year to year, making them liable to bring discredit and disgrace to the school; because they weaken the efficiency of and bring politics into the legitimate organizations of the school, and because they detract interest from study.

"Secret fraternities are especially condemned in public schools, which are essentially democratic and should not be breeding places for social differences. The committee believes all legitimate elements for good-both social, moral and intellectual-which these societies claim to possess, can be better supplied to the pupils through the school at large in the form of literary societies and clubs under the sanction of the faculties of the schools."

The parents of every high school boy should have a copy of this report.

Agriculture in the Schools.

The recent action of the state board in preparing a course in agriculture for the township high schools must meet with the hearty approval of everyone interested in educational progress. The teaching of agriculture is not a fad but a sane necessity. It has already proven its value. Many details are yet awaiting solution. People are thinking about it everywhere. The County Superintendents' Monthly suggests seven good reasons for teaching the subject:

1. To cultivate an interest in and instil a love and respect for land and the occupation of agriculture.

2. To create a regard for industry in general and an appreciation of the material side of the affairs of a highly civilized people.

3. To cultivate the active and creative instincts as distinct from the reflective and receptive that are otherwise almost exclusively exercised in our schools.

4. To give practice in failure and success, thus putting to the test early in life the ability to do a definite thing.

5. To train the student in ways and methods of acquiring information for himself and incidentally to acquaint him with the manner in which information is

originally acquired and the world's stock of knowledge has been accumulated.

6. To connect the school with real life and make the value and need of schooling more apparent.

7. As an avenue of communication between the pupil and the teacher; it being a field in which the pupil will likely have a larger bulk of information than the teacher, but in which the training of the teacher can help to more exact knowledge.

Professional Honor.

On the minutes of the National Educational Association there is a resolution reading as follows: "Any superintendent who shall apply for the position of any other superintendent unless such position has been declared vacant by the board of education, or unless such superintendent has declared his intention of not being an applicant to succeed himself, shall be deemed guilty of gross unprofessional conduct." By implication the resolution includes every teacher from the kindergarten to the university. As a class we have improved greatly in professional honor within the last decade. The short professional life of the teacher makes the problem of the development of a high degree of professional honor more difficult than in other and more permanent professions. This condition, however, makes it incumbent on every teacher to use the greatest care in his relations to positions and with his fellow teachers. The development of a sincere professional spirit will attract the attention of outsiders and go far toward the solution of some of the problems that now vex us. The members of the medical profession are few compared to the number in the profession of teaching, and yet their professional spirit is so strong that they can get almost any legislation they desire. They can fix any scale of charges they choose and the public pays. Might not teachers, by the development of a higher degree of professional honor, be in a position to speak more effectively upon their own wages and also upon their tenure of office?

The Cigarettist.

Although we have a severe cigarette law, the fiends still manage to smoke. In some places no attempt is made to enforce the law, and in others it is enforced in a halfhearted way. Perhaps after some test case gets through the Supreme Court, if the law is sustained, we will have a much more rigid enforcement. In the meantime every teacher should do his part in teaching the evil effects to those who have not yet formed the habit. For the cigarettist himself there is little. hope. Hubbard's article in the October Philistine should be read in every school in the land. A few quotations will show its trend and force.

Of the cigarettist he says: "His future lies behind. He is not growing into a better man. He is not in the line of evolution. If you want a man who will train on, flee the cigarettist as you would a pestilence. He will surely disappoint you. And the better and brighter your young man, the faster will be his descent to Avernus."

Of the trustworthiness of the cigarette smoker he testifies as follows: "As a close observer and an employer of labor for over twenty-five years, I give you this: Never advance the pay of a cigarette smoker-never promote him-never de

pend upon him to carry a roll to Gomez, unless you do not care for Gomez, and ! are willing to lose the roll."

On the formation of the habit note this: "Cigarette smoking begins with an effort to be smart. It soon becomes a pleasure-a satisfaction, and serves to bridge over a moment of nervousness or embarrassment. Next it becomes a necessity of life, a fixed habit. This last stage soon evolves into a third condition, a stage of fever and unrest-wandering mind, accompanied by a loss of moral and mental control."

Of the general character of a cigarettist the following very strong language is used: "The cigarette smoker is not a degenerate because he smokes cigarettes. Quite often he is a cigarette smoker because he is a degenerate. In preparing a culture bed for vice germs do not omit cigarettes. Cigarettes stupefy the conscience, deaden the brain, place the affections in abeyance and bring the beast to the surface."

