to meet the inbreeding problem by limiting the number of teachers to be selected from the local training schools. Thus Pittsburgh, in opening such a school, made a rule that not more than 60 per cent. of the city teachers could be drawn from this school. Indianapolis has for years limited the number of teachers trained in its own school to not more than four-fifths of the need. In Burlington, Iowa, every fourth teacher must come from outside the city. Newark, N. J., places the proportion of experienced teachers from outside sources at from one-fourth to one-third. Harrisburg, Pa., secures half its teachers from elsewhere.

Reports from 43 cities show, according to Dr. Manny, that "Baltimore, Md., and Paterson, N. J., have the smallest proportion of teachers from outside sources, while Newark, N. J., Cleveland, Ohio, Rochester, N. Y., Birmingham, Ala., and Omaha, Neb., have the largest percentage of teachers. trained elsewhere."

MOTHERS' PENSION-PUBLIC

SCHOOL CONGRESS.

Teachers and Mothers' Pension advocates will meet in convention at San Francisco exposition on July 20th, 21st and 22d to devise ways and means for the public school system to take over the management of the Mothers' Pension system, now adopted by law in twenty-three states.

More than $10,000,000 will be disbursed this year for mother's pensions. The management is now in the hands of juvenile courts and this gives the flavor of criminality and charity to the work of abolishing child poverty. Judge Neil, father of the mothers'

pension system, has proposed that the work be placed in the hands of the public school system, which is not a charity and the pension system is not a charity. This proposal has met with wide approval among educators and sociologists and the arrangements for the national conference at San Francisco are the results. "This conference will bring nearer the day when all children will be properly cared for, regardless of the folly or wisdom, the virtue of their fathers," says Judge Neil. "We require that all children. go to school regardless of their fathers' ability or lack of ability, and so we must see that all children are fed, clothed, sheltered, schooled, and cared for by their own mothers. This plan will reduce the taxes by reducing the number of policemen, jails, institutions, hospitals, asylums and courts, which are increasing constantly now to take care of the product of child poverty. Children are naturally fine human beings, but poverty and the blight of charity ruins them and makes them undesirable citizens. The mothers' pension system, by abolishing child-poverty, will save billions of dollars to the taxpayers of this nation."

HEALTH INSTRUCTION IN AN

INDIANA COUNTY.

Common sense is an uncommon quality. Those who in their early youth read and enjoyed the William Henry Letters, will recall that this was a refreshing characteristic of that young hero. When sent away to a boarding school, he was told that he would have to take dancing lessons in order to learn how to enter a room. He could not see the need of taking

lessons for this purpose. He said, "Just walk right in." One of the most difficult lessons to learn is that the way to do a thing is to do it. The county health commissioner of Union county, Indiana, feels that one of his duties is to teach the people of the county how to keep well. He has accordingly prepared a little seventy-five page pamphlet, made up largely of material published by the various state boards of health. The board of county commissioners made an appropriation to send a complimentary copy to every home in the county. The pamphlet is simply but forcibly written, and contains chapters on the home, contagious diseases and the baby. In the first chapter, the people are told how to keep their homes clean and healthful, how to dispose of their garbage, how to care for their food and how to take care of their bodies. Directions for disinfection and especially directions for various contagious diseases make up the second chapter, while the third and most important contains directions to mothers for the care of themselves and their children. We have been a long time in learning that if the teacher of good health would compete with the patent medicine man, he must meet him on his own ground. Instruction of the people on health topics is a public duty. It should not be left to professionl zeal or to philanthropy. The publication and distribution of such pamphlets as the Union County Health Book are directly and solely for the public good and will yield large dividends in the form of better health and prosperity for the people. If each county in the nation had a health officer as wide awake and a board of

commissioners as broad minded as those of Union county, Indiana, says The Journal of the American Medical Association, the problems of the prevention of disease and the prolongation of life would be immensely simplified.

EDUCATION NOTES.

A free moving picture show is given. every night at the public high school of Santa Rosa, Cal.

