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method," is in itself misleading and a misnomer. If it really were the natural method, it would surely commend itself to all educators. But it should be remembered that what may be natural for young children, in acquiring their own tongue, is by no means natural for more mature minds. Children acquire their language by simple imitation, often repeated, with little or no exercise of the reasoning powers. No such method is possible with older persons in acquiring a foreign tongue. I say that no such method is really possible, after the reasoning powers have made any degree of development; and I will add that, if it were so, there is not time in this short life for its successful application. How much of written and spoken language does a young child learn in two months? I need scarcely say that it learns nothing in this time except how to utter a few common words and phrases, and, of course, nothing whatever of written or printed speech. And yet, in two months a mature mind may acquire enough knowledge of a foreign tongue to enable him to begin to read it with pleasure, and in two more months to read with considerable rapidity, and begin to make the acquaintance of authors whom it is a privilege to know. The "natural method," I say then, for mature minds, is wholly unnatural and irrational.

Observe that I do not say that the ability to converse intelligently in a foreign tongue is a knowledge to be undervalued and despised; but I do say most emphatically that this knowledge can never be acquired except by daily association with those to whom the language is their mother tongue, without the expenditure of an amount of time entirely incommensurate with its real value. Those who are never to mingle with foreigners can have no practical use for the language as a medium of conversation, and for those who are to do this there is no more valuable preparation than that obtained from reading and hearing read by a competent linguist the language to be learned. That this reading may be extensive, even in the short courses which our colleges can afford, there must be a thorough ground work laid by becoming rapidly familiar with the forms and constructions of the language and the principal common idioms and a vocabulary should be acquired as fast as possible, after the forms become somewhat familiar, by reading the language even superficially at first; and reading not in the ordinary readers of mere fragments from various authors, but reading some complete selections from authors of unquestioned reputation.

Hence, I say, make the grammatical drill short, sharp, incisive; reduce the amount of grammar needed for reading to a minimum; and by all means never waste time in the bootless and wearisome task of turning good English into poor French in the early stages of the course. It is quite early enough for a student to begin writing original French when he becomes familiar, after & great amount of reading (partly superficial, for rapidity, and partly critical, for thoroughness of knowledge) with the manner in which other persons write it! But this is by no means to be understood as ruling out dictée exercises, which should be practiced almost daily from the beginning. It is excellent practice for - a student to write out translations in English of the language studied, and then restore it to the language from which it was taken. Many points, which would escape notice entirely if merely translation into English were followed, would thus receive attention and be rapidly and firmly impressed upon the memory.

The one panacea in teaching Greek.-Thomas D. Seymour, professor of Greek at Yale: The most foolish thing in education is the suffering of words to be forgotten as soon as they are learned. For this evil but one cure can be foundreview. If I am ever pronounced a monomaniac this is the subject which will be found uppermost in my mind. This is the one panacea which I offer for all ordinary ills and troubles in learning Greek: If the student learns with difficulty or forgets easily, if he has weak eyes or an aching head, if he has but little time for study or is behind his class, whether he wants to excel in Greek or wishes to take as little pains as possible with the language, let him review! The principle of reviewing, of course, is this: If I am introduced to a man on the train and have a casual half-hour's conversation with him to-day I may be able to identify that man at once a year hence, or, having near-sighted eyes and thus a dull memory for faces, I may be compelled to say: "I remember your face very well, but I confess I can not say where I have met you before." "But if I have a ten-minutes' talk with that man to-day, meet him on the street and exchange greetings with him next week, talk with him again for five minutes a month hence, see him and some of his relatives for a few moments in the spring, I could identify that man with certainty a year or ten years hence, although I had never spent in all more than half an hour with him. So with words. If a student meets a word to-day and is introduced to it, has a little

chat with it, as we may say, but does not meet that word again for two months, he is obliged to say: "Your face is familiar, but I can not call you by name. I must apply to my nomenclator for information about you."

