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I do not wish to tresspass upon your time, and will close with what I have written in my forthcoming report to the Board of Education, as the summing up of my thoughts.

The work of the year has been, I think, encouraging. We have tried to accomplish the purpose of the public school, as concisely stated by Dr. Hasen: "Instruction in the conventionalities of good behavior, the mastery of the means of intercommunication on instruction in the current intellectual views of the world; or in other words, instruction in all matters of moral conduct and principal; the development of language, grammar and rhetoric; and the knowledge of geography, history, science and literature, without which no one can lay claim to a liberal, or even a common, school education.

Under the careful and prudent supervision of the schools by the assistant superintendents we have secured a more uniform excellence, a higher ideal, a better discipline, and simpler, truer and more practical methods of instruction. The discipline is becoming more humane, less repressive and more inspiring, and the instruction more natural and fruitful, the relations of teacher and pupil closer and more sympathetic, the pupil's love of teacher and school more common, and the intellectual and moral tone of our schools higher and sweeter.

OUR PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM.

BY H. D. GARRISON, M. D.

The present system of public instruction, is so far superior to that in vogue forty years ago, that I feel more inclined to indulge in the praise than in adverse criticism; nevertheless, the system is by no means what it might and should be, at this time. The teachers seem to be generally painstaking and competent to teach what is before them in the text books, and a few of them are able to add something to the brief statements therein, but most of them seem to draw the line at this point. The text books, while certainly much better than most of their predecessors, are still very defective in containing a large amount of mere trash, and still more defective, in not containing a vast amount of useful information, which a child could imbibe with profit, while getting all the advantages that come from the mental will and discipline derived from covering the fictitious stories now supplied them. For example, on looking into the introductory Fourth Reader, in use in our schools, I find five full pages devoted to an account of how Robinson Crusoe saved the life of his man Friday; while six pages are devoted to Gulliver's Travels in the Land of the Giants. In five other pages we are informed how a judge pardoned a kitten, while six pages of "gush" follow the title An Old Fashioned Girl. Sandwiched among these stories are a number of beautiful sketches of history and natural history, which as far as they go, save the book from utter condemnation as a school book.

In place of all this "wishy-washy" stuff, which, to a greater or less extent, runs through all the readers, I would suggest brief sketches of the discoveries and conclusions of modern science, together with important historical sketches. Familiar descriptions of the important heavenly bodies, as the Sun, Moon, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and the fixed stars, would be eagerly read by children, while some account of the nature of sound, heat, light, gravitation, etc., if given in simple terms, is not at all beyond their comprehension. Again, mention of the causes, now in action and which, in the past have brought the surface of the earth into its present variegated condition, would convert every child into an observer, an embryonic geologist and meteorologist. It is true, that many of these subjects are taught, in some detail, in the high schools, but how few pupils

ever pass through them, besides, what is learned in the lower grades will only make the higher courses more easy. My idea is simply this, let useful information, and especially science, suppiant “slush" in all of our text books and in oral instruction. The excuse for the introduction of most of the flimsy articles, is their beautiful style, and I freely grant, that in that respect, they generally possess much merit; but the style of such scientific men as Huxley, Tyndal, Darwin, Lubbock, and a host of scientific writals, has not been excelled by ancient or modern authors. One of the most serious charges, that I have to make against our system of public instruction, is the fact that both teachers and text books, systematically suppress certain great facts. The great age of the earth, and the antiquity of man, are facts well-known to every author and teacher worthy of the name, and yet, how carefully are these and other similar facts concealed. The doctrine of evolution has been before the people over thirty years, and is now accepted by scientific men throughout the civilized world, and yet, even our high school teachers, when they (rarely) refer to the subject at all, either damn it with faint praise, as a plausible theory only." ""not yet established," or flatly denying its truthfulness. Scientific men, however, recognize that the principle of evolution is the very spirit of science, and as Professor Worthen once said to the writer, "without evolution there is no science." But what is the value of science? Just this, without the blessings shed upon mankind by science in all its ramifications, we would, if we existed at all, be in the midst of the deepest barbarism conceivable.

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THE SUNDAY QUESTION.

BY E. NELSON BLAKE.

