National Education Association Notes.

NEW SAN FRANCISCO.

The building of the New San Francisco in this brief period is beyond belief, were it not that the reconstructed city, far more beautiful and grand than the beautiful old San Francisco, is an existing entity, to be visited by all.

New San Francisco is a phoenix; literally it has fabulously arisen anew from its own burning-population, 416,912.

Geographically, New San Francisco, proudly occupying the northern part of the peninsula between the bay and the Pacific Ocean, is so commandingly situated, possessing one of the finest harbors in the world, with regular steam communication to Manila, China, Japan, Australia, Central America and other countries, that it is today and will ever remain the metropolis and chief seaport of the West.

Whatever the united people undertake for the glory or benefit of the city or state is apt to be colossal. This was exemplified last winter, when in two hours $5,000,000 was raised for the Panama Canal Exposition.

Another illustration of California's way of doing things is the creation of a fund of $18,000,000-half by the state and half by the counties-for automobile roads from San Diego to Oregon, tieing all the main points.

GOLDEN GATE SIGHT PLACES.

Seal Rocks form a group of small rock-islands, near shore, south of the Golden Gate, where the ocean is ever splashing foam and crowds of seals are sunning or at play. Reached by street cars.

Cliff House. A new Cliff House, far more spacious and permanent than the one destroyed by fire, projects out over the cliff opposite the Seal Rocks. This is an historic site. A most attractive nook. Reached by street cars.

Chinatown covers four blocks. It is bounded by Kearney, Stockton, California and Jackson streets. Many quaint Orientalisms, gorgeous decorations and costumes, with fantastic street displays, attract the inquisitive. Particulars gleaned and guides may be had on inquiry at principal hotels.

United States Branch Mint, Fifth and Mission streets, reached by Market and Mission street cars. Open to visitors from 9 to 11.30 A. M. except Sunday.

Sutro Heights are a series of magnificent gardens where marble statues meet the visitor at unexpected turns. Formerly the private park of the Sutro mansion, now a public park. Reached by street

cars.

Golden Gate Park contains 1,140 acres, where tropical plants

ever bloom. A sunken lake, zoo, aviary, museum, art gallery are among the interesting attractions, which include a herd of buffalo that have a field by themselves. Band concerts in summer. Reached by street cars.

Mission de Asisi, founded 1776, in the heart of the busy metropolis, is well preserved and still in service. Ancient burying ground of the padres surrounds the picturesque adobe building. Reached by street cars.

Union Iron Works. Here the Oregon was built. A permission to visit this shipyard may be obtained on application at the city office.

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY. The attention of teachers who are planning to attend the meeting of the National Education Association in San Francisco is directed to the unusual opportunities that the University of California will offer for vacation study at its Summer Session of 1911: June 26-August 4. The expense of living in Berkeley is moderate, the fare from Berkeley to San Francisco is ten cents; the summer climate is delightfully cool. A circular of information will be sent upon request.

Charles H. Rieber, Dean of the Summer Session.

A Vacation in California will never be more enjoyable; it will never cost so little.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE: The Yosemite, the Big Trees, the many vacation resorts of California and rebuilt San Francisco?

You can do so at comparatively small cost if you attend the National Education Association Convention in San Francisco, July 8-14, 1911.

SOME POINTERS FOR YOU:

(1.) Low railway rates from all parts of the United States. (2.) Existing low hotel rates in San Francisco will not be raised. (3.) Special railway rates to points of interest throughout Cali

fornia.

(4.) Stopovers to see scenery and famous vacation resorts of California, "The Playground of America."

(5.) A cool coast or mountain summer climate with no rain.

THE BIG TREES, as they are popularly called, are found only in California. Their scientific name is Sequoia, named in honor of Sequoyah, a Cherokee Indian, who designed an alphabet for his tribe.

There are two varieties, the Sequoia sempervirens, or redwood, which grows in extensive forests on the ocean side of the Coast Range, and the Sequoia gigantea, its cousin, the Real Big Tree, which is found only on the Western slope of the Sierra Nevada, usually at an elevation of from 4000 to 6500 feet.

Both trees are evergreens, and both bear small cones, about two inches long, containing little flat seeds, not unlike a parsnip seed. The redwood attains a height of 275 feet, and a diameter of twentytwo feet, the most accessible grove being near Santa Cruz, about seventy miles south of San Francisco.

The Big Tree (gigantea) is the head of the family in age and size. There are specimens which tower nearly four hundred feet to the sky, and one is said slightly to exceed this, while large numbers of these giants measure from seventy to ninety feet around. The largest recently discovered has a base circumferance of 109 feet. These trees, when fully grown, are always proportionate and symmetrical in girth and height. The bark varies from one to two feet in thickness, and is a bright cinnamon color, perpendicular, soft and fibrous, while the beauty of the tree is enhanced by the flutings, which traverse the trunk from base to apex.

Estimates of the age of the Big Trees vary from the beginning of the Christian era to a period antedating that epoch by 4,000 years. Professor David Starr Jordan, president of the Leland Stanford Junior University, says that the largest trees may be even 7,000 years old. Regardless of these differences, the one great undisputed fact remains, that these trees in all their majesty stand here today the oldest living things in all the world.

No one who can spare the few days necessary to see one of these groves should miss the opportunity. They can be found nowhere. besides. They are distinctly Californian. Older than the pyramids, uplifting high their heads during the ancient dynasties of Rameses, they well exemplify that famous metaphor of Dr. Johnson: "And panting Time toiled after him in vain."

