POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



569 



by labor or new material is required- As the 

 car runs over the track " low-point markers " 

 eject paint under the heads of the rails where 

 deflections occur, thus showing to trackmen 

 where their labor is needed. Diagrams of 

 track inspection have demonstrated that with 

 sixty-five or sixty-seven pound rails the de- 

 flections were more than was generally sup- 

 posed, and have led to the introduction of 

 seventy-two and eighty pound rails. 



Systematic Reading for Teachers. — Dr. 



Jerome Allen, of New York, gave, at the 

 meeting of school superintendents held in 

 Washington last year, a summary of the 

 principles on which the teacher's systematic 

 reading should be conducted. In the mat- 

 ter of primary knowledge as a teacher, he 

 ought to read that which will most directly 

 help him in the work of instruction. His 

 pupils are human beings ; he must know 

 what they are, morally, mentally, and physi- 

 cally. He is especially set to train the mind ; 

 it follows, then, that he must study mind- 

 growth and mind-science. How to train the 

 mind into a symmetrical maturity is the most 

 important knowledge a teacher can gain. 

 All text-book knowledge is secondary in 

 comparison with this. If a teacher knows 

 all science, literature, and art, and does not 

 know the mind and its growth, he is not pre- 

 pared to teach. His work is empirical. The 

 reading for secondary knowledge comprises 

 methods of instruction, organization, school 

 government, school systems, school laws, and 

 the history of education. 



The Three Grades of Hand-Work.— In a 



paper on " Sense and Hand-Training in Pub- 

 lic Schools," Prof. Joseph Le Conte affirms 

 that as drawing, if introduced, should be not 

 for making artists, but for training the brain 

 through eye and hand, so hand-work should 

 be not for making carpenters or blacksmiths, 

 but to train the brain by co-operation of 

 hand and eye. If in biology the training is 

 mainly of the brain through the senses, in 

 hand-work the training is mainly of the brain 

 through the hand. If one is mainly observ- 

 ing and thinking, the other is mainly think- 

 ing and doing. It is impossible to doubt the 

 importance of hand-training from this point 

 of view. All admit the absolute necessity of 

 the use of the hand in the brain-culture of 



the child. All now admit also that the best 

 scientific culture in the university requires 

 the use of instruments of research — the 

 microscope, telescope, the balance, the meas- 

 ures of force of many kinds. But in the 

 whole wide space between, viz., in the school 

 and the college, this great agent of culture 

 is wholly left out. Kow, I am quite sure 

 that for every grade of culture, whether of 

 the individual or of the race, there is a corre- 

 sponding grade of hand-work necessary for 

 the best brain-culture. In the child of pre- 

 school age and in the savage and in palaeo- 

 lithic man, it is the simple use of the hand, or 

 assisted by rude implements. In the school 

 boy or girl, as also in the next higher grade 

 of races, it is by the use of those finer instru- 

 ments which we call tools. In the university, 

 as in the most civilized races, it is by the use 

 of scientific instruments and machines. The 

 three grades of hand-work, then, are the use 

 of implements, tools, and instruments. That 

 especially adapted to the schools is the use 

 of tools. But not only is hand-training in 

 the schools an immediate and very urgent 

 want, but by the necessary differentiation of 

 human pursuits and the increasing divergence 

 of school from actual life, is becoming more 

 so every year. 



Perforated Stones from California. — 



These objects are found abundantly in South- 

 ern California, varying in weight from an 

 ounce, or even less, to several pounds. In 

 shape they are most frequently circular, or 

 nearly so, but occasionally they are irregular- 

 ly oblong, and some are more or less globu- 

 lar, while others tend to the pear-shape. Mr. 

 H. W. Henshaw states that by the surviving 

 Indians of Santa Barbara and Ventura Coun- 

 ties the stones were formerly put to three 

 uses: first, as weights to digging - sticks ; 

 second, as gaming implements ; and third, as 

 dies for fashioning tubes, pipes, and similar 

 cylindrical objects. A Santa Barbara Indian, 

 to whom a specimen was shown, a man sixty 

 or more years of age, unhesitatingly affirmed, 

 the moment he saw it, that it was a digging- 

 stick weight. This implement, he said, was 

 formerly in use among the women in his 

 tribe. The stick must be strong and very 

 hard ; the wood usually employed grew only 

 in the mountains. The especial function of 

 the digging-stick was to dig a kind of onion- 



