are tardy or absent from school. It is found by examining the records that less than one-half of the children of school age attend school at the same time.

4th. See that the children are punctual at school every day, both in the forenoon and in the afternoon. Every school suffers from the tardiness of the pupils.

5th. Provide the children with suitable books, and provide them the first day of the term.

6th. Often ask the children about the school, and show them that you take an interest in the school.

7th. Visit the school at least once a month. Who would send a colt to be trained, and never call upon the trainer to see how he was succeeding? What parent thinks so much more of the breaking of his colts than he does of the instruction of his children?

8th. Always speak well of the teacher in the presence of the scholars. Children can not learn, and will not obey, when they daily hear their teacher evil spoken of.

9th. Give the children time, and see that they study some at home.

If the above directions are faithfully followed, every dollar used for school purposes will be worth more than two dollars as usually paid for schools, and in a single State the amount saved will be over five millions of dollars.—The Normal.

VENTILATION.

All the windows of a school-room should be hung with pulleys, in order that they may be easily raised or lowered. If windows and doors ard skillfully used, a tolerably good degree of ventilation can be secured. The ventilation will be much more perfect if the arrangement be adopted which is indicated in the designs representing the internal arrangements of a school-house. In this arrangement, the smoke-flue starts from the cellar and runs out at the roof; and starting at the floor of the school-room, a ventiduct is carried up in front of it, and separated from it by a sheet-iron partition. In this way the smoke in the flue will heat, and of course expand, the air in the ventiduct, and make it rise in a strong current, while the air in the ventiduct will not interfere with the draft in the flue. The smoke-flue should be about twenty-four inches by nine inches, and the ventiduct the same. The stove or furnace may have two pipes, one running to each smoke-flue. The ventiduct should have two registers, one at the ceiling and the other at the floor, though during the school sessions—unless the room be too warm-the upper one should be closed. Impure air is heavier than other air, and will generally find egress from near the floor.

If a stove must be placed in the room, it should be surrounded with a tin casing made to extend from the floor to about one foot above the top of the stove. There should be a door in the casing for putting in fuel; and a trunk for the conveyance of fresh air should start outside of the building, run under the floor, and communicate directly with the stove. This arrangement will distribute the heat much better about the room, and avoid those cold currents of air which always, in a room heated by an ordinary stove, sweep along the floor from the bottom of doors and windows, and openings in the floor or walls.— Wickersham's School Economy.

Editorial Department.

WE acknowledge our indebtedness to Mr. Henkle, of Salem, and Mr. Norton, of Cincinnati, for valuable assistance in editing this number. Whatever of merit is found in this department, including the Miscellany and Book Notices, may be credited to them. We have been trying to act on the advice of our physician who thinks we need rest.

We would also thank the Press for many appreciative and highly commendatory notices of our January number. We hope the MONTHLY may continue to merit the many good words which greet it.

GREEK PREPARATION.

The recent meeting of College Presidents in this city, convened to consider the propriety of dropping Greek from the list of preparatory studies, is a significant event. It shows that the necessity of a better adjustment of the courses of study in our colleges and high schools, is beginning to be realized, and it gives assurance that the accomplishment of this desirable result is not far dis

tant.

Why is it that all our colleges in Ohio are obliged to maintain preparatory departments? The answer is found in the fact that the high schools and academies do not afford adequate facilities to boys fitting for college. There is scarcely a high school or academy in the State that is a thorough preparatory school. The result is, that our colleges must largely prepare their own students or get along without them. And who needs be told that the necessity of sending boys away to college to prepare for college, is greatly reducing the number who make such preparation? The number of graduates sent out by the colleges of the country, is considerably smaller now, in proportion to the population, than it was twenty years ago. The President of Columbia College, New York, has prepared statistical tables which show that whereas one in forty-one used to take a college course, now not above one in sixty does so. Is not the explanation of this result found, in part, at least, in the increasing divergence in the courses of study in our colleges and lower schools?

It seems plain to us that this difficulty-and we regard it a serious one-can only be removed by dropping Greek from the preparatory studies, and requiring a full equivalent in other branches. So far as our high schools are concerned— and we might say academies—it is idle to talk of increasing the quality and amount of Greek instruction. The current is running very strongly in the opposite direction. The fitting of two or three boys for college in Greek is altogether too expensive to meet the economic views of our school authorities. The same is true substantially in our academies. Their overworked and halfpaid teachers are obliged to devote to their small classes in Greek the odds and

ends of their time and energy. The result is, that the majority of the students admitted to the colleges, at least in Ohio, are wretchedly prepared in Greek. We venture the assertion that there is not a college in the State whose present freshman class entered with an average of fifty weeks' instruction in Greek. We may be mistaken on this point, but we know of several instances in which boys have been admitted to college with considerably less than a year's Greek preparation.

We have not space to notice the several objections urged against the proposed change. Doubtless it would be attended, as all important changes are, with some inconvenience. It would involve the necessity of rearranging the college course. We admit that there would be apparent loss in some directions, at least during the period of transition from the old to the new course. But there are two points which, to our mind, decide the question. We know that our high schools and academies would give more than an equivalent for the present preparation in Greek, and we believe that the colleges would turn out better Greek scholars in four full years than under the present arrangement. The testimouy of several eminent Greek professors is conclusive on this latter point. At least, we do not see how the results of Greek instruction can become less satisfactory than at present.

We are glad to learn that so large a number of our college men favor the change, and we are not disposed to find fault with the conclusion of the January meeting. The subject needs further discussion before action is taken.

MEETING OF CITY SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENTS.

