NOTES AND NEWS "The early withdrawal of pupils from school is a fact universally recognized," says the United States Commissioner of Education in his report for 1908, "but up to this time there have been few investigations of the extent and the causes of the evil." The United States Department of Education in 1900 reported that over 50 per cent. of all public-school pupils were in the first and second grades and were less than nine years of age; 87.5 per cent. were in the first five grades and were under twelve years. All investigations on this point in particular cities, however widely they may differ, agree in indicating “a marked decline in attendance between the fourth and fifth grades, and continued decrease thereafter." Religious education having failed to find for itself a method acceptable to more than one country at a time, an International Congress on Moral Education is now being held in London (September 23-26). Papers in three languages are on the programme, discussing everything from discipline to juvenile literature, and the ethical penetration of the whole curriculum. Unwillingness to relegate moral instruction to an hour by itself, and a desire to introduce its application in "history, geography, literature, languages, composition, mathematics, natural history and other subjects," is a strong note of this congress. The problem of moral education, in so far as it is distinguishable from religious education, is practically virgin soil. The papers of the congress will be issued in a book as a sort of encyclopedia on the subject. Four at least of the articles in Child Labor and Social Process, a publication containing the proceedings of the fourth annual meeting of the National Child Labor Committee, deal with the bearing of education on child-labor. This is another sign of the growing recognition of the relation between education and the wider problems of society. Lewis Parker contends that laws of compulsory education are a much more direct solution of the problem than laws for the repression of child labor. The former legislation would include the latter, and would prove, in many parts of the country, a much more popular measure. Especially in the south, where legislation against child-labor seems immediately to take the form of a class attack on the owners of cotton-mills, a compulsory education law would be much less objectionable. In fact the Cotton Manufacturers' Association of South Carolina has itself made a written plea for a law compelling school attendance for children between eight and twelve, though this same association quite naturally refuses to support "measures heretofore introduced intended to require school attendance on the part of cotton-mill operatives only." Registration of births is also requested by the association, in order to insure the possibility of obedience to the other laws mentioned. BOOKS RECEIVED AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY, NEW YORK Chinese Fables and Folk Stories. By MARY HAYES DAVIS AND CHOW-LEUNG. Cloth. Illustrated. Pp. 214. $0.40. Japanese Folk Stories and Fairy Tales. By MARY F. NIXON-ROULET. Illustrated. Pp. 191. $0.40. Cloth. Swift's Gulliver's Travels for Children. By JAMES BALDWIN. Cloth. Illustrated. Pp. 172. $0.35. Goethe's Hermann und Dorothea. Edited, with notes and vocabulary, by WaterMAN THOMAS HEWETT. Cloth. Pp. 325. $0.60. A Spanish Reader for Beginners in High Schools and Colleges. By CHARLES ALFRED TURRELL. Cloth. Pp. 256. $0.80. Avellanda's Baltasar. Edited, with introduction and notes, by Carlos BRANSBY. Cloth. Pp. 224. $0.65. Latin Prose Composition Based on Caesar. By HENRY CARR PEARSON. Cloth. Pp. 195. $0.50. Maury-Simonds Physical Geography. By M. F. MAURY; revised and largely rewritten by F. W. SIMONDS. Half leather. Pp. 347. $1.20. HENRY ALTEMUS COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA How to Dress a Doll. By MARY H. MORGAN. Illuminated boards. Illustrated. Pp. 95. $0.50. MACMILLAN, NEW YORK Edited, with intro Emerson's Earlier Poems. (Pocket Series.) Edited, with introduction and notes, by OSCAR CHARLES GALLAGHER. Pp. 161. $0.25. Hawthorne's Mosses from an Old Manse. (Pocket Series.) duction and notes, by CHARLES ELROY BURBANK. Cloth. Pp. 286. $0.25. Whittier's Snow-Bound and Other Early Poems. (Pocket Series.) Edited, with introduction and notes, by A. L. BOUTON. Cloth. Pp. 288. $0.25. Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. (Pocket Series.) Edited, with introduction and notes, by ERNEST CLAPP NOYES. Cloth. Pp. 147. $0.25. Lesson Stories for the Kindergarten Grades of the Bible School. By Lois SEDGWICK PALMER AND GEORGE WILLIAM PEASE. Cloth. Pp. 127. $0.75. THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHER NOVEMBER, 1908 SOCIAL LIFE IN GEOGRAPHY LUNA E. BIGELOW State Normal School, New Paltz, N. Y. The aim of education as stated by the greatest educators of our day is that of social efficiency. The educational method employed is that of more social life in the schoolroom. This social life as an educational means is begun in the kindergarten. It should be continued throughout the grades. How does geography further this living of a real life in the schoolroom? This question leads us to ask several others. First, What is geography? Second, What are the aim and purposes of teaching geography? And third, What is the importance of geography in the curriculum if the aim of education is social efficiency? Geography is defined as the relationship of things organic and inorganic. It involves some knowledge of geology, physics, zoology, botany, astronomy, and history, but it is only with relationships that the geography has to deal. The aims and purposes of geography should be, first to show these relationships and man's control of his environment. Second, to broaden the child's horizon and develop the powers of perspective study. Third, to develop the power of scientific reasoning and observation. And fourth, to have the child able to question intelligently and weigh the evidences of newspaper and magazine articles as well as that of the text in geographical subjects. He should know his own environment and should have |