The third group should consist of schools with only a three years' course of study, and the second group should include the larger number of high schools which have four years courses and a fair outfit of apparatus. By a judicious move to raise the standard of admission to the third group schools, we should clarify ideals and help to strengthen and elevate the grammar grades.

CONCERNING the attitude of the Catholic church towards the public schools the mission of Monsignor Satolli to this country promises to help to a better understanding. As legate

of the Pope he has said, "The Holy See, far from condemning or treating with indifference the public schools, desires rather that, by the joint action of civil and ecclesiastical authority, there should be public schools in every State," and recommends three plans, to be followed according to circumstances: catechism classes for Catholic children in the school house, but out of school hours; or in other buildings where this is necessary; or parochial schools with such aids for Catholic children in the public schools. This seems to be a rational solution of the

question. As the Catholic World says:-"If the Church were opposed to the public schools she could not consistently allow her members to teach therein. There would be more sin in allowing Catholic teachers to officer and promote the public schools than in allowing Catholic children to attend them. If these institutions were godless, damnable, contaminating and destructive of morals, it would be a greater crime to let Catholic teachers continue agents of the system than to tolerate Catholic children becoming victims thereof."

AS WAS to be expected, Dr. Rice's Forum articles are stirring quite a breeze. Education uses hard words in its indignation over the doctor who has "abandoned physicking his patients" and turned, after a study of German pedagogy, to "diagnose the condition" of American schools and "administer purgatives, sedatives or tonics, even if necessary, heroic treatment with appropriate surgery;" and "has virtually slandered the true educational public, nowhere more intelligent, progressive and determined than in”—Cincinnati. The Public School Journal, on the other hand, says:

His report of the Indianapolis schools fails in completeness, in that he has not pointed out some defects that are obvious to a man without his bias who knows them." However, "Dr. Rice's comparison of the schools of Cincinnati and Buffalo, as the Board of Education in the former city and the superintendent

in the latter declare them to be in their reports, with what he found them to be upon examination, presents an incongruity too painful for comedy. Cincinnati howled with pain and rage over his lifting the veil that conceals so large a portion of her work from public knowledge." Perhaps an outside critic may be of some service in disturbing the educational self-complacency of some of our cities--and superintendents.

A NEW DEPARTURE.

Sup't Patzer, of Manitowoc county, has secured from the county board of his county, an appropriation which will enable him to employ from six to ten teachers, and pay them $2.50 a day and expenses each, not more than four days, to days, to conduct examinations under the course of study for common schools.

We suppose that this means that candidates for promotion and for graduation, will be gathered at one or two central points in each town, and will be examined by the examiners on written questions prepared by the county superintendent, with perhaps also an oral examination.

Certainly in some counties there have been found teachers who could not be trusted to examine their own pupils for graduation, and even if they could be trusted, the honest differences in marking are so great as to make a diploma based on each teacher's examination of his own pupils of very little value.

It is well known that an examination by a stranger is more severe upon a class than an examination by their own teacher, supposing each to be intrinsically equivalent, merely because the pupils are accustomed to their own teacher's modes of thought and expression. So that it will not be surprising if the number who pass these examinations shall be less than under the old way. Such a fact will not necessarily be any reflection upon the teacher.

The

We should be glad to see this process of employing a few of the best teachers as assistant county superintendents carried further, and that it might lead to a system of town inspectors appointed from among the teachers. weakness of the county superintendent system is that from the number of schools and their scattered location, the inspection is necessarily infrequent and unsatisfactory. least two or three visits of a half day each in a term ought to be given. But the work of a county superintendent needs to be supplemented by town inspectors to accomplish this, and give country schools anything like the inspection that city schools receive. W.

At

CITY SUPERINTENDENTS.

We have called attention recently to the growing importance of the school superintendThis is due to the new conception of his duties now prevalent. He is no longer a mere business manager; much less is he a mere statistician, whose place is behind his desk and whose business is to collate reports and look after the red tape of the system. Rather he is the educational expert, who is to determine the character and life of the schools, to guide, instruct and judge the teachers, and to see to it that the most rational ends are sought and sought by the best means. The study of pedagogy is at length beginning to bear definite fruit. It is making more and more clear what these rational ends are, and raising up a body of competent critics who are capable of judging whether they are attained, and how well the means employed are adjusted to the attainment of them. Thus in every criticism of city systems it is the superintendent primarily who is under fire, since serious general defects are obviously due either to his ignorance or to his inefficiency. When Dr. Rice shows us, as he does in late numbers of the Forum, the ridiculously wooden work of some of the St. Louis schools, or the jejune and effete teaching in some of those of Cincinnati, it is impossible not to ask, what of the city superintendents? The critic kindly points out the great difficulties to be overcome in the effort to introduce reform; he knows well the baneful influence of the ward politician in determining the appointment of teachers, and he understands how difficult it is to rid the schools of incompetents who are retained in their places by inflexible custom and local prejudices. But still one asks, what of the superintendent? It is one of his prime duties to fight these evils. He ought not only to know the defects, but also to contend vigorously with them. He must work in the system to improve it by elevating the ideals and increasing the knowledge of his teachers; and without the system, by making those in authority understand the defects, and, if need be, by arousing public sentiment to support measures of reform. His position is a difficult and arduous one. The logic of the case calls for a large increase of his authority, that a fuller measure of responsibility may rest upon him. As in municipal government, so in school affairs, we have erred by dividing authority and thus weakening responsibility. But the remedy is at hand. The first step towards it is the development of genuine educational experts, men not only of broad culture and administrative ability, but of thorough special knowledge and technical experience.

It is by a proper development of the superintendency that a career in educational work may be opened up to young men of talent. Good high school positions become naturally more and more difficult to attain without adequate preparation and experience. Beyond them

properly lies the superintendency, with greater responsibilities, higher remuneration and therefore still more exigent demands for native power and thorough preparation on the part of aspirants. ૐ.

THE NEW TESTS OF SCHOOL WORK.

President Eliot's paper in the Forum, "In What the Public School has Failed," is very suggestive reading. The point of view commends itself at once. This is not scholastic, but practical, and estimates the school as an instrumentality for creating an intelligent and capable citizenship. capable citizenship. He is impressed with the unrest, discontent, superstition and lack of practical wisdom apparent in American life. The schools have not remedied these things, chiefly for the reason, as it seems to the writer, that they have failed to develop a rational habit of mind, have not indeed clearly conceived as yet that this is their high mission. He proceeds to show in some detail how the cultivation of habits of observation, of accuracy, and of clear expression as the means of securing clear thought, might be carried on in the schools and lead to a great improvement in our citizenship. With all

this we are in hearty sympathy. It is eminently desirable that teachers and superintendents should continually look upon school work from this point of view. And that means that we must give over the habit of judging it by externals, such as formal order and military movement, or by merely scholastic standards, such as are tested by class-markings and examinations, and bring ourselves to estimating its effects on character, both moral and intellectual. Just here it is necessary to guard against the insidious error of the pure disciplinarian. He maintains that training is the chief object of school work, but conceives training in an abstract fashion, so that, for example, the mathematics and the classics are his favorite instruments. He fails to recognize that these studies are apt to develop an aloofness from practical affairs, a scholastic and abstract habit of thought, which thwarts completely the ends in view. Pupils must be led not only to think and express themselves clearly, but also to think and express themselves clearly about things. This phrase again is misleading, because of its constant use by the advocates of purely scientific studies. The