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to get a better mark than his neighbor. but that all are expected to make a free offering of their best to the class and the school as a whole, and through these to the larger community." It was during the discussion of the part of the "law of good workmanship" quoted above that the teacher took the opportunity of giving some practical advice regarding method by which teachers might beat their own best records. Another part of the same law, "Time will test my work," was the occasion for protests against the "soft pedagogy" that seems to aim to make children and older students comfortable and happy, and the teacher popular in the present whatever may be the outcome for the future. "I disliked arithmetic," testified one girl; "and whenever I cried because I didn't wish to work the problems or because I couldn't get them readily, my mother helped me. As a result I failed in the state examinations and entered high school a semester later than I should have done." I guarantee that as a parent or a teacher she will not make a similar mistake. And perhaps the class by her testimony, has been led to value in some degree "the slow, silent, penetrating influence of steadiness and perseverance which makes for moral education." As for the last article of this law, "When I have done my best, I will not envy those who have done better, or those who have received larger rewards. Envy spoils the worker and may spoil the work," can one doubt that the mere bringing of it forward by explicit statement and by illustration into the students' conscious understanding will make for higher levels of right relationship, man to man? And it is an especially valuable principle for one who is about to enter a vocation in which the emoluments for service are not large and often are not fairly apportioned.

The "law of team-work," the constructive spirit of co-operation, the spirit that is opposed to mere non-interference, the spirit that causes all to work together for the positive good of the whole, must animate a democracy. "The good American works in friendly co-operation with his fellow workers," says Professor Hutchins' code. "In my work I will strive to contribute what is best for each and all." Evidently some of the girls of this school had

striven, doubtless to a somewhat greater extent because of familiarity with this code, and because of their discussion of concrete problems of conduct suggested by it. According to students' testimony given in this particular class, some girls at the dormitories, when they themselves had no lessons to prepare, voluntarily observed study hours that they might not interfere with those who had work to do; some avoided friction by generously helping out of their turns slow or indolent room-mates to care for their rooms; some remembered never to leave soiled dishes in the dormitory kitchenettes, and by their silent example made others ashamed to do so; some, out of consideration for others, learned, not without much effort, to talk loud enough in class rooms to be heard easily.

But the cases of those who, perhaps thoughtlessly did not contribute to the well-being of the common life were also cited, often by the offenders themselves: the girl, who having neglected to order a class pin took one of those ordered, thus compelling one who had a right to a pin to go without it; the students at the Halls who monopolized the much-in-demand daily newspaper; the member of a group in charge of a "cold frame" who left the watering can empty, thus doubling the labor of someone else, besides making it necessary to use for the plants water of too low a temperature; the girl, who, unwilling to go to the trouble to unwind her thread from a sewing-machine bobbin, took bobbin thread, and all, thereby much inconveniencing the next sewer; one of the first comers who used on her breakfast food the richer cream meant for coffee, and by doing so obliged others to drink their coffee creamless. As one watched the eager faces of the students, he couldn't help seeing that to some of them were being made revelations of a better conduct than they had known and of a public opinion back of that conduct that they had not heretofore felt though all their lives they had been under the indirect teaching of morals.

Cheerfulness too is one of the provisions of the "law of teamwork." "In my work with others I will be cheerful. Cheerlessness depresses all the workers and injures all the work." Said a girl, "Mary offered to take and took, at some cost to herself, a friend's book that was due to the library this morning in order

that her friend might continue to study without interruption. This made her friend,—inclined this particular morning to be cross, good-natured. She spoke cheerfully to others, and they became cheerful. And all this on blue Monday," and, one adds mentally, on account of a tiny thoughtful act.

