TH

HE problem is one upon which superintendents and teachers may properly think, write and speak. Its difficulties should. not dishearten anyone, for much can be accomplished by persevering effort. There will always remain some homes where conditions will not be helpful. But they can be made the exception, not the rule. In all reforms the same discouraging factor is present in the larger or smaller contingent, as the case may be, of those who will not be reformed. We believe that almost any forceful superintendent or principal could bring about a great improvement in this respect in his district, and be of great help to the families from which he receives his pupils, by beginning a campaign with this end in view and keeping perseveringly at it. We suggest the following as among the resources at his command: (1) The teachers' meeting, at which the superintendent may organize his campaign and assign special lines of work to the "officers of his staff." (2) The local press, which will usually be found quite ready to lend its assistance in promulgating ideas suggested by the school officers and intended for the public good. (3) The mothers' clubs or other similar organizations, before which he may occasionally himself appear, or to the officers of which he may make such suggestions as will lead them to secure other speakers on topics relating to the home. (4) The School Association, already organized or which he may help to organize, and the special mission of which it is to develop popular intelligence in regard to educational questions. (5) The pupils themselves, who can be directly influenced and made to feel that the school is interested in them not only for the few hours during which they are at the schoolhouse, but equally at all times and in their entire environment. Thus school and home can be made mutually helpful, and the best results secured alike for teachers, pupils, parents and the State.

WE

E propose to devote a paragraph in this department of EDUCATION, in each of the next four or five numbers, to a statement of a few fundamental principles underlying true home life. In setting forth these principles we shall not expect to be exhaustive, but shall speak of such truths as experience and observation have led us to believe to be most important. If our paragraphs shall be suggestive to any teachers who are thinking and working along this line or to any parents who read EDUCATION we shall be gratified.

In naming LOVE as the first fundamental principle of true home life we are almost afraid of being charged with the unnecessary utterance

of a self-evident truth.

Yet we are persuaded that more evils assail the home, interfering with normal, healthful development of character both in parents and children, from lack of real love than from any other cause. All too frequently the serious evils originating from this cause antedate the birth of a given child. He is not wanted and sometimes is even hated by the one who gives him life, and from whom he has the right to claim a loving welcome as his God-given birthright. We believe that the consequences to the child, of prenatal rebellion and hatred on the part of the mother, are as disastrous as they are reprehensible. These consequences are both physical and temperamental. Physicians tell us that the health of the child is seriously affected by the mother's mental condition before his birth. Who can doubt that his disposition is also influenced in the

same way. If he is unwelcome we cannot wonder that when he has arrived he is fretful and cross. The child that is wanted; the one that from the first intimations of his existence is loved and rejoiced over with a holy joy; the one that is welcomed at birth to loving arms and a happy home, will repay this love in the same coin a hundred fold, and other things being equal will almost certainly be quiet, docile, obedient and easily managed. Half the problems of family government are solved by right and proper ante-natal conditions.

From birth onward through early childhood and youth, love plays a most important part in securing ideal results in the mutual relations of the home. The mother-love instinctively finds the right solution of the problems of infancy, and the child's physical and moral interests are carefully attended to. As he grows older the father-love and the mother-love create the atmosphere of the home in which the fairest virtues and graces flourish. This mutual love results in comradeship with the children. The boy who loves to be with his father and who gives his confidences to his mother unreservedly, is safe. The girl who finds her home with its duties and pleasures more permanently attractive than the ball-room or the theatre will grow up to be a good wife and mother. Love solves the problem of discipline, safeguards the life of youth, guides effort and ambition into right channels, develops all the higher, finer qualities of mind and heart, furnishes the most powerful motive for sustained and successful endeavor and makes almost secure a happy and useful life. But there are many homes where this atmosphere of love does not exist. We have sometimes been painfully amused by the frantic and ridicu· lous, though well-meant efforts of some suburban father to entertain

his children on a holiday. Throughout the year he has rushed off to the city right after breakfast and returned at about bedtime. He hardly knows his children by name; certainly he is poorly acquainted with their characters and dispositions. But on a given holiday he thinks it his duty to take them off on a picnic or other excursion. We pity him when we see what hard work he makes of it. And we pity the children in the homes where the love element is so neglected. These are the homes from which come the children who give the teacher her difficult problems. The children from such homes go out into the world, finally, wholly lacking in the beautiful qualities of filial devotion and a sense of family unity. It is the parents of such children who pass into a loveless old age and go to an unlamented burial. Love, from earliest infancy to the end of life, is the foundation of true home life. It does not always come and abide without earnest desire and intelligent effort. It involves unceasing devotion and self-sacrifice. But its rewards are beyond estimate, and eternal.