The plan of reviewing which students should be urged to adopt, and which they must be stimulated constantly to follow, is to review the day's lesson as soon as possible after the exercise in the classroom. Only thus can the corrections which have been inculcated be fixed firmly in the mind. Otherwise when the student takes up that work after an intermission of one, two, or three days he is apt to remember only that something has been said on this or that point. Often he is not quite sure whether a member of the class gave one rendering and the teacher strongly preferred the other, or whether the case was just reversed. But if he reviews the work soon after the lesson is read he can not fail to remember the circumstances and the exact point that was made. Now, if once a week the student takes time (perhaps half an hour) to review all the Greek he has read during the week no special effort is required; he remembers the meaning of the words and phrases and the whole situation. Again, if once a month the student takes the time (perhaps an hour or an hour and a half) to review all the Greek he has read during the preceding month, no great effort is required; the words and constructions are familiar. Then the general review at the close of the term becomes what it should be, a look from a superior position over the whole field which has been traversed. Most of the details of that work are fixed in the memory for life, and even if they should become dimmed they may be easily brightened.

The only objection that can be raised to such a system of reviews is that it takes time. And so it does at first; but the time which is invested in that way bears the heaviest interest from the very outset. The advantage gained from the thorough appreciation of the situation, through the familiarity with the earlier portions of the work will be felt at once. The same words and constructions are constantly recurring, as the student will remember in his vexation when he is obliged to look up a word for the fifth or tenth time.

How to learn to read Greek as a living language.-Prof. Thomas D. Seymour, of Yale University (in school and college): If the teacher has not time to have the Greek both read aloud and translated, he should omit part of the translation and have all read aloud. * * *

This practice in pronouncing Greek words until they are as familiar to the ear as they are to the eye, should begin with the very beginning of the study of Greek. If this is neglected then the loss can never be made good.

Probably many of you are familiar with what the well-known archæologist, our countryman by adoption, who died less than a year ago, Dr. Heinrich Schliemann, has written with regard to his experience in learning foreign languages, in which he had unusual success. When he, as an errand boy in Hamburg, saw that his promotion in business could be gained only by a knowledge of the Russian language, he could find no teacher, but set to work with an old Russian grammar and a copy of a Russian translation of Télémaque, which he found at an old book stall. He read this Russian Telemachus aloud, and in order to force himself to persist in this, he hired, for a few cents a night, an old man who knew not a word of Russian to hear him read this work aloud for three hours every evening! Schliemann afterwards learned about a dozen other languages in a similar way, and believed with all his heart that his success in this matter was due solely to his patience and persistence in reading aloud.

If from the first the Greek is made thoroughly familiar to ear and tongue, the easy, oft-recurring words like those for house, boy, man, woman, horse, etc., would demand no more effort of mind for their apprehension than many English words, like mansion, steed, etc., which the school boy does not himself ordinarily use. And if the most frequent words require no effort of the memory the more time and strength are reserved for the rarer and more difficult words.

But the reading of the Greek aloud not only aids materially in fixing the meanings of words in the memory; it also renders important service in a-sisting the mind to grasp a clause or a whole sentence as a complex, and to receive the thought of the whole as a unit, rather than in separate details, each of which has to be disentangled from the rest. Thus, and thus only, does the beginner learn to read Greek as a living language, and he will find true literary enjoyment as he gains increased facility in reading without conscious translation.

The home-study of pupils.-Margaret W. Sutherland, in the Ohio Educational Monthly: The giving of work to pupils simply to give them home-work seemed a strange thing to me. In 22 years of teaching, that phase of my duty had never

presented itself. I had always determined what I thought a proper amount of work to require from my pupils and then allowed it to be done at any time they could do it. I believe very thoroughly in giving them work to do and then holding them responsible for the doing of it. But I do not like the teacher to assume that she has the control of an hour, an hour and a half, or two hours, out of school time. Indeed, when one is among teachers, the question sometimes seems not to be "Have teachers any rights that parents are bound to respect?" but "Have parents any rights at all in their children?"

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In the earlier years of school life, I can scarcely see the two sides to the question, "Shall a child study out of school hours?" It may be that my range of vision is narrow. I am ready to have it widened by any one who will give me more light. But these early years are so evidently a period for physical growth; nature so plainly points out the necessity for play; there is so much to be learned through childish investigation of the world lying about, that more than five hours of the day that ought to be much shorter than the grown per son's day on account of the amount of sleep so necessary for proper growth, to be spent on school-work is eminently unwise. Psychologists and physiologists both warn us against the danger of overstimulation of the brain, which leads to "an increased activity of the organ due to an unfair distribution of the physical energy, the organ of the mind being enriched at the expense of the vital organs." I deprecate the requiring little children to do school-work at home, not only on account of the possibility of injury to the body, but because it does not seem to me best for the mind. There is danger of the mind's becoming jaded from continuing too long at the same kind of work. It loses its interest in a subject; and the strength of will is not sufficient to hold the attention firmly and habits are formed detrimental to concentration, that secret of success in all mental labor in later life.

