours per week should be grouped into one exercise whenever possible.

Of the character of this laboratory practice it may be well to say that no attempt should be made to carry the pupil through a very great range of subjects. The end sought for can best be reached by a careful and more exhaustive study of a few problems which should be solved with the highest degree of accuracy attainable under the circumstances. As far as possible the pupil should be led to read and study books and papers bearing upon the particular subject which he has in hand. The time demanded by this plan, three hours per week for one school year, barely more than a hundred hours in all, is thought to be the least which is likely to produce results at all satisfactory, and it is urged that a vastly better arrangement is to allow the study of physics to run through two school years, giving it, in time, the equivalent of five hours per week for one year.

It is well known that many teachers of physics, and many more who are not teachers of physics, insist on the introduction of laboratory practice from the beginning, some even going so far as to claim that the use of the text book may be entirely dispensed with. Without desiring to enter into a discussion of this question we wish to express, and with emphasis, our belief that laboratory practice is in general of little real use to the student unless he comes to it fairly well-grounded in the fundamental principles of the science. The somewhat widespread opinion and practice to the contrary will be found, it is thought, to be one of those mistakes in which pedagogics seems to be caught on the rebound from other and generally more serious errors.

Nothing comparable with the study of sciencific truth.-Dr. Peter Bryce, of Alabama: It is plain that the natural sciences are not only adapted to the development of the youthful brain, but that they can not be begun too soon. If any mind is to grow to all that nature designed it, its functions must be pressed along natural lines for all that they are capable of bearing in early youth. Not much fear of overwork if we follow strictly natural routes. It is during the period of childhood that the brain is most impressible, most capable of development. Teachers above all others should understand these fundamental principles of mental development. A teacher of the young who is not a thorough student of physiology, who has never paid any attention to the laws of mind and heredity, and consequently fails to recognize the demands of scientific hygiene, is without such an equipment as the nature of his calling imperatively demands,