THE COMMON BRANCHES. While various gradings and different methods create demands for numerous text-books, the following selection is presented as an equipment containing all the essentials for "The Common Branches:" READING-Swinton's Series of Readers. Five books. Two books. GEOGRAPHY-Swinton's Series. Two books. One book, with one of Mason's Blanks for Written Spelling. HISTORY-Swinton's Condensed United States. One book. Write to us for a Circular showing how this Fresh, Bright, Thorough, and Popular Series may be introduced into your School at Merely Nominal Prices. THE BEST BOOKS, THE FEWEST IN THE SERIES, AT THE LEAST EXPENSE▷ SELECTED BOOKS FROM AMERICAN EDUCATIONAL SERIES OUR DESCRIPTIVE LIST SENT ON REQUEST. IVISON, BLAKEMAN & CO., PUBLISHERS, 149 Wabash Avenue, Chicago. 753 and 755 Broadway, New York. General Agent for the Southwestern States, TIMOTHY MORONEY, 136 Gravier Street, New Orleans, La. Valuable New Helps for Teachers. MERRY SONGS. 66 By S. C. HANSON, a puoblic school teacher for years, and, therefore, familiar with the wants and needs of the school-rom, and author of many successful musical publications, including Merry Melodies, price 15 ents, of which over 10,000 copies were sold last year. Merry Songs contains all the elements of popularity of Merry Melodies. It contains nearly 104 pages of as sweet melodies as were ever written, and will stir the heart of many a bad boy" to manly actions. You cannot afford to be without this new song book. It is suitable for all grades. It contains words and music written in both staffs, and money invested in it by you or your pupils is well spent. Price, 35c, or $3 per doz., prepaid. Money refunded if book is not satisfactory. BLACKBOARD STENCILS.-I was the first publisher to offer these now indispensable articles for every school-room. I have a fine list of large, correctly drawn, well-perforated, and easily transferred subjects; none better. Price, 48c per dozen, assorted designs. See large catalogue for names and numbers. HULL'S DRAWING BOOK.-Note the following points: Complete Geometric Definitions; all the plain figures, how to draw them and cut from paper; hundreds of designs or pictures in free-hand, every one described; all the solid forms, and how to cut, fold, and paste paper to make them. Price, 30c THE FLAG DRILL. For exhibitions, social entertainments, and all patriotic occasions. Easy to learn. Full directions given. Price, 25c. SKELETON COMPOSITIONS Or, Outlines for Compositions. Over 100 outlines for composition work. These outlines or schemes have been arranged to help pupils in getting at the salient points of any given article or subject. They embrace topics on almost every subject available for composition writing. Their use will induce all to write more fully on any topic. Price, 20c. PRIMARY NUMBER CARDS.-25c cards, printed on both sides, with numerals and signs, each 34 inch square; in four colors, red, yellow, blue, and green; 500 characters in all, Excellent for busy work. Price, 15c. CATALOGUES. My 60-page catalogue is a necessity to every wide-awake-ever-on-thelookout-for-all-the-help-that-he-can-get teacher, because I carry the largest stock of Teachers' Helps, Method Books, Speakers, Reward and Report Cards, Blackboard Stencils, School-room Pictures and Engravings, School Singing Books, Method Books, Devices, and other purely pedagogical prerequisites of any house in this country. They are fully described in my large catalogue, which is sent free on request. All goods pertaining to school-room work kept in stock, When in need of any thing to assist you in your work, do not forget to address BLACKBOARDS. 2. It erases cleaner and easier than any other board, and is practically DUSTLESS. 3. It is warranted (with ordinary care) for two year's constant use, without recoating. 4. Teachers can own their own boards and remove them. It is firmly attachable to the wall. It does not HANG. 5. It is made to order in any length to fill given spaces-all ready to put up. A miniature board sent free as a sample, upon which you may prove these claims. From $3 to $5 will outfit any ordinary school A. FLANAGAN, 115 Wabash Ave., Chicago. The Journal is $1 Per Year. VOLUME VIII. NASHVILLE, TENN., MARCH, 1890. AN ENGLISHMAN'S VIEW OF THE GERMAN SCHOOLS. TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY FELIX ELLARKA. "ONE fact is apparent to every attentive observer, it is that a good school education is quite general in this country," says Professor Samuel Smith in a letter to the London Times, written in Germany, which he visited for the purpose of inspecting the schools on the continent. "There is no so-called ignorant or illiterate class of society; there are no children neglected in point of school education. Every class of society studies upon a higher level of culture than the similar class in England. Nothing struck me more forcibly than the universally