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HE coming meeting of the National Educational Association at Los Angeles, in July, promises to be one of the great meetings of the organization-an organization with a history of such meetings. Not less than Southern California, the bay cities are thoroughly aroused to the value and the importance of the schools; and this notwithstanding the fire and earthquake losses sustained by San Francisco, San Jose and Santa Rosa, and the tremendous demand made upon neighboring cities because of the incident influx of population and children by the thousands to be cared for. The normal schools are crowded. Teachers in San Francisco, Oakland and Los Angeles are, or soon will be, paid for twelve months in the year, in some cases at the same rate per month they were receiving for the nine or ten months of the school year. The institutes are occasions for a serious consideration of school questions and educational doctrine such as can be found in few of the older states of the East. The normal schools and universities are working hand in hand with perfect understanding. Stanford University and the San Jose Normal exchange certain professors and courses for one or two terms of the year. Heads of the education departments in both Stanford and Berkeley reach all parts of the great state with their lectures and influence. A disproportionately large proportion of the students in both institutions are graduates of the normal schools; and a number of the high schools send annually one third to one half of their graduates into the colleges of the state. Practically all of the high-school teachers hold college degrees. The school outlook is altogether encouraging.

WITH

ITH such sentiment about schools, it is not strange that the coming of the teachers to Los Angeles for their annual meeting in July is looked forward to with professional pleasure. Teachers are enthusiastic about it. Large memberships are certain in all the larger counties particularly, and in many of the smaller ones. With scarcely more than fifty years of history the state and the region about are rich in incident and achievement of men and institutions that represent the always marvelous movement of a people from a pioneer life to a high state of civilization and culture. It is a rare thing for one city or one state to entertain the Association twice in a decade. But from personal knowledge of the situation the writer is assured of the ability of Los Angeles to do this, and again to do it in a royal way. No teacher from any grade of school or institution can fail to be profited by attendance at the forthcoming meeting.

WHOLLY apart from the unequalled scenery in the journey

across the continent, even after reaching the sunset state there are some things the visitor should not miss: the extensive, safe and picturesque beaches south and west of Los Angeles, the ruins and the marvelous rebuilding of San Francisco, the rapid growth and substantial buildings of the half dozen larger cities, and the Luther Burbank experiment gardens and farm, will all claim attention. The work of the Burbank farm is positively weird in its results. From the common field daisy variously crossed and blended with a Japanese form and an English form, through years of planting, and crossing, and experimenting, and selecting, he has produced the "Shasta" daisy, on its way to the four-inch double-petaled "chrysanthemum daisy," yet to be. At one time out of one hundred thousand plants were found less than a dozen that served the gardener's purpose. At another time in developing a berry, sixty-five thousand plants were discarded. In every venture he is working upon a well-considered plan. And his experiments with the gladiolus, the English walnut, the chestnut, the poppy, the rhubarb, the fruit trees, the prunes, the crossing of the plum and the apricot, and his thornless cactus-are all suggestive to thoughtful persons of the possibilities of careful nurture. Teachers will find in the Sebastopol farm and the Santa Rosa gardens of Luther Burbank an endless field for reflection as well as observation.

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TUDENTS of pedagogical literature will be pleased with the recent appointment of the translator of Herbart's Outlines of Pedagogics, Dr. Alexis F. Lange, from the department of English in the University of California to the head of the department of education in the same institution. He brings not only profound scholarship, but wide acquaintance among school men, and professional acumen to his new task. The university has honored itself in the appointment. All of which leads me to say that, while California has many unfinished school problems, and not a few contradictions in her school system, transmitted to the future for correction, the hearty co-operation among school people of all ranks, and the thoroughly aroused interest shown by the people themselves, assure one of their final right adjustment, and give communities in other sections of the country much material for profitable thinking. The East, also, has much to learn from the West, and the far West; and it is fitting that once or twice in a generation the teachers of the tradition-bound states should see personally how things are done in the untrammeled regions of a recent frontier.

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HATEVER may be one's opinion of the wisdom of our occupation of them, the civic problem in the Philippines is an interesting one to every American. Dr. David P. Barrows, United States Director of Education in the islands, is in this country; and is interesting our people in what has been accomplished, and what is projected in school matters among the seven million Filipinos. The undertaking is fascinating, not less by its very boldness than by its apparent success. Half a million Filipino children attended the schools during the past year; including the youth in one thousand one hundred and sixty pueblos, with over six thousand native teachers and American supervisors. It is now six years, since our Government established the bureau of instruction in the islands, and Dr. Barrows affirms confidently that if the work continues with equal success for another six years, there will be in 1912 scarcely an illiterate youth among the Filipinos. The primary course covers three years, and is supposed to reach every child. The texts are in English, and comprise the ordinary American school subjects-reading, writing, language, arithmetic, physiology, something of American and Filipino history, geography and small beginnings in manual work. Many of the children are quick to learn, and the influence of the schools is already beginning to be felt in the homes. Better hygienic and sanitary conditions prevail. "One object of the primary school," says Dr. Barrows, "is to replace the dependent class with a body of independent peasantry, able to keep their accounts, and, thereby, get out of the clutches of their creditors." Not much can be expected of adults in this way; but the youth are already showing the influence of the careful school training.

