Snow-bound, but these are, like our adobe houses, remnants of air mer time—or, rather, an imported product for which we have a grez veneration, but no further use-like an old loom or a grandfathers clock.

There are mothers and fathers here. The mother sets the tab': and makes the beds. The father pays the bills. Who gives the chil his lessons in courtesy or in conduct? The street. Who teaches the children religion? The Sunday school reaches perhaps as many as one-fourth of them, the rest have no respect for religion or authority. Do not parents have a natural love for their children? Yes, indeed. Lay your finger upon one except in love and the parent will fight f necessary. The children have a place to eat and sleep, but no home. They are as free as the cows that feed beside the road, and give as little trouble to their owners.

Such conditions present a question to every earnest educator. What will be the future education that is adapted to California? Oar present system is essentially a modification of the eastern school system. Our pupils show a distaste for hard study. The teacher finds himself yielding to the restful climate. What is to be done? Az education adapted to a youth in Maine or Massachusetts, is not a necessity to one of our pupils. Indeed, is the time not swiftly approaching when, except below the High School, our pupil will not undertake an education?

It remains, to ask whither are we tending? It is useless to withstand the influences of nature. Can we adapt our education so as to take advantage of these tendencies and, while enjoying our climate, so much like that of Greece and Italy, produce a civilization and a people that shall in no respect resemble that of modern Greece and Rome?

Shall Men Leave the Schools?

[Extract from a paper read by Miss Anna Buckbee, of Harrisburg, Pa., before the Pennsylvania State Teachers' Association. This question is rapidly pressing to the front.--ED.]

The third and perhaps best means of testing the value of the teaching done by men and women, is by a comparison of methods. Here will be found the chief difference in their work. This difference is exceedingly difficult to analyze and express in exact language.

Dr. Harris says: "That the training given by a woman is more like that of the family and less like that of the state. Also that the

young should have the personal influence of both sexes as teachers. As a class, women are apt to be minute and exacting, and this may take the form of petulance in manner and precision in methods. Men as a class are more apt to teach their pupils to discriminate in regard to principles and essentials. This tendency often degenerates into a carelessness in discipline and instruction which permits the neglect of details that are of great importance."

Although there are numerous exceptions to what the Doctor says, yet it is on the whole, I think, a fair estimate. Observe that he says "the young should have the personal influence of both men and women as teachers." There, I believe, is the gist of the whole matter. The personal influence of men differs from that of women, not by reason of what they know, but because of what they are; and the effect of this influence reaches far deeper than the neglect or exaggeration of details -it goes to the foundation of the social and moral training. Character is builded largely upon ideals. Therefore it is the duty of the teacher to give his pupils both by example and direct teaching the highest ideals of character. In this respect the work of the man will be somewhat different from that of the woman.

To many pupils the teacher furnishes their highest ideal of character. Since this is true, it is essential that boys in the higher grades, have for their teacher, at some time, a man who, because he has been a boy, can sympathize with and encourage them; a man who can show them how to be brave and active without being brutal, how to be gentle without being effeminate, and who by his daily life exemplifies all that is meant by true manhood. A girl needs the constant influence and example of a woman who can understand and advise her, who can make attractive the grand possibilities of a woman's life, and stimulate her to strive for their attainment. She needs a teacher who will show her how, not only to be useful and beautiful, but to be brave and true, to do as well as to endure.

But it is not enough that boys should be taught by the best men, and girls by the best women. Boys are benefited by the society of a refined and educated woman. They become more gentle and considerate, their whole nature is elevated. Besides, they learn to respect woman for her intellectual ability as well as for her moral worth; consequently they will unconsciously demand higher attainments from the women with whom they associate. It is quite as desirable that girls, in the formative period of their lives, should have as their teacher a man wise and thoughtful, who will not fear to speak plain truths, and

who will furnish what every girl needs, a correct standard by which she may judge men. Whenever one sex resolutely maintains a high standard of thought and action for the other, that other tries to live up to such standard.

I hold that both men and women are needed in the school simply because both are in the home. Since God has placed boys and girls in the same family to be reared and trained by a father and mother, it seems eminently proper that in the school, which is an extension of the home, both men and women should teach.

The right

And while

In the home, in order to secure the best conditions for the child. both father and mother should be wise, loving and just. instructions and good example of both are indispensable. the method of the one may differ from that of the other, it does not follow that either is superior. Each is the complement of the other. and where one parent exerts a stronger and better influence than the other, it is due not to sex but to the individual. The earnest, patient mother does far more for the welfare of the family than the indifferent or dissipated father, while the devoted, judicial father must sometimes do far more for the child than can be done by the selfish or ignorant mother.