satisfactory education of the lower and working classes. Waiters, porters, domestics, guides, etc., have a knowledge of history, geography and other branches of science far surpassing that which we are apt to meet in similar classes in England. The cause of this conspicuous fact is not to be sought very far. The entire population has gone through a thorough and rational system of public education. Instruction as given here is much more extended than that given in our English elementary schools, and above all, it is obligatory by law. I visited several of these schools and observed the method of teaching. It is simple and admirable. "The children are not crammed with uncomprehended knowledge, but are led to think and understand from the primer grade upward. The first aim of the teacher is to awaken a comprehension of what is to be learned, and thus a desire for and love of learning is fostered and kept up. I saw no sign of weariness and mental exhaustion, neither among pupils or teachers. All instruction is given orally; the teacher mostly stands at the black-board, chalk in hand, and explains the matter under consideration. Wherever it is found possible the object to be described is shown in natura or in pictures. Thus eye, ear and hand are employed simultaneously in the acquirement of knowledge. Questions and answers follow each other so quickly and promptly that the whole class is kept intensely attentive. As a rule the teachers are much better prepared than in England, and are enthusiastic in their profession. "The public schools in Germany occupy a much higher position in the public household than with us. What I say here has reference to Switzerland as well as to Germany. Zurich, for instance, so far as progress in education is concerned, is fully up to the standard of any city in Germany. * * * The chief advantages, however, that Germany possesses over England in regard to public schools, is the regularity of attendance and the length of the course. The difficulty to get chiidren into school, with which we have to contend, does not exist in Germany. The laws governing attendance are very strict and permit no shallow pretext for absence. More important even than that appears to me the fact that the people live up to these laws, and are inclined to render them more severe rather than have them executed in a lax manner. Hence the attendance for boys as well as girls is obligatory in No. 1. Germany till the fourteenth year of age, and only in exceptional cases are pupils permitted to leave school at thirteen. "But that is not all. The Germans develop their system of evening or continuation schools (post-graduate course) rapidly, and thus virtually add two or three years to the obligatory course. In Saxony the boys must, after leaving the public elementary schools, attend the evening schools for a certain number of hours each week, unless they enter a high school. This post-graduate course lasts three years (until the boys are seventeen). Arrangements have been made to give them as many as twelve hours instruction per week if they desire it. Inducements are offered in various ways, to draw the boys into these evening schools. So complete is this system of supplementary education that there are even after-noon classes for young hotel-waiters, in which they get instruction in modern languages. "In my estimation Saxony is one of the countries that has progressed fastest, but the school law and institutions in Wuerttemberg and Baden are very similar to that of Saxony, and it is seriously contemplated to adopt them everywhere in Germany. Austria will not remain behind long. I state a positive fact when I say, in Germany, in Switzerlaud and possibly in other states on the Continent the conviction is spreading that the school education course for the poorest classes should in some form or other continue until the sixteenth or seventeenth year of age. It is found from experience that when this is carried out and realized, the people have an immense advantage in the fierce competition of life, and that thus youth is accustomed and trained to physical and intellectual labor. I even believe that to this thorough school education is attributable the almost entire disappeatance of the pauper element. "Wherever I came I inquired after the school arrangements made for the pauper children, but in every city I visited,-in Zurich, Stuttgart, Nuremberg, Chemnitz, Dresden, Berlin-I was told that there is, properly speaking, no such class; hence no pauper scholars. I do not wish to convey the idea as though there was no poverty in Germany. On the contrary the wages are much smaller than in England, hence many people have trouble to make both ends meet. But it seems to me that the mass of dissolute and depraved people who abandon their children on the streets, or hand them over to Christian charity, can not be found in this country. When seeing