Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 98, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 August 1907 — SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES [ARTICLE]

SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES

The alumni advisory board of Yai* university has recommended a moderate advance of the tuition charges in those departments where expenses have been considerably increased. At the same time the board has urged the adoption of a uniform system of loans to students, payable at reasonable periods after their graduation. TII9 trustees of Williams college have announced that President Henry Hopkins of the institution has tendered his resignation, to take effect in June, 1908. Prof. Harry A. Garfield, son of the late President James A. Garfield, a Williams alumnus and at present occupying the chair of politics at Princeton university, has been chosen to succeed President Hopkins. The Experiment Station - Record announces that the Massachusetts College has established a department of agricultural education, its work to include both instruction and research. Normal courses will be offered to prospective teachers, and studies will be made of problems confronting agricultural teaching in colleges and schools of various grades, and of agricultural extension, with a view to introducing agriculture into the elementary schools, establishing agricultural high schools, and correlating and unifying the agricultural instruction given in the State. The work will be in close co-op-eration with existing educational agencies, especially the State Industrial Commission. The declaration of principles made by the recent semi-centennial convention of the National Educational Association at Los Angeles indorses;, the growing insistence upon the special preparation of teachers; favors the advance in salaries to “a living ; approves the spread of rural high schools; says that commercial and trade schools should be added wherever possible; urges free evening schools and the use of buildings and grounds “for the relief of the poor of the crowded districts in the summer”; asks the harmonizing of child labor and truancy laws; regrets “the Revival of the idea that the common school is a place for teaching nothing but reading, spelling, writing and ciphering,” and declares (hat the object is “to teach children how to live righteously and happily, and that to accomplish this object it is essential that every school inculcate the love of truth, justice, purity an# beauty through the study also of biography, history, ethics, natural history, music, drawing and the manual arts. It also expresses the belief that interschool games should be played for sportsmanship and not merely for victory. It commends the tendencies of cities and towns to replace large school committees or boards with small boards, which determine general policies, but intrust all executive functions to salaried experts. It also approves in a qualified way the efforts of the simplified spelling board; urges the call for greater facilities for the bigfier education of women, especially in the South and West: gdvises the abolition of secret societies and fraternities in all secondary and elementary schools; approves the merit system of promoting teachesg, and filling vacancies; presses the- need of better facilities for the practical preparation of teachers; indorses The Hague conference and peace associations, and reflects somewhat vaguely upon the spirit of trades unionism among teachers. The School Board of Pittsburg, Pa., has decided to install a system of baths in one of its pnblic school buildings. This will be for the use of the school children during the day, while the mothers will be permitted to bring children after school hours. This is practically the first bathing plant established in the Pittsburg schools, for while one other was Instituted some years ago, it was for the use of kindergarten pupils only. Sydney Talbot, American in Txmdon, put Osler theory to shame by living and working until 99 years of age. (7