EDUCATION AS ETHICAL Notwithstanding the pronounced secular tendency, it is true, in theory at least, if not generally in practice, current education is pre-eminently ethical. It is unfortunate that, in the discussion of such themes, one must use terms with such loose meanings: Morality, religion, duty, ethics, responsibility, right, privilege, are in constant danger of misinterpretation because of the changing contents of the terms. By ethical is meant here that aspect of education which, in means and results, regards the learner as a personality, and not as a mere individual; as having a life that must be shared with others; inheriting and acquiring responsibilities commensurate with his privileges, and bound to hs fellows by interests that can be fairly estimated in terms of right and wrong. Education, is not schooling, inevitably takes these relations into account.

THE NEW YEAR Infant Cycle, born this midnight, In the dark and weeping Winter, While the world is in such chaos, As it knew not since Creation, Be a chaste and noble New Year, Be a twelve-month fine and fearless, Be a year to shame the ill years, That have lately plagued the era, Be a New Year with a soul!

Give us blessed breaths, O New Year,

Of upper, purer, atmosphere,
Holier than incense to riches,

Higher than the dust of conflicts,

Sweeter than the fumes of hatred,

Brighter than the clouds of fear.
Let the sun smile, let the moon smile,
Sparkle, every star with joy;

Let the oceans dance and glitter,
Rolling sportive round the sphere;
Let the winds race up the green hills,
Fluttering poppies, irises;

Let the larks and linnets carol,
And, oh, let men see and hear!
For, O New Year, we are bended,
To the rack of human strife,
Worn with labors, tears, contentions,
Sickened of the waste and wrong.

God go with you bonny cycle,
Poised to run your seasons round,
Make the pace for Consecration,
Lest Destruction swifter be.
Love is guiding, Hope is guarding,
Faith leads on with torch and flag,
Truth is girt to march beside you,
God go with you all year round!

HONORIA R. P. TUOMEY,
Bodega

The Chinese Mind. Americans often ask: "How do you find the Chinese students? How do they compare with American students?" My answer after fifteen years in China, is that the distinction between the oriental and the occidental lies in technique and in knowledge, not in intellectual caliber. While there are differences in point of view and in method of approach, there is no fundamental difference in intellectual character. The Chinese conception of life's values is so different from that of Western peoples, that they have failed to develop modern technique and scientific knowledge. Now that they have come to see the value of these, rapid and fundamental changes are taking place. When modern scientific knowledge is added to the skill which the Chinese already have in agriculture, commerce, government and military affairs, results will be achieved which will astonish the world.

IMPERSONATION OF A BENCH

(During a recent trip through South Dakota in a campaign for better rural schools, it was our privilege to study many exhibits of students' work, projects in industrial education and domestic art, etc. In numerous schools the vitalized agriculture teaching had laid the foundation for excellent work in manual training. The following original composition by a girl in a country school was read by her, she having completed the construction of a bench that was on display. At our request, copy of the essay was furnished for publication.-Editor.)

F

IRST that I remember was how I was a small tree in California. I lived there twenty long and happy years. Sometimes it was wet, sometimes dry and warm. The weather changed continually, yet I was always happy until one day some men came and chopped me down.

They took me to a saw mill and made lumber of me. Then I lay there for a long time till one day they loaded me on a train and shipped me away. I had gone through many cities and stopped at many of them and to tell you the truth they were not comfortable rides. At last I was shipped to the city of Blatte, a small town in South Dakota. There I lay for a long time until a fellow by the name of Bill Lynch came in for some boards and took me home with him. He took me out in a truck and I tell you it was the roughest ride I ever had. I stayed there over night and then in the morning that man's sister took me to a place that had only a few buildings and if I am not mistaken I think they called it a school house.

Soon after they brought me there they got some little sticks that would write and some other kind they called rulers and marked off forty-eight inches long and twelve inches wide. Then they took a saw, cut the forty-eight inches off, and Oh! what a big time they had. They cut some legs and sides, the legs being about seventeen inches long and ten inches wide. The sides were forty-six by forty-two inches. Then I was all sawed.

It did not matter much to me how they sawed me, but they wanted me sawed straight. They were so very careful to follow the line.