what a poor country like Germany has done to raise the moral and intellectual state of its inhabitants, despite a conscription to a three years' military service, despite frequent wars that exhausted the resources of the country, wars which have-God be thanked-been spared us, I say when seeing this, strong doubts arise in one's mind as to whether our party government is the best one. It sometimes looks to me as though it is at fault. "One thing is certain: If we do not foster the true interests of the people by better school educatian we shall sink in the scale of nations more and more. No unprejudiced observer can deny that the Germans have surpassed us in many respects, and that in their development they are progressing at a much faster rate than we. Their polytechnical and industrial schools leave similar institutions in our country far behind; the leaders of industry are much better prepared, the artisans better taught, much more temperate in habits and assiduous in their work than the English, Whenever Germen aud Englishmen enter into competition the latter are beaten. That is not owing to greater natural powers, for I believe, those of the Englishman are after all greater. No, it is simply and solely the sequence of the better school system in Germany and its practical application to all branches of public and private life." A SCHOOL-ROOM STORE. CHAS. J. PARKER, RALEIGH, N. C. Give some one a large bill to pay for the goods and have the cashier give the proper change. Have the book-keeper keep a strict account of all business transacted and each clerk an itemized account of his sales. After the class has retired the teacher can replace the articles and use them for the next class. This work, under the supervision of a competent teacher, could be varied so as to give the pupils exercises in all kinds of fraction work, and also extended to percentage. Give problems in profit and loss, leakage, etc. Let some business be conducted on the credit system, and take notes from the debtors. Besides the mental discipline involved in such a course of study, we can teach some very important business principles. We not only teach the computations necessary to be made, but system and accuracy. We train the hand and eye to be more accurate in judging of weight and measure. Teach them to use their hands to a better advantage by a learning to tie a bundle neatly, which is indeed a very rare thing outside of a store. Pupils delight in doing something which involves the use of the hands and eyes, and calls for the exercise of their judg ment. If this method of studying arithmetic would be adopted, undoubtedly many dullards could be aroused to action, because they could see and know what is being done. We insist that to teach arithmetic we must use things-something tangible-deal with the senses. We use buttons, acorns, hickorynuts, shoe pegs, splints, nails, etc. to aid us in in leading the pupil to understand numbers. We have the pupil to do a great deal of drawing, representing things by pictures. We teach fractions by breaking the splints, cutting apples, etc. Of course this is all very good, but do we carry this idea of dealing with things far enongh? Surely we can not confine an advanced pupil in arithmetic to this style of work; it beBesides the mental and manual training to be derived from comes monotonous to both pupil and teacher, the boy begins such a method, we also prepare our boys for the work in to look upon it as foolishness, and feels that his arithmetic which very many of them engage at some time of their life. work is a mere sham. We give a list of articles, that can be Many of them are compelled to leave school while young and bought in a grocery or drug store with prices, and have the work for their own living They often enter stores as clerks pupil make out bills. In this case we have the pupils make or waiting boys. After having pursued such a course of study drawings to represent pounds and yards, marking the price in school, they would certainly be better prepared for their on each. Here the things are only imaginary, and it is probwork and would demand better wages. Please note the folable that the enthusiasm is not what it should be, and certainly lowing quotation, taken from a letter written by a business not what it could be made by some other method. Can we not improve on this method? Especially in city schools, where the pupils are thoroughly classified, do we Let have an opportunity of doing effective arithmetic work. us set apart a certain room in the school to be devoted to our work. Suppose we have a real store, and deal with things in the true sense of the word. With what must it be supplied and at what cost? Suitable apparatus and the necessary stock of goods can be obtained at a very small cost. We will need but a small quantity of each article. A good set of scales, the different measures from the half-bushel