presented that city's claims to the honor, which was indorsed by letters of invitation from the governor of Kentucky, the mayor of Louisville, and the presidents of the board of trade, of the school board, and of various civic clubs of Louisville.

Hon. John H. Hinemon withdrew the invitation to meet in Hot Springs, Ark., and indorsed the invitation of the city of Louisville, Ky.

Louisville was then chosen by a standing vote as the next place of meeting.

There being no further business before the house, on motion, the meeting was declared adjourned.

AFTERNOON SESSION.-WEDNESDAY, MARCH I

ROUND TABLE SESSIONS

The Round Table of State and County Superintendents met in the large Colonial Room of the Plankinton Hotel at 2:30 P. M., with Alfred Bayliss, state superintendent of public instruction for Illinois, as leader, and W. T. Carrington, state superintendent of public instruction for Missouri, as secretary.

The topic under discussion was "High-School Extension to the Children of Rural Districts."

A paper on the topic was read by C. P. Cary, state superintendent of public instruction, Madison, Wis., and was discussed at some length.

The committee appointed at the Atlanta meeting of the Round Table, on Interstate Recognition of High-Grade Teachers' Certificates made a report through its chairman, G. W. Nash, state superintendent of public instruction for South Dakota. The report was, on motion, adopted.

The Round Table of City Superintendents met in The Arcade of the Plankinton Hotel at 2:30 P. M.; the leader, Frank B. Dyer, superintendent of schools, Cincinnati, O., presiding.

The topic for discussion was "The Merit System of Appointing and Promoting Teachers and Principals."

Ben Blewett, assistant superintendent of instruction, public schools, St. Louis, Mo., presented a paper on "The Merit System in the Public Schools of St. Louis."

This was followed by a series of brief outlines of "Methods of Appointing and Advancing Teachers," presented by the superintendents of various cities.

A general discussion followed.

The greatest mark of honor ever paid by the Department of Superintendence to one of its members was the banquet tendered to Dr. W. T. Harris, on Wednesday evening, March 1.

A dinner was laid for two hundred covers in the French dining-room of the Plankinton House. At the close of the dinner President Cooley, with whom the idea of the banquet originated, introduced the guest of honor to whom he paid a high tribute, and then made way for Superintendent William H. Maxwell, President of the National Educational Association, who officiated as toastmaster. Those who responded successively to toasts in honor of the guest of the evening were: Superintendent F. Louis Soldan, St. Louis; Frank A. Fitzpatrick, Boston; Superintendent J. M. Greenwood, Kansas City; Inspector James L. Hughes, Toronto; Miss Elizabeth Harrison, Chicago. A response was made by Dr. W. T. Harris, the guest of honor.

THIRD DAY

MORNING SESSION. THURSDAY, MARCH 2

The meeting came to order at 9:30 A. M., President Edwin G. Cooley in the chair. The exercises were introduced with music by a chorus from the German English Academy of Milwaukee.

President Cooley announced the receipt of communications as follows: from the Milwaukee Teachers' Association, expressing appreciation of the honor to the city of Milwaukee conferred by the meeting of the Department of Superintendence in their midst; and from the Federal Council of the North American Gymnastic Union, inviting the members of the department to attend the Twenty-Ninth Festival of that body at Indianapolis, Ind., June 21-25, 1905.

President Cooley then announced the absence on account of illness of Edgar Gardner Murphy, executive secretary, Southern Educational Board, Montgomery, Ala., and George H. Conley, superintendent of public schools of Boston, Mass., and stated that it had been suggested that the afternoon and morning meetings be combined by taking over the afternoon speakers into the morning session. He asked for an expression of choice by the department.

A motion was made, seconded, and unanimously carried that the afternoon and morning sessions be combined.

The first speaker on the program by rearrangement was James P. Haney, director of manual training, Boroughs of Manhattan and The Bronx, City of New York, who spoke on the general topic, "Manual-Training Work in the Elementary, High-School, and College Curricula."

At the close of Mr. Haney's paper the following members took part in general discussion: William H. Elson, superintendent of schools, Grand Rapids, Mich.; C. Valentine Kirby, instructor in art and manual training, Manual Training High School, Denver, Colo.; Charles Milton Carter, director of art, public schools, Denver, Colo.; • Miss Ella A. Rowe, teacher in city schools, Chicago, Ill., and Miss Ida C. Bender, supervisor of primary grades, Buffalo, N. Y.

