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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

Finally, the present institute is extremely expensive. A three 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

produce as good results educationally, can be found, it ought to be given a chance to demonstrate its usefulness.

The plan of local evening institutes is believed to be such a method. It is desired that the legislature shall, without abrogating the present law governing institutes, amend that law so as to permit a school superintendent who may so elect, to hold, instead of the annual institute, local evening institutes at different points in the territory under his jurisdiction, at various times throughout the school year.

PLAN IN BRIEF

To put the matter, for the sake of clearness, in concrete form, Ventura County could be divided into five or six sections in such a way that the teachers, trustees and people of each section could come together at a convenient central point in each section for a local evening institute. The superintendent would then advertise the first series of evening institutes throughout the county, say, for the moonlight week of October. On Monday evening, he, with a good lecturer, would meet the teachers and people of section number one. The first hour of the meeting might be devoted to short papers or talks by two or three teachers and trustees, followed by an open discussion; and the program would conclude with a first-class educational lecture. On Tuesday the superintendent and lecturer would repair to the central point of section number two and hold a similar institute in the evening. On Wednesday and Thursday and Friday the program would be repeated at the central points of sections three, four and five. Thus, during the week, an evening institute would be held in the county at each of five points accessible to teachers, trustees and people of the surrounding school districts.

ONE SERIES EACH MONTH

This would be all for the month of October; but in the moonlight week of November the superintendent would get another good lecturer for another series of five evening institutes, omitting one of the five places visited before, in order to hold an institute at the central point of the sixth section. Again in December there would be another week's series, and others in January and February and March and April. The institute would thus be spread over seven months of the school year, instead of being crowded into one week of from three to five consecutive days.

One advantage over the present plan would be that the teachers would be more active in the work of the institute. There being

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