THE

HE teacher of all persons is called upon to scrutinize the character of her work. She must see from afar the effects of the trifling things that are at the beginning. The mind must be instructed according to enduring interests. Sympathy and appreciation of nature is all-important in the child's school life. What ever influence separates him from it is a detriment affecting his growth and possibilities. The profession has no use whatever for unambi tious, indifferent, comfort-seeking teachers. The highest economy consists in putting into our schools the best educated, best trained teachers that can be found.

"There is but one temple in the universe, and that is the body of man," said Novalis. We touch heaven when we lay our hands on a child. He is the miracle of miracles. The truth of this comes forcibly to us as we look out upon the children of the state. We know not how to express it, but we feel that it is verily so. The demand is for living teachers; teachers with minds, deep, earnest, fairly open to the things about them, and able to give out the truth they see. It is not enough that the teacher remain passive. Conscious, determined effort is necessary to appropriate the good, the true, the beautiful by which we are surrounded; to take great free glances into the depths of things. We do not educate that life may be made easy. That would be to mistake the aim of life--the aim of education. We educate that work, whether in the shop, at the counter, on the farm, in administration, or in the leisure moments may be more effective, may give more pleasure to life. But whatever they may become the teacher is to make of the boys and girls worthy men and

power is heart power. True success depends upon the breadth of intellectual, spiritual, and esthetic qualifications. It is not that we have no teachers without this broad attainment, but that those who with little culture succeed with greater culture would succeed better. These qualifications do not come by inspiration. They come only to those who pay the price. They never come to one who says: "I could teach some excellent moral lesson in connection with this reading but I do not care to take the trouble to prepare the lesson more thoroughly. I know that not all my pupils understand this problem, but it takes so much effort to make them understand it. I ought to break up that girl's idleness, but it does not disturb the school very much. I ought to break up that boy's habit of trifling with my authority, but it might cause me trouble." In doing this they are not only waiving the possibilities of success but are ignoring their God-given purpose. The young are very quick to discover this. After a recitation they are dulled or refreshed according to the heart vitality or non-vitality of the teacher. The inspiring quality of the soul is needed along with intellectual attainments. Whether you will or no, silent eyes are following you everywhere. Your great function is not to call the roll, to hear lessons, to discipline. We are here to awaken the slumbering immortality that lies sleeping in childhood,-to impart conceptions of life. Contact with an ideal teacher strengthens and inspires. She is a student always pointing the way upward.

In making our schools practical, let us not forget the esthetic nature of the child. He is inspired by the harmony and beauty of nature. Longfellow claims for him the right to see and share in this beauty. Let the wide eyes of childhood look out and see the wondrous beauty surrounding him. Teach him more and more of the holiness of beauty, that his wonder-loving spirit may grow. It is a mistake to judge of his pleasures by grown-up standards. They will not follow our own. But if the opportunity is only given him, his appreciation grows with the growing intelligence, otherwise it is starved and dwarfed. The sternness of the reality remains; the beauty is shut from him. His life becomes one of making a living without the ability to live. All men are blind until they come face to face with the divine order of things. Beauty resides in the eye that sees not in the object looked upon. We see only what we have the gift of

seeing. We compel the child to learn the size of our world, its rivers, cities, and the height of its mountains. Should not some time be spent in showing him its wondrous beauty? Then he will not turn upon us with censure for the cruel neglect of the highest in him. The esthetic appeals not only to the eye but to the ear. The murmur of the running brook, the wind soughing through the trees, are a source of interest and delight.

It is possible that our own esthetic ear may be shocked by the jingling rhymes,-with the short strongly accented time movement that are a delight to the child.

"Jack and Jill went up the hill

To fetch a pail of water;
Jack fell down and broke his crown,
And Jill came tumbling after."

"As he trudged along to school
It was always Johnny's rule

To be looking at the sky

And the clouds that floated by."

But do not despair, it will only be a short time before you can present the gems of literature.

"Break, break, break,

On thy cold grey stones, O sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me."

"How beautiful this night! the balmiest sigh that rural nature breathes in every ear."

"How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank." The author, the painter of nature and of character, was not educated at the grammar school at Stratford. England was his schoolroom. His mind went out from the narrow grooves of text-books and the world became his workshop. The dreamy, moonlit riverside, the misty vales, the strains of music, to his mind were presented in divine relationship. To him. the world was full of beauty, the stars ablaze with thought, everything alive and speaking.