With South Carolina and Texas enrolled on the list of states that have

compulsory school attendance laws as a result of 1915 legislation, the states. without compulsory laws are now reduced to four-Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Mississippi.

A Janitors' Institute was recently held in Salt Lake county, Utah, under the direction of the County Superintendent of Schools. Several problems of school janitor service were discussed and the meeting went on record as favoring special training for school jani

tors.

An eye dispensary has been opened in Springfield, Ill., for the benefit of children who need treatment and cannot pay for it. Local oculists give their services free and the board will provide glasses for children who cannot purchase them.

Seeds, seedlings, hedge plants, shrubbery, etc., are furnished free to country schools in North Dakota by the State School of Forestry. In addition, the services of the State Forester

in planning and laying out school grounds are available without cost.

A veteran teachers' association, composed of teachers with 25 or more years' experience, is organized in Berks county, Pa. The association has 60 members, 25 of whom have taught 30 years or more. Two have taught more than 40 years, and one has seen 52 years of service as a teacher.

In every one of the 54 grammar schools of Portland, Oreg., there is a Parent-Teachers' Association. Men as well as women are members of these associations, and three have business men as presidents. School excursions form an important feature of the work. Brick yards, lumber yards, and chair factories are visited by the pupils. A committee of sixteen men have special charge of this work, one of whom accompanies the children on every trip.

Boise, Idaho, is exemplifying the get-together spirit in promoting evening meetings in the schools. The board furnishes light, pianos and janitor service free for any evening's entertainment. At four schoolhouses in different sections of the city one entertainment a week is given, these being furnished once a fortnight by a joint committee from the three large women's clubs of Boise and in the alternating weeks by the mothers' circles. Representatives from the mothers' circles are present at each meeting to care for the smaller children.

Getting out among the fathers and mothers of the state is the method pur

sued by Prof. D. R. Haworth of the East Tennessee State Normal School, for arousing interest in education. Prof. Haworth and his party recently completed a "campaign" during which they drove 476 miles through eight counties; talked to 21,400 people in 40 rallies; slept in barns or in the school wagon, frequently far from the main road. The educational campaigners had with them a male quartet, a string band and three pieces of demonstration apparatus of practical value-a milk tester, a farm gate, and a model of a heating and ventilation system.

HOMES FOR RURAL TEACHERS. A permanent home, provided by the school community for rural school teachers, is giving great satisfaction where it is in vogue.

While out of 3,000 teachers replying to Mr. Foght's inquiries only 73 live in homes provided by the community, the bulletin shows that teachers who have such homes find it possible to become permanent community leaders. "In the few communities reporting permanent homes, the teachers are usually able to project the school into the home. and draw the home close to the school. Where teachers' cottages are provided, these, aside from making the teachers' own lives more attractive, naturally become rallying centers for all community activities."

The investigations of Mr. Foght reIveal that in rural United States the average time for each public-school teacher to remain in any one school is less than two school years of 140 days each. "This average is very much less for a majority of the teachers, the

That is a splendid use to make of three acres of good farming land.

There will be more money for salaries and all other school expenses when the system of turning into the school fund all money derived from fines, etc., is even partially improved. This matter has been pointed out before, but the improvement has been nil.

How would it do in Indiana to give a bonus to the teacher who stays in one position more than one year? Such a scheme would work for stability in the teaching profession and would help cure the pedagogical wander-lust that possesses some teachers.

It is hardly possible that in the last analysis any Indiana community will be mean spirited enough to deny to its old teachers, whom it has employed for a life time, at next-to-starvation salaries, the benefits of the new teachers' pension law. The old teachers have earned long ago all that they will ever get under the retirement act.

City teachers might with profit do university extension work in their monthly institutes during the coming year. In this way college credit may be earned along with the performance of a routine school duty.

Every county superintendent in Indiana ought to have an assistant, not that the county superintendent wants less work to do, but that he may get more work done. One state is proposing to appoint in every county an assistant superintendent for every fifty teachers. That sounds like sense.