Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 11.djvu/733

Rh him to us in the aspect of a sure-footed resolute guide who, with a firm hand, takes us up an endless variety of the peaks of social and scientific problems, hard to be scaled. He brings his reader skillfully up to the summit, explains the prospect, and carefully deposits him again in his proper place. There are few excursions, where a little exertion is needful, so exhilarating and profitable, so much to be recommended to the traveler among questions of the day, as those which are accessible through the good offices of Prof. Huxley.—The Academy.



MERICA is unquestionably preëminent in educational matters. It has more schools and a greater variety of schools than any other country on the face of the earth. Some of these schools are extremely remarkable. You cannot match them elsewhere. They thrive only upon the freest soil, untrammeled by effete conventionalities. Throughout the West and South they spring up abundantly, as if in proportion to the fertility of the land. The New England and Middle States are too much tied down to routine and tradition to produce such rare developments of the intellect. Such schools deserve to be more widely known and more generally appreciated. We propose to help some of them to a broader fame, by printing a few extracts from their circulars and catalogues.

First in order-let us take some clippings from a little pamphlet issued by a school in Faribault, Minnesota. This circular is remarkable for its clear expression of views upon a variety of educational topics, and for the suggestions it offers concerning real school discipline. Here are a few of the wise regulations:

"Scholars with any contagious trouble or disease are not allowed in the school till cleaned, or till their disease is beyond danger.

"If a snow-storm is up, the teacher takes the privilege to dismiss the school earlier in the afternoon than it otherwise would have been.

"It is not allowed to scholars to jump on to or hang to teams except on the way to or from school, and then only with the permission of the driver.

"Anything belonging to the school-house or to the scholars, broken, torn, or damaged, must be paid or restored by the scholar or scholars who have done it, as well as by those who were accessory to it.

"Where a punishment is in order it will be applied whether a scholar's parent or any visitors are present or not."

And so on for about twelve pages. The remarkably concise and exact wording: of these valuable rules must attract the attention of every teacher. The circular closes with a four-page essay upon "The 