We are a part of humanity with its great men and glorious deeds. On canvas and in stone we find expressed our ideals and aspirations. Music and poetry have uttered our joys and sorrows; our hopes and fears. It is the mission of the school to interpret these great deeds; the pure ideals of artist and architect; to introduce him to the world of letters and the higher realm of music.

Literature presents the ideals of life-life as expressed in the family, church, state, and society. In our literature these ideals are clothed in the flowing robes of imagination and set with

the jewels of well-chosen, rhythmic, and melodious words.

It is not of so much consequence what our children know when they leave school as what they love. What they love they will feed on and will increase the store. If our children leave school with a genuine love for Longfellow, Whittier, Scott, Shakespeare, Homer-they have, from every point of view, the most valuable equipment which the school can give to its boys and girls before sending them out into the world.

In our schools, the great men are being educated for their great deeds. It is there also that the little men are preparing for greater deeds than they would otherwise accomplish. If we wish fewer laborers and more artisans, we must present to our pupils a clear conception of the divine relationship of things. It is only in the divine relationship that we can see the soul of things and evoke the full harmony of life. This relationship beautifies the world and it cannot be contemplated without some expansion toward a nobler life.

It is not possessions that bring contentment, nor are they our greatest luxuries. The greatest luxuries are experiences and aspirations. We can ill afford to spend so much time in making a living that we neglect those rich moods that make it possible to mortgage lands, pictures, books without destroying the title deeds of civil possession. The poet and the painter may carry from our fields more than all the crops will equal.

Perhaps the first step, and one which everyone may accomplish, is a neat, clean room with each article of furniture and apparatus in its place. Blackboards we must have. They should be bordered by a moulding. Maps are necessary; they are not ornamental. They should be in a case and each map sprung neatly to its place when not in use. A few good pictures will add greatly to the attractiveness of the room. These need not be expensive, but should never be chromos. Your pupils are easily enlisted in an effort to make the room more attractive and bright, and it also encourages a feeling of loyalty and pride, and a desire for refined and tasteful surroundings. It is easier for the teacher to arrange the flowers, books, and chairs; but it is a greater lesson in care and arrangement if the pupils are allowed to do so. I emphasize, here, the word allowed. Besides these there are right and beautiful ways

of doing all the little things in the schoolroom; there are confused and clumsy ways as well— of sitting at the desk, of entering the room, of walking, of handling books, of cleaning the slates. (They are not abolished from all our schoolrooms.) Petty these little things are in themselves; but it is these little things that make up the atmosphere of the schoolroom, and they are great when considered in the light of the principles involved. It is then that we see them in their true significance. Then again we can take our little people to the door and let them see the sky. It is strange how few persons have ever seen it. Every day it is above us with its scenes of most perfect beauty; its ever-changing pictures of glory. It can be made a source of interest and delight. The Yellowstone, the Alps, the Niagara can be seen by but few. The gorgeous clouds shot across the sky at evening, changing at every moment; the thin, white, fleecy clouds melting away as the sun descends and leaving the heavens to the bright starlight, all are a delightful mystery, and are they the less beautiful because of the questions that they ask? If you watch for the next sunset, and look closely at the heavenly scroll, you may find a word or two in answer. Or watch the circling constellation until the wondrous bright star appears.

Then shall we say there is no opportunity for the cultivation of the esthetic? If that doubt is in your mind, then there will be no opportunity in your school. You will travel the same level road that has crushed the life out of so many before you. But the great pity is for the children who are compelled to travel this road of mental poverty, where the eye rests upon nothing and the mind gathers only the dry husks of the text-books. To such a one all this is an alien world. Our schools will be exalted only when they are in charge of exalted teachers,-teachers who are fully capable of bringing the priceless treasures into the schoolroom and planting them deep in the souls of the children. MISS KATE AIMES, Napa, Cal. County Superintendent.

The Child and Number

THERE is, at present, among educational leaders, so much activity of thought and expression in regard to the nature of the number concept and its application to arithmetic, that one of "the rank and file" may well

hesitate to enter the lists in the discussion of "ratio vs. number," "counting vs. measurement," etc.

I am reminded of the ingenious remark of a little girl, a few weeks ago. She took up the October Pedegogical Seminary, which was open at Mr. Phillips' article on "Number and its Application." Turning over the pages, she exclaimed, "Why, do you have to read all this just to teach us?" Then, looking at the Bibliography, "If you should read all these books I suppose you would know too much to teach our grade"! I have not yet ventured to make that experiment (for fear of knowing too much!), but the present condition of my mind is some what chaotic on many points in regard to number and its presentation.

