THE

OHIO EDUCATIONAL MONTHLY.

PUBLISHED AT

57 EAST MAIN ST., COLUMBUS, O.

O. T. CORSON, EDITOR.

MARGARET W. SUTHERLAND, ASSOCIATE EDITOR.

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CHRISTMAS is coming. We trust it will be a merry one to the teachers and pupils of Ohio.

We must not forget that the next meeting of the Department of Superintendence of the N. E. A. will be held in Columbus. Four years ago the meeting was held in Cleveland, and it is generally admitted by those who attend the sessions of this department regularly that the Cleveland meeting has never been excelled in attendance and interest. We have a reputation to sustain, and we feel sure that Ohio teachers and superintendents will unite in making the coming meet

ing a great success. Supt. Shawan with his excellent corps of teachers and enterprising board of education is already working hard to perfect all the arrangements, and Columbus will do her best to make every one welcome. President E. H. Mark, of Louisville, an Ohio boy, has already done considerable work on the program, and assures us that a rich treat of good things will be served to all who attend. We quote the following paragraphs from a recent letter written by him to the editor:

"I have secured the following persons for places on the program: Mendenhall, Maxwell, Soldan, Goss, Prettyman of Baltimore, Martin of Boston, Steele of Galesburg, and have the promise of one or two others.

"I have concluded that Round Tables add something to the interest of the meeting and shall provide for meetings of the Round Tables in the afternoon.".

The meeting will be held in February-probably February 22-24and we hope to be able to publish the exact dates, together with the general program and arrangements, in the January MONTHLY. In the meantime, let as many teachers and superintendents as possible make their arrangements to attend this great educational convention, which stands for so much in the educational progress of the day.

WHILE the text-book will always remain an important factor in the work of education, yet all true

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teachers recognize the fact that it is not the only important one. The influence of the personality of the teacher, the surroundings in the home life of the child, the companionship of playmates, the necessity of being prompt and punctual, and hundreds of other influences coming into the daily life and experience of the school are all powerful factors in the education of the boys and girls. In recent years special attention has been paid in many schools to the influence of beautiful surroundings upon the children, and as a result neatly kept lawns, magnificent shade trees, and bright flowers are each year becoming more mon on the school grounds of the State. In many instances beautiful pictures adorn the walls of the school-room, and everything that the mind of a thinking teacher can suggest or her willing hand can perform, is done to make the school-room a home for the children. It is impossible to overestimate the value of such influences in the management of the school, and in the development of character. When one considers the condition of many of the school-rooms in which he was compelled to stay when a boy, and contrasts that condition with the home-like atmosphere in which many of the children of to-day are permitted to live, he feels like exclaiming, "Backward, turn backward, O, time, in your flight;

Make me a child again, just for to-night"-long enough to experience something of the refinement and happiness which are a part of the child life of to-day on account of the greatly improved physical conditions of the school

rooms.

In a recent article published in The Independent on "What Women Can Do for the Public Schools," Mrs. Alice Freeman Palmer makes some most timely, and intensely practical and helpful suggestions. After discussing at some length the influence of the teacher, and the value and necessity of co-operation on the part of the parents, and after pointing out in a helpful way what women can do for the health of the children in the public schools, Mrs. Palmer then calls special attention to what can be done by the women to beautify the school-room. We are happy to quote from her excellent article what she has to say on this topic:

But women can give more than health; they can give beauty, a matter as important to the growing child as fresh air. Remembering the vast sum invested in the public schools, can we not insist that these schools not only give us health of body, but also represent a finer public taste, a nobler public spirit, and a higher general refinement? If our people are to make living a fine art, if the next generation is to rise above coarse, rude ways to the love of beautiful things and the power to create them, then the little children must have beauty

about them in the schools when they are very young. Simple and noble architecture, good lines, harmonious colors, cost no more than the ugly, barren or pretentious buildings too often the prison of the child. The subtle and pervasive influence of soft color, fine pictures and noble forms on the walls make for a finer sense of beauty in public and in private life thereafter; gentle voices, courteous manners, generous spirits, new interests grow in the atmosphere made by curtains and growing plants at windows, pictures, flowers, books and collections in the room. These things should be in every school-room in the land, not in the favored few. School-rooms should be the most interesting and charming spots in town. Happily they can now be made so with small cost. Science has taught us how to bring the great masters to our walls at little expense, and the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome may tell their story to any one who will look and listen.

