THE NORTH CENTRAL HISTORY TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION. At the invitation of a committee of the Chicago and Cook County High School Teachers' Association, about a hundred teachers of history, civics, and economics, and others interested, met in Chicago on March 31st and April 1st last, and organized an association in the interest of the teachers of these subjects in the north central states. The constitution as adopted provides that "any teacher of history, civics, or economics, in any public or private school, or in any institution of higher education within the states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota, or the executive head of any such school or institution or of any system of schools within the states named is eligible to active membership." Other persons may be admitted to honorary membership. Applications for active membership are to be submitted in writing to the secretary, endorsed by a member of the association. (All persons, however to whom the first circular of the committee was sent or who received the call to the meeting or who were present at either of the meetings for organization may become members of the association by simply expressing to the secretary their desire to do so and sending him the membership dues.) Regular meetings of the association are to be held twice yearly, one meeting in Chicago on the Friday and Saturday immediately preceding Easter, and the other on the third Saturday of October, the place to be chosen by the executive committee. The annual membership dues are $1.00. com The officers of the association for the current year are: President, Prof. Charles H. Haskins, University of Wisconsin; vicepresident, Miss Lucy L. Wilson, West Division High School, Chicago; secretarytreasurer, Harry S. Vaile, Hyde Park High School, Chicago; executive mittee, the above named officers, together with Miss Adelaide S. Baylor, principal of the High School, Wabash, Ind., Dr. Earle W. Dow, University of Michigan, Prof. P. V. N. Myers, University of Cincinnati, and Miss Leona L. Thorne, J. R. Doolittle School, Chicago. After the completion of the business of organization Prof. John W. Perrin, of Adelbert College, Cleveland, read before the association a scholarly and suggestive paper upon the different conceptions of the nature of history held by various masters of historical scholarship. The topic of "The Old and New Conception of the Aims and Methods of Histori cal Study" was brought before the meeting for discussion by Dr. Earle W. Dow, of the University of Michigan. The paper of Prin. Charles W. French, of the Hyde Park High School, Chicago, in discussion of the same subject, was read by the secretary, owing to the author's unavoidable absence. After a general discussion, the meeting adjourned and resolved itself into an informal social gathering. It was the general feeling of those present that the first meeting of the "North Central History Teachers' Association" promised well for its future success in accomplishing its object, "the advancement of the study of history, civics, and economics, and the improvement of the methods of teaching them, the development of the spirit of co-operation among the teachers of these subjects, and the promotion of their personal acquaintance with each other." CALIFORNIA HARVESTS. No one who visits California for the first time in midsummer fails to find the varied harvests of that season most interesting, and no part of California affords a wider variety of ripening products at that time than does the region near Los Angeles. For this reason then, as well as for very many others, the visitors who attend the National Educational Association at Los Angeles in July next, may consider the location of this year's annual meeting a most fortunate one. The apricot is the first of the stone fruits to ripen, and the early part of July will find scores of orchards heavily laden with ripening fruit, of many varieties of apricots of various shapes, colors, and flavors. This fruit, too, is one that is so delicate when fully ripe that it defies transportation across the mountains to eastern markets, and its delicious quality is not developed until fully ripe. The preparation of this fruit for market, by drying and packing, or by canning, is something full of interest to one who sees it for the first time. The throng of expert cutters, the drying yard, carefully planned to reduce motion to the least possible limit, the appearance of the fruit in its various stages of preparation, the ingenious machines for grading the fruit, both fresh and dried, all these make the scene one of exceeding interest to an eastern visitor. The apricot is followed closely by the peach harvest, most orchards being so planned as to have varieties that ripen successively through the months of July, August, September, and October. Various kinds of Japan plums, too, add to the ripe fruits available, together with the sub-tropical loquat, the lime, late oranges, and the ever-bearing lemon. All of the berries grown anywhere are ripening in midsummer here, except the cranberry, which, it must be confessed, we have not yet succeeded in growing in California. In August, too, grapes in bewildering variety, begin to ripen, and those who