There seem to me still other reasons why the teacher should not claim too much of the child's time out of school hours. I recognize the fact that our children come from a great variety of homes. Surely, many of them have work to do at home. This is particularly true of our girls in the cities and of both our boys and girls in the country. This work is often manual training of a valuable kind; and when there is not too much of it, it affords a healthful variety to the child.

There are parents-and I do not want to think their number pitiably small-(if it be, our schools must have done lamentable work in the past and are responsible for miserable failure) who can advise good reading for their children, and who wish them to have some time for acquiring that taste for good books that is rarely acquired if not in childhood or youth. Some one suggested that our schools were doing this work in literature as part of the regular school work. The amount done in this line in even our best schools is pitiably small. What cultivated parents would be at all satisfied with it? We shall do well if we teach the children in our schools how to read a good book and then direct them to some -good books. It is a noble thing to inspire a love for good books in the child who has no one at home to be to him an inspiration. To guide and inspire is the design of the "Reading Circle for Children." Shall we interfere with its good work by sending home so much spelling to be studied or so many problems to be solved?

The girls in our higher grammar grades must receive our special thought when we are considering this question of home study. We are either criminally ignorant or cruelly thoughtless if we do not give our girls special care at the transitional period of their lives. They so especially need plenty of fresh air, sleep, and all attention of those interested in their well being to keeping them free from anxiety and nervous feeling. Let them pass this period in safety, and they develop into strong women, capable of a great amount of mental labor, and of wonderful endurance where love demands it. Of a bright and sunshiny disposition, they scatter blessings wherever they go. On the other hand, if they are given work that curtails the time that ought to be spent out of doors, work that prevents their being sound asleep before the grown members of the household, or worse than all, if they are worried about class standing or high per cents, they are apt to carry through life seeds of suffering that will render impossible prolonged mental effort without serious danger, seeds of suffering that will make them break down under any severe trial or make them peevish and fretful or selfish and despondent.

A grievous defect of our system.-President O. D. Smith, of the Alabama Educational Association: I am satisfied that too much stress is laid on results achieved by pupils and far too little on the exort and labor bestowed. One of the griev

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of our stems of marking, rewards, and distinctions, is that it takes arnest, conscientious effort, of severe, persistent labor, unless eca stevesta. The dull pupils, those hampered by an adverse eny want of preparation for work required, feel the injustice of such our other obstacles is added the discouragement of unappreciated setti at honest, hard work rank highest in all estimate of school Ledent feel that work is the valuable thing to him in its results caducation.

is larger also that our improved methods, superior appliances, the probelow ouuestion will insensibly infuse into the minds of teacher and sat whion that there is an easy road to education, over level plains, van treich rosy bowers; that the old, rugged road, up the hill 4.2 ts brides and brambles, rocks and rough places, traveled with vode. Pas 200 abandoned.

ve waster of the olden time had one qualification worthy of imitation, and exsed work.

De gerovement in processes, methods, and appliances have ud scitated work, so far as they have made a given amount of eve, they are a positive good; so far as they supersede the necessity ey are all evil. One must work out his education as well as work out

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cus, ads of recitation.-President E. B. Andrews, of Brown University: vit x node of handing your class will do very much to develop inaccuracy, whaps than a perfect curriculum can overcome. A recitation which is Nagy a text to the pupil, embodying no instruction, is sure to pro

There is a knack of reciting which many will acquire; a oss and parroting will follow, and the mind be turned away Here lies one of the teacher's chief temptations. We e caeresa rapid and fluent class exercises, because they save us time, We are thus beguiled into treating, if not considering, Nox, scholars whose tongues wag the fastest in the class. Next, our pase arveltation should be become confused and faulty, the final he appearance of attainments is substituted for attainments and that the pupil is actually aided by us to lose sight of his own 1. svo bo awakened, perhaps too late, when out in active life he .ca 12mself with those trained upon a more thorough plan. sea pa gombration.-William A. Mowry, in Education: In prisceneschaedools almost every day's lesson is an examination, not Da, 'vea prescribed to be learned for that special occasion, but serioasa”y of all that has been taught before on the subject. It Pada di à good teacher to keep a perpetual informal review on na classes to feel that any past acquisitions are always liable

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nich toons.—President D. C. Gilman, in the Cosmopolitan: & coming when there will be a revision of our educational cca will not make their entrance examinations such rigid ey are now, but will contrive to make them tests of power. kkig orward the studies of the college? That must be

O retain and repeat what he has learned is one sign of Beco are many others which a nicer analysis may employ. co as important as the quantitative. Not the size of c. desermines its worth. The possession of 10,000 facts Xe an idiot gives no proper emphasis; he does not perXonca edo triding and the fundamental.

