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mentary division thereby contains a much larger proportion than usual of the children of the less-favored in intelligence,-thirty-five per cent of the colored and thirteen per cent of the entire population in 1890 being illiterate—it is evident that here this theory appears in its most plausible shape. Fortunately for the district, the Senate committee will probably call in some of the representative educators of the country to restate the grounds of the present system of common-school organization that has been adopted, with possibly one exception, by every American commonwealth, after thorough discussion, and in the older States a half century of experimenting with the notion that now rises, like an uneasy ghost, from its grave in the nation's capital to assert its right of resurrection to a renewed life.

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E have looked with increasing distrust upon the habit of the teachers' institutes, conventions, clubs and associations becoming every year more exclusively professional, and shut out from vital connection with all other professional classes and the community at large. Of course, the lecture platform at the institute or convention may become a nuisance if captured by any one of a dozen kinds of irresponsible or absurd "orators." But no influence has been more powerful and beneficent in the upbuilding of the common school than the public addresses of able, representative men. Horace Mann not only talked education for a generation to the whole American people, but set everybody in Massachusetts talking, from Daniel Webster, Dr. Channing and Edward Everett down to the parish minister and the town-meeting fiend. It was a great mistake when the educators of Massachusetts, in the multiplication of the agencies for the professional cultivation of the teachers, practically left out the evening lecture; making every gathering from the State convention to the secret club a circle into which the outsider, however eminent, cannot venture save by a courtesy which makes his presence virtually useless. The result is that the vast majority of the ablest and best people are left with the most hazy and misleading notions of even the best things going on in the schoolroom; and the courses of study and often the entire life of the children for five hours of the day, five days in the week and nine or ten months of the year, depend upon the educational theory of a strong-minded educator, able as superintendent to capture and maneuver his board of education. One serious effect of this is that the public schools are all the time at the mercy of the army of cranks, pessimists and investigators" who can easily get a hearing through the press, and almost "deceive the very elect"

by their virulent charges and ridiculous criticisms on a good system of public education. It is painful to witness the state of mind in which the best people of any community may often be found in such a tempest of public agitation. Just now an object lesson of national interest is presented in the city of Washington. A concerted attack, outwardly represented by the group of grumblers that the nation's capitol always has with it," and the leading journal that is again hammering away at the exploded crochet that the state has no right to educate beyond the elementary school, with the addition of instruction in the ways of. getting a living, is being made on the entire management of the public schools: especially directed at the points included under the general name the "New Education." The Senate of the United States has appointed a committee to hear the criticism and defense; and the curious spectacle is presented of three distinguished Senators calling upon the superintendent and superior teachers to explain the manner in which the "three R's" are now taught in every first-class school in the Union. No great interest affecting the mental and moral life of the entire population is safe in the exclusive charge of its expert professional class. Every such class has for its environment the entire realm of our common human nature and all sorts and conditions of people" except its own. And since education, in its last analysis, is only the teaching and training of a new generation in the art of living together, in the best way for each and all, in this world and the world to come, the teachers of all classes can least afford to shut themselves away from the "common herd," and claim exclusive dominion in a realm so vast and complex that the greatest of English-speaking philosophers has truly said, "It would be well if the Divine intelligence could be concentrated on the teaching of every little child."

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T would be well for us to remember during this bloody war between brave men of the Protestant faith (English and Boers) in South Africa, that most of our knowledge of the Boers comes to us through English sources. If, then, we are told of the cruelty with which the Boers have treated the native races, let us remember: 1. These statements may be untrue, or at least greatly exaggerated. They come to us from those who hate the Boers. 2. Such acts of cruelty as can be substantiated may be the acts of a few. Would we like to be all condemned for the fiendish acts of the Ku-Klux and lynchers of the South? 3. Do we forget our own history? Have we not broken an hundred treaties, solemnly entered into, with the Indians? Have

not our frontiersmen shot them down like wild animals? Are we Americans entitled to throw stones at the Boers? 4. Consider the testimony which reaches us from British officers touching the kindly treatment of their wounded and prisoners in the hands of the Boers. The surprise they manifest at such treatment is eloquent testimony of the highest kind. Then we will do well to reflect-in view of recent bloody events-on these various statements made in 1896 by leaders of British thought and action. Mr. Joseph Chamberlain said, on May 8, 1896: "To go to war with President Kruger, to enforce upon him reforms in the internal affairs of his State, in which Secretaries of State, standing in their places, have repudiated all right of interference that would be a course of action which would be immoral." And Mr. Balfour on Jan. 15, 1896, declared: "The Transvaal is a free and independent government as regards its internal affairs." Also Lord Salisbury, on Jan. 31, 1896, said: "They (the Boers) have absolute control over their own internal affairs." The Boers may not be wholly right, but certainly they are not savages nor wholly wrong in fighting for their liberties.