have never eaten the California grape fresh from the vines have a delight in store for them which is not to be lightly regarded. The finest flavored varieties are too tender to be handled much or carried far except when too unripe to be very desirable. The process of picking, curing and packing raisins is a most interesting one, involving a high degree of organization and many ingenious devices. The wine-making industry, too, is connected in a very important way with grape-growing in California, and there are many large wineries readily accessible to the summer tourist. Numerous canneries are in operation during the whole of the summer, and will be found most interesting in many ways. The sugar beet harvest begins in August, and the whole subject of sugar production can be studied from the beet in the field to the sugar in the sack. Three great factories in Southern California will be in full operation, employing an army of men. The harvest of grain, barley, and wheat presents some features peculiar to the Pacific Coast; the long dry summer making possible a method of harvesting which can be employed no where else. There are great harvesting machines drawn by traction engines or by forty or more horses, cutting from twentyfour to fifty feet in width-in one operation, cutting, threshing, and sacking the grain, so that it can be cut and marketed in a single day. The almond harvest is begun also in August, and is of interest, as California is the only state in the union in which this crop is grown. Starting at Los Angeles one would find the Lamanda Fruit association curing apricots, a few miles east of Pasadena. Close by, and easily accessible, is the great wine vineyard and winery at San Gabriel-near the "Old Mission." Twenty miles further on would place us at the raisin vineyards of Cucamonga. Lemon packing would be found near by at Ontario; orange shipping at Riverside; the vast acreage of sugar beets, and the great factory at Chino; the peach and prune harvest in full blast at Pomona; the walnut groves at Santa Ana, and the large canning factory at Los Angeles. All of this could be seen in a single trip around the kite-shaped track from Los Angeles to Riverside and return. The great harvester machines can be seen in the San Fernando Valley, twenty miles from the city, and forty miles further north are the vast almond orchards of Antelope Valley-the largest area planted to almonds any where in the world. On the way to San Francisco are the vast raisin vineyards at Fresno, with the great packing houses and raisin seeding plants and the army of Chinese employed in various ways in connection with this industry. Probably nowhere else in the world can be seen in a single trip so great a variety of fruit products and phases of the fruit industry. A. R. SPRAGUE, Pres. Southern California Deciduous Fruit Exchange. MEMORIAL DAY READING LIST. Beecher, H. W.-Patriotic Addresses. Curtis, G. W.-Decoration Day. Harp. Mo., vol. 57, p. 460. Curtis, G. W.-Orations and Addresses. Depew, C.-Orations and Speeches. Emerson, R. W.-Address at the dedication of the soldiers' monument at Concord, Mass., 1897 (in misc. essays). Everett, E.-Oration and speeches. Harper's Book of Facts, p. 222. Lincoln, A.--Gettysburg Address (in Great words from Great Americans). Livermore, M. A.-Description of the Battle Flags (in "My Story of the War"). Lodge, H. C.-Speeches, 1892. Mathews, B. -Decoration Day. Cent., vol. 40, pp. 102-5. Bellamy, B. W.-Open Sesame. Bryant, W. C.-Poems of Patriotism, Peace, War, and Freedom (in Library of Poetry and Song). Burton, R.-Memorial Day. Harp. W., vol. 41, p. 537. Carlton, W.-Decoration Day (in Farm Legends). 4. In the later editions of the book several additions had been made. 5. Adherence to such a course cost him many adherents. 6. To effect his escape he will affect igno rance. 7. The attendants gave poor attendance on this occasion. 8. In the capital of the country stands the Carlton, W.-Festival of Memory (in Farm capitol, at the gates of which sentries have Festivals). stood daily for centuries. Carlton, W.-Our Army of the Dead (in Farm Ballads). Eggleston, G. C.--American War Ballads. Fawcett, E.-Decoration Day (in Younger American Poets). Finch, F. M.-Blue and the Gray (in American War Ballads). Finch, F. M.-Blue and the Gray (in Heroic Ballads). Finch, F. M.-Blue and the Gray (in Poems of Places). 9. The lady and her consort were present at the concert. IO. Eminent men are often in imminent danger.-Exchange. THE CARE OF PROPERTY. American schools are strikingly deficient in the training they give in the use and care of property. Hacked and initial-carved benches should have disappeared with the log school Finch, F. M.-Blue and the Gray, (in Bry- houses, which first contained them, but unforant's Lib. Poetry and Song). Hart, B.-National Poems and John Burns of Gettysburg (in Complete Poems). Hayne, P. H.-Poems of the War. Hawley, H.-Decoration Day. Chau., vol. 25, p. 184. lic. tunately the rights of the comely, modern school desk are little better respected than were those of the rude school furnishings of earlier days. Not that whittling is vicious in itself; the impulse to employ idle hands and brains in some entertaining occupation is a Howe, J. W.