THE

HE appointment of Mr. George H. Martin, of the Boston Board of School Supervisors, to the office of Secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Education as successor to the late Hon. Frank A. Hill, will give general satisfaction. It is an eminently sane appointment. Mr. Martin is thoroughly acquainted with the problems of public school work. He is in touch with the schools of Massachusetts. He is a clear thinker, and has positive ideas and policies which are at once reasonably conservative and effectively progressive. The character of the man, his experience and providential training for his present opportunity, and the splendid support which he is sure of from the board and the public, are a guarantee that the high ideals for which Massachusetts schools are noted will be fully maintained. Her continued leadership in educational affairs under the administration of State Secretary George H. Martin is entirely secure to this old and goodly Commonwealth.

N two or three occasions recently, President Eliot has advocated

of the centralization of authority in one or a few experts, where at present it is lodged in a larger and more popular body. The attitude taken by him and a few others in relation to the affairs of the N. E. A. at Boston last summer is in point: On February 8th, at Sanders Theatre in Cambridge, he is reported to have advocated radical changes in the form of government of the Boston schools, the idea

being to elect a smaller board which shall work through executive heads having wide authority. This has led some of the Boston papers to comment rather severely on the present make-up of school boards in general. One paper says that citizens willing to give their time to this kind of service are reputed to be of three classes: First, "faddists with a crankism or a class or sect ax to grind, who spatter the whole department with the weak water from that grindstone." Secondly, "politicians, who try to make places' for their friends and their friends' friends." Thirdly, "citizens too weak to say No when asked to act, yet too busy or lazy to give the time and work necessary for introducing broad policies and for holding their cranky and spoilsman colleagues in check." It is proposed to get around these evils by abolishing the boards altogether or so limiting their power as to render them practically innocuous. With this heroic remedy the most distinguished and aristocratic of our great educators would set aside the time-honored customs of our fathers and lodge the power to make or unmake our educational destiny in the hands of the modern superintendent who is an expert, or in a small number of other men who have been elected because they are experts.

WH

HILE the weaknesses, abuses and evils incidental to the present system are sometimes glaring, we doubt the wisdom of the proposed remedy. It is certainly undemocratic and unAmerican. The characterization of the personnel of school boards. above mentioned is unfair and untrue in that it leaves out of sight the presence of the many able, broad-minded, public-spirited men and women who often, and we believe usually, make up the majorities in such bodies. It is the presence of these fair-minded majorities that makes the strength of the present system. It is the essence of our Americanism, this belief that in the long run the people will find the common-sense, practical, and on the whole wisest solution of all public questions more unerringly than any individual specialist or body of specialists. It is the old contention between democracy and aristocracy, the popular and the monarchical form of government. History seems to indicate that evils do not all disappear when power is concentrated in one man or a small body of men. If some advantages accrue there are corresponding disadvantages and dangers. We believe in expert. advice and direction in school affairs. But we believe also in the modifying influence of the average sense and business level-headedness of the intelligent and patriotic men and women usually chosen to serve on our school boards. We think they serve as a wholesome check on "faddists" and extremists of various stripes; and we believe that it will be a long day before the people will vote to abolish them.

Foreign Notes

THE SALARY QUESTION IN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

The question of teachers' salaries looms large at the present moment in educational discussions the world over. In England it is the chief problem confronting the new local education authorities; in France. the question of salaries for elementary teachers is second only to that of the religious associations, which it is claimed with some show of reason are the only bodies that have found the means of supplying good teachers at a trifling expense. In our own country the subject has been pressed home to thoughtful minds by Dr. Eliot's philippic of a year ago, and the subsequent action of the N. E. A. in appointing a committee to investigate and report the actual economic situation of teachers throughout the country.

In view of this widespread interest the time is opportune for considering the salaries which the teaching career offers to intelligent men and women in the principal countries. It should be premised that comparisons based on the figures given are of little value because of differences in the purchasing power of money in different countries and the varying standards of living to which teachers must conform.

The London school board, which has been charged with extravagance in the conduct of its schools, paid average salaries as follows in 1902: To head masters, £292 7s. ($1,461); to head mistresses, £209 IIS. ($1,047); to assistant masters, £138 12s. ($693); to assistant mistresses, £102 10s. ($512). These salaries have been sufficient to keep up a supply of able teachers, from which it may be inferred that they compare favorably with inducements in other fields.

Considering England as a whole, in 1902. the average salary of a full-certificated master occupying the position of principal was £147 5s. ($737.25); the average salary of a full-certificated woman principal was £97 Is. ($485.50). Assistant teachers averaged much less. According to a report recently published by the minister of public instruction in France, Prussia gives full recognition to the claims of experienced teachers. Probationers start in the service at a salary of $348. The salaries of full teachers consist of three elements: (1) the fundamental salary; (2) the supplement for length of service; (3) residence or equivalent allowance. The minimum of the fundamental salary is $225, but in the majority of cases the amount is greater, rising even to $360. The supplement for length of service is allowed after the seventh year, and amounts to an increase of $21 a year for each succeeding triennial period. Thus after thirty-four years of service the teacher will receive at least $450 a year; but the supple