I shall not inflict my doubts and experiments upon that long-suffering educational public which has been enlightened by Greenleaf and Colburn, Grube and Soldan, Dewey and Speer, and their numerous compeers.

These educators have, in turn, presented widely different views of the subject. In succession, these opinions have been eagerly ac cepted, and hastily put into practice, often imperfectly understood, and exaggerated in their application. Then has arisen the cry, "O, it's only one more fad!" None the less is it true. that, in every case, these "fads" have marked a distinct advance in the knowledge and grasp of the subject, in the diffusion of knowledge, and better teaching has been the result. Without entering upon a discussion of the points now at issue which may well be left in the hands of such men as Dr. Phillips, Prof. Dewey, Geo. P. Brown, Principal Colwell, and others I simply offer a few observations, made in the daily work of the school, with a class of fourth grade pupils:

Whatever the points of difference, in theory and practice, I think we shall all give a hearty assent to the statement that the teaching of arithmetic has not given results desired; the mental development of the pupil has not been a satisfactory "ratio" to the time and effort expended by both teacher and pupil. What, then. is wrong? and what is the remedy?

It seems to me we must turn to the careful

student of children for the answers to these questions, rather than to the maker of textbooks (or the publisher of them). The point of view must be that of the child rather than a logical view of the subject, as an entity,

In the use of the text-book one of the first serious hindrances is the language of the problems. Children in the fourth grade generally have a "second book" in arithmetic. They are not very good readers; they stumble at unaccustomed words; the thought-process is interrupted, attention is diverted, loss of power follows. On one page, in division, in a popular and widely used arithmetic,I find such problems as the first and third of the four problems given at the close of this article. On two pages of another book, I find the following words: fruiterer, beeves, cargo, "products of the loom," poulterer, silversmith. Nor is the mechanical difficulty of pronunciation and recognition the most serious one, for the conditions presented are unfamiliar, and remote from the pupils' experiences. They are emphatically "in the book," and never get anywhere else! I refer again to the problems at the close of this ar ticle. It will be seen that the conditions are exactly the same in the second as in the first, in the fourth as in the third. They were placed on the board, without comment, and no explana tions or assistance given. Note the results, comparing the two classes of problems.

The remedy for this is clear. The unfamiliar words must be made alive to the pupil's consciousness in some way. They may be used in a language lesson, made the subject of a special reading lesson, sought for in books where the context will illumine the meaning, synonyms used, etc. While this work must be done, as preparatory to the arithmetic lesson, it seems to me it should not be a part of it; it makes the lesson too long, and is a diversion of interest. Now, not all text-books on this subject de serve this criticism, but I doubt not many teachers have pupils who do not solve problems be cause they cannot read them. Every science has its own vocabulary, with which the child becomes gradually familiar. In the case of arithmetic, this necessary vocabulary is increased by an artificial and useless one. You may remember the boy's definition of the spelling book: "It's the book where the words are that you can't find nowhere else!" There is a better and easier way out of this difficulty-do not use such a book. This course may be confidently recommended to all teachers who are entirely independent, as to bread and butteror bread without butter, or to those who dwell in an Utopia of enlightened superintendents and principals, discerning and appreciative "board members" and patrons.

Parents usually desire children to "use the books"; the respect for print has the "prestige of age" over deference to a teacher's ability; the "examination" may chance to include one of those very problems; some fond parent may be suddenly inspired with a desire to test his child's progress, and, then-woe to the teacher who has omitted aught!

I have learned many lessons from the children's problems, "made up" by themselves, and this form of lesson is always most interesting to them. These problems, in subject-matter, never stray far from daily surroundings, and subjects of special and absorbing interest. When the circus "comes to town," the arithmetic has a distinct ring and sawdust flavor. Not long ago the erection of a large building near the school house was a mine of wealth to inquiring minds, and the "daily program" on the board was used as the basis of a series of most ingenious ques tions.

The unconscious revelations of character through this work have a message for the teacher. The boy who aspires to be a fireman, the son of the dealer in hardware, the girl who reads many books, the doctor's daughter, the carpenter's, the miners, and the banker's children, all betray their identity. Why would not a book of "Children's Arithmetic" be as interesting and instructive as Miss Smythe's "Oldtime Stories Retold?"

