the least undervaluing direct efforts to train the mind in specific directions, but with the purpose of reinforcing them rather, thoughtful people are placing increasing stress on the indirect influence of examples, patterns, models and the varied mute exhibits of what is creditable in human expression. One telling advantage of such indirect means is that, however numerous they become in the schoolroom, they do not and cannot crowd out the staple subjects of the curriculum. Here, at least, is that rare thing,- a field in which one may press for more and always find room for it. It is for service in this field that the Public School Art League of Boston was organized. It is just the field in which private munificence can work to admirable advantage.

This principle of silently working on children's minds through concrete things of value, or through pictures of them, which, in a sense, are concrete also, has numerous applications, some of which are feasible in ordinary class instruction. Modern processes of reproducing paintings, engravings and photographs in accurate, beautiful but inexpensive cuts have brought rich resources within the reach of every school enterprising enough to utilize them. At the exhibition of geographical appliances, given at the English high school building in Boston last December by the New England Conference of Educational Workers, there was an elaborate collection of newspaper, magazine and other pictures, to illustrate the study of geography. It was made by the pupils and teachers of the Phillips grammar school of Boston. Rivers, mountains, seas, forests, plants, animals, peoples, manners and customs, houses, temples, churches, public buildings, cities and what not thousands of these views had been gathered, classified according to countries or to kind, arranged and mounted on stiff paper or cardboard, and ingeniously made available for instant class or individual use. The next thing to having the Phillips school visit the world is to have the world visit the Phillips school. Compare the acquisition of the child who learns memoriter some colorless sentence about Gibraltar- all that the geography can afford — with that of the child who studies and interprets for himself trustworthy views of that mighty fortress, views which he may himself have discovered in his foraging and secured for the school. It all gives piquancy to map studies and extended

readings about what is seen and abounds as well in æsthetic elements that quietly do their refining work. A still better way is class study of views thrown on a screen with the solar camera or the stereopticon.

As has been already intimated, the various pleas here suggested for good buildings, well-kept grounds, attractive classrooms, artistic decorations and displays, miniature museums and pictorial means of study, all run down, like pleas for the employment of teachers of impressive personality, into one and the same principle, that of the elevating influence of such inspiring examples as can be lodged through the senses in the responsive minds of children, and made standards there for them to respect. They are really pleas for closer attention to a largely neglected side of our education, for a wider recognition of the potency of stimulating examples, for the transcendent importance of crowding out of the mind by means of good standards such low or evil ones as contend for its possession.

COMPULSORY SUPERVISION.

Business men regard it as a sound principle, when numerous forces are employed for the same end, to put them under competent supervision and directorship. This brings greater unity, wisdom and effectiveness. If supervision fails, they never dream of abandoning the principle, but cast about for a better director.

The policy of supervision has been tried thoroughly in Massachusetts. It has won its way on its merits. It includes more than ninety per cent. of the entire population. District superintendence, in particular, is needed for the sake of the small towns. It is the most effective measure yet devised for carrying State aid to such towns in a way to make their schools better. The county supervision of other States cannot possibly get so close to the schools and the teachers as this. But the limits to its voluntary extension in Massachusetts have been nearly reached. This extension requires such delicate concert of action that again and again a single town or a single man even may defeat it for several towns that want it. Moreover, when established, the failure of a superintendent or the disaffection of a member of a committee may lead to its break-up. The existence of a school is never permitted to depend on such

contingencies. Supervision should become a universal and permanent policy; and the energies now absorbed in building it up or tearing it down should be directed into the more promising channels of improving superintendence and through it the schools.

The following is a list of the towns not yet under supervision:

District superintendence under the present law extends to towns whose valuation is under $2,500,000. In the table just given there are fifteen towns whose valuation is over that sum, namely: Great Barrington, Lenox, Williamstown, Amesbury, Ipswich, Nahant, Swampscott, Montague, Groton, Hudson, Weston, Nantucket, Hyde Park, Rockland and Lancaster. These fifteen towns, therefore, are not eligible to the offer of State aid under the district supervision law. It makes an impressive showing of the special burdens that schools impose