to the gill, and the yard-stick must be had. All of these will not cost much. The stock should consist of some comparatively imperishable articles in the grocery line, such as sugar, coffee, rice, candy, crackers, salt, soda, wheat, corn, oats, meal, flour, and some liquids. Of course the stock could be added to or disposed of as seemed best. Many of the articles could actually be sold to some one at a small discount. In the dry-goods department we might have a few yards of cheap cloth, ribbon, buttons, and a few other items as desired. Then we could have card-board and paper money made (much of this is now in use in schools). Appoint your clerks from the class for the day or week, also a book-keeper and a cashier. Give the pupils a list of articles to be bought. Have the clerks to actually weigh and measure the articles and make out the bill, at the same time have each pupil make out his own bill to be sure that the clerk does not make a mistake. firm of established reputation: A During the last few years there has been a growing discontent among business men, members of school committees, school superintendents, and teachers over the results of teaching arithmetic in the schools. great deal of time is spent on a large number of subjects without a corresponding increase in mental power or practical knowledge. The inability of a young man to compute readily a 15 per cent. discount in the counting room is hardly compensated for by his recollection of having once been able in the school-room, with his book of rules close at hand, and a helping teacher at his elbow, to perform a problem in cube root. Our own experience has been that a young man generally learns, under the stress of business necessity, more arithmetic in the countingroom in a month than in the school room in a year. It is just this that business men complain of. Having paid a tax for the support of school he dislikes to do the teaching himself, notwithstanding the very flattering results of his work in this direction. He does not demand of the young man whom he employs a knowledge of technicalities to apply a little common sense to simple arithmetical operations. We all feel the importance of this and recognize the truth of the statements. Now, can we not better prepare our pupils for business? By using a more business like method car. we not, to a great extent, obviate his becoming embarrassed and floundering in a little business transaction? Let us think serionsly. GENIUS, in the sɔhool-room as elsewhere, if it does not consist in, at least includes, "a capacity for taking infinite pains." -Ohio Educational Monthly. OUR SYSTEM(?) OF WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. BY W. E. DORAN, M'KENZIE, TENN. There are three measures of weight:- (1) Troy weight, (2) Apothecaries' weight, (3) Avoirdupois weight. The pound of the first two is the same. Diamond weight, of which the carat is the unit, might be called the fourth, and is THERE are few teachers, perhaps, who have not experienced especially objectionable because the carat is used also to indi And not a some trouble in getting some pupils to understand thoroughly some things connected with compound numbers. few young teachers, doubtless, have had trouble in grasping the entire subject themselves. A few queries and illustrations will aid the reader to a better understanding of these propositions. I go to a grocery and call for a half a peck of beans. The grocer, not having a half-peck measure, takes a quart measure, used for liquids, which he fills four times. Do I get half a peck? If not, is it more or less? Druggists sometimes keep in stock some things kept also by the grocer. If I buy half a pound of soda from a drug store do I get six ounces or eight? Erugs are generally sold in large quantities by Avoirdupois weight. Is this always true? How large must the quantity be before sixteen ounces are allowed to the pound? If a druggist buys by Avoirdupois and sells by Apothecaries' weight he could make a good profit by selling for even less per pound than he paid. Often great confusion arises from the use of the word ounce in liquid and in dry measure. I went to a druggist with an eight ounce bottle and asked him to fill it with sulphuric acid. He said that he sold it by weight. I then told him to give me eight ounces. Query-If the specific gravity of sulphuric acid is 1.82, how much by measure did I get? Much inconvenience often arises even in our linear measure. While recent books and the public have discarded the ell, which may mean three, four or five quarters, some other difficulties have not been eliminated. The rod being sixteen and a half feet or five and a half yards is inconvenient, especially for short distances, as the process of reducing gives much trouble to some people who have not had a thorough training in fractions. The rod is more convenient in expressing aliquot parts of a