Then came the nailing together. If any one had a hard time they sure did, yet all the nails went in straight but one.

When I was nailed together they took some kind of paper and, if I am not mistaken, I think they called it sand paper. They gave me a good hard rubbing but they did not use

either water or soap, only paper. After they thought I was smooth enough they took finer paper and rubbed me again until I was slick as ice.

After a few days they brought a fluid they called oil and put this on me and let me dry on the porch. When I was dry they brought me back in the room.

They just think the world of me. They are even afraid they will get me dirty with chalk dust when chalk is whiter than myself.

I now stand in the back of the school room. They made me for a wash bench but think me too nice for that and may possibly use me for a recitation seat.

I am well and happy and enjoy being thought. so much of by such dear children.

By ELLA DUBA,
Academy, South Dakota.

AN ANTHOLOGY ON EDUCATION

Health

In enumeration of the sources of inspiration, Emerson names health as the first one, comprising the magical benefits of air, landscape and bodily exercise on the mind. The Arabs say that "Allah does not count from life the days spent in the close," that is, those are thrown in. Plato thought "exercise would almost cure a guilty conscience." Sydney Smith said: "You will never break down in a speech on the day when you have walked twelve miles."-Emerson.

Mother Thoughts

I would rather plant a single acorn that will make an oak within a century, and a forest within a thousand years, than sow a thousand morning glories that give joy for a day and are gone tomorrow. For the same reason I would rather plant one living truth in the heart of a child that will multiply through the ages, than scatter a thousand, brilliant conceits before a vast audience that will flash like sparks for an instant and, like sparks, disappear forever. -Edward Lee Pell.

Producing Ability

"I weigh my words when I say that if the nation could purchase a potential Watt, or Davy, or Faraday, at the cost of 100,000 pounds down, he would be dirt cheap at the money. It is a mere commonplace and everyday piece of knowledge that what these men did has produced untold millions of wealth, in the narrowest economical sense of the word."-Huxley.

THE EDUCATIONAL CONTEST OF AN ELEMENTARY COURSE OF STUDY (During the meeting of the C. T. A. Southern Section we were particularly interested in the elementary course of study being worked out at Alhambra. For a number of years the Editor was closely associated with Superintendent Barber of Alhambra'in instruction and administration and had great confidence in his ability in planning high school courses of study. The following outline submitted at our request shows that Mr. Barber is making a worthwhile contribution to the elementary course of study. The explanations following the outline are excerpts from the letter of transmittal and were not written with a view to publication.-Editor.)

d. Manufacturing.

e. Commercial industries.
f. Professions.

I am quite ready to admit, at once, that other classifications of these topics might easily and logically be made; for instance, physiology might be counted as a science, and agriculture also. Penmanship (handwriting) might not seem to belong to the study of English, but I have never found any use for it except to write English or some other language.

Under "Conservation and Thrift" I would include such topics as fire prevention, safety first, efficiency, savings, etc.

Of course I am ready to admit that another group might be made with the subject of religion, but this is outside the scope of the American Public School.

Group seven, "The Handy Arts" gives my particular point of view with reference to Manual Training, Household Arts, and Agriculture; they are subjects valuable in themselves and in the nature of fundamental industries. Our Manual Training man tells me that he can do a good deal of "home tinkering," such as rehanging doors, fixing locks, clocks, water taps, and a litle pipe fitting without decreasing the amount of cabinet making that he has been doing. A long talk with a field agent of the Department of Agriculture confirms my belief that the home garden and other back-yard enterprises is the big thing in school agriculture.

Group ten, "The Industrial World," is perhaps one of the newer ideas. We hope to do a good deal with it as a sort of foundation for vocational guidance, later, in the High School. It is designed to give a survey of vocations so as to show (a) their place in economic life, (b) the preparation required, (c) the personal qualities necessary for success.

Some people may want to know how we are going to work in all these subjects; my answer is less technical grammar, cube root, Arctic ocean geography, and that part of civics which relates to the salaries of Public Officials.

