Ready June 1st:

MEDIEVAL AND MODERN HISTORY, By M. E. THALHEIMER, formerly teacher of History and Composition in Packer Collegiate Institute; author of Manual of Ancient History. 480 pp. full 8 vo. 12 beautiful and accurate double-page Maps Voluminous Index. Price $2.50. Supplies for first introduction $1.67 per copy; specimen copies to teachers or school officers for examination with a view to introduction, $1.67 by express, or $2.00 by mail post-paid.

Thalheimer's Ancient History is the same as the Mediæval and Modern History. The two volumes are uniform in size and binding, and together form a complete History of the World from the earliest times to the present. The Nation characterizes Thalheimer's Ancient History as "the most serviceable work of its kind within the reach of our schools."

THE AMATEUR ACTOR; A Collection of Choice Acting Plays for Young People. Edited by W. H. VENABLE, author of The School Stage. Full and lucid descriptions and explanations of Stage Management, Costumes, Scenery, &c., &c. Numerous elegant Illustrations by HARRY FARNY.

Price of The Amateur Actor, $1.50; School Stage, $1.25.

A PROGRESSIVE AND PRACTICAL METHOD FOR THE STUDY OF THE FRENCH LANGUAGE. By F. DUFFET, Paris, France; Author of Popular Method of Learning English.

Limp Cloth. $1.
Limp Cloth. $1.

DUFFET'S FRENCH METHOD, Part I: 192 pp. 12mo.
DUFFET'S FRENCH METHOD, Part II: 192 pp. 12mo.
For first introduction into schools; and for single specimen copies to teachers and school officers
for examination mith a view to first introduction, 67c. each.

TWELVE LECTURES ON THE HISTORY OF PEDAGOGY, Delivered before the Cincin. nati Teachers' Association. By W. N. HAILMAN, A. M., Author of "Kindergarten Culture." 12mo., 130 pp. Cloth. 75c.

MANUAL OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, Designed for the Instruction of American Youth in the Duties, Obligations, and Rights of Citizenship. By ISRAEL WARD ANDREWS, D. D., Pres't Marietta College. LIBRARY EDITION:-8 vo. full sheep, $2.00.

SCHOOL EDITION:-12 mo, cloth. $1.60. Supplies for first introduction, and specimen copies to teachers and school officers for examination with a view to first introduction, $1.07.

Teachers and School Officers are invited to send for our Complete Descriptive Price-List of The Eclectic Educational Series-(McGuffey's Readers, Ray's Mathematics, White's Arithmetics, Harvey's Grammars, &c., &c.) Specimen pages of the Eclectic Geographies, Venable's History, Leigh's Phonetic Readers, and Eclectic Copy-Books, sent gratis to any address. Very liberal terms on any of the Eclectic Series for first introduction.

WILSON, HINKLE & CO., Publishers,

137 Walnut Street, CINCINNATI. 28 Bond Street, NEW YORK.

Delivered before the State Teachers' Association, strengthen his hands and his heart for

The Graded schools have been doing their customary good work, the Normal schools have moved in line, the Institutes Experience should be combined with have been unusually successful, the Acadstudy, with observation, and with reflec-emies and the Colleges have been thriving, tion, in order that one may speak with authority. Experience should make one wise and cautious, should give one new views of his work, should enable him the

judge.

ness. The rural districts have been doing qualifications named, I leave you to earnestly their part of the work. The fourth Normal school building is under contract and in about a year will be open for the reception of students, and so all along the line there have been successful operations, while men are seriously contemplating new fields of conquest, new fields of glory.

Men are discussing our higher educational wants, and are trying to discover how these higher educational wants can be supplied, and though all may not agree as to the manner of the supply, sure it is that some way will be devised. A bill for the establishment of County Academies passed the Assembly at the last session of the Legislature a very signif. icant fact.

From this brief review we may see that the year, on the whole, has been a prosperous one.

Some are farmers, some clergymen, some lawyers, some physicians, some politicians, some teachers, who have had indifferent success as such, and some are teachers of marked success and adorn their calling, laying broad and deep foundations capable of sustaining a noble superstructure. Whether we should have a town or a county system of supervision I will not take upon me to say.

