A committee of the association selected a board of directors. These, in March, 1884, adopted a plan of organization, or constitution, which has not been amended to the present time. This plan provides for county and neighborhood organizations under the direction of the county manager, who is generally the county superintendent; for a central State bureau, located at the Department of Public Instruction; for two lines of reading or study; for the outlining and annotation of the work to be performed; for examinations and the issuance of diplomas.

It is of course understood that the two lines of reading are to be, respectively, lines of professional and general culture.

Three features of the work are present subjects of discussion in the columns of the educational press and elsewhere; and to them I invite your attention.

In the first place, it is a State organization. It is neither national nor independently local. There are various reasons why this form of organization is held superior to any other. The school system to which it is auxiliary is a State organization, and public instruction is more or less uniform within the limits of the State. In Indiana and in various other commonwealths there is a uniform course of study for all the country schools; there is a common need; there are common requirements; there is a common system of township meetings or institutes; there is a teachers' association for the entire State.

Again, in the State the system is already organized. The county superintendents are already equipped for the work. They are the medium of communication between the State Department of Public Instruction and the individual teacher. With a reading circle bureau at the Department or conveniently accessible to it, the reading circle system is complete, with head and members, with direction and action closely connected. And there is a peculiar value and appropriateness, beyond any mere convenience, in a close union of the reading circle system with the State school system. To illustrate: The county superintendent prepares the outline of work for the township institutes. At the sug gestion of the State superintendent he arranges for the incorporation of the reading circle work in his programme. In much of the experi ence of the past the township institutes have been dreary and barren to a discouraging degree. With the new light thrown upon their work, and the professional spirit aroused, they acquire a new interest and a new value. To illustrate further: The State Board of Education, in making out the questions for the examination of teachers, base their questions relating to the science of teaching upon the technical work of the reading circle; nay, they even waive examination on that subject when the applicant has passed an examination on the reading cir. cle work, as provided in the plan of organization. There is a further argument of no small force, it would seem to me, in behalf of State organizations, and that is that there is a spirit of emulation, of generous rivalry, among the States in educational matters. Their "exhibits" at

Madison, at New Orleans, and elsewhere, have attested this abundantly. State systems may be readily compared as to their workings and merits. Admitted excellences are a source of honest pride to teachers and citizens generally. Defects are best shown and are corrected with greatest alacrity when they appeal to State pride. And this is true not only of educational matters; it is the beauty of our Federal system of govern. ment that the various States are admitted to have their own peculiar needs; and a diversity of organization, with its attendant generous rivalry in excellence, conduces to the best results.

In the second place, professional or pedagogical study is held to be of prime importance. It was so held by Page, whose ideas have been so generally followed. As compared with the Chautauqua and similar literary organizations, this is the chief distinguishing feature. A deep bass note was struck in the adoption of the study of the mind and its culture as a correlative of systematic pedagogical study. It has been claimed that this part of the work is too heavy in Indiana. Doubtless this would be the case but for a leavening influence, which I will men. tion further on. But without discussing this point, without comparing and contrasting the merits of the book in use and of a less extended presentation of the subject, I would say that the work has been embellished and relieved of its tediousness and much of its difficulty by the manner in which it has been outlined and annotated. So nearly self-evident is the need of a department, or line, of professional study, that it requires little or no argument to support it.

In the third place, general culture is recognized as indispensable to the reading circle work. Second in the order of consideration, it is not second in importance, since the success of the entire plan depends upon it. This is the leavening influence to which I referred. Teachers must have light and sunshine drawn from outside of the school-room atmosphere. However great its value, purely professional reading, a constant reminder of arduous and unremitting duties, has less attraction than the new and broad fields of general culture. While I have insisted that teaching is a profession (and this argues a life work and life study) there are and must be very many teachers who do not make of it a profession in the sense of a permanent occupation. However earnest in the desire to do well, they are not so easily drawn to a course pertaining solely to a calling in which they are but temporarily engaged, as they are to one which is more general in its nature. With us the general-culture idea has been an essential and life-giving feature. It has opened up new fields. It has proven a recreation. It has not only lightened the other work and lent a charm to all, but has been a cardinal feature-I might almost say the feature-in securing the enrollment, and in holding together the members enrolled. Nor has it prevailed in Indiana alone. It has prevailed in all the reading circles of the western States. A recent editorial of the Intelligence on the subject we are discussing has been widely copied and read. Without

subscribing to all it contained, I quote what it says on this subject: "The literature of bare facts, of mere information, of teacherhood, is the region in which the teacher now marches and countermarches, accomplishing something, but certainly no great triumph. But the literature of power, of culture, of inspiration, of manhood, that which cuts no figure in his diploma or certificate, but alone gives life and potency to all that his certificate does contain, is a field into which the teacher ought to be led with all the steadiness and enthusiasm which organization and fellowship can possibly give." The fields chosen for general-culture study were history, literature, and science. Only the two first mentioned have as yet been entered upon. A compact, graphic, philosophical, and attractive history of the world was chosen as a basis for this line of reading, embracing as it does the development of civilization and learning, the origin of philosophies, sciences, and literatures. The book has been used as a text, and the teacher encouraged to supplement it with such readings as his opportunities may suggest. The general-culture study has advanced into the realm of literature-not a skeleton of biographical notes of authors and short criticisms, but a view of the course of English literature from its beginning, with copious and liberal extracts-sometimes whole composi tions-from the great writers, with notes to aid in critical study. In both lines of work-in all the work-our educational journalism and fragmentary current literature and criticism have accompanied the course and aided us.