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HERE will doubtless be many opinions as to the success of the experiment recently made by Rev. Charles M. Sheldon in editing and publishing the Topeka Capital for a week. Some may look upon it as a shrewd money-making scheme of the publishers. However that may be, Mr. Sheldon was dead in earnest. He has given us his idea of the way in which a Christian daily should be conducted. surprise to many. It was an object lesson for all. We would not use so much second-hand matter. But we are glad he made his experiment. He has set all the world talking, and not a few editors thinking seriously on this subject of tremendous import: What matter shall we lay before our readers? Conscientious men will ponder over this. In view of the mass of corruption in some of the Sunday "blanket sheets" and of a part of the vile trash which fills columns of not a few of the dailies of the land, it is time a halt was called and men urged to higher standards.

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WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY.

MR. H. A. HARING, SECRETARY To presidenT CHARLES F. THWING,
WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY.

F the institutions of higher learning in the middle West, Western Reserve University, in Cleveland, for so many years known as "The Yale of the West," is coming to occupy more and more of a conspicuous place as an educational institution of the first order. The Yale of the West, though perhaps a fitting designation for the first forty years of its existence, is no longer applicable; for the University is not patterned after the College at New Haven, nor do the buildings in their arrangement suggest the recollection of Yale itself.

In 1801 the General Assembly of the territory of the United States northwest of the river Ohio was petitioned by residents of the Connecticut Western Reserve to grant a charter for a college to be situated within the limits of the "Reserve." The petition was denied. In 1803, on the 16th of April, the first General Assembly of the State of Ohio chartered the Erie Literary Society, a corporation composed of several proprietors of land within the county of Trumbull (then comprising the entire "Reserve"), who desired to appropriate a part thereof for a seminary of learning within that county. Under this charter an academy was established at Burton in 1805, the first institution of this kind in northern Ohio. This school, with the exception of the years 1810-1819, continued in operation until 1834. In 1817 the Presbytery of Grand River, which embraced nearly all the Congregational and Presbyterian ministers of churches in the Reserve, formed itself into a society "for the education of indigent, pious young men for the ministry within the limits of the Territory." The students, aided by this society, studied privately with clergymen until the opening of the academy at Burton, when they pursued their studies at that school. In 1818 the Presbytery of Portage formed a similar society. In 1822 the two Presbyteries appointed a committee to confer with the purpose of devising "ways and means for establishing on the Connecticut Western Reserve a literary and theological institution." The report of the committee, which was adopted by the Presbytery, provided for the establishment, under certain conditions, of a theological institution on the foundation of the Erie Literary Society, at Burton. The trustees of the Erie Literary Society accepted the conditions, and a board of managers was then appointed.

The connection between the board of managers and the Erie Liter

ary Society lasted until June, 1824. During the year 1823 the managers became convinced that such an institution as they desired could not be built up at Burton, and consequently they requested the trustees of the Erie Literary Society to move their institution to a more eligible situation. As the trustees held property on the condition that the school should be in Burton they declined this proposition. In June, 1824, at a joint session of the board of managers with the special commissioners of the Presbytery, it was decided to discontinue the connection with the institution at Burton and to found a separate college. In January a special Board representing the Presbytery, to

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which the Presbytery of Huron was now added, selected Hudson as the site of the college. The Board, with four additional members to represent Huron Presbytery, now became the Board of Trustees, and held their first meeting in Hudson in February, 1825. They drafted a charter and drew up plans for the grounds. The charter was granted in 1826, and in April of the same year the corner stone of the first building was laid. The first students were received in December, and were instructed by Mr. Coe, a principal at the academy at Tallmadge, who was appointed tutor pro tempore.

It was during these years that the term "Yale of the West" was

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