mile. The usual division of the inch are bunglesome. Twenty-three thirty-seconds of an inch does not differ much from three-fourths of an inch, but it is not easy to compare them. The matter could be much simplified by dividing the inch into tenths and hundredths. Another great objection to nearly all our tables of weights and measures is the total absence of any uniformity in the ratio of one quantity to the next higher or lower. The ratio varies all the way from 2 to 2,000. U. S. Money and Duodecimals alone have any uniformity, and this is a uniformity between the denominations derived from the same unit of measure, and not between those from different units. By grouping we find that we have four different measures of length: (1) The regular Linear measure, of which the yard is the unit, (2) Square measure, of which the chain is the unit; (3) Mariner's Measure, of which the nautical mile (knot) or farthing is the unit; (4) Geographical measure, of which the league, geographical mile or degree may be taken as the unit. Besides this the shoe-maker has his "barley-corn" and the horse trader his "hand " We have also four measures of capacity:—(1) Liquid measure, of which the gallon, containing 231 cubic inches, is the unit; (2) Apothecaries' fluid measure; (3) Dry measure; (4) Ale or Beer measure, the gallon of which contains 282 cubic inches. This is but little used now. cate the fineness of a jewel. pound, four kinds of ounce, two kinds of dram (spelled difGrouping again we find that we have three kinds of ferently, but pronounced the same) three kinds of quart and pint, two kinds of gallon, hundred weight and ton and three kinds of mile. The nautical and geographical are equal, but differ from the statute. I have mentioned only a part of the evils and inconveniences connected with our weights and measures, but enough has been said to show that there is an utter absence of any system. And there is no occasion for wonder, if, as it often happens, the pupil gets bewildered, discouraged and disgusted. But what avails a diagnosis of our ills, if there be no remedy? This we have, but do not apply it so universally as we should I believe the metric system obviates every difficulty I have mentioned. It has been made legal in the United States by an act of Congress, and is coming into use more and more every day, especially in all scientific investigations. Many of our modern text books in physical and natural science adopt it altogether. Some give the English equivalents in brackets and some do not, and the latter is the better plan, if the system is given in full in an appendix, or elsewhere. In this way students learn to think in denominations of the Metric System instead of performing the reductions all the time. A class which is prepared for it can be taught the essentials of the system in one hour so that they can estimate capacities in liters or cubic centimeters as readily as in quarts, ounces or minims; and to estimate distances in meters, centimeters and millimeters as accurately as in yards, feet, inches and fractional parts of an inch. And so with measures of weight. The Metric System is almost infinitely simpler than our system-if we have any. There is one unit for length, one for capacity and one for weight. The ratio of increase or decrease is always ten. In square measure it is one hundred and in cubic measure one thousand. The prefixes being the same for all measures, whether length, capacity or weight, When one measure is learned all are practically known. Our ratio may be anything from 2 to 320 in Linear Measure. In Square measure we may have 9, 16, 304, 144, 160, or in Cubic Measure the ratio may be 16, 27, 128, 1728, etc. Contrast with our measures. ARITHMETIC. JOHN MCLOYD, PENNSYLVANIA, LESSON II. It is difficult to analyze the process by which the numberthought first enters the child-mind. Very early in the morning of life the mother-teacher leads the child to recognize objects external to itself. As soon as the faculty of language begins to develop in the mind, the mind begins to designate these external objects. This designation must of necessity precede speech. As the chlld-mind recognizes and designates objects so it will also, in due time, recognize and designate qualities and properties of objects. Number is a property of objects, and in this truth is the science of numbers founded. Doubtless the number-thonght does not enter the mind as long as only one object is recognized, or perhaps we should say, the number-thought is created by the sensation, or in the sensation, caused by the succession of two or more objects passing before a sense,—as, for instance, the mother and the nurse passing before the sight of the child; or the song of the canary and the bark of the dog succeeding one another in the hearing of the child. The child sees its mother and then the nurse. It recognizes the one and then the other. That