they will be begun under unwise and imperfect conceptions, which ultimately will defeat, or at least retard, as was the case in New South Wales, the whole movement. The one word which needs to be spoken to any association of teachers and to any body of legislators who are to deal with the question is, to take no step without sound actuarial advice, and to make use of the rich experience of the past which is now available.

As pension systems become numerous, it will be desirable to arrange some equitable plan for the reciprocal exchange of contributions and liabilities, so that a teacher, transferring from a school under one pension system to a school under another system, will not lose the accumulated right to a provision in old age.

In the minds of many there will still remain the question whether, in the light of what the Federal Congress has done in the matter of civil war pensions, any state government can be trusted to control such a relief system, free of politics. The Commission on Economy and Efficiency appointed by President Taft recommended as a plan of retirement for civil employees of the Federal government a system of annuities supported from the contributions of employees alone, based upon the age of entrance into the service; the maximum annuity to be $600. The government is to provide for the accrued liabilities in excess of eight per cent of the employee's salary, and to guarantee four per cent upon the contributions of the employees. The system will apply to government employees in the District of Columbia only. The plan, which has been worked out in most complete actuarial form by Mr. Herbert D. Brown of the Department of Commerce and Labor, contemplates the return to an employee leaving the service prior to the age of retirement of all contributions with interest at four per cent compounded annually, and the return to the legal representatives of an employee dying either before or after retirement of the amount in hand not yet paid out to him in annuities, with interest. The retiring age is seventy.

This plan is really not a relief plan, but a system of compulsory saving. The Commission was evidently strongly influenced in its conclusions by the fear that any pension system administered by Congress which involved a payment by the government of even part of a retiring allowance would be subject to political abuse. No one familiar with the history of civil war pensions can doubt the possibility of such a misuse of public money. The civil war pension history constitutes our greatest political scandal. To Congress and to the country it has been a source of untold demoralization, and the presidents of the United States share with Congress the responsibility for this legislation. Except Grover

Cleveland, no President of the United States has shown courage in the face of a pension bill.

Will a state legislature and a state governor administer justly a matter in which the general government and the chief executives have been so weak?

In answer to this it may be said that a pension system in which the employee contributes does not present the same opportunity for political exploitation that the civil war pensions have presented. The man who believes in the future of his country and in democratic progress will be slow to admit that either Congress or the state governments will be found permanently incapable of carrying out so simple an obligation. If our democracy cannot learn from such an experience as that of the civil war pensions, it is helpless to solve the problems that confront it on every hand. In any event, the argument that our government is not honest enough to conduct a justly planned relief system for its employees is a weak reason for inaugurating an unsatisfactory system.

CHAPTER XXV

IMPROVING TEACHERS IN SERVICE

MANY plans have been tried, in different states and cities, to improve teachers in service. The most important of these classify themselves under the headings of teachers' institutes, and reading circles for professional improvement. Much has been written on each of these plans, and we reproduce here only a few selected articles. The first suggests a substitute for the old type of teachers' institute, and appended to it is the 1911 revision of the California law relating to institutes, which was enacted as a result of this article. Of the state reading circles, we reproduce the plan of organization of the Indiana Teachers' Reading Circle. This organization has rendered a very conspicuous educational service during the quarter century of its existence.

I. A SUBSTITUTE FOR THE TEACHERS' INSTITUTE

[By Reynolds, J. E., County Superintendent of Ventura County, California. Reprinted from The Sierra Educational News.]

Two hundred and forty thousand dollars a year is subtracted from the money provided for the education of the children of the state and spent for teachers' institutes. In many counties twothirds the cost of the institute can be saved to the children; and this, not only without impairing its usefulness, but, on the contrary, actually strengthening some of its weak places and making it more effective.