So in the schools the pupils should be trained by capable men and women, and here as in the home wisdom and conscientiousness are far more important than sex. The inefficient and indolent man is inferior to the accomplished, enthusiastic woman, and the frivolous. insincere woman can never be the peer of the grand and gracious man. In the last analysis it is always the character of the individual, and not the sex, that makes the good teacher, So we may conclude that in an ideal system of education an approximately equal number of men and women teachers would be employed. Perhaps there will always be a somewhat greater number of women, because of their special fitness for primary work.

It is true that the best teachers for boys and girls are both male and female, yet the efficiency and power of a teacher are not determined by sex. The best teacher is the one with the strongest intellect, the best trained will, the purest heart, the most thorough preparation, the highest ideals, the most patience, tact, and skill, the greatest love for humanity, and the sincerest consecration to the work. None of these qualities are attributes of sex; they belong to the individual, and those teachers who possess them are the ones needed to lift our schools to higher levels, and enable this grand nation of ours to fulfill her manifest destiny.

Woman, as Teacher in the Primary School.

AGNES M. MANNING, SAN FRANCISCO, CAL.

Of all the progress that has marked the growth of modern education, there has been none more pronounced than that of woman as teachers in the Primary School.

It has not been without many a struggle, that the ignorance and stupidity that assigned the first developmeut of children to the uneducated and incompetent, have been in a measure set aside. I say in a measure, because all over the land are still to be found men with authority in educational matters, who believe that any kind-hearted women, with a little superficial knowledge, will do very well for a primary school.

A little over a hundred years ago, woman first made her appearance in an American school-room. She presented herself in humble enough guise. We can see her, tall and angular, with that determination in her heart that leads on into new enterprises.

Armed with a large square, child-astonishing pasteboard, on which was printed the alphabet in bold characters, she commenced with a, and promoted her pupil only when he knew all to z.

Then, he went into that epitome of antiquity, the spelling book. He followed a stereotyped course of Ba's and Be's until he came to the double barred pages. Here he was as far as his teacher's erudition could go. He had either to leave for a man's school, or flouuder along as he best could with no help from his instructor.

Nor was this good dame at all to blame for her narrow attainments. In her age, women, by common consent, were denied everything in the shape of a systematic education. She was taught precisely what she was taught in the days of Penelope. A great deal of fine sewing, how to spin, to weave, to embroider. If she was rich, she might wear her eyes out stitching tapestry, with which to cover the walls, or a little music and dancing was added, and called "accomplishments." If she was poor, she was simply a domestic drudge, with neither rest nor recreation provided for her this side of the grave. If she could read her Bible she was fully qualified to teach children. What wonder that she was often ignorant, opinionated, and set as flint against all progress, even her own.

Yet, because she was born to be the natural teacher, and of the great love for children that God has wisely-for the benefit of the hu

man race- -put into the hearts of women, she held her own. Knowing her poor qualifications for her work, with true heroism she determined to improve them.

In 1828, Boston had no High School for girls, and Boston, then as now, was well in the van of educational matters. It is worthy of note that at the time when no secondary school was open to wome: in the modern Athens, she had six sewing schools in full blast. Especially worthy of note is this fact at a time when there are so many who are trying to make us believe that sewing in the class-room is a modern improvement.

For six thousand years women sewed, spun, and performed all the work that our later days have divided into the trades of the baker, the brewer, the chandler, the dress-maker, tailor, milliner and mary others. Yet, was she verily nothing but a slave of the lamp. It was not until the spinning Jenny, the sewing and knitting machines were discovered, that she emerged from her position of domestic servitude and put her foot on the teacher's rostrum. Slowly the doors of the school-room opened to women either as pupil or teacher. Once in however, she soon proved her God-given right to the premises.

She

From the old dame school she rose to a place of assistant. did her work so well and was so cheap that she came rapidly to be employed in poor or economical neighborhoods. With her the im portant step was to break down prejudice and secure employment. Time and civilization would do the rest. Meantime she became ambitious to improve herself. She forced her way into the high schools. For a long time she could reach no farther. Nevertheless, she pursued the higher education, without a college, often without a professor. In the solitude of her own room she prepared herself, with the help of books, for higher teaching, and the preparation made, she found the work.

About the middle of this century the primary school was consigned to the care of women. In it she attained her first principalship, and it is here that her advance along the path of enlightenment can best be traced.

We, women, teachers of to-day, can hardly realize the obstacles that our noble predecessors met and overcame. We live in an age when Dr. Harris, Chief of the Bureau of Education, in Washington, says in his recent report that "the higher education of the women acts powerfully to reinforce the education of the children in the follow ing generations." Not only has America and England opened College