WHAT TO SEE IN DENVER. The mile-high metropolis of the Mountain Empire at the base of the Rocky Mountains-named in 1859 for General James William Denver, then Governor of Kansas, for this region was the wilds of Kansas territory-Colorado's capital and "Queen City of the Plains," ought not to be neglected in any transcontinental outing. Population in 1900, 133,859; in 1910, 213,381, is an index of progressiveness. A full folder-page of fine type would not contain a skeleton outline list of notable features and pleasure places in city and suburbs. The Capitol, City Park, United States Branch Mint, Public Library, Auditorium, Chamber of Commerce, Cheesman Park, Inspiration Point, Elitch Gardens, White City by the Lakeside, Overland Park, Country Club, Park Driveway and Stockyards, with the spacious stadium, are distinctive. Those who tarry a day are apt to stay a week.

Hotels and other transient houses are superior in number and attractiveness to those in other cities of its class, and suit every taste, or condition. In this respect, Denver is a joy-haven, for all whose circumstances compel a dollar doing double duty.

THE CANADIAN NATIONAL ROCKY MOUNTAINS PARKS. A playground of nearly 6,000 square miles, embracing some of the world's grandest scenery, such is the Canadian National Park, created by the Canadian government in the heart of the Rockies. These contain the lovely Bow River Valley, the famous Lakes in the Clouds, and across the Great Divide, the delightful Yoho Valley, with the grand expanse of land to the north and west of it. Speaking of this wonderful region, Mr. Whymper, a famous explorer and mountaineer, and the conqueror of the Matterhorn, says: "The vast ranges are appalling in their immensity and grandeur, for here are fifty or sixty Switzerlands rolled into one." In these parks the Canadian Pacific Railway Company has erected excellent hotels which are models of comfort, at Banff, Lake Louise, one of the lakes in the clouds, Field, at the base of Mount Stephen, and Emerald Lake on the way to the Yoho Valley. In the adjoining mountain range, at the foot of the Great Glacier of the Selkirks, the company operates another hotel-the Glacier House. These resorts are reached only by the Canadian Pacific Railway and its direct connection, the SooPacific from St. Paul and Minneapolis.

Quite a number of eastern educators are talking of the side trip from Seattle to Alaska. From present indications it looks as if this unique journey by boat will be one of the features of the Pacific Coast tour in connection with the N. E. A. Convention.

Seattle educators in a body, are eager to welcome their eastern friends to the big city on Puget Sound and from July 17 to 22 in Seattle will be held the first annual "Golden Potlatch '97." This celebration will be a regular yearly custom, similar to the Mardi Gras in New Orleans, the idea being to have a mid-summer carnival commemorative of Seattle's greatest industrial event, the arrival of the ship "Portland" with $2,500,000 in gold dust from Alaska, July 17, 1897.

There are many regular steamship lines operating between Seattle and southeastern Alaska. This trip is really one of the most remarkable in the United States. Some call it the "Grand Canyon of the Pacific," owing to the fact that the vessels ply through placid waters between the mainland of the United States, British Columbia and Alaska on the east, and a series of rugged, pine-clad mountains forming islands, or rather a chain of islands, to the westward. With the exception of the points crossing Queen Charlotte Sound and Dixon Entrance, this water is as calm as a mill pond. The remarkable scenery, the Indian villages, totem poles, old Russian settlements and the wonderful Taku Glacier make it one of the most interesting trips imaginable. The tour consumes but ten days from Seattle to Skagway and return, taking in all of the scenic features, and the round trip including berth and meals on first class steamships is but $66.00.

Book Notices

Blackwelder and Barrows's Elements of Geology. By Eliot Blackwelder, Associate Professor of Geology, University of Wisconsin, and Harlan H. Barrows, Associate Professor of General Geology and Geography, University of Chicago. Cloth, 12mo, 475 pages, with 485 illustrations and 16 full page colored topographical maps. Price, $1.40. American Book Company, New York, Cincinnati and Chicago.

ness.

The text of this elementary course is explanatory, seldom merely descriptive, and the student gains a knowledge not only of the salient facts in the history of the earth, but also of the methods by which those facts have been determined. The style is simple and direct. Few technical terms are used. The book possesses in a high degree the all-important quality of teachableThe volume is divided into two parts, physical geology and historical geology. For the first time an adequate discussion of the leading modern conceptions concerning the origin and early development of the earth is presented in an elementary text-book. English names are used for fossils wherever practicable. The illustrations and maps, which are unusually numerous, really illustrate the text and are referred to definitely in the discussion. The answers to the questions at the ends of the chapters are in general not to be found in the text. They may, however, be reasoned out by the student, provided he has read the text with understanding. The bibliography at the ends of many of the chapters affords a guide to more extended discussions and special articles.

A Cyclopaedia of Education. Edited by Paul Monroe, Ph. D., Professor of the History of Education, Teachers' College, Columbia University, New York. With the assistance of Departmental Editors and more than one thousand individual contributors. Volume I. The Macmillan Company. Price, $5.00.

It does not yet appear how many volumes will be required to complete this Cyclopædia of Education. But it is safe to say that it will be, when completed, a monumental work. Volume I covers A to Chu. The list of editors is a good directory of leading American educators. The need for such a work has long been felt, as teaching has come to be recognized as one of the great learned professions, and as it has established its principles and created its already extensive literature. The last annual bibliography of education published by the United States Bureau of Education contained more than twelve hundred titles. The personnel of the teaching force is rapidly increasing. The profession concerns itself with a great universal human interest. It is fitting that an adequate treatment should be given to the great body of knowledge that so intimately concerns the public welfare.

The present volume indicates that its editors and contributors have risen to the occasion and are determined to spare no pains in the effort to make the work thoroughly comprehensive, able and useful. It will be immediate