Today the legislature will stop legis la...

Today the legislature will stop legislating. Everybody without reference to color or previous condition of servitude will rejoice. The legislatures of all the other states which assembled at the same time ours did have long since gone home. But ours has been left blooming and alone. It has gone on and on until the sorely tired people were beginning to think it was to be like the mercy of the Lord. But it stop work today. We are duly thankful.

Gov. Pingree's veto of the $40,000 appropriation for the Buffalo exposition knocks Land Commissioner French out of a fat job. He expected to be one of the commissioners. He lobbied for the bill and brought to its aid the leaders of the "Farmers' Club," whose son now holds a position in the commissioners office. But Commissioner French will not have the labor imposed upon him of serving as a Micihgan director at the Buffalo exposition with liberal allowances for expenses put up by the dear people.

The governor did a good job in vetoing the beet sugar bounty bill and the Buffalo exposition bill. It is so seldom that hizzexellency does a really meritorious thing that the Argus feels like oommending him when he does. The sugar bounty bill was a steal pure and simple and passed the legislature only by means of trades and dickers. It could never have passed on its own merits. It would have cost the state $700,000, at least for the two years to come. Gov. Pingree believed it unconstitutional and on injustice to 92 per cent of the people, yet he would have signed it had the leigslature seen fit to limit the amount of the bounty to $25,000 for any one factory. Nevertheless his veto, will save the state a large sum and is to be commended.

The present legislature was elected principally on the issue of the equalization of taxation but what has it accomplished? Many properties that are not taxed at all remain untaxed. The great corporations have had sufficient "influence" to prevent their being taxed in the proportion that other property is taxed. A tax commission has been created to study and consider the whole subject of taxation but such commissions in the past have accomplished nothing and in all probability the properties that are not taxed and thus which are not sufficiently taxed will have "influence" enough to prevent any proper equaliation of the tax burden. The before mentioned properties always take the line of least resistance and they evidently consider it less expensive to "control" the legislature than to pay the increased taxes under proper equalization.

The assassination of Gen. Luna, if true, removes the ablest military leader of the Filipinos. That his death occurred at the headquarters of his chief indicates that it was by design. Gen. Luna belonged to one of the ablest and most powerful native families and he was a rival of Aguinaldo. He is not he first of Aguinaldo's rivals to be taken off in the same manner. Assassination of his rivals is one of the means this desperate and treacherous leader to gain his ends. In this he is true to the school in which he has been trained. In all probability, however, his complete overthrow is a matter of no distant time. He should and no doubt will be crushed by the United States, and when this is brought about, is to be hoped that our government will not make the mistake of trusting him with any position of power or influence. He is too treacherous to be trusted.

A Washington dispatch contains the following relative to free rural mail delivery:

"Inspector Blackburn, who is now in Michigan making an investigation of several applications received at the post office department for rural free delivery in that state, has been called here for a conference with the officials. No branch of the postal service has become so popular in so short a time as rural free delivery, and after July 1 the service will be inaugurated on an extensive scale in Michigan, Wisconsin, and other northwestern states. Many applications have been received from Michigan, and after a talk with Inspector Blackburn, the officials say the service will be established at various points in the peninsular state."

Again the Argus calls attention to this subject with the hope that Ann Arbor may get a move on and secure free rural delivery here. If it is so greatly desired in other places and so popular why would it not be a good thing here? And why cannot it be secured here when places all about us are getting it? Free rural delivery is pretty sure to be an accomplished fact in the more thickly settled districts in the near future and the district of which Ann Arbor is the center should not be the last to secure this bit of progress.

The Argus believes the recommendation of Supt. Slauson relative to a study room in the high school is a wise one. That much time is lost by students because they have no study room to go to between recitations is unquestionably true. One has but to pass about the building, inside and out, to be convinced of the fact. This is most natural under the existing conditions. A student has a recitation the first hour, perhaps, none the second and another the third hour. What is to be done during that intervening vacant, hour. If he lives some distance away to go home is impracticable; if he lives but a short distance away, sometime is consumed in going and coming and thus the hour is shortened and made of practically no value. He may go to the library 'tis true, but the accomodations there are not sufficient. Good work cannot be done in an overcrowded room especially in a room in which the ventilation is not the best. For these reasons and the farther one that the student is not placed under proper control and direction during his vacant hours at school, he is pretty certain to lose much valuable time. He is very apt to consider it pleasanter to wander about or visit during the vacant periods than to try to study under the existing difficulties.

Again, young students need direction in their work. Many times a word of suggestion clears up a point in a lesson and enables the student to go on with his study with a much better understanding of what follows. Time is thus saved to the student also. There should be a room where students can go during vacant hours and be under the control and direction of a thoroughly competent teacher whose duty it is to see that the time is spent in legitimate school work. This teacher should be one of broad scholarship so that he may render assistance to pupils needing it in the various branches. Such a teacher can do much, too, in the way of cultivating proper habits of study in pupils. Before entering the high school pupils have been under the constant direction and control of the teacher, not only in recitation but also in preparation of lessons. On entering the high school all restraint and directive influence is removed excepting during the recitation. This freedom, because of the immaturity of judgment of many pupils and consequent lack of self control, is most harmful and results in the demoralization of many. These harmful results may be largely avoided by sending pupils during vacant hours to a study room and placing them under proper control. The recommendation of the superintendent is worthy of careful consideration. It should be carried into effect.