cost of text-books keeps many thousands of children out of the schools altogether and shortens the term of other thousands while in school. Now, let us apply this reasoning. We have in San Francisco, according to the last Annual Report of the Superintendent of Common Schools, pages 50 and 60, fifteen thousand eight hundred and fifty-eight children of school age who ought to have been in school but who do not attend for a single day during the last school year. Moreover, taking the whole school year into account, the average daily attendance of the forty-three thousand one hundred and forty who were enrolled as pupils was only thirty-two thousand one hundred and forty-six. Fifteen thousand eight hundred and forty-eight therefore did not attend any school, public or private, at all; and of those who did attend public schools eleven thousand, on an average, were absent. If we take the whole State of California the statistics of absenteeism are even more striking. According to the Annual Report, page 8, of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction for the year ending June 30, 1886, the number of children of school age who attend no school, public or private, was fifty-six thousand nine hundred and fifty-seven, being considerably more than one-fifth of the whole number. There must be an almost equal number who attend but a few days, just long enough to be registered, and are then withdrawn. These statistics may well alarm those who know that the happiness and prosperity of a free people, and their political safety and the security of life and property, depend mainly upon the universal diffusion of intelligence and morality. There can be no doubt that many thousands of these children and youth who are now growing up in utter ignorance, and the vices which ignorance creates or aggravates, would be drawn into the schools if text-books and stationery and school supplies were provided for them and loaned to them without charge. The spectacle of such public munificence and the wise appreciation by the public authorities of the importance of right education, would itself constitute a powerful and inspiring appeal to every parent to give his child the best possible opportunities for learning. There are other considerations of importance that might be urged in support of this measure-such as the fact that the supply of books and material can be instantaneous at the beginning of each term, and no time, therefore, need be lost, as is now the case, in procuring what each pupil needs; the fact that such supply would remove from shameless parents and pupils the temptation to procure the needful articles from the public authorities by lying, pretending to be indigent; the fact that the feelings of deserving but poor parents would no longer be cruelly harassed by the necessity of asking, as paupers, for text-books given in charity. But we need not dwell on such arguments. The safety of the State is the highest law. We quote from the pamphlet on Free Text-Books previously referred to: "Let, then, the books, the materials and the stationery, like the apparatus, the furniture, the grounds and the buildings, be furnished or loaned gratuitously to all. It ill becomes an American town or city, it ill becomes a great, rich, magnanimous Commonwealth to stand, lash in hand, and drive the poor, every few months, to a shameful confession of hopeless poverty as an indispensable step in the acquisitionof that very education without which the whole edifice of our free institutions must, sooner or later, go down in blood and fire." HOMER B. SPRAGUE. San Francisco. Principal Poland, of the Newark High School, always dismisses his pupils when the thermometer indicates that the miserable school furnaces are not raising the temperature above fifty degrees. On Monday morning, when the boys in his department assembled, they saw that, though the room was rather cool, still the temperature was too high for practical benefit. So the bulb of the thermometer was packed in snow, and each boy turned up his coat, and as the teacher came in stamped his feet and blew on his fingers. Mr. Poland looked rather surprised, and then looked at the thermometer. The snow had done its work, and the mercury marked forty something. The teacher shivered, and dismissed the boys, who rushed for their sleds, with three cheers and a tiger. THE TWO WINDS. BY ROBERT C. TONGUE. THE NORTH WIND. I am the wind of might; I bind the land and sea. Deep in their frozen caves; Vainly against the shore The ice-bound ocean raves, Beneath my stinging goad, Writhing along the strand, To cast its icy load Upon the frozen land. Forest and field and hill Whiten beneath my tread. And all the world grows still, Frozen with very dread. None dare my royal wrath; If they but feel my breath, They who would bar my path, Sink to a grisly death. -N. E. Journal of Education THE SOUTH WIND. I am the South Wind, gay and free, All nature waits to beg of me 1 kiss the Earth; the snow wreaths melt; The old Earth, like a child once more, The sunlight of my tresses. Until, beneath my tender hand, History and geography are natural associates and allies. They ought never to be separated. History is events. Geography is place. Events without place are merely stories. Place without events is simply emptiness. Events imply places, but place alone means nothing. History includes geography, and when well and properly taught, gives the best and most lasting knowledge of the latter study. Geography, pursued by itself, is one of the most sterile of studies. It affords little mental exercise save to the memory, and upon that it takes no lasting hold. Any one will be convinced of this who will attempt to recall the geography lessons learned in childhood, or even five years ago. In this estimate of geography, we leave out the so-called mathematical geography, which includes the astronomical facts of the form, size, motions, and astronomical relations of our planet. And we leave out also the conventional art of mapping. This knowledge is of great value, and the use of maps is like the use of the dictionary, a life-long need of every intelligent reader. In history are properly included all the movements of mankind, individuals and nations. The march of armies, the migrations of peoples, battles, conquests, and the fates of rulers, these are conspicuous events in human affairs; but commerce, literature, science, the progress of society, these too belong to history and have their geographic areas and relations. To teach the whole of history, in this broadest use of the term, one would teach the whole of geography. The most successful teachers of geography are those who mix most of historic, commercial or scientific incidents with their instructions. The places are peopled with facts, or made picturesque with the description. But even this falls short of the efficiency of a systematic study of history or science as the principal aim, and the mastery of the geography as adjunct and subsidiary knowledge. 