The condition of much of our school property suggests the last topic of my paper, the importance of well-kept schoolhouses and grounds. Many do not appreciate, perhaps some do not know, the value of this as an educational influence. If school boards, or those having the authority, would lighten the burden of teaching one-half, let them make everything about the school beautiful and attractive. This will have an elevating and refining influence, and there will be little need of any other discipline; then the teacher can devote more time to teaching and less to government. Children, as a rule, have many teachers. Everything they see or hear makes its impression and goes to form character. If, therefore, we would have them form correct tastes and habits, we cannot be too careful of their surroundings.

Our country schools are particularly in need of better kept schoolhouses and grounds. It is not necessary that we expend a great deal of money, for it is not the expensiveness, but the neatness and good order that makes the valuable impression on the child's mind. Neither should we wait until we have new houses, but should begin at once to embellish the old. The ordinary house, cheap though it be, may be suitably adorned. Its surroundings may be made orderly and attractive, and the pupils may thereby be made careful, obedient, and attentive. Children cannot all have beautiful homes. A beautiful home, either in city or country, must necessarily be expensive. But there is no community that cannot afford a beautiful school. If there is no better way to provide it, let the people begin by spending one or two days in each year in planting trees and shrubbery, in making walks, in painting, in doing anything and everything that will make the place beautiful. When this is done the school will no longer engender the rude and repulsive in the child.

It is no uncommon thing to find our State-houses, court-houses, and jails ornate and expensive; yet the school, the place that should be the center of all that is elevating and refining, is left in disorder and neglect. If I had it in my power I should make the country school the most beautiful place in every neighborhood. It should no longer be a prison, but a palace fit place for the development of mind.

VIII-SUMMARY: AIMS, LIMITATIONS, SUBJECT-MATTER,

METHODS, RESULTS.

BY LEROY D. BROWN, OF OHIO.

In the brief time assigned for this discussion, it will not be possible to present a complete and logical consideration of the aims, the limitations, the subject-matter, the methods, and the results of common school education. But fortunately the wide scope and the excellent quality of the papers already presented make such a consideration unnecessary. This summary will therefore contain only a compact statement of the positions taken, or established in the papers, with such additional presentation of facts and principles as may be deemed essential to a comprehensive view of the topics under consideration.

Professor Bartholomew has, in his very clear and admirable historical sketch, made us familiar with the bases, the purposes, and the relative values of educational systems in many countries of ancient, mediæval, and modern times. He has demonstrated that the best system of education for one country is not necessarily the best system for all other countries, and that the ideally best system of education for any country must be the result of evolution under the conditions of free government. He has clearly shown that the purpose of the American common school is to aid the family and the State in the preparation of all the youth for citizenship. He has confirmed us in the opinion that the unsymmetrical development of the child's powers produces results alike disastrous to the individual and the community. He believes that common schools originated with Christianity and that the prosperity of the American Republic depends greatly upon these schools. Professor Bartholomew's paper thus forms a fitting introduction to the discussions to follow.

Miss Warr properly attached great importance to the external necessities of the common school system. She showed the great need of an ample and secure financial basis for the support of common schools, and put in a strong plea for the best schoolhouses.

Miss Rounds, like Pestalozzi and Froebel, has called our attention to the fundamental truths and the common errors in teaching. This she has done in language so well chosen as to make her paper a most valuable contribution to the literature of our profession.

Superintendent James found no use for teacher or school until the child.

has arrived at the age of four years. The kindergarten be recommended for children between four and six. This was to be followed by elementary and the high school. In elementary schools the methods of the kindergarten were to be observed in teaching the youngest pupils, and in the high school industrial training was recommended. In all elementary instruction, language teaching was of the greatest importance, and the only safe limit to the extent of the common school curriculum was the financial ability of the community.

Miss Phillips continued the discussion on "A Course of Study." She found experience to be the main source of guidance toward the truth, but she strongly insisted upon the study of psychology by all who would teach. Subjects should be presented to the child in the order of his development and all instruction should be adapted to the individual.

In presenting the subject of Country Schools, Superintendent MacPherson called attention to four necessary expedients, the first relating to the scope of the course of study, the second, to the pursuit of this course in a systematic manner, the third, to uniform work, and the fourth, to means by which pupils may be induced to complete the curriculum. The masterly treatment of his topic places this department under obligations to Superintendent MacPherson.

