THE TOWNSHIP SYSTEM.

To our present system of township boards and local directors, there are grave objections. A large proportion of the legal questions arising in the operation of the school law, grow out of the conflict of local directors with township boards. There is scarcely a day that the State Commissioner is not called upon to decide such questions. The sub-districts often array themselves against each other, instead of moving along in harmony and taking pride in the success of all the schools in the township.

It is believed that the present mongrel system should give place to the purely township system, in which all the schools of a township should be under the exclusive control of a board of education, chosen by the electors of the township. In this case, the system would conform to that which has been adopted in most of the towns of the State with such satisfactory results. The experience of other States in which the purely township system has been tried, demonstrates its superiority to the district system.

LOCAL BOARDS OF EXAMINERS.

In many towns of the State, the boards of education are required by law to appoint local boards of examiners, thus diminishing the jurisdiction of the county boards of examiners. Sometimes the local boards are very efficient, but more frequently they neglect their duties, granting certificates without examination, or upon qualifications such as would fail to secure, from the county boards, certificates in the legal branches. Furthermore, the teachers holding certificates from local boards pay no examination fees, and hence contribute nothing to the institute fund, although they often constitute an important part of those in attendance the County Institute. It is thought it would be well to abolish these local boards, giving to the boards of education that have the management of graded schools the power to appoint examining committees, to examine teachers in such branches in addition to those required for a county certificate, as may be demanded by the wants of these schools.

TEACHERS' INSTITUTES.

The influence of well-conducted Teachers' Institutes can scarcely be estimated in dollars and cents. It is gratifying to know that more Institutes were held in the State last year than in any preceding year. The character of the instruction given in these Institutes is gradually improving. Many teachers, and

especially young teachers, are aroused to new energy by the instruction and encouragement given by the institute lecturers.

It is frequently difficult to procure competent instructors to conduct the institutes, the chief dependence being upon those superintendents of town schools and professors of colleges who are willing to devote a portion of their vacations to the Institute work. But in many counties the Institutes are held at a time when town schools and colleges are in session, and hence great difficulty arises in getting suitable instructors. This difficulty can be only partially removed by the services of the School Commissioner, and it seems to be desirable that one or two agents should be appointed to devote their entire time to Institute work. About half or two-thirds of the salary of these agents could be realized from the fund of the several counties in which they might conduct Institutes. This fund, it should be remembered, comes entirely from the examination fees of teachers. The deficit in the salaries of the agents might be met by a small appropriation, which would be a very profitable one for the schools.

NORMAL INSTRUCTION.

It is evident that a school system is incomplete in which no adequate means are provided for the education of teachers. Teachers' schools are just as necessary as law schools, medical schools, and theological schools. The need of such schools should not be lost sight of in our efforts to give theoretical perfection to our school system. This subject has been so elaborately discussed in the special report made to the General Assembly in 1837, by Prof. Calvin E. Stowe, and in the reports of Lewis and Galloway and former School Commissioners, that further discussion is not deemed necessary at this time. Special reference, however, is made to the Report on Normal Schools, prepared by the Hon. E. E. White, at the request of the General Assembly.

RURAL DISTRICTS.

In some of the rural districts of the State, it is found to be impossible for the boards of education to sustain the schools the time required by law, even when the full local levy permitted by law is made. The difficulty arises from the sparseness of the population, and the small amount of taxable property in these districts. Members of the General Assembly representing such districts may possibly suggest some remedy that will afford relief.

ENUMERATION.

It is very important that the annual returns of children of

school age should specify the number at the respective ages, from five to twenty-one. Such returns are necessary that proper comparisons may be made with different States. In some States the maximum school age is only sixteen.

It would be easy for the persons taking the enumeration of children to take the whole population at the same time. This is already done in some towns. The cost of this work is little or no more than that of taking the enumeration of children alone.

CODIFICATION OF THE SCHOOL LAWS.

There is beginning to be a demand for a codification of the school laws. This, however, should not be done until the modifications in the laws already suggested have been made, and such other minor changes made as experience in the working of the laws has indicated.

A COMMON-SENSE GRAMMAR.

BY HENRY FORD.

The reference in your December issue to a common-sense grammar has started some suggestions which I wish to offer through your pages. In these remarks, the needs of ordinary grammarschool pupils are considered. What an exhaustive treatise on grammar should be, it is not my purpose now to inquire.

A grammar that shall commend itself to the common sense of teachers and pupils, should not set forth, in connection with the text at least, the author's mode of teaching the study. If it be indispensable or desirable to disclose the author's method, by all means let it occupy a portion of the book apart from the text.