PHYSICAL TRAINING.

esident D. C. Gilman, in the Cosmopolitan : ,ood preparatory school is bodily discipline. caness in respect to posture, diet, repose,

is to be still further promoted by abunsports with the bat and the oar, running, eg, fencing, boxing, and, if possible, military training to be underrated. 1 øvery muscle is desirable, not under thorities, but under regulations

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spontaneously developed by the youth. It is generally conceded that just now, in England and this country, there is danger of intemperance in sport. This may be less disastrous than intemperance in drink or meat; nevertheless there is such a thing as inebriety in athletic games. I do not refer to the danger of broken limbs and bruised faces, for they are rarely enduring injuries, but to the danger of unfair rivalries, of bad associations, of peculiar temptations in the anticipations and enjoyment of victory or in the depression of defeat, in the neglect of other and higher scholastic duties, in the waste of time and money upon costly journeys, perhaps in extravagant hospitality. The boys themselves must be encouraged to correct these tendencies, but they have a right to expect that we older boys will remind them of their highest obligations and encourage their fulfillment. With the reasonable control which players, teachers, parents can readily exercise, and which the young ladies and the newspapers might greatly encourage, the just medium can be secured, and athletics continue to be an essential factor in the training of American boys.

The place of games in education.-James L. Hughes, inspector of Toronto public schools (Canada): In physical development, as in all other departments of human culture, the law holds good that the informal is better than the formal, giving as it does not merely greater power, but greater spontaneity and freedom also; so the games of the yard and field will be recognized as forming one of the most important departments of physical, intellectual, and moral training. New games will be devised by the highest medical councils of the world, in consultation with the best minds in the teaching profession. Games may be improved without limiting the freedom and spontaneity of the playground. The games are really the best means provided in the schools of to-day for the exercise of the complete self-activity of the pupils; the only agencies for the full development of executive power; the only school process that completes the essential sequence of feeling, thought, decision, action, in application to the threefold nature of the child. The educators will not continue long to be mad enough to leave so potent an educational agency as games to chance.

Play, and plenty of it.-Principal George M. Grant, Queen's University (Ontario): Physical development does not demand gymnasium apparatus or a drill sergeant. As a rule children will see to this matter for themselves, in the best ways, if only opportunities are allowed. The games of children are, for the great mass, the very best means of securing good physical culture. Play, and plenty of it, is indispensable in education. Play means harmonious development of the body without fostering the self-consciousness that is apt to be induced by modern pretentious substitutes in the shape of military drill and gymnastic exercises.

There is no substitute.-Clara Conway, chairman of committee National Council of Education: Any plan or system of physical training which gives no attention to individual needs is defective. But here lies the chief danger, namely, that the lack of wisdom or skill in the use of apparatus may lead to serious results. There is no doubt that ill-chosen or ill-directed exercise in the gymnasium is a cause of deformity. The frequent and prolonged performance of unnatural movements is a fruitful source of enfeeblement and nervous disease. There is fortunately a strong reactionary movement against excessive work in the gymnasium, and the wisest are those who see that no movement they can prescribe can take the place of free voluntary out-of-door exercise, in which the activities have full play and in which the emotion of pleasure is a strong element. The law of will must be in force, hence there is doubt if physical exercise imposed upon pupils under protest of the will can be effective. On the other hand, in dealing with nervous or overtaxed students care should be taken to avoid exercise which requires sustained attention, and more still to avoid excessive exercises, the results of which are as serious as those of overwork.

The relation of mental to physical work.-Clara Conway, chairman of committee National Council of Education: The relation of mental and physical work is very close and vital, and yet in a careful study of the question how to give at the same time work to the inactive muscles of the child and repose to his over taxed brain there seems to be a kind of contradiction which makes the solution of the problem very difficult. The conditions of the work are the same for the brain which thinks and the muscle which contracts, and in both these organs greater activity of function is accompanied by greater production of heat. In the laborer and in the thinker alike there is an increased flow of blood toward the organ which works, and a greater vibration of heat within the active element. ED 90-73

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