recognition, at this early stage of the child's life, produces a sensation in the mind of the child, and that sensation is beyond question the primitive number-thought. All subseqnent number-thoughts must refer back to this primitive thought. Succession succeeds succession, Sensation after sensation is produced. The sensation develop. They appeal to the intellect of the child for a designation for these new experiences. By the aid of the words of the mother the child's intellect refers these feelings of unrest and of inquiry to the faculty of language, and by and by, the multitudes of words uttered by the mother-teacher shape the power of language in the child, and develop that power by blending sensation with thought from day to day; and just as it blends the thought of its mother with her appropriate designation in the word "mama," so in the course of time it blends the number-thought and the number-word into one idea, and this compound of thought and designation exists in the faculty of language as an abstraction ready for use by speech as soon as that power comes to the child, if it be not already able to talk Of course this abstraction does not as a rule precede speech, but it has been observed that it may do so. The child learns to count its toys and other objects that surround it, and thus the objects that surround the child, prompt the number-thought which thought demands the number-word in order that it may be expressed. The mother-teacher, unconciously it may be, developes the number-thought, and also communicates the number-word by such expressions as, "Give me one little hand; now the other." "Here is one little foot; here is the other." and so on indefinitely untii the child-mind formulates the definite inquiry, "How many?" The answer to this inquiry is generally recognized as the hasis of the science of number. the primitive sensation and its development are important to be overlooked. However, starting from this point, with the response to the inquiry, "how many?" it is the duty of the teacher to see that the development begun by the mother be continued in a natural manner. But To promote this developement, it must be plain to every thinking teacher that objects should still be used, but too many do not seem to know that the office of objects is to raise new inquiries. Each new inquiry demands a new number-thought to satisfy it. Each new number-thought demands a new numberword to complete and fix it in the mind-a pure number. Every new number-thought demands an appropriate word by which it may be designated. This word may be given by the teacher, by a classmate, by a playmate, or by the book. But it must be given. It cannot be evolved from the child's own mind. After being given, it may pass into the child's unconsciousness and the teacher may be able to have the child recall it, but even these processes must be wisely used. Illustrations to strengthen the number-concepts already at command is perhaps wiser teaching than protracted efforts to call up one not at command. In following Grube's system the teacher should see that in the development of the number "two," the child is made better acquainted with the number "one" "Three” should strengthen "two," four should strengthen the abstraction of "three," and so on developing and strengthening as we advance. We shall not insult the intelligence of the JOURNAL's readers by repeating any of Grube's work. Every teacher should have a copy of Seely's "Grube's Arithmetic," and also Jarvis "Froebel's Education of Man." Now, a suggestion, suppose we have developed numbers up to ten. What does that mean? It means that all numbers used to designate groups of less than ten objects have been handled in every possible combinations of the principles of increase and decrease. Less than that is not development. But what an immense amount of work that means! to be able to read in the book of numbers all that these simple numbers tell us is a great achievement. It is worth weeks of work. It is the constant, careful, thoughtful turning over of numbers in the mind-we mean these small numbers, from one to ten -that makes the mathematician. Te sum up the whole matter, see that the child knows each number. Repeat until he does know it. class. DEVICES IN ENGLISH COMPOSITION. W. B. ROMINE, PULASKI TENN. THE latter part of the article by Miss Lawrence in a recent number of the JOURNAL, while not given as an illustration of composition work, shows how the skillful teacher may lay all subjects under tribute to the noble art of expression. The game "Who Am I?” may be used to advantage in the history Let one pupil prepare a sketch of some important character and allow the others to guess who it is. In the geography class the composition may be "Where I Have Been." Let the pupil describe the scenery, climate, customs and as many other things as may be necessary to aid the others in guessing. |
