teacher. There can be no greater mistake if successful teaching is the end in view. In no part of educational work is flexibility in presentation and in material so necessary, as at its very beginning. Truth is many-sided, and it is always a question as to which side shall be presented. The teacher who only knows one side is hopelessly lost, and hence becomes dogmatic and useless. For instance, I know of no science teaching that demands a broader grasp of the subjectmatter, and a more facile adaptation of material to purpose, than "nature study" in the lower grades. So long as it is committed to teachers with no scientific training, I predict that it will be a failure. It is in danger of becoming worse than a failure, for to atone for lack of scientific knowledge, teachers are apt to have recourse to popular books upon science, full of sensational and claptrap statements, and actually mislead those whom they are guiding. To escape from the bondage of the book, to see with our own eyes, to handle with our own hands, to judge for ourselves, can not be brought about by the retailing of romances. Even if the teacher has enough of the scientific spirit, to say nothing of sufficient knowledge, to discard the romances, the overwhelming danger is that the pupil will be set at dead work, which when done leads to nothing. Observation merely for the sake of observation is cruel when the world is full of important things to be observed. But how can a teacher select the important things and discard the trifling things without some fundamental knowledge of the subject? The whole race of man is peculiarly open to humbugging in the guise of science, and this will be intensified if school children are to be humbugged by their teachers. I have used as an illustration a subject with which I happen to be familiar, but fancy that it is but an illustration of all the rest. Not to prolong the discussion of this particular problem, it is my desire to impress the fact that the act of teaching demands a knowledge of subjects as well as of methods, that there may be the greatest amount of flexibility in presentation; it demands simple language and a very direct style; entire suppression of the philosophy of a subject until there are facts enough upon which to found a little simple philosophy; complete abolition of all pedagogical cant; and a reverence for truth that will not permit it to be trifled with in order to arouse a factitious interest. (To be continued.) THE FIGHTING TÉMÉRAIRE TURNER. JOHN L. LOWES. The real thing in the picture-the very heart of it is the setting sun. The ghostly path across the water leads to it; the promontory to the right points like a finger to it; the sweeping lines that strike across the stormy sky converge on it; as if by stepping stones, the eye is led by shadowy sail and distant tug from the slow passing of the majestic battleship on to the quiet sinking of "the old, feeble, and day-wearied sun." Only a poet and a very great poet-could have made us see those two things, not as two things, but as one thing-the dying of the daylight in the west, and the stately vessel "moving ghostlike to its doom." For after all it is a great Recessional that Turner has painted here-a greater, one is tempted to believe, than Kipling's, by so much as it touches deeper chords of human sympathy. There is an old, old association in the poets, that goes back to a lovely little fragment of Sappho, of evening with the time when all that day has scattered, turns again home-when "The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea, The plowman homeward plods his weary way;" when "The team is loosened from the wain, The boat is drawn upon the shore;" when work is ended, and the past is past. I do not know how he has done it I should lose the magic of it if I did but somehow in this picture Turner has given that side of the fall of evening, that poignantly human side of it, as nothing else of which I know has done. The stormy day has been; its scattered clouds still linger in the sky to testify to what has past; but at its close "The broad sun Is sinking down in its tranquillity, And the "Fighting Téméraire," too, its storms and battles all behind it now, is coming for the last time into port; its day is done. But as you look-and that's the poet in the man somehow it isn't just the "Fighting Téméraire" that you see at all. It fades, and there is Michelangelostormy, impetuous, tempest-battered Michelangelo-writing when all his Titan-figures lie behind him: "Now hath my life across a stormy sea, Like a frail bark, reached that wide port where all Are bidden." There is Goethe's "Ueber allen Gipfeln is Ruh;" there are the lofty closing harmonies of the Ninth Symphony-there is all you know, and feel, and are, that weathers storm, and fights the fight, and wins the quiet and the calm. It is a transient fact, through which a poet's eye has seen an everlasting meaning; a fact-no parable, no thin-veiled allegory, no sermon unawares. For the true poets are the men who are to us interpreters of the endless meaning of the things that are, "the things we have passed"-for to that phrase of Browning's I must come back, though I have already used it once before -"the things we have