Generally an association meeting fizzles out toward the close. This one did not. The crowd at the last session filled the hall to the doors. It pays to have a great program to end with. President Kelly, State Superintendent Cotton and Bishop Vincent made the Friday morning session a memorable one.

The meeting of 1905 has gone into history as a great one. The association reached a high-water mark never before attained. The meeting of 1906 must be greater. We are poor, indeed, if upon the great success and profitable experience of this year we do not build a greater meeting for next year. Every teacher who enjoyed the meeting of 1905 will be a missionary to bring a friend with him to the meeting of 1906.

The association never did a more graceful, nor more gracious thing, than that of unanimously electing Superintendent B. F. Moore, of Marion, President. No man has ever served the association better or more faithfully than he. As President Hughes expressed it, "He has set himself an awful pace." In Dr. Kinnaman as chairman of the executive committee he has a helper of sterling worth and great ability. These, men and Pearcy will easily push the 1906 meeting a notch or two ahead of 1905.

The large attendance at this year's meeting makes it possible to do what the association ought to have done long ago but was never quite able, financially, to undertake, namely, the publication of its proceedings. An able committee was appointed to take charge of the matter. The committee will no doubt find means to give us one of the best educational volumes of the year. The papers read at the 1905 meeting are all of worth, and they ought to be in permanent form and available to every teacher in the State.

The next educational meeting of great importance is the Department of Superintendence at Louisville, February 27, 28, March 1. This promises to be a great meeting. President John W. Carr has

arranged a great program. This meeting, so close to our borders, ought to be considered an Indiana meeting. We ought to enroll a larger number than any other State. It will pay any teacher to attend this meeting, and a superintendent can not afford to miss it. Let us be at Louisville at least 200 strong.

School consolidation is making good headway in Indiana. There are now 275 consolidated schools. About 8,000 pupils are gathered up by the school wagons. As a rule the people are enthusiastic for consolidation where they have actually experienced its benefits. In some parts of the State geographical conditions and bad roads will defer the matter for some years. There are 3,150 schools that have twenty or fewer pupils. Such schools are costing too much. The consolidated school is more economical and at the same time furnishes better facilities in everything. The work of consolidation should not stop until the little red schoolhouse of one room is no more.

Mrs. Giles, the wife of Principal J. T. Giles, of Marion, died early in January. She was a woman of splendid ability and broad education. Before her marriage she was a very successful teacher. Her sphere of greatest influence was in the home, where as wife, mother, friend and hostess she won all hearts. Her gracious manner and sweet Christian spirit can never be forgotten. The bereaved husband and the motherless children have the heartfelt sympathy of the teachers of Indiana.

Dr. Harper.

In the death of Pres. W. R. Harper, of Chicago University, the educational world loses one of its brightest lights. He was a great scholar, a splendid administrator, an inspiring teacher, a hard worker, and a good man. He became president of Chicago University in 1891 at the age of thirty-five. He threw all the enthusiasm of his vigorous manhood into the new institution. His plans were so large that he shocked many conserva

tive educators. Predictions were freely made that the early pace of the institution could not be maintained. Fifteen years under his direction has more than proved the wisdom of his initial plans. Chicago University is a great institution because it has had the fatherly care of a great president. The educational world. is a great debtor to William R. Harper. He still lives in his writings, in the University and the lives of the thousands that he has either directly or indirectly inspired.

The Basis of Practical Teaching.

Under the above title President E. B. Bryan, of Franklin College, has written. a very interesting, practical and helpful book. His long experience as a teacher in all kinds of schools, his wide travel and thorough scholarship and his deep human sympathy fit him singularly well for the writing of a book for teachers. It is a gracious compliment to the author, as well as a fortunate thing for the teachers of the State, that the book has been adopted by the Reading Circle Board for use in Indiana during the year 1906-7.

The book is what the title suggests. It is not a work on psychology, although the results of the best psychologists are freely used. It is not a work upon physiology, although frequent use is made of physiological facts. Neither is it a treatise upon child-study, although many of the most valuable conclusions rest upon the same results of child study.