-Battle Hymn of the Repub- good one; but the needless destruction of Larcom, L.-War Memories (in Complete Poems). Lacoste, M. R.-Somebody's Darling. Longfellow, H. W.-Decoration Day. Atlantic Mo., vol. 49, p. 721. Longfellow, H. W.-Poems of Places, vol. 25, p. 30. Longfellow, H. W-Killed at the Ford. Proctor, E. D.-Heroes (in Poems). Stedman, E. C.-Alice of Monmouth. THE SCHOOL ROOM. DICTATION EXERCISE. I. All these presents, except the last, I accept in your presence. 2. Having gained access, he found the heat in excess. 3. It would far exceed my instructions were I to acceed to your proposals. property, and that, too, the property of others, is both vicious and degrading. Property rights are as truly sacred as are the rights of sentient beings, and it is the duty of the school to teach pupils to respect them. Useless defacing of property argues in the first place a lack of more attractive employment. It is the teacher's business to supply this lack. It argues in the second place a lack of thrift. Wastefulness is a peculiar vice of Americans, and no small proportion of our poverty and actual pauperism may be traced to this one characteristic. It is the duty of the schools to grapple with this evil. Children must be taught that a book is theirs to use, not to mutilate and destroy. They must be taught that injury to school property is an offense against good manners and good morals; that it is, in fact, but little removed from stealing. Supervision of wasteful pupils should include inspection of even their pencils and paper. They should be taught that a piece of paper is not used when a few words or figures have been scratched upon one side only. In short, they should be disabused of the idea that wastefulness is a mark of generosity, and carelessness the sign of a superior order of intelligence. The young people of the United States source, has all been cut away. should be taught a great lesson in thrifthomely, commonplace thrift. If every school in the country were to do its duty in this respect within twenty years we should see a marked decrease in the number of business failures due to extravagant living, and an equally noticeable and gratifying decrease in the amount given by taxpayers for the support of paupers and vagabonds. -School Education. QUESTIONS IN GEOGRAPHY. 1. What is meant by the public? 2. What is coffee, and where is it produced? 3. From what countries do we get our tea, coffee, sugar, and cotton? 4. What grain is most used for food of the human family, and in what countries is it grown? 5. Where is Finland, and by what is it at present disturbed? 6. Distinguish between a sovereignty and a protectorate.-Ex. EFFECTS OF CUTTING FORESTS. The following quotation is from an address by the president of the American Forestry Congress: "There is abundant evidence in America of the effects of cutting off the forests. In central New York streams that thirty or forty years ago kept the ponds well filled for the saw-mill and grist-mill, and furnished a neverfailing supply of water for the farm, are now dry in summer, with the exception of here and there a stagnant pool; the dam is decayed and washed away, the mills gone, and the once picturesque scene is changed into that of desolation. Yet, with the warm rains of spring and the melting snows, the streams overflow their banks, the swift waters carry away fences, bridges, and embankments. Spring opens later. The young cattle were wont to be turned into the wood-sheltered pastures about the first of April; now they are kept shut up until the middle of May. Peach orchards that were sure to be loaded every year with luscious fruit have almost disappeared, and the crop is the exception rather than the rule. The extremes of heat and cold are greater, and droughts in the summer and floods in springtime are more frequent and more destructive. Trace the stream of the Owasco creek from its source to Lake Owasco and the cause of these things is apparent. The old tamarack swamp that used to supply the boys and girls with aromatic gum, in which the creek had its The thickly wooded black-ash swamps, through which the stream ran in its course to the lake, have been cleared, and their marshy areas have given place to cultivated fields and pastures. The cutting away the forests from the headwaters and the banks of this stream accounts for the changes I have noted, and this picture I doubt not, is a very familiar one in the New England and Middle States. It is not difficult for men who know the effects of cutting the timber from small areas around the headwaters of the smaller streams to understand why summer navigation in the Mississippi, the Missouri, and the Ohio, has become difficult and at times impossible where it was easy and constant a few years ago; or why the Hudson and Connecticut are much lower in summer and higher in spring than in former years. partial deforesting of the Adironack region has materially affected the flow of the Hudson, the Mohawk, the Black, and other rivers, and sufficiently demonstrated the fact that were this great watershed of New York stripped of its forest covering, the empire state would lose her prestige, and New York city her rank as the first commercial city of the new world." The In order to preserve the forests at the headwaters of streams and on