EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT.

The MONTHLY is mailed promptly before the first day of each month. In most cases, it should reach Ohio subscribers not later than the second or third of the month. Any subscriber failing to receive a number within a few days of the first of the month, should give prompt notice, that another copy may be sent.

Requests for change of address should be received before the 25th of the month, and the old as well as the new address should be given.

RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT.

The MONTHLY is soon to start on its thirty-eighth year. When it started, its present editor was a boy teacher in one of the country schools of Greene County, and was one of its first subscribers. The first and second volumes, which we had bound as soon as completed, lie open before us now as we write, and nearly all the subsequent volumes are on a shelf near by. They are full of history. They tell of toil and struggle, and of triumph and progress. The early volumes contain the names of many worthies who are no longer with us, most of them probably unfamiliar to a majority of our present readers. A few familiar names appear-names of those still with us or recently departed, such as Thomas W. Harvey, D. F. DeWolf, John Ogden, I. W. Andrews, M. D. Leggett, M. F. Cowdery, and Andrew Freese.

The MONTHLY has been under its present management for nearly seven years. Our most sanguine expectations at the outset have been more than realized. Editorial work was to us wholly an untried field, while the financial and business management of such a publication was almost equally so, and we began the undertaking with many misgivings. It is with feelings of profound gratitude that we look back over these seven years. They have not been without periods of depression and discouragement, and the present is not without a keen sense of short-coming; but the teachers of Ohio have been kind and generous, and the measure of success attained has exceeded what there was any reason to expect. It gives us pleasure to make this open acknowledge

ment.

The confidence we reposed in Ohio teachers at the outset was not misplaced. It may not be known to all present subscribers that at the beginning of the present management, about fifty percent was added to the size of the journal and the outward appearance was greatly improved, without any change in the subscription price, save the abolition of club rates. This was done in full confidence that it would meet the approval of the teachers.

In

this we were not mistaken, for the subscription list was more than doubled soon thereafter.

And now, what of the future? Upon our part, there is no disposition to stand still. Leaving the things which are behind, we propose to press forward. We wish, if possible, to put more of earnest purpose, more of heart, into the work, with a view to making the MONTHLY still more stimulating and helpful to teachers, and a greater power for good to the cause.

With the beginning of the new volume we expect to introduce some new features. One of these is a PRIMARY DEPARTMENT. Though primary teachers have not heretofore been forgotten, they will hereafter find a department exclusively their own, devoted entirely to their branch of the work. This, we think, will meet a want that has often been expressed. For this department, contributions from those engaged in that branch of the work are invited.

After mature deliberation and consultation with some of the oldest friends of the MONTHLY, it has been decided to make some change in the terms of subscription. The single subscription price is as low as it can be put in safety, and as low as it ought to be; but there seems to be a demand for a club price. Subscriptions beginning with the new year will be taken in clubs of four or more at $1.25. As it will often be necessary and always right to pay a commission out of this to persons raising large clubs, this will result in a considerable reduction of the subscription price, but we do it, in the full confidence that the loss will be fully made up by a corresponding increase of the subscription list. Indeed, it is done for this very purpose. We prefer a larger list at a smaller profit, even though the total financial result should be the same. We want the MONTHLY to reach a much larger number of Ohio teachers than ever before, and to this end we shall bend our efforts. Teachers of Ohio, what response this time?

LANGUAGE TRAINING.

There is more truth than poetry in what Brother Holbrook says, in the last number of the Normal Exponent, about practical language training. We think he is rather severe on the "old institutions," especially the "poor" colleges; but the following sentences concerning the work in common schools are near the mark and deserve attention:

"Language lessons and composition classes are practically nil. The remedy is not in these or other new classes. It is in the teaching of every class. No subject is well taught that has not terminated in a special language practice on that subject while it is being taught. The remedy is not at a point on the surface or one line along the work; it is all-pervading, permeating the whole mass of school work from center to circumference."

Right practice in speaking and writing is the only rational means of acquiring the ability to use good English. Perhaps the hearing and reading of good English should be named as auxiliary. In former days we taught our

pupils grammar, and some of those more advanced studied rhetoric, in the fond expectation that they would thereby be enabled to speak and write good English. Disappointed in this expectation, we have turned to "language lessons" with great confidence that through these the desired end would be reached. But, as conducted in most schools, these are little more than diluted grammar lessons, and it is to be doubted whether we have made much gain.

In education, as in religion, the tendency of human nature is ever to routine and formalism. The spirit and the life are not easily discerned by the eye of sense; hence the readiness with which the majority of mankind are content with seeming rather than being-with the outward appearance rather than the inward reality. It is so with much of our school-work. Many teachers can make a display of organization and mechanism, study cour ourses and programs, object lessons and language lessons, and what not, without the ability to stir the inner fountains of thought.

Language training not preceded and accompanied by clear and vigorous thinking is of little worth. The right order is something to say that is worth saying and a good way to say it. As Mr. Holbrook well says in another place, "telling requires thinking. Thinking requires things to think about." First apprehend a subject, then comprehend it, and finally embody it in words. Language training, then, is not so much a separate school exercise as an end or aim of all school exercises. Every lesson studied and recited should have its culmination in clear, concise, and accurate statement of the thought it contains and suggests.

NATURE AND EDUCATION.

All the conditions as well as the

In one view, education is a small thing. inner principle of growth are supplied by Nature; there seems little left for human agency. Growth is almost an automatic process; there needs only a little prompting, a little guidance. To keep in right attitude, to maintain right relations between the growing soul and its natural conditions of growth, is the whole of education.

