VOL. IX.

WHEN HE TEACHER GETS CROSS.

When the teacher gets cross and her brown eyes get black'
And her pencil comes down on the desk with a whack,
We chilluns in class sits up straight in line,

As if we had rulers instead of a spine!

It's scary to cough, and it's not safe to grin

When the teacher gets cross and the dimples goes in.
When the teacher gets cross the tables all mix,
And the ones and the sevens begin playing tricks.
The pluses and minus is just little smears

Where the cry-babies cry all their slates up with tears.
The figgers won't add, and they act up like sin-
When the teacher gets cross and the dimples goes in.
When the teacher gets cross the readers gets bad,
The lines jingle round till the chilluns is sad,
And Billyboy puffs and gets red in the face,
As if he and the lesson were running a race!
Till she hollows out "Next" as sharp as a pin-
When the teacher gets cross and the dimples goes in.

WHEN THE TEACHER GETS GOOD. When the teacher gets good her smile is so bright The tables gets straight and the readers gets right, The pluses and minus come trooping along, And figgers adds up and stops being wrong. And we chilluns would like (but we dassent) to shout, When the teacher gets good and the dimples comes out. -From the Rochester (N. Y.) Express.

The Appointment of a Committee to Submit Details of Methods.

BY COMMISSIONER W. T. HARRIS.

(Reported by Professor J. N. Wilkinson, at the Indianapolis meeting in February, for New England Journal.)

As I understand it, one of the propositions advanced in this syllabus would make a new departure in the policy of the National Educational Association. In the past our committees have been appointed to report upon principles and recommend large policies of administration. It is important that educators agree in general principles, but it is expected that they will differ in regard to details. I think that our old plan is the best one. We ought to encourage unity in principles but not in details and results. When we get down to prescribing methods, as, for instance, in a botany lesson, to lay out a particular course that must be followed by all the schools of a state or all the schools of a nation, I am sure that we shall injure the educational system, cripple the corps of teachers and deprive them of originality. Principles give life, mechanical results give death. In a city there may be a universal course prescribed for the teachers with some degree of detail because the teachers of the city come in contact frequently with the superintendent and both teachers and superintendent discuss the details in the light of the principle. But even in the city, wisely supervised, the superintendent is careful not to cramp his teachers by too much prescription in details. He holds them responsible for results and encourages them to freedom in methods which may reach those results. I have seen this illustrated in the city of Indianapolis where we meet. I superintended schools in a city three hundred miles to the west of this place but often visited Indianapolis because of the profit I gained by inspecting its schools which were then under Superintendent Shortridge who carried out splendidly the plan I advocate. He made his teachers thinkers in the first place and secondly held them responsi

No. 8

ble for results. I found in Indianapolis teachers that could understand the deepest thinking. Every teacher was a fountain of methods. When you get a great thought lodged with the people you have done something better than secure the adoption of specific methods in the management of dogs and plants and kitchen utensils. Our system of education would lose much if the teacher should be deprived of the freedom to work out his own interpretation of principles. We do not wish them all to follow one method in details. The principle is the living and vital thing. There was an application of such principles in Indianapolis in the time of Mr. Shortridge, and there has been that application of principles in this city ever since his time according to my best knowledge and belief. Any one visiting these schools would reach Mr. Rice's high opinion of their excellence. It would take five hundred pages in a book to describe the details of the methods used in this city. Such a book would not be profitable reading except by the teachers of this city and even then only in portions, each teacher reading what related to his or her grade of pupils. A book of details of that kind lames the mind in reading it and there is no more dreary literature than the courses of study published at the end of superintendents' reports or in separate manuals or often printed in educational journals. I appeal to the audience present as to the truth of my assertion. Each person knows that he skips such literature wherever he finds it. But I wish to bear my testimony here to the singular ability which Mr. Hailman has for applying principles, and if I should select a course of study worth reading I should select Mr. Hailman's. If you all knew what he is doing in the Indian school service you would rise to your feet and give three cheers for Doctor Hailman and I hope you will give them in a substantial form, namely, in the shape of a resolution before this meeting adjourns. But Doctor Hailman always permits me to differ from him on this point. I believe in general principles more than in small details. In a friendly and jocular manner he and I always speak of each other in this matter as foes. We "hate" each other, but "in a Bible sense." Now he proposes

to have a committee to collect and present no great principles but small details, what the French call infiniment petit. Mr. Shaw in his paper has criticised this point, so has Doctor White, in this debate, whom I am glad to follow and endorse. Now if you bring down the higher principles into the form of the infinitely small, you will make Philistines of your teachers. I was glad that Doctor Schaeffer quoted the speech of our Savior to Simon Peter and I will make bold to give my interpretation of that passage, although it may be somewhat different from the interpretation of Tischendorf and Doctor Schaeffer. Peter had, as I suppose, been giving his attention to the infinitely small, namely, to worldly details of management and had probably been enlisting the various disciples to assist him in these worldly matters. The Lord had permitted this until it became unbearable when he said to him, "Peter, lovest thou me?" "Lovest thou me more than fish hooks and other fishing tackle and preparation for breakfast and worldly affairs generally? Let the fish hooks go and love the principles which are the object of my mission on earth. Let the fish go and give your attention to capturing men. Avoid the infinitely small." I suppose that Peter had been advocating the adoption of fish hooks instead of fish nets, or

something of that kind. (He likely was saying that the net had broken the day before and many of the large fish had been lost, it would be much better to introduce the hook fishing such as they use down on the shores of the Mediterranean in place of nets, etc.) A man of so much business power and zeal as Peter possessed was likely to get absorbed in worldly affairs sometimes.

