school law, and every case of dismissal should be thoroughly investigated by higher authorities.

Merchants, bankers, etc., employ their clerks so long as they give satisfaction, and see how hard they strive to retain their positions.

Teachers are not another race of higher beings but are brothers and sisters to these same clerks and are not different in any respect though they seem to think they are. In reading the articles in the educational papers of to-day other professional men are struck with the selfrighteous, saintly, self-sacrificing attitude of the teacher and it brings a scoffing laugh because every one knows that the average teacher does barely what will secure a position and not one thing more. How rarely do you see a teacher with a good professional library. A lawyer, physician, etc., are never without them. The commercial man is always on the alert to gain some new idea, some new addition to his list of wares,—the teacher never! This dreadful state of things is true of the whole public school system of the United States.

Some of the states though are awakening and are making rapid. progress and California is among the foremost, but still she is far from being free from the dust of ages. Teachers' salaries should be sufficient to compensate them for devoting their lives to the work. The idea that is now prevalent among them, that the one miserable little meeting of the year-the institute-is a bugbear, should give place to the one that in order to be sharpened and brightened contact is required.

The county superintendent who should be president of the meetings should require an organized society of all teachers in his county to convene frequently and compel each member to read books on education, criticise them, discuss all new methods, adopt what is approved etc., etc., in other words require all points of progression. When these rules are adopted-then and not till then--will our public school system as a whole be as it should and the profession of teaching be placed upon an equal footing with other professions. Then when a teacher enters upon his labors in a school his whole effort will be to do his duty. His position is permanent and he takes an interest in what is then his home. The affairs of the neighborhood will also interest him because he is one of them and not a passing light He is required to read educational works, consequently his methods are better.

Each school-house would contain a valuable collection of specimens corrected and labeled by the children under his direction. The schoolgrounds would teem with trees, shrubs and flowers. The children would take an interest that would increase with each year's work because they would begin where the work closed the preceding year

and not have to learn new ways. The pedagogue would know his pupils thoroughly and twice the amount of work could be done that is accomplished under the present system. The teacher would then succeed as a teacher and a life long impression would be made upon his pupils. Then he would rank among the prominent men of the country.

It is hoped no one will take offense at anything that has been said but that all will look seriously and squarely into the matter.

If any should be provoked I will say to him now-I am glad the shoe pinches, for it may stimulate him to kick it off. I call for criticisms, particularly from Ira G. Hoitt, the honored and most excellent Superintendent of Public Instruction of California, who is known over the East also, as having the interest of education deeply at heart, and stands in the front ranks of the educators of the day.

M. L. INGRAM.

A CASE OF MEMORY.

Some time ago a boy of twelve was placed under my care, with the remark from his father, "I wish you to prepare this young man for college within three years; he will remain that length of time under your care, and I shall hold you responsible for the results." I replied: "You have given me a great work to do. Whether I can fit him for college during the time you mention remains to be seen-it depends altogether on his mental capacity, previous training, and home influence. His mental capacity you cannot change, his previous training is beyond my power to modify, but his home surroundings must be as I direct, if you expect him to accomplish the results you desire in any reasonable length of time. I will do the best I can." With these remarks the father left me, and I turned to face the young man.

I found before me a boy considerably overgrown, physically, but evidently quite undergrown mentally. A very pleasant conversation revealed the fact that he was fond of athletic sports, but hated books and teachers. His father wanted him to go to college, and he supposed he should have to go, but he didn't want and didn't intend to go if he could help it. He intimated that he very much preferred to join a base ball team and be a first-class pitcher, than be the first scholar in his class in college. He said he would like to make money, he didn't know exactly how he should commence, but thought that if other people could make money, he too could find out some way to make money, if he set himself about it. We separated good friends, and the next morning he presented himself in the school-room.

I soon found that he had good reasoning powers, quick observation, a keen sense of the humorous, and a ready flow of words; but that his memory was singularly deficient, except in one particular, which was names. He could remember the names of his school-mates, after hearing them repeated once, and more wonderfully still he never failed to recognize by name those whom he had met but once. On the other hand, he could not repeat the multiplication table, he could not tell the year in which he was born, he knew nothing about dates in history, and in all respects, as far as technical memory is concerned, he was sadly wanting. His mental make-up was a puzzle to me, and I could not for some time make up my mind what was best to do. Was there something wanting by nature or was it the result of his training? This for some time, I could not determine. He was very quick, I found, in everything connected with natural history. I tried him in botany, and found that he could classify plants easily and correctly, from an apparent resemblance. He was very fond of mineralogy, and soon learned the characteristics of a dozen different kinds of minerals, and never once hesitated when I asked him questions concerning the plants he had noticed, or the minerals that had been brought to his attention.