passed Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see." And so the parting war-ship and the sinking sun become a part of us, a new possession, a most real enrichment of our deepest life. But the picture has its fine dramatic touch, as well. It is the passing of an era,-of that glorious day that dawned for England when Drake and Frobisher and Hawkins, with the "Victory," the "Dreadnought," the "Revenge," swept the Armada from the Channel; the day that culminated under Nelson at Trafalgar, and lends the battle-songs of England their splendid imagery-those songs that stir one's heart as with a trumpet, "As they sweep through the deep, While the stormy winds do blow." And all the old associations-hearts of oak, the meteor flag of England, the wet sheet and the flowing sea-all the pomp and all the pageantry of that heroic age crowd round the shadowy figure of the old ship-of-the-line that fought beside the "Victory" at Trafalgar. And to-morrow it is to be broken up. And yet "Though her parting dim the day, Stealing grace from all alive; Heartily know When half-gods go, The gods arrive." And there in front, disguised as ever Jupiter himself was wont to visit man, the gods are come. For pulsing through the ugly little tug that draws the stately battle-ship, is-steam! And the poetry of oaken bulwarks and of snowy canvas must give place, not to the prose, but to the mightier rhythms of the throbbing heart in ribs of steel. Once more, it was a poet who saw that, and seeing, did not shrink from painting it. For one man at least there was, who before McAndrews' Hymn was ever sung, had dared "Draw the Thing as he saw It, for the God of Things as They Are." And behind it all-behind the transitoriness, the old order changing, giving place to new-the background of the everlasting sea. And that is England's background, above all-England's, herself "bound in by the tempestuous sea." Its stinging spray and brooding mists are in Beowulf; its sea-change, and sea-sorrow, and sea-music in the Tempest; its whelming tides in Lycidas. The Ancient Mariner, Endymion, Childe Harold, the Prometheus Unbound, the Idylls of the King -that is but a tithe of the great canvases that Turner's fellow-lovers of the sea have given the setting of its ever-shifting moods. But Turner, never poet more than here, has keyed his harmony to the rarest-felt and deepest of them all-its mighty tenderness. And with that infinite tenderness of the sea it is that sinking sun and passing ship are touched and and steeped, as "that which drew from out the boundless deep, Turns again home." Hanover, Indiana.* ERRATA: In the March number, p. 365, col.1, line 18 from the top, for "Corot's work" read "Troyon's work"; and in lines 10-11, for "their pictures" read "this picture." fertility of soil, nor climate, nor natural resources which makes a great statethese are only instruments which a great people may lay hold upon. It is a great people who make a great state-men with greatness of soul-men whose egotism has been tempered with the highest notions of altruism-men who cultivate not simply the physical man, but who love. the waters of the Pierian fountain and who drink, because they love-men who not only desire for themselves intellectual and moral culture, but who with whole-heartedness make the opportunities for such culture free to all-men patriotic, because they love the noble and the true-men who love right for the sake of right and dare do it-men who give willing obedience to the law from principle who cherish the weak and unfortunate who provide for the widow and orphan-men who love their fellow man; and if because of all these things they have established and continue to maintain great institutions to carry these notions into effect, then they constitute a great state. Such a state, I believe, is Indiana. In years, Indiana is young, but measured by what has been accomplished she is older than fabled Greece or Rome. The wilderness of 90 years ago has given place to homes of thrift and industry-villages and cities are everywhere. Railroads have entered 89 of the 92 counties the telegraph and telephone have connected every hamlet. These never go where they are not wanted, and never remain where they are not needed. The few thousand inhabitants of 1816 have increased to two and one-half milIons. Our factories to-day produce a greater output than all America 80 years ago. But while by common consent we are now, at least, fully abreast with the progress of our sister commonwealths, let no one fear to investigate the early years of her development. The Hoosier Schoolmaster, written by an author now renowned, is looked upon as an authentic history by some people outside of the state. It was never intended as history. No book has done the state greater harm among the innocent ignorant. We have reason to be proud of our early history. Of the patriotism of her people, no man has ever doubted. Three wars have attested the heroic conduct of her troops. The vital question as to whether this should be a free or a slave state was settled almost unanimously in favor of freedom. Such was the character of the people who constituted young Indiana. In the presence of the great discoveries in geology, we forget that the father of