The exhibit by the Boston Public Library, and their publication of lists and prices of pictures suitable for school-room decoration, point the way, and show the ease with which clubs of women can give beauty to the schools.

Last Christmas vacation a crowded city school-room in a tenement-house section was taken by a little company of women, disinfected and thoroughly cleaned. The room was painted a soft red, and on the wall in front of the children's desks two good pictures were hung, large enough for all the sixty pairs of eyes to see-alas, that there should ever be more

than thirty in one room!—and over the teacher's desk between the pictures was placed a cast of the marvelous Greek horsemen from the Parthenon frieze. The little children, from eight to ten, came wonderingly back to their new room— their "Sunday room," they said. They could not work the first day for the surprise and joy of it; so their teacher told them to write her a letter, to tell her how they liked it. "Dear teacher," wrote the first, "I promise you never to stick pins into Johnny any more"; and another boy said, "I won't play hooky again, never all the year." A little girl wrote: "I'll ask my mother to let me wear my good dress to-morrow." What if they did insist upon tenderly calling the superb Greeks "Washington's Army Crossing the Delaware"? What matter as long as young eyes are trained to see, and young hearts to love elevated beauty?

The planting of trees and flowers and grass about the buildings, and the pride and interest which grow in protecting them, will train. the children beyond untidy streets, dirty alleys, hideous advertisements in public places, and atrocious buildings. If we are to have a finer and more beautiful public life our future citizens must have the early training of eye and hand. which will give a sure instinct for beauty and an instant repulsion in the presence of all that is bad. Hence women must not be content simply to show the good and beautiful. They must provide means of teaching the young to create it. Music, drawing, modeling, carving are all practical subjects; they are not luxuries. They enlarge powers, and make men and women

more adaptable, more observant, more creative. The power to think, to see, to do these all elementary education should aim to give. These difficult powers the State must have in the majority of its citizens if civilization is to keep progress with its means.

We most earnestly commend the suggestions of this earnest woman to the teachers and patrons of our schools. If we had more of such helpful suggestions from the wothe welfare of the children, and less men who are really interested in of that captious criticism which comes from some of the self-satisfied women of the day who imagine that leadership consists in finding fault with everything that teachers and superintendents have done or are trying to do, not only would the public schools be made better, but true womanhood would also be exalted.

THE more humane treatment to which children are subjected in the schools of to-day as compared with even twenty-five years ago shows itself very plainly in the feeling and action of the pupils toward their teachers. Some persons who may read this note may possibly remember when it was the custom to demand a "treat" from the teacher, and if it was not forthcoming on demand, the semi-civilized youngsters proceeded to lock out, freeze out, or smoke out their educational leader until he was glad to sur

render on terms of their own making. Now it is the custom in many places for the children to present to their teachers some little token of their esteem and affection, and many teachers in the next few days will have their hearts gladdened by some such kind remembrance, on the part of their pupils. While firmness is always a necessity in the management of any school, and sternness is sometimes demanded by extreme cases, yet kindness and good will of teacher for pupils, and pupils for teacher are always characteristic of a good school. As we enter upon our Christmas vacation, we shall all do well to make the beautiful sentiment expressed in the following quotation a part of our life:

"But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come around-apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that-as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time. I know of in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys."

WITH this issue the MONTHLY closes its forty-seventh year. It will soon be a half century old We trust that as a result of the continued cordial support of the teachers of the State, it may grow in strength as it grows in years, and that it may always stand as an index of the conservative, safe educational thought of the day as represented by the practice of the best teachers of the State in whose interests it was started by the State Teachers' Association in 1852.

WE devote considerable space this month to an account of the Central Association meeting held at Columbus, November 4 and 5. With the exception of the National Association, the Central is probably the largest meeting of the kind in the United States. In addition to the interesting general account of the great meeting furnished by Miss Sutherland, we are specially fortunate in being able to present the inaugural address of the president, F. B. Pearson of Columbus. President Pearson was the recipient of compliments and congratulations from all sources on the strength and originality of his address, and the success of the meeting over which he presided with sich universal satisfaction.