Here was a bright side, but when I opened the Latin grammar I found great difficulty. The first lesson I gave him was the first declension, and he repeated in my presence the terminations, and united them with the stems correctly, giving the meaning in each case. But the next day he had forgotten all that he had apparently learned the day before. I tried the verbs in the same way, giving him roots and terminations. He understood thoroughly what was told him and during the recitation period, was correct and accurate in reproducing all that had been taught him, but the next day, alas! it was a blank again, and I had to go over the previous day's work, with successful results for the time, but unsuccessful when twenty-four hours had passed over his benighted head. Here was a phenomenon, sure enough. What could I do? I dreamed over it, thought over it, and talked about it with several interested friends. I went even further, and read about cases of deficiencies, but nothing helped me so I was forced to fall back upon experiment.

Matters went on with very unsatisfactory results for several weeks. At last one day I discovered that whenever I mentioned a work that was like something that he knew perfectly he remembered it. This came in the following manner. The following sentences were on the board: The bees are buzzing. The mosquitoes are humming.

The water is running. Now I pointed out the "ing" in each sentence, after asking him :

"What are the bees doing?" 'What are the mosquitoes?' "" What the water?" "Well, now, " I said, "What does ing mean?'

He said, "It means that the bees keep on buzzing, that the mosquitoes keep on humming, and that the water keeps on running." "Well, then, tell me separately what does "ing" mean?" and he answered at once, "To keep on." This was not a very good answer. I did not criticise it, but asked, "What other things keep on?" And he answered at once, "The robin keeps on singing, the wind keeps on blowing, the dog keeps on barking." "Then why do these keep on?" I said. This puzzled him, because it was an irrelevant question; but it called his attention to the meaning of the ending "ing."

The next day I asked him these questions over again, and found that every word was remembered perfectly. This was a new revelation, and it at once occurred to me that the difficulty with his memory was on account of his want of power of associating ideas, and I resolved immediately to make a study of this fact and see how I could teach the multiplication table by association, in such a manner as to fix in his mind its various parts.

I made the following experiment: "If two boys are playing together and two boys come and play with them, how many boys will there be playing together?" He said at once, "Four boys, of course," laughing at the simple question. "Well, then," I said, "suppose three boys are playing together and three more boys come to play with them, how many boys will there then be playing together?" He laughed still more, and said, "Of course six boys. Anybody would know that." Then I repeated the twos in the following way: "Two boys are playing together and two more play with them, then four boys will be playing together. Three boys are playing together and three other boys come and play with them, and then six boys will be playing together. Four boys are playing together and four other boys play with them, etc." I went through the whole of the twos in this way, and asked him to do the same, and to my astonishment he repeated every word correctly, without hesitation.. He had now a hook on which to hang his thoughts, and it was astonishing how rapidly in this way he learned the whole multiplication table.

J

Sometimes I used cows, pigs, birds, and other active objects, until the whole table to 12 camels on the desert met 12 other camels on the

desert, and these met 12 more camels on the desert, until there were 12 X 12 camels on the desert that met in an oasis, and then there were 144 camels altogether on the desert.

This was childish, I admit; it was simplicity simplified, and under almost any other circumstances I should have been ashamed to have been heard repeating such apparent nonsense, but it suited this boy exactly; he enjoyed it immensely; especially he enjoyed the 12's, and was very quick and witty in inventing animals, placing them together in curious situations in his mind. In repeating the table of the 12's never in a single case did he forget the association with the animals. As soon as it had once been made, it remained ever afterward fixed in the mind as a prominent part of his mental powers.

Space will not permit me to pursue his case further, but it is sufficient to say that I had discovered the key by which to unlock his memory, or rather I had discovered the law governing his mental activity, and after this it only rested with me to devise ingenious methods by which he could associate something that was striking, with what I gave him to learn, and he always learned it. In a few months he learned to make his own associations whenever anything difficult was given him to commit to memory. They were frequently very ingenious and often very laughable, but he never failed, and before a year had passed he had the reputation of having the best memory of any pupil in the school.-School Journal.

A TEST OF THE KINDERGARTEN.

Boston has for ten years had the benefit of public kindergarten schools, maintained mainly by Mrs. Quincy A. Shaw. A review of the system by the city approves it. Mrs. Shaw had determined at her expense to give it a ten years' test, and that being at an end it is found that the city cannot abandon the system wisely. The pupils now in the Boston High School received their first school instructions in the kindergartens, and the good result is so plainly manifest that to-day there is no voice raised in Boston against the continuance of the policy. The testimony of the value of the kindergarten training is very voluminous, and it is conclusive. Recently a committee of the Board of Education of that city investigated the whole subject matter, and its report is full of interest. Among other steps taken, the committee submitted questions to all the teachers of the city, their replies to embody their views of the efficiency, value and practical usefulness of the