His final warning to the employers of labor is: "Place no confidence in the cigarettist, never promote him-he is an irresponsible being a defective. Love him if you can; pity him if you will, but give him no chance to clutch you with his nicotine fingers and drag you beneath the wave."

used in many of the public schools of the State. He was a leading member in the Baptist church.

A Presbyterian pastor in St. Louis recently remarked in one of his sermons: "Man is a three-storied structure. On the ground floor there dwells the animal; above that, on the second story, there is the savage; and on the third floor there is the man." The important thing for us to learn is that we may either live in a cellar or top-story life, a dog life, or a man life.

Dr. Charles A. McMurry, one of the authors of "The Method of the Recitation," now resides at California, Pa., where the State normal school of Southern Pennsylvania is located. During the spring term Professor McMurry will give a series of pedagogical lectures in the normal.

The Journal of Education, published in Boston, made the statement that Indiana had lost more men as soon as they had attained national importance than any other State. Is this conducive to the best educational interests of the State?

Official statistics show that there are 17,000,000 children in Russian between the ages of six and fourteen years receiving absolutely no education.

With deepest sorrow we announce the death in Bridgeton, N. J., September 20, 1905, of our beloved business associate, Mr. Harry M. Trask. For more than seventeen years Mr. Trask has been a member of our business staff and for nearly fifteen years manager of our Philadelphia general agency. In every relation both within and without our company he has won and enjoyed the confidence and affection of all who have known him. His memory abides as a precious heritage. Silver, Burdett & Co., 85 Fifth Avenue, New York City.

According to a report recently made by Superintendent Kendall, of the Indianapolis schools, to the board of school commissioners, the per capita cost of instruction in the two Indianapolis high schools has decreased.

As set forth in the report, the cost of instruction for each pupil attending the Manual Training School in the year ending June, 1905, was $44.87, as against $46.34 in the previous year. In Shortridge the cost was $30.73, as against $32.60 last year.

President N. M. Butler in his welcome address to the students at the opening of the college year at Columbia University made some very caustic comments on the modern methods of business and tried to impress the students with the importance of careful character building; otherwise all learning would be evil.

Miss Blanche Edith Terrell, daughter of Mrs. Susan Terrell of Bloomfield, and Mr. J. Talmage Clapp, of Hartsville, Ind., were married September 27 in the Baptist Church at Bloomfield. The bride is a graduate of the Bloomfield High School and for the past few years has been a teacher. The bridegroom is a graduate of Hartsville College and of the Indiana Law School. He is a successful business man at Hartsville.

In Colorado there is one public school of but one pupil, and the teacher gets $50 a month for teaching him. Why don't their school "dads" come over to Indiana and learn how to solve such educational problems?

State Superintendent F. A. Cotton takes the following optimistic view of the educational outlook

"The times are prosperous. The schools are in a flourishing condition. The educational outlook was never more encouraging. The public schools are receiving the serious attention of educators everywhere. College and university men are beginning to see what a large part the common schools play in the life of the people. The people themselves are studying the problem and are taking a more intelligent view of education than ever. They are beginning to see the close relation of education to everyday affairs, and are even beginning to understand that the education that is really practical is the education that helps one find and use himself. This intelligent view has come in

large measure from the open discussion of educational problems that has gone on in the newspapers and periodicals. The value of keeping educational measures constantly before the people has been a determining factor in issuing these bulletins. The returns from the first and second series have been so gratifying in a number of ways that this new series is begun with a good deal of satisfaction. There are some fundamental things in our school problems that can not be stated too often. Students and teachers and people can not become too familiar with these things. And so the third series is begun with the double aim of putting before the educational public truths new and old and of keeping in close touch with the schools of the State. The Department congratulates school officials and teachers and patrons and the children upon the substantial progress of the year that is gone, and asks the earnest co-operation of all in making the year upon which we now enter the best in our history. There never was a time when the public so fully recognized the importance of good work in the schools. There never was a time when the people were so disposed to rate the teacher at his true value in the community, and when they were so inclined to pay him a respectable salary. New consecration to the calling will do more than anything else to preserve its dignity and increase its pay. Let us hope for large things during the coming year and let us strive earnestly to bring them to pass."

The schools of West Lafayette opened with the largest enrollment in their history under the supervision of Prof. E. W. Lawrence. A new building is under construction and when completed will add much to the efficiency of the work. The building is made of stone and pressed brick and will be modern in every respect.

