ion, and with acquirements such as the position imperatively demands will find out ways and opportunities of doing the beautiful work, will engage in it though it is not in the contract with the committee. The first thing to secure is the confidence and affection of the pupil. The next is to awaken his interest and gratify his curiosity. Then he may be made to comprehend that mastery of the task is its own reward. You will not understand me as saying that the business of the school should be mere play. I believe in work and in hard work, even for children, but it should be a work which does not disgust by its abstractions or by over-tasking the faculties. I believe in play, but it should be play which does not waste time, nor absorb the mind, nor create an appetite for amusement alone. Fortunate is the teacher who can blend labor and recreation, and bring all the powers of the pupil's mind into a harmonious relation. You may be sure that no teacher will do this who does not love the business-no teacher who is working merely for a salary-who has not attained a moderate degree of culture, and who is not thoroughly conscientious. I always expect noble fruits from a school-keeper who loves school-keeping. I never expect any great results from one who is always dwelling upon the désagréments of the calling, and who is in a hurry to get out of it. Such teachers do all they can to degrade their vocation, and little understand its dignity and importance. They reduce education to a mere mechanical routine, and are themselves the most thorough mechanics of all concerned. The existence of this Association, the meeting of this Convention shows a genuine and honorable interest in the work, and true perception of its character; and no Convention, Republican or Democrat, held in this country, and this year of conventions, is worthier of praise or likelier to effect desirable objects than ours.

Finally there is nothing in the consideration of this subject, which impresses me more forcibly, than the ample opportunity of the teacher. To all labor expended upon the material there is a limit defined by the law of capacity or of production; but education is experiment cheered by great chances and encouraged by great possibilities. It is philosophy warmed and softened by the affections. It works for the best results in time and for the illimitable triumphs of immortality. The teacher receives his trust fresh and uncontaminated from the hand of nature. Bad intellectual habits are not yet formed; character is yet undefined; the intellect is plastic and unhackneyed; and the absolutely necessary quality of confidence, the fruit of a love which has not so far been disappointed, makes the relation of teacher and taught one of the noblest which can be established between human beings. The child looks up, in its helplessness and its need, with tender and trusting eyes, full of wants which it does not comprehend, and thirsting for knowledge of which it does not know the nature. Its faith now is just as beautiful as it was when the little Jewish children gathered at the knees of the Savior, and furnisheď him with one of the sublimest and most comforting of his illustrations. Here are the germs of all acquirements and the beginnings of all human progress. Yet all is in a delicately-critical condition. This callow mind may be warped; this heart now loving naturally may unnaturally hate; this innate desire of knowledge may be changed into a detestation of all

which bears the name-the school-room a dungeon, the teacher a tyrant, the book an object abhorrent or disgusting! All this is the melancholy result of our coarse blundering, and because so often we have neither hand nor eye, neither heart nor tact for the work. Nature has done her share; her provisions are bountiful and her gifts costly and wise; and now it is for the teacher to develop, to expand, to bring all into a harmonious union. What is the divine secret of success? What but love and patience, and a thorough comprehension of the responsibility involved? We sometimes say that the teacher stands in the place of the parent, and there is a great deal implied in the phrase. The mother, unless she is void of all the best instincts of maternity finds out a way of guiding the uncertain feet of her little one, of moulding its moral nature, of introducing it to the arts and economy of life. Here is the best, because it is the most rational teaching, impelled by the highest motives and governed by the most thoroughly natural instincts. This parental education the teacher in a school can only measurably impart. But if the same benevolence be his, the same in kind if not in degree, his work will be glorified by the same motives and dignified by the same results.

Shall I be told that I am asking and expecting too much? I dare say that I am, or at any rate that I am puzzling myself with some ideal of a school which it will be impossible to realize. But in this world, nothing is accomplished without impracticable ideals. We always fall short of our best aims; the higher these aims the less disastrous will be the failure. The more thoroughly we divest school-keeping of the mere mechanical drudgery the nearer shall we come to model schools. 1 grant that there must be labor; that a distaste for study may result from idleness, and that idleness is a vice to be corrected. But it should be remembered that a child can do only a child's work, and that there may be acquisitions even in play itself. I grant that the minds of many children seem to be hopelessly inactive, but I remember the example of not a few great men who gave no promise in boyhood of their future greatness. Good schoolkeeping is ceaseless experiment, which the good teacher will not abandon however slow may be progress and however frequent failure. But in no great work, is constant or immediate success the rule. Neither in any great work so much as in teaching, is there such opportunity for comparison and observation. The good teacher must necessarily grow in his art, or if you please in his science. Every class helps him to amend his methods. Every study throws light upon the means of imparting knowledge. We are all pupils; however much we may know we shall still be scholars at a school; and if we in the full maturity of our powers need help and can hardly go alone without our books and our teachers; if we are daily making mistakes and almost as often are obliged to retract our footsteps and start anew; and if, too, we need the best help and will not be content without it, how much more patient should we be with these children so standing in need of assistance, and so utterly at the mercy of mankind!