In accordance with an arrangement made at the last meeting of the Ohio Teachers' Association, a meeting of City School Superintendents was held at the School Commissioner's Office, in this city, on the 23d day of January. The attendance was very slim-Messrs. Mitchell, of Columbus, Harding, of Cincinnati, and Reinmund, of Lancaster, being the only superintendents present. Messrs. Tappan, Hancock, and Crosby, representing the committee appointed by the State Association, and several other friends of education, were present and took part in the exercises. The principal item of business was the consideration of the bill creating the office of County School Superintendent, prepared jointly by the School Commissioner, and Messrs. Henkle and Mitchell of the committee of the State Association. After a free discussion of several provisions of the bill, it was unanimously approved and recommended to the General Assembly; and we are glad to learn that the friends of the measure feel confident of its success. An efficient superintendent in each county of the State, would add very much to the efficiency of our country schools. When we have seen the bill, we shall take pleasure in presenting an abstract of its provisions.

We learn that no action was taken looking to the establishment of a normal school or a system of normal institutes, the whole subject being postponed,

which amounts, practically, to the abandonment of these important measures, at least for several years. After all the pains we have taken to call public attention to the vital importance of these agencies, we, of course, feel disappointed. We shall comfort ourself with the hope that what we have done in this direction, has not been wholly futile.

INSTRUCTION ABOUT LOCAL MATTERS.

Among the minor points which may profitably engage the teacher's attention, is instruction about matters of interest pertaining to his immediate neighborhood. No stone should be left unturned which promises to sharpen the child's thoughts or offers the least inducement for farther investigation. There will be no lack of materials to fill up at least an hour each week in this exercise. The local traditions, history, geography, geology, government, and the like, are fertile themes. When these are exhausted, the statistics of the State will open a wider field for study. It is to be regretted that we have no manual to serve as a teacher's hand book, for one is very much needed; yet an active and intelligent teacher can not fail to collect many details of great value to his school; and, what is still better, a little zealous coöperation will engage most of his pupils in the same search.

No youth of the State should be ignorant of its government, its resources, products, its physical geography, its history, or its relative rank among its sister States in population, wealth, and enterprise. These details may be gleaned from Taylor's or Howe's history, from Cyclopedias, and from the documents issued by the State and by the United States. Of the value of such instruction there can be no question, and yet there is great need of it, as any one can ascertain for himself by seeking information on any of these points from his next neighbor. It would be a matter of surprise to find a class in geography competent to bound their own township or county, although there are other things that should begin at home besides charity.

The lack of this sort of knowledge prevails to such an extent, that county institutes can do nothing better than to include in their programmes a course of instruction on local topics. Should our suggestion be adopted, we hope that the best man in the county will be selected for the post, and that the members of the institute will be required to take full notes of his lectures for future If we were a county examiner, we should certainly include a list of such questions in every examination of teachers.

use.

CONVENTIONALISM.

Physicians were formerly in the habit of carrying a sort of pepper-box filled with aromatic drugs on the heads of their canes, and, when in the presence of the sick, were wont to inhale the perfume from, a mistaken notion of the efficacy of their pouncet-box, as a prophylactic in contagious diseases. Hence

the painters of their day drew them to the life, when they represented them in the act of applying their canes to their nostrils; but as physicians have long since given up the pouncet-box, an artist of the present day who is forced to represent a physician by obsolete forms, is guilty of conventionalism. So in this country it is unwarrantable conventionalism to represent a lawyer in the big wigs once in vogue in England. Such devices betray weakness.

Yet conventional signs have their uses. The red flag of the auctioneer recalls the time when the booty taken in war was exposed to public vendue; the striped pole of the barber, the connection which that distinguished fraternity once held with the surgeons, having been gradually changed from a bleeding arm bound with bandages, alternately white and bloody, to the latter-day pole, which has given up the old token to express the loyalty implied in the red, white and blue. Of like nature are the three golden balls of "my uncle," the pawnbroker, and of the live Indian of the cigar store; and, what is of constant service, the arbitrary signs used in topographical drawings.

In like manner the conventional schoolmaster has his frequent representative in art in a slovenly dressed man, wearing spectacles, and bearing a sort of broom, supposed to be birch rods. In letters another set of conventional signs gives us either an Ichabod Crane of haunted memory, fluteose and mulierose, or a teacher of either sex as prim, precise, pedantic, and severely punctilious in petty matters, with an additional flavor to the fairer sex of a spice of prudery, joined with an outward appearance and manner not calculated to win other admirers than staid and widowed deacons.

As in the case of the physicians, this class of pedagogues has departed, and we have in place of them active and intelligent men and women who are in no way to be distinguished from other educated and refined persons. We there fore protest against this coventionalism, and beg that those who have not sufficient ability to represent teachers as they are, would at least have the honesty to state that they mean not to libel them, but their predecessors of a dozen generations past.

MISCELLANY.

HOLIDAY INSTITUTES.-Four institutes were held in the State during the week between Christmas and New Years. The one at Findlay, Hancock county, noticed in another place, was a decided success, and the same may be said of the one at Cambridge, Guernsey county. We attended the latter, being assisted in the work of instruction by Messrs. Dinsmore, of the Commercial School at Zanesville, L. S, Thompson, of the Sandusky Public Schools, and Joseph Elliott, of Coshocton. W. M. Farrar, Esq., of Cambridge, presided at all of the sessions with great acceptance. He also gave an excellent practical address on Monday evening, on the subject of "Teachers and Teaching in Guernsey County." Several of the teachers took an active part in the discussions, and Mr. Burns, of Washington, read a fine essay. The hall was well filled each evening, and the citizens otherwise showed a commendable interest in the exercises.

The institute at Kenton, Hardin county, was not largely attended, but an encouraging interest was manifested by those present. A good list of subscribers, sent us