66 Isolated geography, taught independently of other studies, is "feeding on the east wind." Geography, studied as the territorial element of the great world-making, map-changing movements of man and his arts, sheds floods of light on the history of which it is the local habitation and the scene. No one forgets the geography of Jerusalem, of Waterloo, of Columbus' voyage, and of the Pilgrims' landing place, after reading with map before him, the great deeds which made these places memorable. To learn the geography in advance of the history, or of the commercial, social or scientific relations which render it interesting and important, is to mark on the shifting seas the track where some ship is expected to sail, or to stake out in the wilderness the site of some city not yet built. Some of the broader features of geography may be learned while "Let, then, the books, the materials and the stationery, like the apparatus, the furniture, the grounds and the buildings, be furnished or loaned gratuitously to all. It ill becomes an American town or city, it ill becomes a great, rich, magnanimous Commonwealth to stand, lash in hand, and drive the poor, every few months, to a shameful confession of hopeless poverty as an indispensable step in the acquisitionof that very education without which the whole edifice of our free institutions must, sooner or later, go down in blood and fire." HOMER B. SPRAGUE. San Francisco. Principal Poland, of the Newark High School, always dismisses his pupils when the thermometer indicates that the miserable school furnaces are not raising the temperature above fifty degrees. On Monday morning, when the boys in his department assembled, they saw that, though the room was rather cool, still the temperature was too high for practical benefit. So the bulb of the thermometer was packed in snow, and each boy turned up his coat, and as the teacher came in stamped his feet and blew on his fingers. Mr. Poland looked rather surprised, and then looked at the thermometer. The snow had done its work, and the mercury marked forty something. The teacher shivered, and dismissed the boys, who rushed for their sleds, with three cheers and a tiger. THE TWO WINDS. BY ROBERT C. TONGUE. THE NORTH WIND. I am the wind of might; I bind the land and sea. Deep in their frozen caves; Vainly against the shore The ice-bound ocean raves, Beneath my stinging goad, Writhing along the strand, To cast its icy load Upon the frozen land. Forest and field and hill Whiten beneath my tread, And all the world grows still, Frozen with very dread. None dare my royal wrath; If they but feel my breath, They who would bar my path, Sink to a grisly death. -N. E. Journal of Education THE SOUTH WIND. I am the South Wind, gay and free, All nature waits to beg of me The life and joy I render. 1 kiss the Earth; the snow wreaths melt; The old Earth, like a child once more, The sunlight of my tresses. Until, beneath my tender hand, History and geography are natural associates and allies. They ought never to be separated. History is events. Geography is place. Events without place are merely stories. Place without events is simply emptiness. Events imply places, but place alone means nothing. History includes geography, and when well and properly taught, gives the best and most lasting knowledge of the latter study. Geography, pursued by itself, is one of the most sterile of studies. It affords little mental exercise save to the memory, and upon that it takes no lasting hold. Any one will be convinced of this who will attempt to recall the geography lessons learned in childhood, or even five years ago. In this estimate of geography, we leave out the so-called mathematical geography, which includes the astronomical facts of the form, size, motions, and astronomical relations of our planet. And we leave out also the conventional art of mapping. This knowledge is of great value, and the use of maps is like the use of the dictionary, a life-long need of every intelligent reader. In history are properly included all the movements of mankind, individuals and nations. The march of armies, the migrations of peoples, battles, conquests, and the fates of rulers, these are conspicuous events in human affairs; but commerce, literature, science, the progress of society, these too belong to history and have their geographic areas and relations. To teach the whole of history, in this broadest use of the term, one would teach the whole of geography. The most successful teachers of geography are those who mix most of historic, commercial or scientific incidents with their instructions. The places are peopled with facts, or made picturesque with the description. But even this falls short of the efficiency of a systematic study of history or science as the principal aim, and the mastery of the geography as adjunct and subsidiary knowledge. Isolated geography, taught independently of other studies, is "feeding on the east wind.' Geography, studied as the territorial element of the great world-making, map-changing movements of man and his arts, sheds floods of light on the history of which it is the "local habitation" and the scene. No one forgets the geography of Jerusalem, of Waterloo, of Columbus' voyage, and of the Pilgrims' landing place, after reading with map before him, the great deeds which made these places memorable. To learn the geography in advance of the history, or of the commercial, social or scientific relations which render it interesting and important, is to mark on the shifting seas the track where some ship is expected to sail, or to stake out in the wilderness the site of some city not yet built. Some of the broader features of geography may be learned while |