American geology, William Maclure, of New Harmony, Posey county, led all men of his day-that he prepared a geological map of the United States six years before one had been thought of for mother England. We forget that he was the early teacher in the field whose inspiration gave to us David Dale Owen, who stood alone and at the head of his profession at his death in 1860. We forget that through these men of science Indiana had all her early state geologists. We forget that between 1820 and 1835 New Harmony was the place, and the only place in the great West where works of science, history and general literature were printed. We forget that it was in this printing office that printing was first done from the continuous roll-the beginning of the Hoe printing press. We forget that it was here that Audubon had his picture painted for his yet unrivaled work on ornithology. We forget that here the Pestilozzian system of educating now so popular, was introduced into Indiana in 1825 by Joseph Neef, then the first and the only teacher of the method in America. We forget William Maclure, the geologist, the educator and philanthropist who gave to every county then. organized a "Workingman's Library" of five hundred volumes of the best works then known on science and literature. We forget that it was Robert Dale Owen, congressman from the First District, that the Smithson bequest was made available, and that he laid the foundation of the Smithsonian Institute at Washington. We forget that this same Robert Dale Owen was the pioneer in helping to remove the political shackles from women, and that, in this respect, the New Con stitution of Indiana took a step in advance of her sister states. We forget that that grand man and educator, John I. Morrisson, worked out the Indiana School System and practically placed it in the New Constitution of Indiana. We forget that the thought of institutes for the blind and the deaf and dumb were new thoughts in the world when they were introduced in Indiana. We forget our Rodman, under whom our artillery during the evil war was born. It was the Rodman guns of great force and range that made our improvised navy in 1862-65 the pride of America. But I can not extend these names of men of the past who have made Indiana noted and given impetus to the world's progress. The Hoosier has reason to be proud of the state that gave early training to the grandest man "who has come to us in the tide of time," Abraham Lincoln. We are equally proud of the life and acts of that noble patriot, the war governor of Indiana, Governor Morton. We are proud of our patriot statesman, ex-President Harrison, recognized by men everywhere as a man of culture and highest Christian virtues. We are proud of Ben Hur and prouder still of the author, General Lew Wallace. We are proud of the man who had the genius to write "The Frost Upon the Pumpkin and the Fodder in the Shock," our Whitcomb Riley. We are proud that the state gave birth to the poet, historian and statesman, John Hay. We are proud of all our poets, our scientists, our historian, and our writers of fiction-too numerous to mention-and all deserve honorable mention. We are proud of our diplomats-men of more than national reputation-General John W. Foster and General Lew Wallace. No! no man need ever be ashamed that he is a Hoosier, and Hoosier born. Anthony, Ind. WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM THE GERMAN PRIMARY SCHOOL SYSTEM. CARINA CAMPBELL EAGLESFIELD. (Continued from March.) The wonderful influence which the village teacher frequently exerts is no doubt due to the fact that he is as permanent an element in the lives of the children as the parents themselves, and there is no question of leaving school or getting away from his power. In unusual cases he, as well as the parents, may fail to reach and control a child, and in this extremity the reform school is the only alternative. It is said to be extremely rare for a village teacher to have to send a boy away, and the relation between teacher and pupil is in the main a wholesome and pleasant one. The branches taught in the primary schools are religion, mother tongue (including writing, reading and grammar), arithmetic, geometry, geography, history, singing, drawing, gymnastics for the boys and sewing for the girls. Upon completion of the course, a two years' course may follow, and in some states is obligatory. On boundary lands two languages have to be taught, and in the seaports, as Hamburg and Bremen, English is required also. The introduction of gardening and bench work for the boys has also been very successful, and is rapidly gaining ground. Religion is taught in every school in Germany, and when the population is mixed, special arrangements have to be made. There is a strong tendency in some parts to have religion taught on general principles, so that Catholics and Protestants may attend the same school, but it has not met with general favor and only prevails when one sect is in large majority. Yet the feeling that the primary school should be independent of church control is nearly universal, and in several German states has been effected through legislation. When the school is not independent of the church, the school inspectors |