It is assumed that there is no one, indispensable, patent mode of presenting a subject to a class, but every intelligent teacher will, sooner or later, construct methods more or less peculiar to himself, by which he can teach more successfully than by any

other.

That our text-books in geography, arithmetic, and grammar have the author's method so interwoven with the text as to make it difficult to use the books in connection with any other method, is a most glaring fault. We have books of history, physiology, chemistry, zoology, astronomy, etc., which present a continuous text that any teacher may employ in the way he has found for

himself most successful. Why may we not have a grammar without this trammel, and an arithmetic and geography too?

Again, a common-sense grammar should not contain an excess of distinctions and subdivisions. Excessive classification defeats the very end of classifying, and ministers to indistinctness and confusion. A classification that divides nouns into six classes, and adjectives into fourteen, might, with as much reason and consistency, run on to ten times the number in either case. Is any thing gained, in point either of clearness or completeness, by piling up distinctions in analysis to fifty or more?

Again, a rational grammar should not be lumbered with fine print "remarks", "suggestions", "explanations", and endless notes. If the essential first mentioned in this article be strictly regarded, ninety-nine hundredths of these will be expunged. Their substance, so far as there is any good in them, will be better supplied by the living teacher, as occasion shall make them. needful and opportune.

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What, then, should a common-sense grammar contain? answer first, just those definitions and other necessary information which the learner should memorize, and, if the compilation be judicious, the less the better. The skillful teacher will exercise and manifest his sagacity as much in what he keeps back from the attention of the learner, as in what he puts before him; and teachers acting upon this hint in all school studies, will find it the key to the success of the most successful.

Again, the distinctions in each division of the study, especially in analysis, should be few and obvious. Our language embraces an almost endless variety of expression with endless shades of meaning, and to attempt, in a common-school grammar, to indicate the correct grammatical construction of each, is the most futile of undertakings, and constitutes the distinguishing weakness of nearly all our books of grammar.

Again, a common-sense grammar should contain, in a portion of the book by itself, a copious selection of graduated sentences. and paragraphs for the use of the learner in connection with the text. These exercises should amount in bulk to three or four times as much as the text.

As to the so-called "rules of grammar ", the rational book should set forth eight or ten of those most liable to be violated, and let the rest go to the winds or to rhetoric, no matter which. All the matter here claimed to be reasonable and needful, may be well set up within fifty 16mo pages of plain type.

Editorial Department.

WE are often asked to publish papers read before teachers' institutes and associations, and usually already printed in the local papers. We decline to publish such papers, and, as we think, for good reasons. We much prefer articles written expressly for our pages and specially adapted to this purpose. A paper prepared for an institute or association generally lacks the more important characteristics of a good magazine contribution. It is unnecessarily formal and wordy, and bears the mark of the occasion for which it was written. Let those who have been successful in such an effort, try their hand in the preparation of a fresh and pointed article for the MONTHLY. They will find that the same subject may be better treated in one-half the space of the formal paper. Send us brief, practical contributions, but keep your addresses and lectures for other uses.

WE are glad to see that those who have urged the exclusion of the Bible from the public schools to make them more acceptable to the Catholic Church, are beginning to see their mistake. The declarations of the Catholic authorities on this point are so candid and explicit, that none but the willfully obtuse can fail to understand their policy. What they uniformly and persistently demand is separate Catholic schools for Catholic youth, or non-taxation for school purposes. The exclusion of the Bible is simply a means to this one end, the destruction of our present system of non-sectarian public schools; and yet, in the very face of this avowed fact, there are those who urge the exclusion of the Bible and all religious exercises from the schools as a means of defeating the Catholic policy! The school system will do well to take counsel of its enemies rather than lean upon such blind guides. The position of the Catholic Church has been carefully taken, and the wisdom of its policy as a means to the end in view, is very evident. As we suggested last month, it will first destroy our high schools; and, of this sad consequence, we are already warned. One of the most candid and influential religious papers in the West, referring to the proposed exclusion of the Bible, says: "If so, Christian people must give up all public high schools and colleges, and found others under a safer supervision." This will be the outcome of this policy, and the Catholic authorities are sharp enough to see it. They know that a Bibleless and Godless system of public education can not be maintained in this country.

AN Iowa correspondent heartily indorses our remarks in the December number on the marking system, and suggests another objection. He has observed that the strife in the schools to reach a high rank in record standing often causes even the most upright teachers to refrain from that thorough