The author's style is simple, clear and forcible. His illustrations are forceful. The book will be read easily by the beginning teacher. The superintendent of wide experience and broad scholarship will find help and inspiration on every page. Those two statements may seem contradictory, but they are not. The book deals with things that are fundamental in education. Foundation things when properly treated are both simple and profound. President Bryan has treated his subject in such a masterly way that his book has a message for teachers of all grades.

The author lays no claim to the final word. On reading many of the chapters one feels that if the last word has not been said, the best possible present word has been said. The book is wonderfully stimulating. A year's study of it by the teachers of Indiana will be a great benefit not only to the teachers themselves but to the whole State.

Pensions for Teachers.

Nations, generally, pension very liberally the men who have served for a few months or years in the army or navy. Cities, as a rule, pension the members of the fire department when they become too old for active service. Many large business houses make adequate provision for the old age of their employes. No public provision is made for the old age of teachers.

The wages paid teachers are low, so low that it is next to impossible to save anything for old age. The vigorous wage campaign now being carried on promises some relief, but it will take years of agitation and education to bring the pay of a teacher up to that of other professions, or to that of other employments requiring the same preparation and skill. Indeed, the most optimistic worker for better pay hardly hopes that the time will ever come when teachers will be paid as well as those in other professions who render the same grade of service.

Teachers render a service that can not be wholly cancelled by money. What the world is today is due to the teachers of the past. What the world will be tomorrow depends upon the teachers of today. The nation owes them a greater debt than she owes her soldiers, for it was the teachers that made the soldiers possible. Teachers should be spared the anxiety of looking toward an old age of want or charity. Their old age should be provided for by the public. This is not asking for charity. The faithful teacher would scorn charity. It is merely asking a small portion of the wealth that the labor of the teacher has made possible.

The pensioning of teachers is being agitated. The press is generally favor

able. The public will be favorable when the facts are well understood. As teachers we should wage a double campaign, for better wages and for old age pensions.

Manual Training.

It is now about twenty-five years since the first manual training school was established. Many objections were urged against the experiment. It was denominated a fad. It was said that the introduction of machinery would break up the unity of the school and lower its scholastic and moral tone. The quarter of a century trial has proved all that the first advocates claimed for the manual training idea. It has made culture possible to many who under former conditions would have been deprived of it.

Manual training schools have caused us to change many of our old notions. We now see, as the Outlook so well expresses it, that "The popular distinction between industrial education and higher education has no real existence. There is no higher education than that furnished by the professional schools-law, medical, theological. But training for the law, medicine and the ministry is industrial education as truly as training for carpentering, blacksmithing, or farming. The first three are industries no less than

the second three. And carpentering, blacksmithing, and farming are just as high as law, medicine, or the ministry. It is as important to live under a good roof as to live under good laws. Good bread is as important as good theology; bad cooking is as provocative of wickedness as bad preaching. Life is for service; education is for life. That is the best education which best fits the pupil for the best service he can render. Which is better, to be a blacksmith or a preacher? That depends; it is better to pound an anvil and make a good horseshoe than to pound a pulpit and make a poor sermon. The manual training school is one of the greatest agencies for democracy. It ennobles work and destroys the distinction between education for bread and butter and education for culture. Manual training is here to stay. Every teach

er should study its principles and ally himself with its cause.

Football at Harvard.

Drs. E. H. Nichols and H. B. Smith, the official football surgeons of Harvard, have made a very interesting report upon the season of 1905. The football squad consisted of 150 men. The number of injuries treated by the doctors reached

the total of 145. There were thirty-nine distinct kinds of injury, ranging from concussion of the brain to severe bruises. Most of the injuries centered about the head, collar-bone, knee and ankle. There were 19 concussions, 13 injuries to the collar bone, 15 to the knee, and 13 to the ankle.

