IT

T is interesting to note the various schoolmasters and schoolmistresses as depicted in English literaturewhich as a matter of course includes the literature of the United States. Without question the greatest of the latter, was the indomitable ICHABOD CRANE:

In WASHINGTON IRVING'S "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"-in "The Sketch Book" an awkward and credulous country schoolmaster ICHABOD CRANE, was the rival of a Dutch farmer, a "burly, roaring, roystering blade" named BROM VAN BRUNT, for the hand of KATHERINA VAN TASSEL, but put out of the running by a practical joke.

"The cognomen of Crane was not inapplicable to his person. He was tall but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels and his whole frame most loosely hung together. His head was small, and flat on top, with huge ears, large, green, glassy eyes, and a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weather-cock perched upon his spindle neck, to tell which way the wind blew. To see him striding along the profile of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him, one might have mistaken him for the genius of famine descend

ed upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from a cornfield," thus does WASHINGTON IRVING describe this young hero.

DICKENS has given us several heroes from the schoolroom, not the least of which is the despicable Squeers:

WACKFORD SQUEERS in Nicholas Nickleby (1838) was the owner of Dothboys Hall, in Yorkshire, a rapacious, ignorant, and brutal schoolmaster. NICHOLAS engages himself as a scholastic assistant to this gentleman, but disapproves of his methods, vigorously interferes when he attempts to thrash SMIKE, and leaves followed by the wretched SMIKE, the worst treated of all the pupils. SQUEERS had only one eye. The blank side of his face was much puckered up, which gave him a most sinister expression, especially when he smiled, at which time his expression bordered on the villainous. He wore a white neckerchief with long ends, and a scholastic suit of black; but, his coat sleeves being a great deal too long-(note the difference between these sleeves and those of ICHABOD CRANE)—and his trousers a deal too short, he appeared ill at ease in his clothes, and as if he were in a perpetual state of astonishment at finding himself so respectable.

Mrs. Wackles, in DICKENS "Old Curiosity Shop," was the proprietor of

a day school for young ladies at Chelsea; she was a well-meaning but rather venomous sexagenarian who looked after the corporal punishment and other terrors of the establishment, while the remaining departments were distributed among her three daughters

follows: Miss Melissa, English grammar, composition, geography and the use of dumb-bells; Miss Sophy, writing, arithmetic, dancing, music and general fascination; Miss Jane, needlework, marking and samplery.

Miss Monflathers, in DICKEN'S "Old Curiosity Shop," was the mistress of a boarding and day school who was greatly shocked when Little NELL on Mrs. JARLEY's behalf asks her to patronize the waxwork's show. "Don't you know," she asks, "it is very naughty to be a wax child when you might have the proud consciousness of assisting, to the extent of your infant powers, the noble manufacturers of your country?"

IN SILAS PECKHAM, we have portrayed a hustling Yankee pedagog, who "keeps a young lady's school exactly as he would have kept a hundred head of cattle-for the simple unadorned purpose of making just so much money in just as few years as possible." He finds a notable assistant in MRS. PECKHAM, an honest, ignorant woman, "who could not have passed an examination in the youngest class," but who without a qualm looks after the "feathering, cackling, roosting, rising, and general behaviours of these hundred chicks," so says OLIVER Wendell Holmes in his romance "Elsie Venner."

In GOLDSMITH's idyllic poem, "The Deserted Village," we find an amusing type of the rustic pedagog, who as

tonishes the community with "words of learned length and thundering sound-"

"And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew

That one small head could carry all he knew."

But it remained for BULWER-LYTTON to give us the criminal pedagog, in his celebrated novel "Eugene Aram." This story was founded on a celebrated criminal case in the English criminal annals. EUGENE ARAM, a schoolmaster of superior intelligence in Knaresborough, was the intimate friend of DANIEL CLARKE, a shoemaker who in 1745 mysteriously disappeared after having purchased a lot of goods on credit. ARAM was suspected of being implicated with him in a conspiracy to defraud, was arrested, but was discharged for lack of evidence. Fourteen years later he was again arrested, this time on the charge of murdering CLARKE. Askeleton had been dug up near Knaresborough, Mrs. ARAM had made some compromising admissions, and finally a man named HOUSEMAN confessed that he had been present at the murder of CLARKE by ARAM. The latter, despite a brilliant defense conducted by himself, was convicted on August 3, 1759. He confessed his guilt after condemnation. The night before his execution he composed a short poem in defence of suicide, opened a vein in his arm, but failed to cheat the gallows.

