"Low-grade" boys on leaving kindergarten are placed in trade classes, and girls in knitting, etc. Some simple instruction in numbers is given. Many low-grade girls are placed at once in such classes on entering the institution. Some detailed description will be now useful.

1. Preparatory class: Here the child's possibilities are tested and training is begun. Perhaps one in twelve of those admitted to the institution are obviously too low to require the test. There are several in the class who offer little prospect of improvement. Children usually stay as long as half a year and possibly as long as three years. They were seen seated quietly around a table; they appeared apathetic. The methods are the usual ones-peg board, lacing, card sewing, color matching, bead stringing, etc.

The work of the three kindergarten grades is so arranged that it is best for a child to pass successively through all; he may be promoted as often as once in six months. 2. Kindergarten C numbers 18 children, aged from 4 to 16, of very different endowments. Nine-tenths have defective speech. It is hard to teach them the words of songs, and they forget faces readily. They began with the song "Father, we thank Thee," and a versified prayer. Then finger games and songs followed. Then in turn each took a picture from a pile, told what it represented, and went to the cupboard for a corresponding object. They know the names of many geometric formsthey are teachable and well taught.

3. Kindergarten B sang "Good morning," etc. They use all the gifts a good deal, study the calendar, and use tablets and sticks, paper work, etc. There are 14, including 1 girl. Lively spirits. They sit at desks.

4. Kindergarten A: Very bright looking in aspect, with spontaneous life. Primary work commenced. Pollock method of reading. They add and subtract (4+1, 3-2, etc.), using pegs to count and slates to write on.

5. "High grade C:" Twenty-two children who come directly from 4, and remain from one to three years; lower grade primary work.

6. "High grade B" appeared much in advance of 5. The boys did long division at the board fairly accurately, and wrote quite correctly to dictation some review words of two syllables. They learn some history and elementary geography.

7. "High grade A," with 7 boys and 7 girls. The quiet demeanor of "B" is still more marked here; it reminds of a high school. They do simple percentage and compound numbers. Some of the dictation papers in spelling are free from mistakes, containing sentences like these: "A soirée is an evening party. The trailing arbutus is one of the loveliest of wild flowers. To scuttle a ship is to cut holes through the sides and bottom to make it sink." The review papers contained spelling (“mucilage, crescent, tableaux," etc.), compositions on A. Lincoln, parts of irregular verbs, and something in human anatomy.

Efficiency of drill appears in this grade work. There are now in the school a few young children who have completed the "high grade C" course in one year, having spent two years in the kindergarten, and will probably spend but one year in “B,” and will leave "A" only when their mental limit is reached or they cease to be benefited. The course of study in "A" is very extensible.

Girls and boys in these three grades sit on opposite sides of the room. They give two hours to purely "mental" work, the other three to drawing, music, or manual training. There is no recess, but a change of rooms and teachers and alternation of work. There is an exercise period every morning. The shifting of classes is effected without disturbance.

Children less bright than these may be put in "middle grade" classes; the term corresponds with the classification of imbecility adopted here. The girls learn to do plain sewing and darning, and make baskets of reed, raphia, and wood splints. The boys are taught cardboard and paper sloyd, woodwork, and weaving on small

hand looms. A short period daily is devoted to object lessons, drawing, modeling, and "mental work."

A class of girls of still lower capacity sew carpet strips, knit, etc., with simple exercises in number, color, and form.

This completes ten classes in the kindergarten and grade work, with 197 children; the balance of the 308 are in the trade, industrial, and custodial classes.

All the school children above kindergarten grade receive lessons in the object room, which contains a large collection of natural objects, as stuffed birds and animals, with pictures and models. There is a small portable garden to study growth. They discuss practical questions like bread; they mix it and may go with it to the bakery; they take walks in fields and shops. The lessons given here are connected with any matter of interest that arises. Much importance is attached to this work. The "industrial room" is of very recent establishment, and has proved a great benefit to a number of overgrown boys whose development in schoolrooms had proved a failure. Here are looms of several kinds for weaving mats, carpets, Swedish tapestry, and ordinary work. Hammocks and mattresses, straw hats, baskets, strips for rag carpets are made; rope strands are braided and formed into mats.

For three groups of troublesome inmates of lower grade, in the custodial buildings, occupation is found in caning chairs, knitting, and the like, to their great personal benefit. In such work the services of attendants who have a natural gift and tact in training are utilized.

In addition to the above, the trades, as previously named, are taught in classes and carried on as day work.

Six of the boys do the printing for the establishment, and issue a neat bimonthly paper, the matter for which is furnished by the brighter school children.

The development of industries is a prominent feature at Elwyn. A favorable instance of its pecuniary value is given by the laundry, where 25 girls of various degrees of intelligence are employed, the dull ones not being necessarily the poorer workers. It is not exactly high-class work. They are very much in need of steadying, but under the eye of the mistress and three paid assistants they accomplish fully as much as the same number of paid women would.

The aesthetic side of the pupils' activity is made very prominent; and as it is evidently favored, it is well to consider the results collectively.