Superintendent Felts continued the discussion and showed that the "Indiana idea" of county supervision is uniformly successful throughout the state.

And now, Mr. President, having consumed my time in thus imperfectly presenting a summary of this well planned symposiac system, I shall leave for those who are to continue the discussion the treatment of the questions yet untouched. This I do with the hope that at the conclusion of these July festivities, "good digestion may wait on appetite, and health on both."

IX.-GENERAL DISCUSSION.

BY MISS IDA JOE BROOKS, OF ARKANSAS.

The first paper being an historical sketch, admits of no independence of view.

The height of the school building is a question which should receive the attention of teachers and school officers. Much injury is done growing children by the neglect of this matter. Great attention should be given to the size and shape of the schoolroom and to the lighting of the room. I cannot agree with the lady in her dislike to public exhibitions of the schools. The desire to win the approbation of relatives and friends is a powerful incentive to exertion. Could we induce the parents to visit the schools frequently we might dispense with the public entertainments, otherwise, we cannot. Perhaps the most important consideration in the constitution of the board of directors is that politics should be entirely overlooked.

If the manual training school be carried on during the vacation months. we give it cordial welcome into the public school system, but we cannot consent to weaken the course or lower the standard in order to include this outside work.

During the reading of the fourth paper, we listened in vain for the magic word Geometry. Plato was once asked, "What does God do in his leisure moments ?" He replied at once, "He geometrizes." Certainly nothing soars so high as pure geometry, and nothing is so practical as applied geometry. I venture to assert that better discipline and more practical results will be obtained from the study of practical geometry in the years between ten and fourteen in any child's life than can be obtained from the same time spent in the study of Arithmetic.

One of the errors of the time is the effort that is being made toward speedy fruition. The processes of nature are slow. Some one has aptly said, "It takes time to make a man." A child has a natural craving for knowledge, but should not be left without proper guidance in its reading. Who can estimate the benefit to those children who have pursued through this period of penetrative imagination a course of reading selected by their teachers and supervised by their parents? Does th lady intend to convey the idea that faith begins where reason ends? To be sure faith goes beyond reason. The Great Tacher sail-"Take my yoke upon you."

But faith is as surely an attribute of the human mind as is imagination. "In this mocking world too soon the doubting fiend o'ertakes our youth." The inquiring youth is safe, the youthful doubter is in danger. I heartily endorse the sentiment in regard to the broad missionary field. A wealthy and remarkably successful business woman assured me not long since, that the cause of the recent troubles with the strikes was the "education of the masses." To judge from some recitations we would be apt to agree with the writer who says that words were given us to conceal our thoughts, rather than accept the statement quoted that "speech created thought."

The expedients for the improvement of the country schools are good. The theory is excellent, but when we seek to apply it to all country schools in all states we find many difficulties. The writer assumes that the condition and needs of country schools are the same and are known to all teachers. Even the matter of uniformity of textbooks is one which must be settled by the purse of the father oftener than by the wishes of the teacher. Any teacher may prepare an interesting program for the close of school, and perhaps succeed in interesting the parents in their children. How easy it would be to teach school did we receive the children with minds and souls like unwritten sheets of paper, upon which we could inscribe only the true and beautiful. But how perplexing the task when they come to us a bundle of nerves, eccentricities, and hereditary traits. We must do our best, remembering that the faithful are the successful and that the reward is assured to those who endure to the end.

BY T. O. HUTCHINSON, OF OREGON.

Children ought to be encouraged to take a great deal of exercise, when young, to develop their bodies. If girls would take more exercise while little children, there would be fewer to complain, when grown to womanhood, of being physically unable to climb the stairs into our tall schoolhouses.

Let the girls romp! Do not be afraid that they may be thought rude. Better be thought rude than to lack proper physical development. Exercise develops the bodies as study develops the minds. It will not do to go to extremes, however, and I believe with the lady who preceded me, that our schoolhouses ought not to be so constructed as to compel any child to over-exert herself. A little girl of delicate organization should not be compelled to do more than her fragile body can bear. Neither ought ironclad rules be made and strictly enforced without regard to the powers and ability of the pupil. This last remark is not only applicable to the matter of taking exercise, but in other things also. For instance-A gentleman in this place told me, a day or two ago, that his