removal from office of the old board and the taking from its successor the power to incur indebtness and expend money ad libitum.

The old board of education was legislated out of office, and it was provided that the mayor should appoint a new board under different conditions. The new members were not to represent wards or districts, but to be chosen from the city at large and to hold office for three years. The corporate powers of the board were taken away and vested in the city. The power to decide what tax levy should be made for school purposes was taken from the board of education, and, with a maximum and minimum limit, was transferred to the city council. At the same time the city council was given other powers which restricted those of the board of education in regard to the expenditure of all funds.

These measures, as may be readily seen, were mainly in the interest of the taxpayer. In addition to these, certain other provisions were put into the law through those whose chief interest was in education and the children. The most important of these was the following:

"Teachers appointed by the said inspectors shall serve during the pleasure of the inspectors and shall not be subject to annual election; provided that all teachers so appointed shall have taught successfully in the schools of St. Paul for at least one year." Another was a clause making it the duty of the police of the city to co-operate with the school board in the prevention of truancy.

These are in outline the main features of the new law, and they may be classified very easily as good and bad. The good features are, first, the article providing for the appointment by the mayor of a small board of education, seven in number, who represent the city at large. This removes from the board the pressure of local and political influence, and makes it possible for an intelligent body. of men to pass intelligently upon questions relating to the internal workings of the schools. Second, the permanent appointment clause. In importance, the latter should come first. As will observed, this is not very definite, and it is left with the board to devise. proper regulations under which the law shall be enforced. The rules already enacted to this end are here given and speak for themselves: "All teachers appointed under the above rules shall be under probation for one semester, at the end of which,

unless there is, in the opinion of the principal of the school and the superintendent of schools, a reasonable prospect of success, they shall be dismissed. If, however, there is such a reasonable prospect, they may be continued in the schools for the remainder of the year, at the end of which they may either receive a preliminary certificate of success or be dropped from the roll. Teachers having received a preliminary certifi cate may be continued for another year, at the end of which they may become candidates for permanent appointment in the St. Paul public schools. Such candidates shall be required to pass an examination satisfactory to the superintendent of schools and the board of school inspectors upon the history and theory of pedagogy, and to present unqualified certificates of recommendation from the principal of the school in which they last taught and from the superintendent of schools. Teachers meeting these requirements shall receive the St. Paul teachers' certificates, entitling them to places among the permanent employees of the board. And those presenting certificates of success in teaching and failing in the examination required may, at the option of the board, be retained for another year of probation or at once dropped. Provided, that nothing in the above rules shall be construed to limit the power of the board to dismiss at any time any teacher or other employee because of moral delinquencies or of failure to properly perform the duties of their respective positions.

"The portions of this rule relating to permanent appointment shall apply to all teachers, principals, and supervisors at present in the employ of the board who have held their positions for less than two years. All others may, upon passing the required special examination and receiving the proper certificates, be at any time placed upon the roll of permanent teachers."

These rules make it possible for the St. Paul board of education to materially raise the standard of the teaching force, and to secure to the teachers that freedom from harassing fear of removal which comes periodically at the time of the annual elections. If this means that any poor teachers now in the corps are to be placed upon the permanent force, of course it will work disaster, but if the board exercises proper care in making appointments, it will work inestimable good.

Another good provision is the one requiring the police department of the city to co-operate with the school authori

ties in the prevention of truancy. This, however, while new in St. Paul, has obtained for some time in other cities and does not need discussion. The details are left with the board to work out, and the experience of other cities will be consulted. The principal bad feature of the law is the thrusting the financial responsibility upon the city council and bestowing upon it the power of curtailing the expenses of the schools beyond a reasonable limit, thus incidentally bringing the schools back into politics. The average city council in all cities is political in composition and appointed without special regard to interest in the cause of public education and acquaintance with it. A small board, such as St. Paul now has, can be appointed with special reference to these points. The danger is that the city council, for political reasons, will too greatly limit the powers of the board of education to spend money and will use such pressure as will cause the cutting off of some department or departments which they fail to comprehend or think unnecessary.

SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS,

CHARLES B. GILBERT.

ST. PAUL, MINN.

VI.
EDITORIAL.

From the very full reports of the International Congress of Hygiene and Demography, held in London during the past summer, it is evident that great emphasis was laid upon the relations of both public and private hygiene to education and school life. The work of one section, that of infancy, childhood, and school-life, was entirely devoted to subjects of educational interest; and incidentally other sections drifted into discussions that have a direct educational application. The conviction has been growing of late that the physiological and hygienic side of education is the most important side, and the literature on the subject is increasing very rapidly. No teacher can be regarded as fully equipped for his profession who is in ignorance of all that modern science has to say upon this subject.

Dr. Francis Warner, whose publications in the study of children are familiar to readers of the EDUCATIONAL REVIEW, read a paper on "The Scientific Observation of Children in Schools." His conclusions were based upon an inspection of over 50,000 children, and were so well confirmed by the testimony of other speakers, that it was voted to recommend special arrangements for the training and education of the very appreciable number of children, who, though not imbecile, are found to be more or less defectively developed in brain and body. Another resolution of general interest is one that was passed after listening to two papers on the injurious physical effects that follow the habitual use of a "sloped " handwriting. It was as follows: "That, as the hygienic advantages of vertical writing have been clearly demonstrated and established, both by medical investigation and practical experiments, and that as by its adoption the injurious postures so productive of spinal curvature and short sight are entirely avoided, it is hereby recommended that upright penmanship be introduced and generally taught in our elementary and secondary schools."

Perhaps as valuable an educational paper as was read at the Congress was that by Professor Leo Burgerstein, of Vienna, "An Experiment concerning Overpressure." He had prepared a diagram showing the curve of a working hour, as indicated by the varying brain-power of the children observed. The conclusions drawn by the author were twofold: First, that it is desirable that the question of mental overpressure should be studied by exact experimental methods, and that school authorities should instigate experiments in that direction; secondly, that until the question of overpressure has been thoroughly investigated by scientific methods, no school lesson should last longer than three-quarters of an hour, followed by a quarter of an hour's rest.

The other educational subjects discussed were school hygiene in Belgium, laws regulating child-growth, the physical education of children, manual training in its relation to health, free dinners for school-children, the education of the blind, the physical and manual education of deaf mutes, and acuteness of vision in school-children.

The French Academy of Moral and Political Sciences has had the subject of pedagogy before it for serious consideration. At a recent meeting M. Octave Gréard, the accomplished vicerector of the Academy of Paris, presented a paper on “The Science of Pedagogy," which provoked a sharp discussion. M. Gréard insisted that pedagogy, while an art, is also a science, and that it has both an historical and a philosophical basis. Like all the moral sciences, it leads to action and influences conduct; but, by so doing, its character as a science is not lost. M. Courcelle-Seneuil, on the other hand, contended that all the so-called moral sciences, pedagogy among them, are in reality arts only.

The discussion has called out a vigorous expression of opinion in the French press, and M. Ravaisson may fairly be said to represent the majority of educationists, not only in his own country but elsewhere, when he points out that the science and the art of education may be distinguished but not separated.

For four or five years past, the State of New Jersey haз3 been making educational history in a very satisfactory way. Many of the gaps in its educational organization have been