August 8, 1884.] 



SCIENCE, 



113 



to fill every hour of the day ; and more than 

 once an honest teacher was said to have waked 

 in the morning to find, that, in the small hours 

 of the night before, he had been made president 

 of some new society of which he had never 

 heard. The agents of the railways, with fas- 

 cinating chromos of attractive scenery, were 

 organizing excursions at fabulously cheap rates 

 for the neighboring lakes, and even for Alaska, 

 whither a large party started the last day. 

 Dignified and super-subtle agents of the many 

 publishing-houses buttonholed every man who 

 could and would help them, with an assiduity 

 in every way worthy the greatest educational 

 show on earth. Superintendents who needed 

 new departures for their constituencies were 

 seeking the support of the convention for 

 all sorts of schemes and reforms. Societies 

 for humanity to animals, temperance clubs, 

 renowned champions of rights for women, 

 Catholicism, represented by a no less adroit 

 and subtle propagandist than M. Capel, were 

 all on hand, and striving by every means in 

 their power to make their cause heard in what 

 all have come to feel to be the centre and source 

 of all influences that are to be permanent and 

 pervading in the land ; viz., the public schools. 

 Private, high, normal, industrial, collegiate 

 institutions had meetings of their own more or 

 less numerous. Dr. Graham Bell and the deaf- 

 mutes, Gen. Armstrong and the Indians, Mr. 

 F. Adler and his workshops, the Concord sum- 

 mer school of philosophy, the Quincy reform, 

 were all represented by distinct addresses. An 

 international league was organized, with nearly 

 a score of officers, on the suggestion of an 

 unknown enthusiast at Bonn, Germany ; and 

 at the end a very long series of resolutions, 

 expressing the sentiments of a few end men on 

 most of the open questions in the broad sphere 

 of modern life, were approved ; and then with 

 fireworks and cannon, and bands of music and 

 illuminations, and out and in door eloquence, 

 the vast assembly dissolved. 



This association is not a ring, though its 

 offices and policy are entirely in the hands of 

 a very few men ; for its honors are empty, its 

 offices gratuitous, and some of the best edu- 



cators keep carefully aloof from it. That 

 others are not recognized shows a want of 

 wisdom at the centre, which reveals the weak- 

 ness and instability of the entire organization. 

 It was never more apparent than at this meet- 

 ing, that education is, in this country, not a 

 science, nor a profession, in any extended or 

 respectable sense. Contrast the dismal time- 

 killing trivialities which frittered away the 

 time of the larger meetings, the emptiness of 

 some of the addresses, the egotism and igno- 

 rance of others, with the method of a meeting 

 of a scientific association. 



Worst of all were, perhaps, the dismal hours 

 of the so-called philosophy of education : any 

 thing more stultifying and anti-pedagogic than 

 most of this cannot be imagined. If a teacher 

 can teach, he can interest a convention, or else 

 is sure to have the sense to keep silent. By 

 this test very few teachers were heard at 

 Madison. No more earnest and inspiriting 

 address was heard than Col. Parker's, whose 

 iconoclasm the managers greatly fear. He is 

 in earnest in his work ; and no man was heard 

 with greater interest, though perhaps rarely 

 without some feeling of strong dissent. It is 

 said, teachers are not in the mood for earnest 

 work at such assemblies. This is often true of 

 the eastern, but not of the western teachers ; 

 their enthusiasm is most inspiring, and may 

 shame, as it is rapidly distancing, even the 

 best of the more routine methods of the East. 

 In view of this eagerness, some of the papers 

 admitted by the president were a shame to 

 him, and an insult to the intelligence and zeal 

 of the hearers. There should be, before an- 

 other meeting, a board of examiners to decide 

 on the merits of papers, less with reference to 

 names, and more to matter. 



On the whole, the address of President 

 Bicknell was wise and suggestive and all- 

 sided. His organization of this year shows 

 great administrative capacity, and a clear sense 

 of the needs of the hour. What was wanted 

 this year was mass, quantity, if only to show 

 to outsiders the strength of educational inter- 

 ests. But progress is now so rapid here, that 

 the wants of another year will be very different. 



