Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 34.djvu/564

548 means prizes. Next, the minor schools and private schools have to follow suit. And at last the smallest preparatory school, where children in nursery-frocks are crying over qui, quæ, quod, has to dance the same tarantela.

For this state of things the remedies seem to be these: Let examinations be much fewer—they are ten times too numerous. Let them be much more free—they are over-organized, over-regulated. Give examiners more time, more discretion, more room. The more the teachers are themselves the examiners, the better; the less examining becomes a profession and a special staff, the better. Do not set examiners to test teachers as well as students; do not set up mechanical rules whereby to test the examiner. Believe that it is possible to learn without any prize, money, or reward in view. Trust the teacher; trust him to teach, trust him to examine. Trust the examiner, and do not set up a mill. Above all, trust the student. Encourage him to study for the sake of knowledge, for his own sake, and the public good. Cease to present learning to him as a succession of races, where the knowing ones may land both fame and profit.—Nineteenth Century.



OHN B. STALLO is among the notable examples which this generation presents of men who, while busy in professional and public affairs, have at the same time shown themselves masters in scientific and philosophic thought. His published essays have given him place among the foremost thinkers and critics of his time, while he has achieved an equal eminence in his career of law and politics. In introducing the first of a series of his articles which afterward resulted in the "Concepts," the late Prof. Youmans remarked in the "Monthly" for October, 1873: "It has long been the honor and boast of the British bar that Mr. Justice Grove, the author of 'The Correlation of Forces,' belonged to it; it is equally to the credit of the legal profession in this country that a member of it has cultivated scientific philosophy to such excellent purpose as is proved by the articles we are now publishing."

John Bernard Stallo is of German origin, and was born at Sierhausen, Oldenburg, March 16, 1823. His ancestors, on both his father's and mother's side, were schoolmasters, and all of them persons of only moderate means. He inherited, particularly from his father's side, a thirst for knowledge and an inclination to scientific studies. These traits were particularly marked in 