It seems to me that the subject should be thoroughly and carefully canvassed in the light of theory, of observation, and of experience, to the end that some way may be found whereby our schools may have more thorough supervision than they now receive.

Another subject which will occupy your care at the present meeting, is that of intermediate schools. A link is wantThere are things, however, which de- ing in our educational system which can mand our careful attention. The super- be supplied only by schools intermediate vision of schools is one of them. The to the common schools and the colleges. subject has been discussed from time to This link wanting, the existing grades time by this body, but no well defined are now required to do work not properly plan has been unanimously agreed upon, in their sphere. The Normal Schools while the County Superintendey holds cannot meet this want. The city High its position by a feeble tenure. It has Schools, as now organised, can meet been demonstrated beyond controversy scarcely more than the wants of the that where there is the most efficient su- cities, but by more thorough organizapervision, the schools furnish the most tion their sphere of usefulness might, satisfactory results and are conducted perhaps, be greatly enlarged. The New with the greatest economy. The result England Academy cannot supply our is unity of purpose and of action. Bet- wants. The New England Academy was ter classification is secured, each grade a private denominational school, having having its own distinctive work, better methods of teaching are adopted, time and teaching force are economized, bet ter teachers are employed, and the whole school economy is greatly improved. The supervisor should, however, be a man of energy, of persistence, of tact, thoroughly versed in didactics, school systems, school architecture, sanitary measures and in everything pertaining to the organization and the management of schools. He should be clothed with sufficient power to carry out his plans, and should have a voice in the selection of his subordinates.

in view classical instruction principally. They are all dying out and giving place to High Schools, except such as have an ample supply of funds. These Intermediate Schools must be established on a popular basis, so as to be Common Schools. No others will be successful. Their curriculum of study must be adapted to the wants of the whole community. The New England Academies grew out of the educational wants of the time in which they sprung up, but they are yielding to advancing ideas.

New England is a commercial and manufacturing community, Wisconsin is

Whether we have supervisors with the an agricultural State, and hence the cur

riculum that might suit them might not | forced. The difficulty with our Univer

sity was the legitimate result of this forcing, endeavoring to transplant a full fledged New England College or German University to Wisconsin, a State yet in its infancy. The result was an inevitable failure, and the men engaged in that enterprise were held responsible for what was absolutely beyond their control.

Our New England fathers did not and could not transplant English institutions to New England shores in all their full

in all respects suit us. While we may derive many good suggestions from New England in reference to school economy, still our educational arrangements must be adapted to our special case. We must educate our own teachers, our own artisans, and our own business and professional men. To this end these schools must be organized, and in arranging their plan of study we must remember that all who attend on them are not to be poets and philosophers, all are not to be schol-ness and perfection. Those early fathers ars, all are not to be statesmen and professional men, but are to be engaged in every department of manual as well as intellectual labor. I hope the discussion will take a wide range and be such as shall enlighten our people on this very important subject.

It forms no part of my plan to discuss the Normal Schools and the University. They are doing a good work and will adjust themselves to their distinctive spheres of labor in due time. And here I am led to speak on a subject that has forced itself from time to time on my attention. I refer to the restless impatience of our western people for immediate and tangible results.

had a long contest with unreclaimed nature and uncivilized man, and the institutions of their founding had a long and severe struggle for life. With some of their educational institutions, that struggle is not yet ended, while others are on a firm basis. It should be a matter of joy and gratitude with us, that with our people, made up of so many nationalities, we have made the progress we have. Greater obstacles meet us than met the New England fathers in some respects. They all had the same national spirit, had been reared under the same national influences. Not so with us. We have a population from many different States of the Union, from Canada, from Ireland, Scotland, England, Wales, Scandinavia, and nearly every European State, all having their local and national prejudices, national thought and national spirit, and all this to be brought into one harmonious body politic. It would be strange indeed if they would all at once act harmoniously upon a given policy, and, therefore, out of this heterogeneous mass must rise new institutions suited to our time and our people. These institutions will not and should not be, of mush-room growth.