The next topic on the program was "Child Labor," on which Miss Jane Addams, of Hull-House, Chicago, Ill., gave an address.

At the conclusion of Miss Addams' address, William H. Maxwell, superintendent of schools of the city of New York, stated the child-labor law in that city, and described how the teachers were combating the circumvention of the law by parents. William F. Slaton, superintendent of schools, Atlanta, Ga., gave a graphic picture of the conditions existing under his own observation. Lawton B. Evans, superintendent of schools, Augusta, Ga., described the conditions of the factory child in the South and the efforts to combat the evils of child labor.

The last paper on the program was given by Calvin M. Woodward, dean of the School of Engineering and Architecture of Washington University, St. Louis, Mo., on the topic, "Manual-Training Work in the Elementary, High-School, and College Curricula." The Committee on Resolutions reported as follows:

Resolved, That our thanks are due, and are hereby extended, to Superintendent C. G. Pearse, to William George Bruce, editor of the School Board Journal, and to Charles McKenny, principal of the Milwaukee State Normal School, for their untiring efforts and unusually complete arrangements for the success of this meeting; to the board of education, for their interest; to the Citizens' Committee of twenty-five, for the carefully planned details; to the public schools, State Normal School, Milwaukee-Downer College, Marquette College, and German American Academy, for the most excellent music furnished at our sessions; to the city press, for the prominent space given and the full reports of the proceedings published; to the hotels, for the uniform courtesies extended to all; to the railroads, for the usual reduction in rates granted; to the speakers on the program who are not directly engaged in educational work, for the time and labor given in our behalf; and to the president and other officers of the department, for the excellent program prepared for our meeting, and successfully carried out at the various sessions.

Resolved, That the proper officers of the Department of Superintendence be directed to express the thanks of the department to Hon. Edward C. Eliot, for the valuable paper presented at this session, and which the Association considers of great practical importance.

Resolved, That this department approves of the bill now before Congress extending the franking privilege to state educational departments covering the mailing of reports and other official documents, and urges the passage of the same.

Resolved, That the paramount educational question of the hour is the employment and retention of a sufficient number of well-qualified teachers to fill all of our public schools; and that this department pledges

itself to use its best endeavors to secure sufficient compensation to enable teachers to prepare themselves properly for their work, and to justify them in remaining permanently in the profession of teaching.

L. H. JONES, Chairman.
C. G. PEARSE.

A. B. BLODGETT.

J. A. SHAWAN.

W. F. CRAMER.

On motion, duly made and seconded, the resolutions were adopted. The president then read an invitation from the South Division High School Girls' Club, inviting members of the Association to an "at home" from 2 to 5 P. M. On motion, the department adjourned sine die.

EVANGELINE E. WHITNEY, Secretary.

PAPERS AND DISCUSSIONS

TOPIC: REVIEW OF THE EDUCATIONAL FEATURES OF THE UNIVERSAL EXPOSITION AT ST. LOUIS

1. THE FOREIGN EDUCATIONAL EXHIBITS

HOWARD J. ROGERS, CHIEF OF THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND DIRECTOR OF CONGRESSES

The Department of Education found most favorable conditions in St. Louis from the outset, inasmuch as the Exposition Company had fixed upon education as the fundamental principle for the development of the exposition, and the National Educational Association was particularly anxious for a comparative presentation of the educational methods of other countries. The former condition predetermined a generous attitude toward the exhibit department which embodied as a concrete science the ideal of the exposition; the latter carried as its corollary the combined support of the educational efforts of the United States.

From the favorable comments which had been made, both in foreign and domestic journals, upon the educational exhibit of the United States Commission at the Paris Exposition of 1900, a discussion had arisen concerning the relative merits of the different systems of education in various nations, and it was felt that a more thoro comparison could be made from the St. Louis exhibit. That the theory of public education in Europe was different from that in this country was an admitted premise. Whether each was best adapted to the conditions underlying its own national development; whether each contained methods that could be advisedly adapted to the system of the other; whether the tendencies of the two were more widely, or less sharply, divergent than formerly; and whether conclusions could be drawn clearly as to which has had the most beneficial effect on the commercial and industrial development of the country, were the larger problems for which the educational exhibit was to furnish the solution.

The educational exhibit was planned from two standpoints: first, its foreign participation; second, its domestic representation. With the former only this paper has to do. On its material side it was thoroly satisfactory, inasmuch as twenty-one nations were represented-five from Asia, twelve from Europe, and four from our Latin-American neighbors to the south. This representation varied from a single institution, or class of schools, to a complete presentation of the educational activities of a country. How best to present the salient facts in this brief paper, whether by nations or by subjects, is a problem which I shall probably solve by each method in part.

