body of knowledge, I think teachers will, as a whole, be quick to respond to the demand and the opportunity—as a release from the belittling effects of their present monotonous drudgery with trivial ideas, if for no higher motive.
In conclusion, the reader may wish to ask, "Was the experiment, after all, a success?" I answer, "As a demonstration of the possibility and value of introducing little children to real learning, yes; as a realization of my ideals, no." I was conscious that there was much that was superficial in the work; and that, in striving to avoid shadows and to grasp the real substance of education, I often grasped but another and a finer sort of shadow. May some other teacher, having greater fitness for the work, and a longer opportunity for effort, reach the goal for which I started! The instruction such an one could give about primary education is needed all over our beloved land.
| THE AVIATOR FLYING-MACHINE. |
By G. TROUVÉ.
A SUCCINCT history was given by M. G. Dary, in a recent number of L'Électricien, of the vain efforts that have been made at different times to steer balloons in the atmosphere. Some of the experiments were, indeed, of real merit; but they did not succeed practically, because the problem they were intended to solve offers insurmountable obstacles. The steering of balloons and the realization of great speed with them are practically impossible, and the results obtained from experiments directed to those objects have not been worth the immense outlays that have been made upon them. Yet balloons styled directable will probably render very appreciable services in military art and under a few other special circumstances. The experiments of M. Gaston Tissandier and Commandant Renard have not been useless, and it will be of some advantage to continue them. But while balloonists are right in seeking to increase the dimensions of their globes in order to increase at once the proportion of ascensional power and of motor and propulsive energy to resistance, we, advocates of machines heavier than the air, looking especially to great speed, would gradually diminish the function of the balloon as a sustainer, reduce it, and bring into greater predominance the propulsory organs, making them at once more powerful and lighter. These are those which, with the motor and the generator, represent the element heavier than the air. When the balloon shall have been eliminated in this way, practical aërial navigation will have been accomplished.
