POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



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modern course in secondary schools has been 

 made as solid as the classical. No ele- 

 mentary, superficial, and hasty treatment of 

 a long series of subjects can possibly com- 

 mend itself to the educated community as 

 likely to produce the good effects of the con- 

 secutive, thorough, and prolonged treatment 

 of a smaller group. We shall never know, 

 for example, whether Latin and history are 

 equally well adapted to secure the suitable 

 development of the human mind until we 

 have given history the same chance that we 

 have given Latin." 



The Coals of Missonri. All the coals of 

 Missouri, Mr. Arthur Winslow, State Geolo- 

 gist, informs us, are bituminous, except the 

 cannel coals, which are found in local and 

 small deposits. The bituminous coals have, 

 as a rule, a high percentage of ash, as com- 

 pared with the best bituminous coals ; they 

 are comparatively soft, suffer much from 

 excessive handling or long exposure, and 

 almost always carry pyrites. Most of the 

 mines are less than two hundred feet deep. 

 The Randolph shaft, in Ray County, is four 

 hundred and twenty feet deep to the coal, 

 and is one of the deepest. The deepest 

 operated which is, exactly speaking, within 

 the State is near Hamilton, in Caldwell 

 County, and is about five hundred feet deep. 

 At Leavenworth, Kansas, along the State 

 line, however, a coal bed of only twenty-two 

 inches is entensively worked at depths vary- 

 ing from seven hundred to eight hundred feet. 

 For markets, the Western bituminous coal 

 field, of which the Missouri mines are a part, 

 besides the home market, looks chiefly to a 

 great area in Nebraska, Kansas, the Indian 

 Territory, and Texas, which is destitute of 

 coal, and in which the supply of wood is 

 small. Its only competitors are in the de- 

 posits of Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, and 

 New Mexico ; but they can furnish only 

 limited supplies. 



Sanitary Inspection of Schools. The 



English Education Department has started 

 upon a detailed inquiry into the sanitary con- 

 dition of the schools, and with this purpose 

 has issued forms to the inspectors embodying 

 questions bearing on that subject, to be filled 

 up by them. The thirteen questions relate, 

 for the most part, to the site, structure, and 



sanitation of the schoolrooms inspected. 

 The inspectors are required, in noting auy 

 matters calling for alteration, to press for 

 immediate attention to them, and are given 

 power to use their discretion in enforcing 

 changes. They are also instructed to bring 

 under notice of the managers and the depart- 

 ment serious defects in the convenience of 

 the schoolrooms for teaching purposes or in 

 their sanitation, with a view to their immedi- 

 ate removal. The objects of this action are 

 to find, for the purpose of applying adequate 

 means to secure efficiency, how far each ex- 

 isting school falls short of modern require- 

 ments, and to furnish a' complete statistical 

 record of the condition of school premises 

 throughout the country. Other subjects 

 concerning which inquiry might be made 

 with advantage have been suggested, among 

 which are the lighting of the rooms ; the 

 most appropriate closets and their number ; 

 the most suitable arrangements for wash- 

 ing whether basins shall be continued or 

 they shall be done away with and replaced 

 by a stream of running water, affording a 

 means of obviating the danger of communi- 

 cating parasitic and contagious diseases ; 

 and the physical and mental condition of the 

 pupils. 



The Lichtenthaler Collection. Illinois 

 Wesleyan University has obtained by be- 

 quest the valuable collection of shells, ferns, 

 and algiB gathered by the late George W. 

 Lichtenthaler, of Bloomington, 111., which 

 has been placed in its museum as the George 

 W. and Rebecca S. Lichtenthaler collection. 

 It includes shells between six thousand and 

 eight thousand species, with twenty-five 

 thousand specimens ; crustaceans, echino- 

 derms, corallines, corals, fossil shells and 

 plants, minerals, four hundred species of 

 ferns, and eight hundred species of marine 

 algae. Several cases are filled with gastro- 

 pod shells cut longitudinally so as to show 

 their spiral structure, and the highly pol- 

 ished specimens are very numerous. The 

 ferns comprise a nearly complete collection 

 of North American species, a complete col- 

 lection from the Hawaiian Islands, and many 

 from India, China, Japan, Australia, New 

 Zealand, South America, and Europe. Mr. 

 Lichtenthaler, one of the best known of 

 American conchologists, and one of the early 