NOT ENOUGH THINKING

Among the weaknesses of the institute is the fact that the great majority of teachers are, from its opening to its closing moment, in a state of passivity towards all that goes on. In the school the true teacher acts as far as possible on the principle of learning by

doing, for he knows that mental alertness depends mainly on the self-activity of the learner. His constant aim is, not to do for the learner, but to keep the learner doing for himself. In the institute on the other hand, young teachers sit, hour after hour, and session after session, passive as pitchers waiting to be filled, as if the best, the only, way to learn is by listening to the expression of the product of other people's thinking.

Again, the institute program is frequently so overcrowded that towards the close of the sessions it is a weariness to the flesh to sit politely still, and pretend to be listening. And even where the program is not over-crowded it is necessarily so extensive, occupying from three to five days, and covers such a variety of topics, that adequate reflection on the ideas presented, and consequent assimilation, is quite out of the question. A too generous supply of rich food clogs the mental digestion.

LINCOLN'S PERFECT ENGLISH

Abraham Lincoln said on one occasion that he did not profess to be an educated man, and that it was a source of constant surprise to him that learned men, professors in universities, should hold his speeches as models of English, and use them to exemplify rhetorical principles. He said, however, that from his youth up he had had the habit of turning over and over in his mind any new thought that was presented to him until he understood it thoroughly, in all its length and breadth and thickness. And having thus mastered it, he sought the words to give it clear and precise expression, never satisfied until he had clothed it in language that seemed exactly fitting.

Here was perfect assimilation of new ideas. Has pedagogy ever discovered a better method of education? In most educational institutions, from the elementary school up, there is proportionately too much listening, as well as too much reading, and too little use of the thinking powers of the individual; and this weakness shows at its feeblest in the teachers' institute. The net result of the institute is often a vague impression of good things heard on many different subjects, not a clear, definite, thorough grasp of new ideas on any subject.

MUST EXCHANGE IDEAS

Mainly because of the inadequacy of the institute for the interchange of ideas on school problems, associations like schoolmasters' clubs are growing in number all over the state. In the meetings of

these associations a topic presented by a leader is discussed by the comparatively few members with a freedom that in an institute is impossible. Each feels the interest that comes with the opportunity to express his opinions, and each also has the stimulus which comes from the knowledge that he himself will be called upon at some future time to present a subject for the discussion of the members.

Another weakness of the institute is that it is too much a teachers' institute. In it teachers listen to more or less able speakers, who present greater or fewer new ideas, who stir their interest more or less, and at times arouse their enthusiasm. And then they "resolute," and frequently go to the trouble and expense of printing their resolutions and broadcasting them over the land. Last year the Ventura County Institute sent a copy of one resolution to each trustee in the county. And what good came of it? If any result followed, good, bad or indifferent, it has not thus far become apparent. What is needed is that school trustees and patrons should attend the institutes; they should hear the able speakers, they also should get the new ideas, their interest should be stirred, and their enthusiasm aroused. Any reform shown to be advisable could then be effected, for the ideas, the interest and the enthusiasm would be in the minds of the people who possess the power to make the reform. What is the use of arousing enthusiasm in a teachers' institute over raising teachers' salaries, or over a dozen other subjects often discussed? A teacher may leave the institute in a blaze for the improving of school grounds, or the decoration of school-rooms; but she comes to trustees who are not at all interested, who don't see where the money is to come from, and whose lack of sympathy acts on her generous emotion like a wet blanket. Sometimes, of course, persistence overcomes apathy; but more often the fire is quenched, and nothing is done.

INSTITUTES EXPENSIVE

A three

Finally, the present institute is extremely expensive. days' session in Ventura County, which has only one hundred thirty teachers, costs $3,000, $1,000 a day. A teacher's salary for the session averages $20, and the other expenses approximate $400 more. Los Angeles, city and county, with four thousand teachers, pays in salaries for the institute week, $80,000. That is to say, the children of these counties are, for the sake of the institutes, deprived of the schooling which these sums of money would pay for. It may be worth it; but if a cheaper method, which may possibly