Drummond, in his chapter on "Growth," draws an apt comparison between the growing man and the growing flower; or rather, he uses a metaphor which a greater than he used long before, "Consider the lilies how they grow." They grow of themselves, without worry or pain, or even thought. The principle of growth within and the conditions of growth without are in harmony; that is all. And in much the same way, Mr. Drummond reasons, a man grows. He cannot, by taking thought, add one cubit to his stature. Both, flower and man, are "planted deep in the providence of God," and both unfold from within, easily and naturally.

This reduces education to its lowest terms, and minifies human agency. All that a man can do for himself in the way of growth, and all that can be done for him, is to supply the nexus-to establish and maintain right relations between the inner principle of growth' and the external conditions.

But there is another side. Man is not a plant, but a living soul, self impelling, self-acting. He is a free moral agent, with power to choose or refuse; and a prime condition of his development is self-activity. He has great possibilities, but all depending on his own purpose and his own exertion.

There is a land of promise before every one of us, "a good land and large;" but it must be subdued and occupied. We can claim only so much as the sole of the foot treads upon. And there is not likely to be any want of occupation for the Moseses and Joshuas. There is still a wilderness to be traversed, and there are still strong enemies to be overcome. There will always be a demand for good leadership. Let teachers sanctify themselves. Let them be strong and of a good courage.

DEEP AND THOROUGH CULTURE.

These words of Ruskin are worth pondering well :

"Most men's minds are little better than rough heath wilderness, neglected and stubborn, partly barren, partly overgrown with pestilent brakes and venomous wind-sown herbage of evil surmise. The first thing you have to do for them, and yourself, is eagerly and scornfully to set fire to this; burn all the jungle into wholesome ash heaps, and then plow and sow. All the true literary work before you, for life, must begin with obedience to that order. 'Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns.'

How true! How much of our attempts at the cultivation of ourselves and others is simply sowing on unprepared soil. It is but a few days since an experienced and capable high-school teacher was heard lamenting the small results of her best efforts on behalf of her pupils. There seems to be only a little scratching of the surface, and nothing takes deep root. And how much foul growth there is to choke the good seed. That only is true culture which deepens, enriches, and purges the soil.

It is possible for a man to be well educated without knowing many languages, without having read many books. If he has learned to observe closely and correctly, to think and feel deeply and choose wisely, he is well educated, no matter in what school he has learned, or by what methods. On the other hand, one may know, in a way, many languages and read many books, and remain uneducated.

"Give me," said Thoreau, "a culture which imports much muck from the meadows, and deepens the soil,-not that which trusts to heating manures and improved implements and modes of culture only."

This cry of a weary brain and heart is from a school superintendent in a distant city. It will strike a sympathetic cord in the heart of many a tired

worker.

"Oh Findley, I am just about worked to death! My work here has grown till it overwhelms me. Between nine and ten thousand children and 240 teachers! There is no end to the things I see to do. How I would like to visit you in Ohio! but perhaps I never shall again. I rarely take a vacation. If you have the time to write to me it would cheer me greatly."

It is the burden the heart carries that wears, far more than the work done by brain and hands. Such a cry not unfrequently comes from very brave, stout hearts, in periods of weakness and weariness; but how grand a thing it is to go through life with head and heart and hands always full. Come any weariness, any pain, rather than a record of unfaithfulness! There remaineth a rest.

READING CIRCLE STUDIES.

COMPAYRE'S LECTURES.

CHAPTER III.-INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION.

In the study before us, we are to draw a little nearer to the heart of the subject. We shall find the same clearness of thought and simplicity of style with which we were entertained at our last sitting.

44. Observe the restricted use of the term education-not so used by English writers. Intellectual education something more than instruction. Define instruction. Its relation to education.

45. Intellectual education, how related to physical and moral education? Meaning of the maxim, "Knowledge and virtue are one." What measure of truth in it?

46. Two-fold purpose of intellectual education, to form and to furnish the mind-training and instruction.

47. Instruction a means to what end? The mind's aliment. May there be much instruction without much education? Importance of knowing how to teach as well as what to teach.

48. Mind formed by exercise; instruction affords exercise. Two lines of study for the teacher, the nature of the mind and the nature and characteristics of the branches of instruction.

Do the faculties develop consecutively

49. Order of mental development.

or simultaneously? Herbert Spencer's view.

Do

50. Resemblance of the child's faculties to those of the grown man. any new powers come into existence in the course of a life? 51. Sense in which education is progressive-"the objective counterpart of the subjective development of the mind."

52. Objection to Rousseau's idea of successive education. Is there not more of truth in it than our author admits? Some tillage and some fallow is the farmer's rule. Anything analogous in human nature? 53. Interdependence of the faculties. Mutual helpfulness. 54 and 55. The mind not a mere receptacle to be filled 56. Appeal to the child's understanding.

danger of too much liberty?

Evils of cramming. Evils of dogmatism. Is there

57. Element of time. Learn to wait for growth. Nature will not be hurried.

58. Element of pleasure. How studies become disagreeable. To the reasons given by the author and translator, add the innate laziness and perverseness of some children.

59. Need of exertion.

Author does not lay sufficient stress on persistent

effort when not entirely agreeable.

60. Inner and spontaneous development. Little value of instruction which does not touch the inner forces of the soul.

61. Important quotations on the principle of self-activity.

62. Diversity of talent and aptitude. Need of different treatment.

63. Are special aptitudes and preferences of children to be indulged? Or should they be required to put forth most effort in the direction of least aptitude?