New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1881-09-22
NOTES ON EDUCATION.

The Iowa public schools have received from the !
school fund an apportionment of $ll7.3ll ~.
The Scotch elementary schools have largely in
creased in number and usefulness in the past eight
years. The attendance, however is said to DO not
as good as it should be.
Dartmouth has a freshman class of seventy -hVe
members-two less than the number that ehVereu
last year. The new curriculum provides a great
many electives, especially IN modern lansuaSo~
Rochester University has forty-hve freshmen
with five accessions to the upper classes Inc
larger nroportion of the class comes from the
Rochester Free Academy. young coloreo man n"s I
entered the freshman class.
IL is proposed reopen the South Carolina Mili-
tarv Academy 1t has been closed since the wal,
and the citadel occupied by the Government as cap
tured property. An effort is being made to secure
from the Government rent for the years passed since
the restoration OF the state.
The school board of Springfield, ILL.,, is still dis
cussng the question of admitting coOred pupils to
the pubic schools of the city. local journal. The
Republtc protests against any more public expend
ture for special schoolhOuses for cOlored children
and urges their admission to the public schools.
President Gilman, of Johns Hopkins. defines al
university a society of masters and scholars" an
association by authority, of masters who are con-
spicuous in ability and learning and devotion to
study for the intellectual guidance in many sub
jects of youthful scholars. who have been prepared
for the freedom of investigaton by prolonged
discipline in literature and science"
The income of the State University at Madison,
Wisconsin, having been greatly reduced, the regents
lately decided to make small charge-only $lO|
anr ually-to each student, to cover the cost OF
heating, lighting and caring for the buildings.
About 300 students have formed league and are
holding indignation meetings to denounce this
charge a violation of the statutes relating to the
University
Professor A. Cayley, Sadlerian Professor of Pure
Mathematics at Cambridge University, will soon
RoIt md will in the
mathematical instruction of Johns Hopkins Uni
versity until the close OF the session next June.
Besides giving lectures to mathematiclans FRO,
fessor Cayley will take part i'll the Mathematical
Seminary and will be accessible for consultation TO
advanced students.
President Miles, of the South Carolina College OF
Agriculture, recommends the employment of what
might be called missionary teacher" IN such parts
of the State from the scattered condition of the
population cannot support regular and permanent
schools. He suggests that such II teacher having
on his list about thirty children distributed among
from to ten households could Flslt each
family at least three times week.
Princeton has freshman class of / 90 members.
and several new post graduate students. President
McCosh points out that Princeton has now secured
all the advantages of Oxford and Cambridge's
tutoral system by the multiplication, not of tutors
but professors, so that the younger classes are
tanpht i'm small divisions The doctor mentions
with pride the original research which IS occupying
number of the older professors and from twelVe TO
fifteen young tutors and lecturers.
Superintendent Cole of Albany, suggests that the
Board of Education provide twenty-five copies of
some good juvenile magazine for the of the
reading -casscs the lower grades of the public
schools. The Albany teachers have begun system
atically to furnish lists of books for home reading
pupils. 1t is too soon to judge how much use VIII
be made of these lists, but it is already evident
that the pupils take great interest III them
1t is asserted in England that public school boys
do,- in ri order
be ready for their next mornings work, to study
long beyond the time when they ought to be asleep
Less study more wisely directed woIld probably
secure better results One subject thoroughly I'M
derstood better dlsciplineS the mind than a smat
tering of ten 10 twenty This seems a trlte state
pursued in England and America it is one that
cannot be repeated too Often
The Saturday Rerepc complains that there is an
element of sham and pretence even in the great
pubic schools of England such as Rugby and Win
chester which must be heart breaking to their able
and conscientious masters 1t adds The recent most
reasonable demand tor better knowledge of French
in candidates for commissions in the army has not
been met generally yet in the right mode by the
public schools On the Continent French and
Germans and Italians beginning to teach THEN
children English; they know the use of it. We do
not teach modern languages they should be taught
in what best places of education. An Eng
1ish army under conceivable circumstances might
fare badly without officers knowing French or
German the French army did ten or twelve years
ago, when its officers knew no German An English
public school boy is luCicrousy helpless in trav-
elling on the Continent. He is supposed to know
some Latin and Greek-which in reality he prob
ably does not--but of French and German, which
he might much more easily learn, he is practically
ignorant"
The school teachers of San Francisco at a recent
meeting rejected by large majority proposition
to abolish written and to adopt oral examinations
in history. In a discussion on the marking system,
Superintendent Taylor said that when he taught
school he was firm believer in credits and carried
the system much further than done in this De-
partment But he was beginning to doubt its use
fulness in the School Department of this city. He
said that the questions given at examinations could
be answered by or two words selected from
paragraph in the text book and that to pass the
animation it not necessary to know much of
the subject The trouble is that chdren's minds
run wholly to percentages But in most cases high
percentages show very weak minds. He wished
that the abuses of the system could be abolished
Many parents look to their children's credits
Children not heard talking of the new facts
that they have learned or the new principles they
have been taught but of percentages and standing
And 1t is with the parents. He did not remember
a single parent with whom he had talked who had
mentioned q new fact of interest that his child
had learned. He only heard of many credits
earned. Credits as now used. draw the attention
of the pupils from the true object Of education
Superintendent Taylors statements are worth CON
eideration by teachers throughout the country.