Complementary of the "law of team-work" is the "law of kindness." "Unkindness anywhere hurts the common life everywhere. Kindness helps the common life everywhere." When the following part of the law was to be discussed: "I will cherish an unconquerable good-will toward everyone regardless of his race or his color," several girls immediately after the law was, as usual, read, arose simultaneously. It didn't happen very often that the spirit moved so many so quickly. Perhaps the reason for this was, though no mention was made of this matter, the recent newspaper accounts of the terrible atrocities that had been committed at "Death Farm" in Georgia. One girl told this little story with evident disapproval of the act narrated: "A negro girl began to attend our Sunday School, and, as she was about my age, she was put into the class to which I belonged. Mary, another girl of the class, who upon her return from a distant school, had found the negro girl a member, immediately stopped coming. When pressed for a reason, she finally admitted that she had no intention of belonging to a Sunday School that admitted 'niggers.'" Another student told of a mother who was sowing the seeds of race antipathy by frightening her little girl into obedience through telling the child, upon certain occasions, that a big black man would get her if she didn't comply. Still another gave a recent street car incident that she had observed: several persons remained standing though there was an unoccupied place beside a negro woman. Finally the instructor gave an instance of unkindness that had been recounted to her by the minister in whose church it happened. An old negro man-"gentleman" the teacher said-sat Sunday after Sunday in the gallery of a white man's church with his hand to his ear, listening intently. Finally after having observed for several weeks that a pew nearer the front had been unoccupied, the old half-deaf darkey ventured one

Sunday to take it. But this unfortunately happened to be a Sunday upon which the former white occupant, who had been out of town for several weeks, wished to occupy it himself. The old darky, withered by the surprised, haughty stare of the white man, and by the information that that was no place for him, slunk, broken-hearted, out of the church, and never returned. While these incidents were being told, it would have been evident even to the most casual observer, by the looks on the faces, by an occasional tone of voice or half surpressed exclamation, sometimes by a tense silence, how deeply the class felt the unjustice of such

acts.

Then came the question: What can we do about it? And the answer-partly teacher's and partly students': When we have the opportunity we can sit with a negro on a crowded street car and thus leave other seats for those who are unwilling to do this; in our own schools, when we become teachers, we will not discriminate between white and negro children, if there are any of the latter, or, better still, we will sometimes discriminate a little in favor of the latter because their need is greater; we can keep at all times from a patronizing manner by maintaining in our hearts an unconquerable good will. To what extent these lessons in racial benevolence will be effective in real life situations no one knows but it has already been observed that these students in other class rooms are quicker than other students to condemn anything that approaches race arrogance; and that some of these girls are warm friends, apparently with no race consciousness, certainly with no feeling of racial superiority, with a certain Chinese girl of the school.

The law of kindness is far reaching and these discussions touched many of its other phases: the treatment of the blind, the deaf, the crippled, those afflicted in any other way; the avoidance of words that wound uselessly and the use of those that heal; class room courtesy, such as giving help by attention when another is speaking; kindness to others regardless of their attitude toward one-the crux of kindness many persons find this. And some evidently realized as they hadn't done before that kindness in this

imperfect world sometimes means sternness and the causing of pain and suffering. "Bob, the bully, may need to be made unhappy for a little while," as one student said, "in order that other boys may be happy for many days." "Kindness to others may mean to the man who inhumanly beats his dog the pain of a prosecution by law; and to us, if we do our duty, the pain of bringing this pain upon him," said another.

Thus this experiment in direct moral education went on eagerly on the part of both teacher and students. That some of these ideals were immediately translated into action in other social situations there is no doubt; that many of them will carry over into more remote situations is probable. And so this little course for helping prospective teachers "to behave as they do not behave," the prime purpose of education according to Ruskin, and to teach others to do likewise, was, it is evident, worth while.

Falling Asleep

Your voice booms in my ears and then grows dim,
With a pitiless rhythm compelling as ancient death;
The room recedes and my struggling senses swim
In white sea-light and languid pulsing breath.

Then words take sudden meaning, sharp and clear,
The room breaks on my old, astounded sight,
And holds me in a sudden grip, like fear,
And then, releasing, vanishes in light.

The booming lulls to music of grieving scas,

A troop of dreams goes by with rhythmic tread,
As white sheep homeward over wind-swept leas,
The dark shuts in like a door-and the world is dead!

GRACE GORDON.

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