This paper was discussed by Mrs. Rickoff, Dr. CruikshANK, and Z. RICHARDS.

DR CRUIKSHANK then spoke upon "Text-books adapted to our Modern System of Education."

[DR. CRUIKSHANK's remarks have not been furnished for publication.— Printer.]

The subject was discussed by RICHARDS, and EVANS of Illinois.

Adjourned.

ZALMON RICHARDS, Sec. pro tem.

INDUSTRIAL DEPARTMENT.

First Day's Proceedings.

MONDAY, JULY 10, 1876.

The Industrial Department was called to order by the President, Prof. S. R. THOMPSON, of Nebraska, at 3:15 P. M., and the regular order of the programme proceeded with. The first exercise on the programme was the opening address of the President which was as follows:

To-day the Industrial Department of the National Educational Association holds its first regular session. The design of breaking up the general Association into sections during a part of the sessions is obvious. By this means we unite more closely those engaged in the same line of work, and provide for the discussion of subjects and methods which would not be equally interesting to others. For some years the question of organizing a Department of Industrial Education has been discussed, till to-day we find it no longer a question but an accomplished fact.

In view of these circumstances you will pardon me if I withhold the regular programme, long enough to permit a few suggestions regarding the work before us, and our legitimate field of labor.

This Department will naturally have before it three more or less distinct lines of educational effort: 1. General Discussions; 2. The Collection of Statistics; 3. A free conference over the practical work of the class of schools here represented.

And now a few words concerning each of these.

I. The discussion of general questions growing out of the relations of indus trial education to our various productive industries.

These relations discussed from different stand-points, give rise to at least three questions:

1. To what extent does the material prosperity of the community depend upon the general diffusion of education?

2. What is the kind and amount of education that will best promote the material interests of the State, and increase its wealth and power?

3. How may educational instrumentalities in connection with manual arts, be most efficiently used to prevent crime, or to aid in reforming those already criminal?

The first of these questions has been ably discussed by many eminent men, and frequently receives attention in the general Association. It is generally conceded that there is an intimate relation between the diffu

sion of knowledge and national prosperity. Yet there is need that the nature of this relation be more fully studied, till we may discern more clearly the manner in which intellectual training conduces to skill in manual arts, and leads to a more profitable exertion of productive energy.

In regard to the second question there is a very general want of unanimity. One indication of this may be found in the various and sometimes incongruous use of the word industrial as applied to education.— Many schools formerly called "Houses of Refuge," afterwards "Reform Schools," are now called "Industrial Schools." Again, all the institutions which received the National Land Grant of 1862, are frequently classed as industrial schools, though it would be hard to distinguish some of them from other colleges not so called.

It will hardly do to apply the epithet industrial to a school because in it are taught chemistry or some branch of learning "related to agriculture or the mechanic arts," any more than it would to call an academy a medical school because in it is taught an occasional class in Human Physiology.

Without going into the discussion of the subject, I venture to suggest, that the term industrial school be restricted to such schools as: (1) teach the sciences either in connection with manual arts, or with special reference to them; or (2) to such as teach manual arts and the sciences together as means of reforming juvenile criminals, and qualifying them to make an honest livlihood.

In regard to the scope of studies suitable for the education of those destined for industrial pursuits, we find a great variety of discordant and contradictory opinions.

To illustrate, PRES. PORTER in commending classical studies, says: "We contend that the college training is pre-eminently desirable for those young men who are destined for an active and business life, and that these least of all should seek for what is called a more practical course of study." This is thought to have been the opinion of the late A. T. STEWART, also.

On the other hand, MR. HENRY CAREY BAIRD, says: "Too much education of a certain sort, such as Greek, Latin, French, German and especially book-keeping, to a person of humble antecedents, is utterly demoralizing in nine cases out of ten, and is productive of an army of mean spirited "gentlemen," who are above what is called a "trade" and who are only content to follow some such occupation as that of standing behind a counter and selling silks, bobbins, and laces, or to keep books.— Quotations showing equally great differences of opinion might easily be multiplied.

Under this second question in regard to what constitutes an industrial education, a multitude of unsettled questions offer themselves: Should any kind of manual labor be required of students in industrial schools?

If manual labor is required, what should be its purpose and kind? Should there be any attempt to teach students trades in connection with industrial schools?