A second trouble is a very real, though oldfashioned one-children do not know the mul tiplication table. They have not an automatic command of the simple combinations. They have all sorts of ingenious ways of getting over this, and close observation has shown some surprising ones. One girl always added instead of multiplying, writing down nine fives and add ing, doing this rapidly, but not accurately. Another seemed to have command of the prod ucts of the digits by ten, as twenty, thirty, etc., and then subtracted to find the desired product. Thus, if she wished to find nine times five, she subtracted five from fifty; six times four she found by subtracting four four times from forty (ten times four). A boy who wished to multiply 34 by 8, preferred to add four 68's and usually multiplies in that way, making an intermediate step between addition and multiplication.

I have even seen children make one hundred or more marks on their slates and count off the marks in groups, then count the groups till they had the required number of groups, then count the units again in the groups; thus, 5 times 6

would be ascertained by marking off five groups of six each, then counting the units in those five groups. A girl never multiplies by 9, but by 3 first and then the product by 3. (This same girl has a variety of devices in adding and subtracting.)

The more common device of "saying the table till you get to it," is known to all teachers, and is frequently encouraged by them, even in this day and age.

Now, the pupil should be able to summon at once any one of the forty-five combinations of the multiplication table. He can do so only when the association of the three members of this combination is so strong that two of them recall, instantly, the third; thus, 4X8 must recall 32. Shall this be an act of memory, learned by much verbal repetition? I should say "yes," unhesitatingly, if the child can get it in no other way. Shall the combinations be kept constantly before the eye, and referred to, and so the visual association be made strong? This is certainly a step nearer the truth, and I, for one, would be thankful for as much as this.

In as far as we have now considered the matter, however, the child is accepting and memorizing a result obtained by others a process of mechanical memory. This process is a very difficult one for some children, and-is it the best? Even in the usual way, however, much improvement would result if the child were not asked, too soon, to supply the missing term, and also had before him, for instance, the tables, becoming familiar with them by their use, and using them as a means, not an end.

The prac

tice of "saying the tables" alone, or in concert, seems to me, in results, not to justify the time consumed. (I think "consumed" is just the right word there.) If the child in the second and third grades could come to this knowledge through some practical work, so getting many of the smaller combinations, would he not be ready, then, to marshal his forces, and make his own multiplication tables-if there were any reason for his so doing?

The "Speer Method" suggests the use of blocks and cardboards of varying shapes and sizes cut to show the ratios, and named by number names. This brings in the element of comparison and judgment, and the association of the form with its number name, as a word accompanied by a picture is more easily remembered than the word without the picture. A rectangle 2X4 is named "2"; one 4×4 is named "4." The child sees 2X2's" in the "4," etc.

This is but one application of many which might be made. The relations of time, linear measurements, weights, measures, money values, bring in many numerical combinations, and all have the same value as the special exercises suggested with blocks and plane forms. This point is brought out fully in both the Speer books, but seems to have been largely overlooked in practice. A few wall charts, made by pasting colored oblongs, etc., on cardboard, have been found helpful in the second grade. We have certainly reason to feel dissatisfied with present results in this line. If number is a tool for man's use, let the child use it as a means to an end. Present such conditions as will enable him to proceed to the accomplishment of his desire (not yours or mine). I cannot imagine a lively American boy working himself up to a great pitch of enthusiasm over 4,864,964 ft.÷ 29. I have, however, seen a dozen boys eagerly watching a surveyor using his steel tape, and contending for the honor of "reading" it, and a whole class, boys and girls, rushing back to school from their dinners, to measure the school yard with that same tape. One boy remarked, "I like that kind of arithmetic that isn't in the book."

PROBLEMS AND TABLE REFERRED TO ABOVE.

1. A manufacturer, having 11,096 ounces of silver made from it as many coffee urns as possible, each weighing 45 ounces, and a salver of the silver he had left. How much did the salver weigh?

2. Mr. Brown, on Main street, had 289 ounces of silver, which he made into tablespoons, each weighing 3 ounces. He made a pin (like mine), of the silver he had left. How much did the pin weigh?

3. If I travel west from Philadelphia 8 hours, at the rate of 34 miles an hour, and then east 176 miles, how far shall I be from Philadelphia?

4. If I start at the schoolhouse and walk north on Main street 5 hours at the rate of 3 miles an hour, and then walk south 9 miles, how far shall I then be from the schoolhouse?