the slopes of the mountains, the United States government and some of the states have made reservations in the mountains and hilly districts, one of the most important of which is that in the Adirondacks in New York state. Much care has to be exercised to keep the woods from being burnt during. the dry season by hunters and others camping out. DIVIDING UP THE CHINESE COAST. A Lesson in Current Geography. The process of partitioning the Chinese empire has not gone far in respect to the amount of land actually appropriated by the powers. Russia is, indeed, the only power that has actually taken possession of a considerable area, and the four hundred thousand or more square miles which she has practically annexed are not one-tenth of the whole, and their population is probably not more than one-twentieth of the whole. The seizures, or purchases, or leases of all the other powers put together do not amount to one-tenth as much as Russia's. In respect to the situation of the foreign seizures, however, the case is far different. Practically the whole coast of China has been taken by the powers, leaving the independent part of the empire a mere "hinterland." Thus Russia has all the coast from the Corean boundary to the Great Wall. From the latter to the mouth of the Yellow River, including the direct entrance to Peking, the coast is unappropriated, but has numerous claimants. From the Yellow river eastward the British station at Wei-Hai-Wei commands the northern coast of the Shan-Tung promontory, and then the German station at Kiao Chou similarly commands the southern coast. The next province is Kiang-Su, with Shanghai and the mouth of the Yangtse river, and its coast is almost as British as that of Kent. Che-Kiang follows, at the south, with Chusan and SanMoon, divided between Great Britain and Italy. The coast of Fo-Kien lies opposite to the Japanese island of Formosa, and already bears a Japanese caveat. Finally, there is Quang-Tung, of which the northern and central parts, including Mirs Bay and Kow-Loon are under the British flag, and the rest, including the Lien-Chow peninsula, has been leased to France. And that brings us to Tonquin. The two hundred miles or less of the coast of Pe-Chi-Li are all of the whole coast that China can now call her own. It goes without saying that, with the coast thus taken, the interior land will be speedily reduced to the status of mere dependencies upon the powers that control its approach to the sea. There is good reason to suppose too, that the ultimate partitioning of the "hinterland" will not be devoid of causes of dispute between the partitioning powers. Nine-tenths of the controversies in Africa have been about the inland regions, and the same will be true of China. It is comparatively easy to divide the coast and to control it. There warships are all-powerful and all-sufficient. But far inland, where ships cannot go, it will be a different and far more difficult matter, first to divide the land between the powers and then to govern it after it is divided.—New York Tribune. SCIENCE IN EDUCATION. When the history of education during the nineteenth century comes to be written, one of its most striking features will be presented by the rise and growth of science in the general educational arrangements of every civilized country. At the beginning of the century our schools and colleges were still following, with comparatively little change, the methods and subjects of tuition that had been in use from the time of the middle ages. But the extraordinary development of the physical and natural sciences, which has done so much to alter the ordinary conditions of life, has powerfully affected also our system of public instruction. The mediæval circle of studies has been widely recognized not to supply all the mental training needed in the ampler range of modern requirement. Science has, step by step, gained a footing in the strongholds of the older learning. Not without vehement struggle, however, has she been able to intrench herself there. Even now, although her ultimate victory is assured, the warfare is by no means at an end.-Appleton's Popular Science Monthly. CONTRIBUTIONS. SPRINGTIDE. With rod and line I sought the stream,- I'd wound the tortuous streamlet's shore,— I heard the partridge beat his drum, It seemed the voices of the wood My heart leaped forth to greet the sun, I sang aloud in unison With birds and breeze and purling brook, I joyed, for God was every-where. -Arthur Burch. A HISTORICAL ENTERTAINMENT. (Suitable for Memorial Day.) The program below was given in the opera house by the pupils of the public schools of Wausau, Wis., in honor of Washington's birthday. day. It commemorated, in chronological order, the leading events of our country's history since the year 1000, in chorus, declamation, tableaux, military drills, maps, views, and charts. In presenting the last three the optical lantern proved a very valuable aid. Last year our public schools took charge of the Memorial Day exercises and invited the old soldiers to be their guests, instead of leaving this work for the veterans, as is so often done. With some changes, this program could be used for Memorial Day exercises and it is for that purpose that the program is here given and explained. |