Some of the noteworthy conclusions reached by the doctors are as follows: "The number, severity and permanence of the injuries are very much greater than generally credited or believed." "The greater number of injuries come in the 'pile' and not in the open plays." "The game does not develop the best type of men physically, because too great prominence is given to weight without "Concorresponding nervous energy." stant medical supervision is a necessity and not a luxury, and it is a question if a game requiring constant attention of two trained surgeons is played under desirable conditions." "The percentage of injury is much too great for any mere sport."

Conclusions such as the above, coming from trained medical men, ought to have great weight with those most interested in the game. They certainly will confirm the laity in the belief that the game as played at present is utterly indefensible. The perpetuation of the game depends upon the attitude of its friends toward the well-established defects and dangers. If these are recognized and corrected, then all is well.

Something for Nothing.

Detective Woolridge, of Chicago, has been at work for eight years upon the get-rich-quick and confidence games operated in that city. He estimates that

more than $65,000,000 has been filched from the public by these concerns in that time. All the victims are reached by the same route. They are made to believe that they are particularly favored, and are therefore to get something for nothing.

The schools need to teach with great. emphasis that two and two never make more than four, and that by no possible chance can two times three be more than six. These things are written in the very nature of the universe and will never be changed. We need also to teach a higher grade of morality. The man who is willing to get 10 per cent. a month for his money is no better than the one who induces him to invest his money in an enterprise promising such absurd returns. Both are dishonest. The young people of this land need it hammered into their very spinal marrows, that action is equal to reaction, that everything worth while costs its full value, and that the words of God thundered into the ears of Adam as he left the garden, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread," is still the divine and unchangeable law. The schools must make it impossible for the owners of $65,000,000 to lose it by attempting to violate the eternal verities stated above.

The Riley Meeting.

Indiana teachers always do things well. On many occasions they have had great meetings. Educators of national fame have frequently pleased and inspired great audiences. All meetings of the past seem little compared with the great Riley meeting. The audience of more than 3,300 people filled Tomlinson Hall to the doors. It was an audience representative of the best that Indiana has, her school teachers. The teachers of children had assembled to do honor to the greatest interpreter of child life that the world has known.

President Hughes, in a very happy speech, placed the gavel in the hands of United States Senator Albert J. Beveridge. The Senator paid an eloquent tribute to Riley as the interpreter of child life and the poet of the common folk.

Charles R. Williams, editor of the Indianapolis News, represented the press of Indiana. He said: "We know ourselves better because of Riley; we know our neighbors better; we have truer sympathy with the great mass of our fellowcitizens, because with loving, poetic insight and passion, he has revealed the mysteries of their hearts to us; and he has opened our eyes to see beauties and glories in our Indiana life, which, except for him, we might never have guessed were there."

Meredith Nicholson, representing the writers of the State, spoke as a personal friend and admirer. He praised his charm, grace and melody, and named him as the chief American poet of his generation. He closed by saying: "He has brightened the path of duty and brought the goal of honor near. He is a great

teacher in the labor house of the brotherhood of man. He has touched old and neglected virtues with new life and light. Into his songs he has wrought the golden rosary of the beatitudes. And it is worth gratitude that we greet him and praise. him and crown him anew with our love."

Henry Watterson, the veteran editor of the Courier-Journal, paid his tribute in his own inimitable way: "I rejoice with you in the name and fame of James Whitcomb Riley; but within myself I rejoice yet more in his personality. Like the poets of old, he looked into his heart and wrote, and what thirst-quenching drafts has he not brought up from that unfailing well; barefoot lays of the forest and the farm; the bygone time and the 'sermounts' of nature, 'made out o' truck 'at's 'jes' going to waste.' Smiling godspeed on the plow and the furrow and the seed, as on man in his need."

Riley, in his response, was very happy. After thanking the speakers and the audience for their kindness he recited a number of his best poems, beginning with that masterpiece of patriotic poetry, "Old Glory." Perhaps no writer ever received a greater ovation.

The meeting was unique. No other State can duplicate it, for no other State has a Beveridge, a Nicholson, or a Riley. It was the event of a life-time.