And it was there, where the ground was all a flower garden, and the dashing brook a doubly delightful sight and sound after so much wandering over the desert and so many crossings of dry, sandy river-beds, — it was there, amid a cluster of leafy oaks (strange leaves they were) and leafless hackberry trees, that I saw my first and only solitaire, — Myadestes townsendii. I have praised other birds for their brightness and song; this one I must praise for a certain nameless dignity and, as the present-day word is, distinction. He did not deign to break silence, or to notice in any manner, unless it were by an added touch of patrician reserve, the presence of three human intruders. I stared at him, exercising a cat's privilege, — for all his hauteur, admiring his gray colors, his conspicuous white eye-ring, and his manner. I say “manner,” not "manners." You would never liken him to a dancing-master.

He was the solitaire, I somehow felt certain (certain with a lingering of uncertainty), though I had forgotten all description of that bird's appearance. It was the place for him, and his looks went with the name. Moreover, to confess a more prosaic consideration, there was nothing else he could be.

"Myadestes," I said to my two companions, both unacquainted with such matters; "I think it is Myadestes, though I can't exactly tell why I think 80."

We must go into the canyon a little way, gazing up at the walls, picking a few of the more beautiful flowers, feeling the place itself (the best thing one can do, whether in a canyon or on a mountain-top); then we came back to the hackberry trees, but the solitaire was no longer in them. I had had my opportunity, and perhaps had made too little of it. It is altogether likely that I shall never see another bird of his kind.

For now those cloudless Arizona days, the creosote-covered desert, and the mountain ranges standing round about

been.

it, are all for me as things past and done; a bright memory, and no more. One event conspired with another to put a sudden end to my visit (which was already longer than I had planned), and on the last day of March I walked for the last time under that row of "leafless ash trees, no longer quite leafless, and no longer with a painted redstart in them, and over that piece of winding road between the craggy hill and the river. Now I courted not the sun but the shade; it was the sun, more than anything else, that was hurrying me away, when I would gladly have stayed longer; but sunny or shady, I stopped a bit in each of the more familiar places. Nobody knew or cared that I was taking leave. All things remained as they had The same rock wrens were practicing endless vocal variations here and there upon the stony hillside; the same fretful verdin was talking about something, it was beyond me to tell what, with the old emphatic monotony; the hummingbird stood on the tip of his mesquite bush, still turning his head eagerly from side to side, as if he expected her, and wondered why on earth she was so long in coming; the mocker across the field (one of no more than half a dozen that I saw about Tucson!) was bringing out of his treasury things new and old (a great bird that, always with another shot in his locker); the Lucy warbler, daintiest of the dainty, was singing amid the willow catkins, a chorus of bees accompanying; the black cap of the pileolated warbler was not in the blossoming quince-bush hedge (that was a pity); the desert-loving sparrow hawk sat at the top of a giant cactus, as if its thorns were nothing but a cushion; the happy little Mexican boy, who lived in one corner of the old mill, came down the road with his usual smile of welcome (we were almost old friends by this time) and a glance into the trees, meaning to say, what he could not express in English, nor I understand in Spanish, "I know what you are doing;" and then,

as I rounded the bend, under the beetling crags, the same canyon wren, my first one, not dreaming what a favor he was conferring upon the man he had so often chided as a trespasser, let fall a few measures of his lovely song. How sweet and cool the notes were! Unless it was the sound of the brook in the Sabino Canyon, I heard nothing else so good in Arizona.

But at San Antonio, on my way homeward, I heard notes not to be called musical, in the smaller and more ordinary sense of the word; as unlike as possible, certainly, to the classic sweetness of the canyon wren's tune; but to me even more exciting and memorable. On a sultry, indolent afternoon (April 9) I had betaken myself to Cemetery Hill for a lazy stroll, and had barely alighted from the electric car, when I heard strange noises somewhere near at hand. In my confusion I thought for an instant of the scissortailed flycatchers, with whose various outlandish outcries and antics I had been for several days amusing myself. Then I discovered that the sound came from above, and looking up, saw straight over my head, between the hilltop and the clouds, a wedge-shaped flock of large birds. Long slender necks and bills, feet drawn up and projecting out behind the tails, wing-action moderate (after the manner of geese rather than ducks), color dark, so much, and no more, the glass showed me, while the birds, sixty or more in number, as I guessed, were fast receding northward. They should be cranes, I said to myself, since they were surely not herons, and

then, like a flash, it came over me that I knew the voice. By good luck I had lived the winter before where I heard continually the lusty shouts of a captive sandhill crane; and it was to a chorus of sandhill cranes that I was now listening.