BULWER represents his hero as an aspiring student who joins HOUSEMAN in the murder of CLARKE only that he may obtain money to prosecute his own lofty speculations. Now CLARKE was the assumed name of GEOFFREY

"ION

THO

examinations share with text-books the responsibility of determining in very large measure the character of American education, yet little attempt has been made to standardize them. There will be general interest, therefore, in the announcement that a definite and systematic investigation has been authorized by the Executive Committee of the National Council of Teachers of English to determine the extent that examinations in English set by teachers and various educational authorities are a handicap to the progress of American schools. The committee responsible for this undertaking has prepared to conduct a thorogoing inquiry into practices with reference to examinations in English in the elementary schools, the junior and senior high schools, the junior colleges, and in normal schools, colleges and universities. The committee expects to study data obtained from teachers, publishers, and educational authorities and to test the current practices of examiners in the light of present-day educational needs. A study will be made of the psychological basis of questioning and examining. Considerable thought will be given to the formulation of a philosophy of examining in English studies, and to the determination of definite objectives in testing the results of teaching. The

committee is constituted as follows: C. C. CERTAIN, Cass Technical High School, Detroit, Michigan, Chairman; W. N. OTTO, Shortridge High School, Indianapolis, Indiana; WILLIAM HAWLEY DAVIS, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine; H. G. PAUL, University of Illinois, Urbana, Ill.; A. H. KRUG, Baltimore City College, Baltimore, Maryland; O. B. STAPLES, University High School, Baton Rouge, Louisiana; ELLEN GARRIGUES, DeWitt Clinton High School, New York City; C. N. GREENOUGH, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts; GEORGE COFFMAN, University of Montana, Missoula, Montana; Lela DouTHART, High School, Kansas City, Kansas; JOHN D. MAHONEY, Boys' High School, West Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; F. C. OAKES, State Normal School, Edmond, Oklahoma; W. S. HINCHMAN, Groton School, Groton, Massachusetts; ELEANOR SHELDON, Oshkosh Normal School, Oshkosh, Wisconsin; J. R. BRUMM, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan; H. R. STEEVES, Columbia University, New York City; CLARK NORTHUP, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York; W. E. VAUGHN, Normal School, Memphis, Tennessee; A. B. NOBLE, Iowa State College, Ames, Iowa; CHARLES R. GASTON, Richmond Hill High School, New York City.

OT to be a soldier?

NOT

Did you, then, know what you, his mother, were raising him for? How could you tell when and where he would be needed? When and where he would best play a man's debt to his country?

Suppose the mother of George Washington had said, "I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier!"

Suppose the mother of GENERAL GRANT, or the mother of ADMIRAL DEWEY, had said it; or the mothers of thousands and thousands of brave fellows who fought for Independence and Liberty; where would our country be today?

If the mothers of heroes had clung and sniveled and been afraid for their boys, there wouldn't perhaps be any free America for the world to look to.

Mother, you are living and enjoying America now, you and the boy you “didn't raise to be a soldier."

Thanks to others, you and he are safe and sound-so far.

(You may not be to-morrow- -you and the other women; he and the other men who "weren't raised"-if Americans turn out to be Sons of Cowards, as the Germans believe.)

You want your boy to live and enjoy life with you, to make you happy. You don't want to risk your treasure. What mother ever wished it? It is indeed harder to risk one's beloved than one's self. But there are things still harder.

You don't want your lad to meet

danger, like WASHINGTON and GRANT and SHERIDAN and the rest whom you taught him to admire.

You'd rather keep your boy where you believe him safe than have your country safe!

You'd rather have him to look at here, a slacker, than abroad earning glory, as a Patriot.

You'd rather have him grow old and decrepit and die in his bed than risk a hero's death, with many chances of coming back to you, proudly honored.

You'd rather have him go by accident or illness, or worse.

There are risks at home, you know! Are you afraid of them, too? How can you guard him?

You'd rather have your boy meet even disease, disgrace, dissolution, than take his chances shoulder to shoulder with the manly sons of women who raised their boys to do their duty. Would you?

Is it you who are keeping him back?
Shame on you, Mother!
You are no

true, proud mother.

It isn't only the men who have got to be brave, these days. It's the women, too. We all have much to risk when there's a wicked war in the world.

Don't you know, this is a war to destroy wicked war?

Don't you want your son to help make the world over?

This is a war to save our liberty, our manhood, our womanhood; the best life has to give.

Mother, what did you raise your