Principal E. A. Turner, of the Connersville High School, has secured a year's leave of absence that he may secure his A. M. degree from Columbia University.

Vermont is to have a $50,000 home for retired teachers.

When a man is larger than his place it never hurts him to be kicked out of it by a smaller man.

Miss Helen Gould has donated property to the amount of $500,000 to the Winona Assembly Association. The property includes the New York Bible Institute, which will hereafter be known as the Winona Bible Institute. It occupies a ten-story building on Lexington avenue, New York. The building cost $225,000. Miss Gould has given her written pledge to contribute $30,000 a year to the support of this school. This will make an ideal outpost for the Winona Assembly. The purpose of the New York Bible Institute is to train missionaries. ministers, Sunday-school and other Christian workers to teach the Bible to the masses.

"We know what we are but not what we may be."

The people of Oakland City held a union service in behalf of the public schools on the Sunday eve before their opening. Superintendent Churchill improved the opportu nity of informing the parents of their duties to the school and assuring them of the best efforts from the teachers.

Miss Nettie Coomler, for several years a grade teacher in the Kokomo schools, has secured a similar position at South Bend.

Mr. O. L. Wooley, a graduate of Indiana State Normal and of Indiana University, has been with the Macmillan Company since the middle of June. Mr. Wooley was principal of a school in Kokomo, three years principal of a school in Ft. Wayne and three years supervising principal in the Indianapolis schools.

Miss Hattie McCaulay has left Kokomo and Indiana to study in the University of Washington State.

Guard your weak point; be lord over yourself; know prudent, cautious self-control is wisdom's root.-Burns.

The opening of the new manual training school at the Indiana State Normal has materially affected the attendance at the institution. The new department will be in charge of Prof. M. L. Laubach. Miss Elizabeth Rose, of Carthage, Mo., formerly a member of the faculty, has been appointed secretary of the Y. W. C. A. and will have charge of the association house. Miss Martina Erickson, of Atlantic, Ia., will be the dean of women.

"There is no road to success but through a clear, strong purpose. A purpose underlies character, culture, position, attainment of whatever sort."

County Superintendent Gullion takes exception to one of the school rules offered in our September issue by Captain A. C. Williams, viz.: "Overlook first offenses, give warning for second and punish for third." The former says that a child can not be made to respect a law which he knows to be ineffective, so far as he is concerned, until he has violated it the third time.

The United States has 134 universities: Germany twenty-two, France fifteen, Italy, twenty-one.

L. E. Opliger, principal of the Peterson High School, was for several years a student at the Tri-State Normal College and later of Indiana University. Before accepting his present position, he taught two years in the district schools and two in the graded schools.

The program of the Perry County Teachers' Institute contained the following gratifying endorsement:

"Every teacher should read at least one educational journal. If there is any one journal that meets the wants of Indiana teachers, that one is the Educator-Journal. It is of special value to young teachers, and should be read by every teacher in the county. Prof. Lee Mullen is the agent."

The Salem schools, under the supervision of Frank A. Gause, opened with the largest attendance in their history. About one hun

3-E. J.

dred and sixty students enrolled in the high school, fifty-seven of whom come from the surrounding country. Miss Myrtle Mitchell is principal of the high school.

Here is something from President G. E. Maxwell, of the Minnesota State Normal, that would be worth the while for some school men to think about:

"The public school system would be very much more effective in the work it has to do if supervisors, boards of education and others who have occasion to write recommendations would speak the whole truth about the teachers who ask for testimonials, holding it to be a sacred duty to protect society against incompetent teachers and believing that to speak highly to another board of a teacher in order to get him off one's hands is a combination of cowardice and dishonesty."

One of the best ways of checking high school vandalism seems to be by giving the parents a chance to share a little of the annoyance and responsibility. Recently some of the Terre Haute High School boys, in trying to ape the antics of the Rose Polytechnic students, defaced the buildings with painted numerals. The offenders were soon detected and their parents were called upon to stand the expense of repair.

Plans have been accepted for the construction of another $25,000 school building at Hammond, Ind. This will make six magnificent school buildings for Hammond. The new building was secured largely under the efforts of Superintendent C. M. McDonald. Improvements will also be made on the other buildings.

Miss Arda Knox, a teacher in the Bedford High School for eight years, resigned to accept a position as mathematics teacher in the Attica High School. Mr. W. D. Waldrip, who formerly held that position, was made superintendent of the Camden schools.

He who endures to the end of every action and occasion of his entire life has a good report, and carries off the prize which men bestow.-Plato.