Vocal music is successfully cultivated. I listened with the greatest pleasure to a group of 14 large girls and 14 boys who sang "Sweet and low" and "Behind the hills the sun is setting," in parts, without accompaniment. The brass band numbers about 24, of whom only 2 were girls; I should call their performances distinctly good; I can not speak of the orchestra or of the second brass band. The music at the common chapel exercises is very good and very pleasing. Drawing, modeling, carving, and sloyd form a distinct group. Drawing is taught not only to the higher-grade minds, but to some who are quite dull. The system is that of Mr. Liberty Tadd and consists chiefly of curve-line work. Pupils first practice making large free loops and curves on the board with one or both hands, which constitutes a real gymnastic training in free action of arm and wrist. Having gained easy control of the muscles, they next imitate and learn simple forms of scrolls, spirals, leaves, etc., which they afterwards employ as material to combine in decorative patterns on paper. These designs can be modeled in clay and then produced in wood.

There are 50 boys and 9 girls in the sloyd classes. The teacher was instructed at Nääs, but the methods are Americanized and simplified; the joints, for instance; there are no dovetail joints made. The pupils are of the (mentally) high and middle grades, and it is said that the latter show more aptitude for this work. Furniture making and wood carving are also taught.

The children's products are displayed in a special room, and are largely sold for souvenirs. The kindergarten and basket work is the most showy. There are also knitted head gear, straw hats, pretty rag carpets, and tapestry mats. The original designs and wood carvings, detached or upon furniture, are of higher artistic merit. Class work of an educational type is represented by drawings of natural objects.

Physical education: The children are allowed much freedom in the open air, and in summer there are delightful opportunities of rustic pleasure. Calisthenics and marching are practiced by the younger children. I saw a good class of girls in wand exercise and marching, and there are uniforms and military drills. There is an abundant provision of "heavy" apparatus in the gymnasium, but it is little used. In the evenings 340 of the older children are gathered in 10 classes for amusement or instruction or reading; there are also classes in sewing, etc., and drill, as above stated.

On Sundays one-half of the teachers and attendants have leave of absence. The children have quiet occupations or games, or write home, and take walks. There is an inspection at 9.30; from 11 to 12.25 Sunday school, conducted by teachers, with singing, reading, and learning of texts. There is a walk from 2 to 3.30 and another at 5.30, and then meetings in clubrooms or in hall to hear stories; bed at 8 or 9. The regular service at 4 to 5 p. m. is conducted by Dr. Barr after an order arranged by himself, comprising an invocation, the Lord's Prayer in common, hymn, collect, hymn, responsive reading of a psalm, the epistle and gospel, and recessional. The service and the daily prayers are dignified and impressive.

THE STATE INSTITUTION FOR FEEBLE-MINDED OF WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA, POLK, VENANGO COUNTY,

Superintendent, J. M. Murdoch, M. D.; principal of school, Miss A. E. Blake.

This is the youngest institution here described and issued its sixth report in 1902. The act establishing it was passed in 1893. There is much to commend in the plan and the way it was carried out. The site is a very healthy one, being at an elevation of 1,132 feet above the sea, among the beautiful foothills of the western slope of the Allegheny Mountains. It is 6 miles from the nearest town and is free from urban influences and nuisances. The hamlet of Polk contains a population of 200, and the relations between them and the institution are so friendly that a considerable number of the male inmates are trusted to go to the village without escort. The entire structure was built at once upon a very handsome and regular plan, and consists of "cottages" (containing usually about 50 inmates) widely separated and connected by one-story corridors. Two buildings are used for schools. The cost, including the price of 870 acres of land, came within the State appropriation of $500,000. One hundred acres more are about to be added. The intention was to accommodate 800 inmates; 153 were at once transferred from Elwyn, and the number has now risen to 845, so that an urgent call is made to increase the accommodation to 1,000 beds. The feeble-minded of the State of Pennsylvania are shared between Elwyn and Polk upon a geographical division.

The division of the school into grades is based on a wish to adapt the classes to the children who come rather than to adapt the children to a system. This will help to explain some unusual features.

The great majority enter some kindergarten class. Many are unsuited to the class room by reason of untidiness, restlessness, etc., and are trained by attendants with toys, blocks, dolls, sand, stone piles, etc., and in dressing, eating, and toilet. Such groups are called "training classes," and many of the children subsequently enter kindergarten classes. There are 62 in the two training classes, 215 in the kindergarten and primary classes.

There are 10 rooms, 5 for kindergartens, 1 for Primary C, and 2 each for Primary B and A, in which the sexes are separated. There are 2 special teachers and a principal, making 13 in all. The number to a room varies from 18 to 26.

The kindergarten classes are as follows, in order of age:

"A." Small, bright children, forming two groups in one room, the upper group doing some primary work in language and number, orderly, normal, kindergarten, table work. In another room they were seen playing ring games with another set of lower intelligence. The songs were good and rousing, set to good melodies, not of the vague type one often hears. The children's humanity to the weaker intellects was touchingly shown at this exercise.

"D." Larger boys and girls, not so bright as A, doing kindergarten work a. m. and primary p. m.