The flock disappeared, the tumult lessened and ceased, and I passed on. But fifteen minutes afterward, as I was retracing my steps over the hill, suddenly I heard the same resounding chorus again. A second flock of cranes was passing. This, too, was in a V-shaped line, though for some reason it fell into disorder almost immediately. Now I essayed a count, and had just concluded that there were some eighty of the birds, when a commotion behind me caused me to turn my head. To my amazement, a third and much larger flock was following close behind the second. There was no numbering it with exactness, but I ran my glass down the long, wavering line, as best I could, and counted one hundred and fifteen.

An hour before I had never seen a sandhill crane in its native wildness (a creature nearly or quite as tall as myself), and behold, here was the sky full of them. And what a judgment-day trumpeting they made! Angels and archangels, cherubim and seraphim! Perhaps I did not enjoy it, there, with the white gravestones standing all about After all, there is something in mere volume of sound. If it does not feed the soul, at least it stirs the blood. And that is a good thing, also. I wonder if Michelangelo did not at some time or other see and hear the like.

me.

Bradford Torrey.

ARISTOTLE is said to have collected the constitutions of a hundred ancient republics, and from the study of these to have developed the principles of an ideal republic. The writer can attempt nothing so ambitious; but the method employed by Aristotle is the right one, -induction from experience; and by comparative study of the constitutions of many educational republics we may formulate certain principles in regard to the best form of organization.

The school systems in our cities have come down to us from a relatively distant past, and in most cases they remain to-day what they were twenty-five or perhaps fifty years ago. The adminis

trative machinery represents the accretion of years of widening functions; it is cumbrous and complex, not adapted to new conditions and present needs. Thus it has come to pass that in many cities in this country there is dissatisfaction with the school organization. In some there has been waste of public money, in some there has been shameful neglect of the schoolhouses, in others there has been division of authority, the school department has often been at cross-purposes with the municipal government, and in case of defect or mismanagement it has been difficult to fix the responsibility. In still others, notably Philadelphia and San Francisco, there has been gross corruption, and the sacred office of the teacher has been sold for money or for political favor. As a result of these evils many cities have already radically changed their school systems, other cities are trying to do the same; and the problem of the best form of municipal school administration has become one worth studying.

The old systems of school organization teach many important lessons. And during the last ten years new systems have been tried in Cleveland, Toledo,

Indianapolis, New Haven, New York, Rochester, Baltimore, San Francisco, St. Louis, and elsewhere, and radically new systems have been proposed for Boston, Chicago, and Providence. Each of these new systems has certain good features; each has been advocated by intelligent, experienced, and honest men. Which is best? The only satisfactory answer must come from experience. The true test of any system is its practical working. Now although experience in this country has been too short to give any complete answer to this question, and more experimentation will be necesbefore the ideal can perhaps even be described, still it does seem possible to formulate a few general principles by which to judge the character of any form of school administration.

sary

1. Any system of school administration should be economical. All doubtless agree upon this point. The people's money should not be wasted.

2. Any system of school administration should be free from party politics and political methods. It is absurd, for example, to suppose that a man will make a good member of a school board because he happens to be a democrat or a republican. As long as the school administration remains a part of city politics, so long it will be impossible to have interest properly centred upon educational needs.

An editorial in the Detroit Free Press

of March 15 of this year, describing the condition in that city, presents perhaps the typical situation where party politics rule. "The affairs of the board,' says the writer, "are in a most deplorable condition. In addition, the manners, customs, and laws of the board have approached the proportions of a public scandal. The board has neither

dignity, nor average intelligence, nor business methods. It has made itself simply an arena in which tumultuous pothouse politicians fight with one another for the spoil of the office. Membership on the board has long been treated merely as a step toward political advancement, like the chairmanship of the ward committees or membership in the city or county committee. Few members of the board care a flip of a copper for the general interests of the public school system. The schools

are considered only as a means to an end, and the funds of the board are freely disbursed for the payment of political debts contracted by the inspectors, or so disposed as to insure the greatest possible political advantage in the future. . . . Superintendent Martindale recently taunted the board with the fact that the applicant with the 'pull' always got the position, and not an inspector dared deny the charge.'