Such is the Indiana Reading Circle, as organized in 1884-the first of its kind. It is a State organization, for systematic reading and study, having two lines of work, the strictly professional and the more general. The growth of the reading-circle movement is a marvel. It is becoming a national institution. In January, 1885, similar organizations were formed in Illinois and Iowa. In June, Michigan and Minnesota followed; in July, Wisconsin; in August, Kansas, Nebraska, and Kentucky; in September, Texas; in October, Tennessee; in November, Dakota and Alabama; in December, North Carolina. I have mentioned only the western and southern organizations, with which I am most familiar, leaving to others to speak of those in the East. In all these States the general plan is an approximation to that of Indiana. In Illinois, Iowa, and Indiana, there are about four thousand working members to each State. The total number of working members in all the . States I have mentioned may be set down at not less than twenty thou sand; and I believe this is considerably short of the true number, if it could be accurately known. The importance of right direction in so vast a work is not easily overestimated. No new step should be taken without deliberate care.

The question is often asked, Will this endure? After the novelty of the movement has worn off, will these State organizations disband for lack of interest, or become absorbed and merged into some sort of a 6742-No. 2. -6

national union, possessing none of the strength of special adaptation, official support, and emulation which as State organizations they now possess? Time alone will determine. Yet every indication now points to a prosperous growth and development in the future. It would seem that there is a strength in the movement which cannot be accounted for on the supposition that a love of novelty is the animating cause. The reading circle is prepared to show cause for its existence; it is the demand of the time for the elevation and advancement of the teacher's work.

Hon. J. W. AKERS, of Iowa then presented the following interesting paper on

CITY SUPERINTENDENCE.

When the idea was conceived of combining all the schools of a city under one graded system, with departments and courses of study all duly subordinated to one another, and culminating in a high school, there arose certain exigencies of school government and management which called for and created the city superintendent. This idea of combining all the schools of a great city into one system, that should be compacted not by any external mechanical tie, but by a unity of organization that should have its basis in the ascertained laws of the human mind in the successive stages of its unfolding, is a modern, and distinctively an American idea. In this is to be found the key-note to the wonderful gree of efficiency and perfection to which our system of public schools has attained, and which has made them a model for all the world.

It is really a matter of surprise that a system so vast and imposing should la grown up and have become so thoroughly established in so short a time. There are men now living, and some of them are with us to-day, who helped to lay the foundations of this magnificent structure and have had a master's hand in every successive stage of its rise and progress toward completion.

Early in the history of this movement, if not wholly prior to its first and feeble pulsations, there was formed a syndicate of modest and unassuming men, who met in close corporation, in hotel parlors, for the purpose of consultation in relation to the manifold details of their work. On such occasions the cities of Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus. Chicago, and Saint Louis were always represented, and Superintendents Rickoff, Pickard, Hancock, Stevens, and Harris were seldom known to be absent. They sounded no loud trumpet to attract the notice or attention of the public, but in a quiet way accomplished a work, the good and far-reaching results of which no man can estimate; and it may never be known that the influence of their deliberations, the results flowing directly from their councils and their labors, as affecting education among fifty millions of people, entitle these plain and unpretending great men to rank with the Grants, the Shermans, and the Sheridans

of their day and generation. If these men kept a record of their proceedings and discussions, they have never laid it open to the public eye; but meanwhile the graded systems of their respective cities were making such strides toward perfection as naturally and necessarily resulted from their combined wisdom and friendly emulation.

What we have to suggest is, that the secret history of that famous "Round Table" has not yet been written, and that the eminent knights of education who then composed it are still actively with us, and should not be permitted to go home until this chapter of their esoteric doings. shall have been brought to light. It would be a legacy to the ever increasing army of superintendents to have the story of the struggles of these mighty Amphictyons as their plans unfolded, and as one after another of their difficulties were overcome. What we want is their inner history, which must involve the sum total of their achievements, not only with reference to the evolution of the system as it sprang up under their hands, but as related to the psychological problems which they found themselves compelled to face and to solve.

If any such interesting record of experiences should ever be forthcoming, we may be assured that it will exalt to a supreme place in the qualifications of the superintendent his apprehension and mastery of education as a science. The man who can be called a successful city superintendent is a man of affairs. Whatever may have been his natural endowments, he has accomplished vast and various acquirements in a school which has been to him as practical and as actral as that of life. He has met all kinds of people, compassed all varieties of work, and solved all manner of problems. Whatsoever is deep or shallow, whatsoever is difficult or impossible, whatsoever is annoying and perplexing, whatsoever is of good or of bad report, he knowe or he has been called to pass through deep waters; he has vanquished difficulties; he has attempted impossibilities; he has exulted in success, and suffered in defeat and failure; he has emerged from this a pure and good man, with a placid and sweet temper, with a thorough insight into the intricate nature of his work, and with a correct notion of life and character; he knows what he does, and why he does it; he knows what the end should be, and how and when to apply the means.

Who shall question his credentials? Were I to speak of those traits and qualities which go to make the successful superintendent, I would say: He must be industrious. He must be old enough to have outgrown his love of play, and to have formed a real attachment (I had well-nigh said an affection) for hard and continued labor. He must have that discipline which comes only from a broad and liberal training. He must be apt and quick, and yet unerring in his discernment of human nature, as seen in the mind and heart of the young. He should have passed through years of successful apprenticeship in teaching, that he may have come to know experimentally the details of school method and management; that he may know of the trials and