The committee has given us this question in the broadest possible shape, but the phase of the question now before the people everywhere in our country, is the Sunday closing of the dram-shops. Its agitation in our city has brought it into this room, and the question in all our minds is: "Ought the law for the closing of the liquor-shops on Sunday to be enforced?" I say, yes. If it is not to be enforced let it be repealed. Let there be no promise to the ear that the heart does not propose to keep. But it can be enforced, and it should be enforced. And right here I wish to express my conviction of the debt, that the friends of law and order owe to the press of our city, and more especially to the Daily News, for the noble stand it has taken in arousing the public mind to the great importance of this question.

Ought the laws of the State to be enforced? What a question! Who says no? Only those who break them; only those for whose control the laws were enacted; only those who were breaking the spirit of the law before its passage, and whose conduct called for its passage. The representatives of the people, in legislature assembled, pass the law. The executive elected by the same people hesitates to enforce it. It was on the statute book when he asked the people's vote for his position; it was there when he took the oath of office, and it is one of the statutes he took oath to enforce. Who shall say: "I will enforce this statute, but I will not enforce that?" Is the enforcement of this statute in question liable to work injury or hardship to the great majority of the people? Who shall suffer from its enforcement? Who shall gain? This statute of our State, in its broadest scope, is only in harmony with that law of God which all legislators and jurists in all civilized countries have recognized, and which the wisest physiologists have declared cannot be broken with safety or impunity. The command of God to observe the day of rest, is as binding as that against theft or murder, and the violation of this command is as much a sin against society as the violation of the others. This law of the seventh day for rest, is like all of God's commands-for the highest good to His creatures-and neither individual, nor State, nor nation, can break one of them without paying the penalty. In erecting these tower

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ing buildings around us the builder, with square and level and plummet in hand, respected the law of gravitation, or he would have failed. In your diet, or your exposure to climate, you must consider the laws of health. In all your calculations you must consider the times and the seasons. But these you may say are the laws of nature. True, but the laws of nature are the laws of nature's God, and he has not read history aright, who has not learned that righteousness (right doing) exalteth a nation." The great highway of time is strewn with wrecks of nations, whose people have thought they could ignore the God of the universe. His moral law is as enduring and sure as His law of nature. "Six days shalt thou labor " is as eternal and binding as is motion or gravitation. There is no divine law that is not conceived and enacted for the best interests of all mankind, and the law of this State for Sunday closing of liquor-shops, and other dangerous places is conceived, and enacted for the highest good of the people of the State.

No one will accuse our General Stiles of being a "puritanical Sabbatarian," but on this question he is quoted as saying: "I would enforce the law in regard to closing tippling houses on Sunday, not to make it a day of religious observance, but a day of public calm," and right here let me disarm anyone who may follow me from using the charge of puritanism (not that I fear to be called "puritanical"), for if I were that Czar of Chicago whom you discussed on your first night, I would not attempt to compel the observance of the good, but I would labor to prevent the performance of the bad. I would use law only to close places open in defiance of law. No man believes more firmly than does the friend of Sunday observance, that you cannot legislate goodness or morality into a community, but that you can and ought to legislate dangerous places out of existence. They believe with Judge Story, that "the duty we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be dictated only by reason and conviction, and not by force or violence."

But the "Personal Rights League” rushes in and lifts up its hands in frenzied terror, and exclaims: "You must not interfere with our personal liberty." You must not meddle with our constitutional rights. Our constitution guarantees to every man life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, provided he doesn't abridge or interefere with some other man's life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. The Englishman's house is his castle; this building is Mr. Kinsley's, and our law respects his sole right to it. But he must not fire it, or make a nuisance of it to endanger or imperil his neighbors. To close a gambling place or to "pull" a house of prostitution, is interfering with some one's personal liberty, yet who questions the right of society to do it? But neither one is as harmful to life or property or good order as the open liquor-shop on Sunday. The open dram-shop on that day of rest, is the greatest curse to our city now existing; more prolific of crime than all other sources combined, and every Monday morning's roll of crimes, is a standing charge against the iniquity of such foolish breach of law. Last Monday morning in Judge Prindiville's court-room, three little newsboys were arraigned for disorderly conduct. At midnight on Sunday they were found by an officer drunk on the

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