Success Already Assured The career of a text book has HARPER'S INDUCTIVE LATIN PRIMER For younger students. By DR. W. R. HARPER, President of the A pamphlet of one hundred advance pages of this work created widespread interest and was eagerly, sought for. So favorable was the impression it produced, that in very many places the book was adopted before publication, the advance pages being used meanwhile with gratifying results. The book is now ready. It is one of a series of Latin and Greek text books PROMINENT FEATURES ARE: A strictly inductive treatment. A series of inductive lessons in English Grammar. The pupils' work based strictly upon the connected text of Caesar. Frequently recurring Review Lessons. Grammar reduced to a minimum and introduced slowly. Word for word English parallels to fix in the pupils' minds pronunciation, word order, and. vocabulary. Introduction of conversation upon the text. Pictorial illustrations of objects mentioned in the text. Systematic and thorough instruction in reading Latin by taking in its meaning in the order of the original. All the English Latin exercises based directly on the text. HARPER'S CLASSICAL SERIES. Volumes already issued are, An Inductive Latin Primer, An Inductive Latin Method, An Inductive Greek Method, and Caesar's Gallic War. These will be followed by Harper's Vergil's Aeneid; An Induct ive Greek Primer; Xenophon's Anabasis; Cicero's Orations; Supplementary Reading in Latin; Latin Prose Composition; Homer's Iliad; Supplementary Greek Reading and Greek Prose Composition. Specimen copies of Harper's Inductive Latin, Primer will be mailed to any address on receipt of $1.00. Correspondence with reference to introducing the Harper Series is cordially invited. Specially favorable terms made known on application. New York Cincinnati American Book Company Picase mention the PENNSYLVANIA SCHOOL JOURNAL. FIFTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION OF THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA. To the Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania: GENTLEMEN: Reference to the statistical tables shows that the number of pupils in the public schools was 969,506, an increase of 4,062, notwithstanding a falling off in Philadelphia of 2,083; the number of schools was 22,884, an increase of 519; the number of teachers was 24,925, an increase of 432; number of superintendents, 119. The increase in the number of graded schools is 190; in the number of schools supplying free text-books is 391; in the salary of male teachers per month is $0.73; in salary of female teachers per month $0.36. The total expenditure, including that upon buildings, is $13,518,708.98, an increase of $690,386.88. The estimated value of public school property is $35,837.894. ERROR IN CENSUS. An error in the United States Census Bulletin, No. 36, 1891, has been so widely spread as to merit official correction. The increase in attendance during the last decade should have been given at about II per cent., whereas it is put at 1.59 per cent. The discrepancy arises from the fact that, up to 1887, Philadelphia reported the sum total of names upon the school rolls without regard to promotions or other sources of duplicate enrolment. The report of actual attendance makes an | apparent loss of about 70,000 pupils, and the corresponding difference in percentage given. Reports of total enrolment, instead of actual attendance, are announced by the Superintendent of Census, Robert P. Porter, as quite common, and deprecated as destructive to the value of tables. Pennsylvania is to be congratulated upon having for years avoided this source of trouble. GRADED SCHOOLS. The increase in the number of graded schools indicates the extent to which they have been adopted in new towns, and rural districts where grading is difficult because of the wide separation of families and schools. The plan now on trial in some parts of Massachusetts, of having one central building for all the schools of the district, and of providing conveyances at public expense for all the children, will be watched with interest, as its success will be suggestive of modifications in our school law. It is asserted by friends of the experiment that the expenses of the conveyances is fully met by the sum saved in consolidation. While economy of administration and all the other benefits of system attend graded schools, they are also accompanied by the special dangers that always attend the fitting of free agents and unequal minds into the same grooves and moulds. The interest of the individual and the apparent interest of the system are often at variance, and the natural tendency is toward the sacrifice of solutions of the problems confronting them. the former. SUPERVISION OF SCHOOLS. It is the task of the Superintendent, particularly, to promote both spontaneity and system, to provide for exceptional as well as for ordinary pupils, to see that the schools shall not reduce all inequalities of ability and performance to a beautiful uniformity that is truly a dead level. It is his to make the system of schools a highway helpful alike to the courser and to the plodder. This danger has been diminished by the character of our superintendents. Their laborious duties are most industriously discharged. Examinations of hundreds of candidates, daily visitation of schools in the most inclement and rigorous season, along roads frequently impassable from mud or snow or swollen streams, when horses must sometimes be abandoned and journeys be made on foot, an accumulation of corres pondence found upon returning to the office on Friday night or Saturday morning, preparation for the professional, popular and financial success of the great annual institute, and care of local educational meetings, the keeping of records and the making of reports statedly to this department, are unfavorable to scholarly habits and professional growth; yet wherever there is a field for comparison and estimate, these men are found to be among the foremost in sound educational views and practice. The service rendered by the one hundred and twenty now commissioned makes the failure of the bill for closer supervision before the last Legislature the more deplorable, for the full benefits of supervision are impossible where from three to six hundred schools depend upon the counsel and judgment of but one superintendent. Pennsylvania's system of township districts and county supervision is pronounced by all students of public instruction among the very best in the United States, but it is far from perfect, and the next improvement in this direction should be closer supervision, at least to the extent contemplated in the bill mentioned. ORGANIZATION OF DIRECTORS. The great power conferred upon school directors by our laws makes them supreme in the decision of many questions that require all the knowledge and ability of specialists in education. It is very encouraging therefore to know that in many counties they are regularly organized and meet statedly in convention to consider the best Such organizations promote economy and greatly increase the efficiency of the schools. It is desirable that all school boards should be represented in them. VENTILATION OF SCHOOL Buildings. We have legislated for the protection of human life in factories and mines, and have employed inspectors to see that the laws are obeyed. We have inspectors of food also. Next to pure food and water, the public people in our public schools than in all our health requires pure air. There are more factories and mines. The vitiated atmosphere of school rooms is a prolific source of disease. While it is true of school build ings, as it is of mines and factories, that more of them are arranged with proper regard for human life and health than ever before, it is also true that thousands will continue to suffer unnecessarily until the law requires adequate ventilation in all school buildings. In Massachusetts the inspector of factories is clothed with ample power to require such expenditure as is necessary to provide every school with pure air. THE GREAT APPROPRIATION. The year 1891 will ever be memorable in the annals of public instruction in this Commonwealth. When the framers of the constitution of 1873 provided that at least one million of dollars should be appropriated each year to the public schools, the generous sum was regarded as excessive by the opponents and was highly commended by the friends of the schools as almost unprecedented in liberality. It required fifteen years to double that sum. The general assembly of 1891 has shown its appreciation of the schools and its expectation as well, by making the annual appropriation five times the sum named in the constitution. The schools must at once avail themselves of this long-desired opportunity for improvement. LONGER SCHOOL TERM. Now is the time for the school term to be lengthened in the short-term districts. In Massachusetts all children between the ages of eight and fourteen are compelled to attend school at least thirty weeks. In New York the minimum term is thirty-two weeks. In New Jersey it is nine months. Ours is twenty-four weeks. In the elementary schools of Prussia it is forty-two. Superintendent Draper, of New York, says in his annual report, "It will be recalled by all |