If mind were something as easily shaped as wood and stone, we might, perhaps, be justified in our impatience. But institutions are of slow growth. Civilization advances slowly, sometimes making apparently rapid strides, and then receding with quick rebound. When will this rebound come with us in our educational matters? We must make slow but sure progress, fortifying every position won, not moving more rapidly than the people follow. Wisconsin is scarce fifty years old, while New England is two hundred and fifty. Our people has been largely migratory, and is not homogeneous; in New England it is stationary and homogeneous. New England institutions cannot be transplanted to our State intact-an no more can German and Norwegian institutions. Institutions of our own must be established by ourselves suited to our society and wants, and they will be slow in their growth and cannot be

When our Colleges and the University have a large and influential body of Alumni, they will become strong, and when they become strong and send out

influence corresponding to their strength, the Normal, High and Primary schools will feel that influence for good, for they are the streams, of which the Colleges and the University are the perennial fountains.

The universal breaking up of the relation between boards and teachers at the end of the yar and in some places at the end of the term, is a most pernicious custom. Thereby the efficiency of our teachers is weakened, I really believe, not less than twenty-five per cent. Time will not allow me to point out all the consequential evils. Every teacher is in a state of doubt and uncertainty, his courage is dampened, his ardor cooled, he is robbed of his manliness and inde

This impatience which we witness on all hands leads to rash measures, produces weakness, retards our progress and is liable to destroy. It leads to a want of confidence and frankness between boards and teachers, to a distrust of much of the teaching force with which we cannot at present dispense. This material we must use, bidding every man God-speed, disparaging no man's work that he is performing to the best of his ability and from conscientous convictions of duty. We should be charitable in our judg-pendence, his honest convictions are stiments, encouraging in our words, always extending the right hand of fellowship to our colaborers, and always jealous of the rights, the prerogatives and the dignity of our profession. Out of this impatience rise in great measure, the frequent changes of teachers which we witness in all our cities and villages from year to year and from term to term. Were the Professors in our Colleges, east and west, held to the same strict accountability as the teachers in our graded schools and their usefulness determined by the per-munity. Our Boards of Education are centage of scholarship of their pupils, it would be difficult to fill the chairs with respectable men. The broad results of a man's usefulness cannot be expressed in percentages. Sometimes a man who obtains low percentages, may be laying the foundation of character in his pupils that will stand the wear and tear of active life, that will withstand every temptation, engage in no salary grab or Credit Mobiliers, that may swear to one's own disadvantage and yet not change.

So, too, a man who secures high percentages and stern discipline may be the man who is working the moral ruin of his pupils. Character is as important as learning, integrity, as distinguished in tellectnal attainments. Every man and woman loves Washington not for his splendid talents, for they were far inferior to those of Burr and Hamilton, but for his sublime moral courage, his unyield. ing integrity and his disinterested and self-sacrificing patriotism. A man's unconscious influence on his pupils in form ing their characters cannot be expressed in percentages.

fled, and he is divested of his efficiency as an educator. The whole thing is wrong, viewed in whatever light you please, and I call upon every teacher in the State to protest against it as unworthy the high vocation wherewith he is called. Until this is corrected we are not a profession, we are hirelings. And that I may not be misunderstood I wish to say here that I mean these remarks as no reflection on Boards of Education. It is no more their fault than it is the fault of the com

edtitled to our lasting gratitude for the immense amount of useful labor they have done in the northwest in behalf of ¦ common schools, in building school houses, securing sites, procuring means of illustration, employing teachers, adopting text-books, watching over the schools, settling difficulties between teachers and patrons, and enforcing discipline, and this, too, without compensation, without thanks, amid fault-finding, unjust criticism as well as charges of dishonesty and incompetency. These boards, I repeat, are entitled to the lasting gratitude of our people, and far be it from me, here on this public occasion, to detract one iota from their just claims to consideration, while I condemn a custom that is no less a disgrace than it is an injury to our profession, and to the cause of popular education.

It is not now a question for discussion whether public schools shall be maintained, but what is the true function of the several grades, and what shall be their economy? How shall the educational fabric be adjusted so that there shall be