3. A system of school administration should be of such a character as to stimulate and not check the local feeling of interest and responsibility for education. This is a principle of wide application. It concerns many other educational matters as well as that of school administration. Whenever money, for example, is given for school purposes without regard to this principle the result is likely to be bad. In the middle of the last century, for illustration, Connecticut received money from the sale of western lands which to a large extent supported her schools. This was distinctly a disadvantage to education, and the state superintendent a few years ago reported that when the money from this

source was at a maximum the condition of education in that state was at its lowest ebb. This money pauperized the community because it checked the local feeling of interest and responsibility; and this is perhaps one cause of the degeneration recently reported in the rural districts of that state. Any form of state aid, too, like that proposed by the old Blair Bill, is likely to defeat its own end if this principle is not regarded. The efficiency of the schools must rest in the last resort upon the vigilance of the citizen. And any system that weakens the feeling of personal responsibility is so far destroying its own foundation.

4. A school system should be free from artificial limitations. There should be, for example, no distinctions as regards sex in school matters. Women should be allowed to vote on matters relating to the schools and to hold school offices. Any distinction with regard to sex, or race, or religion, is an artificial limitation. Again, election of members of a school board by wards is an artificial limitation. The city or township is the natural political unit; the ward is an artificial unit. Men living in one ward are very apt to do business in another; they often have more acquaintances in some other ward than in their

own.

They may be much nearer the schools of another ward than to those in their own; and, as the division is an artificial division, any ward system of election is an artificial limitation.

5. Any system of school administration to be efficient must be adapted to the community where it exists. The needs of one community differ from those of another; and more important still, the local traditions and customs differ; and, finally, different communities represent different stages of civic development. It is useless to have a system of school administration so far beyond the public opinion of the citizens that they cannot be made to appreciate and support it. For a community in a low stage of civic development the para

dox may be true that a poorer system is the better one. There is practically little danger, however, of getting a system too far beyond the stage of development of the people. It should be considerably in advance, because it always has an educating influence; and for this reason whenever possible it is usually wise to force an improved system on a backward community.

6. The school system should be, as far as possible, independent of the municipal government. It should be autonomous, having full power, and responsible only to the people. The importance of this has been sufficiently shown by the experience of those cities that have had such independent school departments; and the evils of divided authority have been still more frequently shown by experience.

President Draper goes so far as to maintain that the complete separation of school administration from municipal business is imperative. "Laws, he writes, “which put the schools at the mercy of a board of aldermen are unsound in principle and deplorable in their operation. Even the determination of the sum to be levied for school purposes should not be left to a common eouncil, which, by legislation and by usage, has come to represent, and has become representative of, interests not in harmony or sympathy with school administration. If there is a finance board or tax commission which receives estimates from all sources and finally determines the amount to be levied, it is not so objectionable that the school estimates should go with the others to this board, for such a board may be assumed to be independent of all special interests and representative of the best sentiment of the whole city. But the only sound rule is that school administration shall be entirely independent of municipal business. The two do not rest upon the same foundation; the power which manages each proceeds from entirely different sources, and the

objects and purposes of each have nothing in common.

7. Other things being equal, the work of the school board will be more efficient the smaller the number of its members. Experience in politics and business has amply shown the advantage of having small bodies of men for the management of complicated and important affairs; and the experience in Cleveland, Indianapolis, New Haven, and in several other cities, has shown the advantage of small school boards in the management of educational affairs. The number must depend largely on the size of the city, but the smaller the number consistent with adequate representation of the different classes and social interests of the community and adequate management of the work of the board the better.

There seems now to be a general tendency to reduce the number of members. A typical opinion is that of Mr. Cushing, president of the Boston School Board. In an address reported in the daily papers of March 16 of this year he mentioned among the conditions necessary for the best results:

"A board of about nine members. Larger boards are handicapped by arguing and wire-pulling among members who strive to please the people who elect them. Small boards can transact business at closer quarters.'

6

"More time and investigation should be devoted to choosing the members before nominations are made Nine suitable men should require as many months of careful search. . . . At present such are nominated in practically as many days."

The advantages of the small school board are obvious. In the first place, it is easier to find seven honest and capable men with leisure to devote to public affairs than it is to find twenty-five; and it is not only easier to find competent men and more probable that such

1 Draper, Andrew S. Plans for Organization for School Purposes in Large Cities, Educational Review, vol. vi. p. 14. New York. 1893.