At our grade meetings we undertake to lay out work in every one of these topics for the coming quarter. Of course the Special Teachers take care of their own special work. I am enclosing a memorandum relating to mining industries as given to the fifth grade teachers last month. Please feel at liberty to give the scheme any criticisms that it seems to de

The series of "Books on Teaching," by Professor Parker are all thoroughly usable texts. The volume here noted is no exception either in matter or method. As a book for the intending elementary teacher, or the young and relatively inexperienced teacher, the organization of subject matter and the simple but adequate treatment seem desirable. With a scientific basis, it is yet not burdened with technical argument or conclusions. Chapters on selecting subject matter and its organization for teaching purposes are particularly helpful. It has an unusual number of illustrations (more than 50) for a book on teaching method; but they are all so well chosen and so apt and significant from the point of view of the child that they enrich the discussion as was intended. The scope of the book includes all schooling below seventh grade and should invite use among elementary and especially rural and suburban teachers whose teaching is, of necessity, poorly supervised. It is one of the few books that can stand alone.

Teachers' Salaries and Salary Schedules. By E. S. Evenden. The National Education Association.

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This is very generally recognized as the most complete and authoritative discussion and presentation of the matter of school salaries that has been published. In an Introduction are given "some facts showing that there is a National Emergency in Education," that describes an appalling situation. The report carries fund of information, from 423 city superintendents; from 15,000 individual teachers; its official documents of State Superintendents; on teaching and the economic situation; and on salary schedules of selected cities. Among the cities whose superintendents furnished information were twenty from California, Oakland, Berkeley, San Diego, Fresno. San Jose, Pasadena, Stockton, Riverside, Long Beach, Santa Barbara, Eureka, Santa Ana, Vallejo, Hanford, Emeryville, Monrovia, Oroville, Tulare, Nevada City, and Red Bluff. Besides these there were 1723 replies from individual teachers in fifteen California cities. Of these nearly 75 per cent are credited to the five cities, Long Beach, Fresno, Berkeley, Riverside, and Oakland.

The Cult of The Half-Baked. By J. R. Wyer, Jr., Director New York State Library. You shall have at the outset a convenient peg on which to hang such attention as these remarks may win. Here it is. They will frankly defend the Humanites, not alone as matter for formal study in school, the indispensable warp

of the educational

and woof of a sound education, but as the very breath and essence of the richest life. They will as frankly deplore the sinister effects on Humane Education of the present overdose of unrestrained and immoderate Vocational Training. They will warn and protest against a tooprevalent glorification "short-cut;" a feverish craze to "get through" by any dubious device, concession or pedagogical contortion; an unwillingness to take time enough to be properly educated or even vocationally trained. The product of this "speed mania" is the half-educated man or woman, the half-trained artisan, the cult of the Half-Baked. -From the School Bulletin.

A Juvenine Library

A "Junior Corner" in the home library is described in Good Housekeeping by a mother who has arranged one for her children. It is furnished with a table and a tier of sectional bookcases. The children's books and magazines are there kept together. Each day as the parents read the paper they make clippings of articles which they think will appeal to the children and place them in a wire basket on the table. At the end of a month the children clear out the basket, throw away what they no longer want and file away in envelopes in the table drawer those they wish to keep. Current events are discussed by parents and children together.

This is undoubtedly a better way to provide news and literature for the children than to allow them to maul indiscriminately over the newspapers or the library shelves. This woman was lead into starting her children's library by finding that they "were doing a great deal of promiscuous and haphazard reading that did not fit into any of the pigeonholes of their minds, because as yet they did not have discrimination enough to classify their information."

But besides being an admirable way to handle the collection of children's books and magazines, and stimpulate the interes in current history, this method has the added advantage of giving the children training in the orderly handling of things.

There are occasional people who are big enough to rise above disorder in their surroundings or their habits. But they are few. As a rule the successful person in any line learns at some stage of the upward path that order is a necessity of his life. A wholly orderly child would be a horrible little prig, of course. But the power to see the desirability of order and system is not incompatible with happy-go-lucky childhood. It plants one of those seeds which seem to distracted parents to have fallen on stony ground, but which 80 often sprout in later life into standards and ideals.-Exchange.

Standard of Living.