"E." Kindergarten work p. m., primary a. m. They have "nearly outgrown kindergarten work;" they looked a very pretty little class, of the ages of 8 to 14. They were beginning a first reader, after finishing a primer and a first book. Most of them had not been in school before coming here. Some spelled on the board to dictation. They are learning punctuation. One child is probably normal.

"B." Boys of 12 to 15, of pretty low intelligence, with prominent imitative tendencies. They were cutting and pasting paper, and did simple calisthenics; will not probably study books.

"C." Girls over 12, like B; some recognize a few printed words. Very dull from nature or neglect. With them are a few small paralytic boys of 9 or 10, of about the same mental grade.

It is obvious that these classes do not form a graded series for purposes of promotion. A child seldom passes from one to another, the majority of those in A, D, and E going into Primary C, while B and C send a large proportion of their members to manual classes. Sometimes the reverse occurs; sometimes there is a transfer from one kindergarten to another; while some fail to reach even a manual class.

All these classes make more or less use of the common kindergarten material, B and C using the coarser kinds. The favorite games are the birds, flower garden, nest making, magic music, trades, knights, good and bad children, rolling ball, old pigeon house, etc.

The influence of the kindergarten work is distinctly felt by the sloyd teacher as making boys more apt. In the academic work the relation is not so marked, if at all perceptible, but in a general way the children are more prepared to use their fingers and to give attention to directions. Certain boys, however, in primary B have not had kindergarten training owing to the youth of the institution, and the teacher testified that it had been a great help to the others who had had it. A harmonizing tendency is observed in the games, as the children were at first selfish and grasping, but have since grown into habits of obliging behavior.

In the primary classes three regular grades are maintained, and each class is divided into three sections.

In C, the lowest boys' class, some were in the tables of 4's, could tell one-half of 12, one-fourth of 16. A nature poem was being copied from the blackboard; their handwriting differed greatly, but all was distinct.

In Bone section is nearly through Stickney's Third Reader, and can make up short sentences. They sang "Jolly Boys" well.

Girls' B had done pages 50 to 114 in Wentworth's Elementary Arithmetic in six months. In the highest girls' grade, A, three small boys were seated in front. They know the tables up to the 12's, and in part the ordinary compound numbers; they know decimal currency. A vigorous bean-bag drill was given, followed by a mimic snowball game. The teacher of these girls kindly allowed them to reproduce on paper a story which they had heard and talked over some time ago, "Editha's Burglar." The best was quite long and very nearly perfect. From the next best I take the following:

One day as Editha and her mamma was sitting in their room, their father came in and said that he was going away on busines. Then he said that Editha was to take care of her mother. She had read in the paper about a burglar that had broken in the 18 house, etc.

From one of the poorest:

Eiddha told the Rurghare not to tuch her nana things but he could have her think She gane him her blacet an mechles and stick pine and waeth, etc.

These are not indicative of poor work on the part of the teacher, but of the invincible difference in natural talent which is characteristic of classes of the feebleminded more than of the normal.

The gymnastics seen were very satisfactory; good Swedish class work in uniform, with or without the teacher's lead and usually without music.

The brighter boys, not under 12, are selected for sloyd from primary A and B, forming 3 classes, 29 in all, under a graduate of Mr. Larsson's school. It is held in high esteem for visible results in "brightening" individuals, though its influence in academic work can not be followed. There are boys who can not read or comprehend the working drawings, but can make a good mortise joint. It is found best to omit models which require much use of the knife, and models with curves are only suited for a very few of the aptest pupils. A great variety of articles of practical use are made, including many aquariums and music stands, also desks, chairs, bookcases, frames, chests, etc. The department is remarkably successful.

The school hours are 9 to 12.10 and 2 to 4, without recesses, but broken by songs and exercise. All boys in primary A and a part of B and C spend some part of their school hours in trade classes, including the shoe, tailor, and carpenter shops; and 41 boys belong to the brass bands.

In kindergarten E there is a little girl of 8, apparently a neglected child, who entered last fall, and has here developed a strong ambition to prove her qualities. The superintendent writes me:

This girl is one of the few children who have developed to a point where we consider it advisable for her to be removed from the institution, as we believe she will from now on be able to take her place in the public schools and develop into a normal woman. Her apparent mental deficiency was no doubt due to a physical ailment from which she has recovered.

The social side of life is very interesting. The "children" gather in the gymnasium three evenings in the week to listen to the band or graphophone, sing religious songs, dance, and play. I had the pleasure of seeing such a mixed programme, partly dancing, partly boys' games, like shot bag and poison stick, which are played vigorously and cause enormous fun. They have also the ordinary boys' playthingstops, kites, balls, etc. On four evenings in the week there are classes at which letters are written and stories are read aloud. Natural history is interestingly studied, with real objects in the classes. Each room has an aquarium. On fine Wednesday afternoons they walk and collect objects.

On Sunday there is service at 10, conducted by the superintendent, comprising a doxology, the Lord's Prayer, a hymn (Moody's), a chapter read by the school, the