We have a set of pernicious people who talk about "poetry for the poets," and who wish to take out of poetry the light of hope and the fire of aspiration and make it sensual on the one hand or subtle on the other hand. They wish to commend poetry to us that we can not read in our families. As poetry for the sake of poetry is not the highest kind, so a school for the sake of the school is not the best. Too much attention to the details of method has this objection to it. We do not want a kindergarten or a primary school existing for itself and undertaking to bend the stream of civilization around. We prefer rather that the school shall look to principles rather than details and that the whole school system with all its teachers and superintendents shall look toward the eternal stars and guide their work by the highest principles, by the light that guides our civilization. School reports often contain much matter that tends to make the school rather for the school than the school for humanity, and in this case the lower schools do not open their doors towards higher learning. Those who never heard o. Dante and Shakespeare or Homer and Goethe make school readers full of namby-pamby stuff which cannot help the pupils but which will make them only ready gabblers. I am in favor of reports like that of the Committee of Ten, which has made the teachers all over this land better thinkers on the subject of education, and I hope that if we are to have any more reports they will be of that kind rather than those which deal with the infiniment petit.

The Language of the Trees.

[Arbor Day oration delivered in Albert Taylor hall, April 20, 1897, by J. A. Beadle, '97.]`

Ladies and Gentlemen and Fellow Students:

The trees are arraying themselves in the beautiful garb of spring, the gentlemen are appearing in their new summer suits and the ladies are more beautiful than ever in their magnificent Easter hats and bonnets. It is at such times as these that the young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love, and, indeed, my theme is one of love-the love of trees.

"He who plants a tree plants a blessing." No truer words than these were ever uttered. Far more might have been said, for he who plants a tree is many times blessed. He provides for himself a beautiful shade and a source of continual joy and pride as the long wavy branches reach heavenward, swaying in the wind and dancing in the sunlight. For his posterity he places something by which the dear old home will ever be remembered. Who of us does not recall the image of that grand old tree, the pride of the lawn, beneath whose shade we reveled in childish enjoyment? It might have been the upright pine, the sturdy oak, the shady elm, or even the despised cottonwood, yet we treasure its memory. Again, the tree planter blesses the entire community, for trees influence all in their beauty and strength. No selfish man should ever plant a tree, for he cannot confine the blessing it bestows to himself alone. It mounts upward, it spreads outward, a sight to please the eye, a balm for distressed minds and a rest for tired limbs, a thing of beauty and a joy to all.

So Ex-Secretary Morton thought when he issued the first proclamation for the observance of Arbor Day, an act that will preserve his name in history. So the members of the senior class thought when they planned the exercises of today. By request of President Taylor they will plant an ivy this year.

The fact that it is his request should be sufficient to protect it from all ruthless hands, for like a giant tree in the midst of the forest, he stands a giant among men-in character, strong as the oak, in virtue crowned with laurels, in mind and spirit, ever reaching toward the Infinite. Clustered around him like the trees around the monarch of the forest, are his associates, depending upon him for inspiration and encouragement in the duties they discharge so worthily. And last, but not least, I see before me a thousand or more students who look upon him as their model of true manhood.

The people of Western Kansas have grown to almost reverence trees. How their weary eyes tired out with drouth, and wind, and dust, long for the soothing influence of trees! At the State Forestry Station, forestry has become a science, and the commissioner of forestry imbues all with whom he comes in contact, with no small portion of his love for trees. There, on one of the most barren ridges in the state, a beautiful grove has been grown, and millions of trees are freely distributed each year. More and more the people have come to believe that the cultivation of trees is one of the keys to the irrigation problem. It is said that Spain owes her present downfall mainly to the neglect of this fact. Four hundred years ago the interior of Spain was a paradise of groves and streams, well cultivated and thickly populated. Today it is an almost uninhabitable desert, made so by the destruction of its forests. Our national and state governments should encourage tree culture in every possible way, and no man should be allowed to destroy a tree unless he plants another to take its place.

Occasionally, on the Western plains, having escaped the fires and storms of numerous decades, a lone tree will be found, the only one in sight for many miles around. It stands with its branches towering high in air. Around it the winds and floods have hollowed a circular depression. Great buffalo herds in drinking from the spring at its base, have trodden its roots under foot. An islet of green in the midst of a sea of drouth, it stands there, refreshing the eye of the beholder, cheering the heart of the homesick settler, and speaking to all as nature is wont to speak in words that echo thoughts of grandeur. For trees like "dumb senators" speak in words of no doubtful meaning, and "To him who in the love of Nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language."

Trees, then, have a language and show their character in their speech. It is for us to interpret this language and make use of the lessons found in it.

The lone tree, while only a despised cottonwood, perhaps, yet spoke of indomitable courage and determination. Years ago a tiny seed had found its way from the river bank and sought this spot for its resting place. Around it was the barren, bleak prairie; above it the scorching sun and parching wind: dry dust and rock at its foot, but a never failing spring near by; and within it had the God-given inspiration to grow, as every human being has in mind and spirit. Without one thought of future trials, it began its upward course of life. It was injured by drouth; the blizzard of the north and the tornado of the south tortured its branches; yet they began to pierce the sky, and soon it stood proud monarch of all. What a lesson of selfreliance and courage is found in the life of such a tree! Biography can give no better one.

As that tree in the midst of the desert speaks, so all trees speak. In contrast with the ofttimes cold, heartless world around us, they live, not for themselves, alone, but for protector and destroyer alike. The birds form orchestras upon their swaying twigs, and their music mingles in sweetest harmony with the music of the leaves and the rhythm of the branches. The beasts of the field seek their protection. Man is dependent upon them for his most imperative necessities,