Two lines, widely divergent from American practice, stand out prominently and must always be in mind in comparing educational systems. The first is the promotion of class distinctions by educational training, as illustrated in the systems of primary and secondary instruction; and the second is the training of young men for commercial and political fields, particularly in reference to colonial and foreign service. To these two general subjects, and to some special matters which seem to be of interest to the United States, I shall confine my remarks.

The system of public instruction in this country is articulated so as to form a symmetrical unit. The transitions from the elementary to the high school, from the high school to the college, and from the college to the professional school, are made without a break, and form a steady progression. A pupil may drop out at the end of the elementary, or at the end of the high-school, or in the middle of the high-school course; but he has had the same training as those who go on to the end, and if he returns to his school after an interim of two or three years, he can pick up his work where he left it, handicapped in no respect but by age. We have grown accustomed to see the entire sequence of studies under one administrative head, and much of our recent thought has been given to so interrelating the different parts as to put forward the time when a student may become a self-supporter. It is confusing to the standards of our teachers in considering foreign educational systems to see elementary, or primary, education displayed as an independent entity, controlled by a separate administrative head, and designed to perpetuate the social castes, or orders, by training the children of the masses manually and artistically for the trades in store for them. The average age for completing this course in France and Belgium is nearly fifteen.

Parallel with this course, so far as the ages of the pupils are concerned, is the system of secondary instruction under quite another administration, embracing a study of the classics and humanities in general, and leading to the cultural professions. This instruction, tho under public control, is not free to the public. It is not my intention to draw comparisons between these radically different theories of free public education. I have twice done it before this Association, and it is so interwoven with the history and development of civilization, and with the social evolution of each country, that it is a distinct topic in itself. My only point is that no intelligent observation can

be made of the educational work of another country at an exposition, or elsewhere, that is not based upon a thoro appreciation of this truth. We cannot assert that the European system is not the best for the social conditions that Europeans have to face. We only know that it is not in accord with the theory of our institutions, and that a system of instruction which tended even in the slightest degree to promote class perpetuity could not stand. It follows, as a corollary to this proposition, that it is a sound policy to go slow in the introduction of foreign methods and ideas when they touch the roots of things. There are plenty of methods, and details-administrative, teaching, and other—which we can adopt, and a neglect to observe which would prove us narrow and provincial.

From this view-point in particular, the exhibit of training-schools for teachers was difficult to classify. This matter is put very clearly in the report of the jury of Group I, Elementary Education:

In the chief foreign countries professional schools for the training of teachers are easily classified by virtue of their administrative relations; but in our country the different orders of pedagogical training merge into each other almost imperceptibly, because they are all based upon the same fundamental conception of the teaching profession.

There are also disclosed by the exhibits striking differences in the spirit and methods of instruction. In France the teaching is logical and analytical. The stress of pedagogical training in that country is upon the treatment of subjects, and the abiding effects of that training are seen in the theses by teachers and by school inspectors (the latter all men of professional training) which form a very interesting and instructive part of the exhibit of that country. The analytic principle is maintained in the manual training which, as shown by the examples presented, consists of a graded series of exercises upon the elements that enter into simple constructions. Germany adheres more closely to the authoritative method of instruction, a fact plainly shown by the photographs of classes in which every child seems listening with breathless attention to the word of the teacher. From the photographic displays one would readily infer that in our own country the emphasis of class exercises is upon the activity of the pupil; in Germany, upon the personality of the teacher.

The second divergent line noticeable in the exhibit was the training given to young men by Germany, and some other nations, but noticeably Germany, in foreign commercial relations. The aim of the "technical high school," as announced in the official catalog, is to afford a higher education for the technical professions in the civil and public service and in commercial undertakings, as well as to cultivate arts and science in so far as they come under the head of technical instruction. In one of the rooms devoted to technical exhibits was an exhaustive display of methods for colonial training, in which appeared not only the careful study of the geography and topography of the country, its routes of trade, its fertile and sterile regions, etc., but also actual specimens, and a careful description including their commercial value, of every agricultural and mineral product of the country, together with an equally complete representation and description of every bird and animal native to the clime. All this as a matter of class routine and regular curriculum; so that when an agent or employee goes to east Africa or the south Pacific,