The report of the Bureau of Municipal Research, entitled Workingmen's Standard of Living in Philadelphia, has just been published by The Macmillan Company

It was prepared by William C. Beyer, who had charge of the investigation, and his two assistants. The principle of the living wage is accepted and the standard for a family of five (at prices current in the autumn of 1918) is fixed at a minimum of $1,636.79 a year, or $5.45 The a day for the working days of a year. method of obtaining the facts is explained in detail and the probable degree of accuracy estimated. Tables have been compiled showing the cause of all prices of food, of fuel and light, of men's, women's and children's clothing, etc. Actual facts are given regarding 260 families and the data analyzed.

The forms of the questionairres by which this Informaion was elicited are printed in an apwill pendix. of prove This compact volume value to investigators of living conditions in other cities.

Home Economies

Teachers will welcome knowledge of Bulletin 1919 No. 46 by the Bureau of Education, on oludes a list of other bibliographies, bulletins, pages by Carrie Alberta Lyford, Specialist in It inhome economics for the Federal Bureau. cludes a list of other biblographies, bulletins, (state and organization), syllabuses and circulars, charts for reference and research, a list of 34 periodicals, references on the history and methods of home economics teaching, clothing and textiles, ten pages of references on the family and the home; foods and cooking, the house and household activities, and a valuable series of books and articles on the sciences related to home economics. Here is an authoritative guide to teaching to collateral studies, to the formation of libraries or to the making of one's own professional collection.

Efficient Training.

There are four kinds of efficiency for which the mothers must ask:

1. Physical efficiency-no more eight-hour school days, including home study, for young people, but half a day of directed and free play out of doors.

2. Economic efficiency-the ability to do well some social task worth an honest living wage. efficiency-based upon under3. Domestic standing of the problems and responsibilities of marriage and home making.

4. Civic efficiency or the ability to work with joy the best that the community. Having demanded all this, we shall have to ask, quite as firmly as we asked for training for efficiency, for training for appreciation, the ability to enjoy the best that the community has to offerscience, history, literature, music and art, not as these subjects have been taught, but as we are just learning to teach them in our evening lecture courses, easily, rapidly and delightfully. Thus the girls will be prepared for work and play, for life in the home as mothers and for life outside the home as wage-earners and

An impossible dream this? I can prove that it is not, that it is, on the contrary, a practica 1 working plan, that each of the separate items is being effectively carried out, but nowhere, so far as I know, have they been combined into a complete harmonious education for life and joy. That is for us to do, mothers and teachers working together.-Exchange.

Business Openings for College Women "The women's employment problem is a rather more complex one than that of the men, for with the SO newness of her status, in many branches of the business world, neither she nor the employer quite know where to look or what to prepare for. The employer needs to learn where he can find the woman to fill that position for which no man was available; he needs to learn that the university provides women with the training which will meet his needs. On the other hand, with no thought of lowering the educational standards of the university to meet purely business needs, the college woman and the university which is preparing her for life must become familiar with what positions are to be open to her within her own State and exactly what the world in which she is to make her living will demand of her.

"There are good positions open to the trained woman in California in insurance and banking, in advertising and in certain forms of commercial art, in technical journalism, in welfare work, in social work. Clerical, bookkeeping and stenographic positions are always with us. "In fact, it is interesting to glance down through the list of occupations open to trained women recently published by а New York bureau filling positions for college women. There is not one of the lines of work in which there is not opportunity to be found within our own State. It certainly seems as though the means of connection should be provided between the college woman and her possibilities.

-Clothilde Grunsky in Alumni Fortnights.

The Problem in Geography

The best

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"Every section furnishes points of attack full of human interest. Problems arise for answer, they do not have to be batched in a far-fetched way. Any details of life of a given section, any industrial, social or political relationships become objects of study and interest. Here is the real source of problems in geography. problem has always been used by the teachers. It is now coming to its own method for general use. The problem method. when the problems are real and personal to the pupils, is the natural method of procedure, for it provokes real study and thinking, training in the source materials, of maps, text and reference volumes."-R. E. Dodge.

School-Trained Printers. Apropos of our recent studies in school printing, the following extract is significant: The Herald notes that a new branch of study is to be introduced at State College, a complete printing plant having been purchased by the State board of regents and