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HE canvass Dr. Barrows is making should prove of lasting importance to Americans; not even second in significance to the extension of universal education to the negroes in this country. In both the Philippine Islands and in our own Southern States the Government is confronted with the problem of raising a primitive people to the level of self-dependent civic life and culture. Never had the school fraternity a better opportunity to study the conditions and steps by which a heretofore relatively uninstructed people rise to efficiency and high standards of living. Every teacher, of whatever grade of school, should be interested in this presentation of the Philippine situation in school affairs by Dr. Barrows. It is clear, comprehensive and convincing. Naturally the conditions there are imperfectly understood by untraveled Americans. Their social and civic and industrial standards are alien to our habits and thinking. The tour of Dr. Barrows

will do much to clarify our opinions concerning the "American Invasion," and the wisdom of our attempts to school these millions of already Christianized peoples. Already acquainted in a measure with what has been attempted in the Philippine schools, the writer listened but recently to Dr. Barrows' statement with both pleasure and profit, and EDUCATION takes pleasure in extending him a cordial welcome to his home land, and a hearty congratulation upon the achievements in education among these our Filipino wards.

URING the past year, while treating various pedagogical sub

problems. We are confident that our readers have appreciated the able discussions furnished by such writers as Dr. Sargent, Dr. Trueblood, Professor Hanus, President Fellows, Librarian Canfield and others no less worthy of special mention. Such an article as Superintendent Gay's in the May number, on "The Function of the Public School," is well worth in itself alone the cost of the magazine to the subscriber for a whole year. In the current number Mrs. Rachel Kent Fitz presents a discussion of the value of a college course for women, which we believe to be of exceptional interest, and which we wish every teacher of girls and every parent in the United States could read. Mrs. Fitz is a Radcliffe A.B. and A.M., was sometime director of Radcliffe Alumnæ Association, and of the Boston Women's Educational and Industrial Union; also, director and vice president of the Boston Branch of the Association of Collegiate Alumnæ, and joint author with her husband, Dr. Geo. Wells Fitz (M.D.), of Problems of Babyhood (Henry Holt & Co., 1906). She is, therefore, well qualified to speak on the subject which she so ably discusses in the last paper of our special series on college subjects. Next year we shall lay the emphasis on high school and academy topics. We hope to present a number of valuable articles on commercial and industrial education. We have already in hand, also, several papers which will be particularly valuable to parents; notably one to appear in the September number on, "The Decay of Family Life and the Increase of Child Crime." This is contributed by Mr. Arthur MacDonald, of Washington, D. C. In view of all these good things we make a special appeal to our subscribers to help us to increase the subscription list of EDUCATION. It ought to be ten times as large as it is. As we close our twenty-seventh year we invite you to aid us by speaking a good word for us to your fellow educators, and to your librarian. Such words will be weighty, we know, and we shall be truly grateful.

SCHOOL HYGIENE

The forthcoming International Congress on School Hygiene, to be held in London, August 5-10, has aroused widespread interest in the subject to which the Congress pertains, considered both in its relation to school administration and to school instruction. In England several important events have conduced to make the physical welfare of the young a subject of first consideration with the government, and also with the leaders in all measures affecting public welfare. In particular the South African war demonstrated in a striking manner the need there was for improving the physique of that class of the population from which recruits are chiefly drawn, and also for extending among the masses elementary ideas of hygiene and sanitation.

An outcome of the interest thus excited was the "Inter-parliamentary Committee on Physical Deterioration," appointed "to make a preliminary inquiry into the alleged deterioration of certain classes of the population, as shown by the large percentage of unfit recruits applying to enter the British army."

Of fifty-three recommendations made by this committee to the British Government, thirteen were especially concerned with school hygiene. Their report was presented to both houses of Parliament, July 20, 1904, and in the following March another committee was appointed by the goverment to obtain further information as to the medical inspection of schools and the provision of meals for children by voluntary agencies. Meanwhile, a petition signed by 14,718 registered physicians was presented to the educational authorities of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, asking that the laws of health be taught and enforced in the national schools. As a result of this agitation, the English Board of Education and the Scotch Education Department have made the teaching of the laws of health in public schools compulsory, and since the failure of the Education Bill of 1906, a brief measure has been enacted providing for medical inspection of schools. in England. In this connection, it is interesting to observe that Japan has a highly organized service of medical inspection, employing 8,424 specialists. Germany employs above 670 medical school inspectors, and our own country about five hundred.

The recent conference held in London, on the teaching of hygiene and temperance in the universities and schools of the British Empire, attracted many educational experts and medical authorities, and also a number of the colonial premiers and ministers, who were in England to take part in the Colonial Conference. It was brought out in this

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