publishers to bring out many German stories which have broadened the work in the high schools and which have added new interest to the study of German. The editor has done a most careful and creditable piece of work on this edition. The text is accompanied by explanatory footnotes which seem to meet all the requirements. Exercises for translation and grammatical drill are also given. Price, 30 cents. (American Book Company.) The Progressive Road to Reading [Silver, Burdett & Co., publishers] SERIES OF FIVE READERS AND PLAN OF WORK These Readers have grown out of regular classroom work in one of the largest and most progressive schools of New York City, of which Dr. William L. Ettinger was principal at the time, under the wise leadership of the district superintendent, Dr. Edgar Dubs Shimer. The telling of the old-time favorites to the children in the primary classes formed the beginning. The children retold the stories in the classroom. Each telling and retelling of the stories yielded a clearer comprehension of the art of captivating the interest of the children. So the form developed. Around the points that appealed most deeply were gathered the incidents that made the stories. The result was growing directness and dramatic intensity, until a setting had been attained, which satisfied and delighted all. Here is the strength of the stories and their value as allurements to the art of learning to read. The foundation material is made up of the classics of child lit erature, of fables and legends, of fairy-tales and myths that have endured the test of time. Every new generation of children experiences anew the thrill that gave such pleasure to those that went before them, on hearing the story of "The Three Bears," "The Country Mouse and City Mouse," "The Gingerbread Boy," "Little Red Riding Hood," "The Fall of Troy," "Caliph Stork, and How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix." It is all good literature, rich in dramatic content, and told with striking simplicity. Nor is leisureliness sacrificed. This is taken care of in Book I by the cumulative structure of each story. How much children do enjoy these "Old-Woman-andHer-Pig" style of story-telling! It was a happy thought to take advantage of this pleasure in teaching them to read. Every dramatic climax is followed by a review of the happenings that precede. This gives swing and rhythm, a moment of rest for the mind, and a recurrence of words and phrases which fixes word-forms without any of the usual boresome concomitants of artificial repetition. Learning and reviewing are kept equally enjoyable thereby, and one difficult problem is thus satisfactorily disposed of. Two or three or five new words are introduced, and presto! an old story is changed to a new, with even stronger appeal to the interest of little children than a radical change of form and content, plot, characters and denoument would produce. On these and other wise utilizations of the discoveries made by observant teachers of children, the "Progressive Readers" are founded. That is their strength. It has CONVINCED the DOUBTFUL. It has "stood up" under three years' Tests and Trials. It has the recommendations and endorsement of thousands of Teachers and School Officials. It has brought us in MORE NEW ADOPTIONS than EVER BEFORE-LARGER ORDERS and MORE OF THEM. We thank our friends and customers for their continued confidence in our articles and policy of operating our business. The Holden Patent Book Cover Company G. W. HOLDEN, Pres. M. C. HOLDEN, Secy. Springfield, Mass. In answering advertisements please mention "The School Journal" The kind of graduates that can step out of a business school into a new position and make good, are the kind that build up the reputations of successful schools. With the new Smith Premier Model 10, where practically every operation is controlled from the straight line key-for-every-character keyboard, the work of writing is done solely by the hands-the mind is free for brain. work. That is why business schools where the new Model 10 Smith Premier is used are graduating operators whose high average of efficiency builds up the reputations of those schools. The Smith Premier Typewriter Co., Inc. SYRACUSE, N. Y. The Best Methods of Teaching are those in which the pupil is not only told about the subject but is actually shown what is being described. For this purpose nothing has been found so practical or so generally applicable as the Bausch Lomb The Balopticon covers a wide field in educational work. It can be used to great advantage for talks on history, travel, geography and other topics. It will project ordinary lantern slides or can be arranged for drawings, post-cards, photos, etc. It has already been adopted and is in popular use in a great many of the advanced educational institutions in this country. Our Model C Balopticon (illustrated) is now priced at $25.00 and the opaque attachment is priced at $30.00 Write for descriptive circular 9D Our name, backed by over half a century of experience, is on all our products-lenses, microscopes, field glasses, projection apparatus, engineering and other scientific instruments. Bausch & Lomb Optical @. NEW YORK WASHINGTON CHICAGO SAN FRANCISCO LONDON ROCHESTER, NY. FRANKFORT From the the Land of Stories BY P. P. CLAXTON, U. S. Commissioner of Education; formerly Professor of A delightful little volume of fairy tales translated and adapted from the German. For the Third Grade. Illustrated. Send twenty cents to our Richmond, Va., office for a sample copy, postpaid. B. F. Johnson Publishing Company Atlanta American Text books in China The desire of Chinese to learn English, the lack of adequate textbooks in their own language, and the marked superiority of American schoolbooks have combined to make a fair market in China for the American publisher. Several leading American firms are well known already in Chinese schools, and their local agents are making constant efforts to extend their business. At present, however, there exists considerable doubt as to the efficacy of our treaties with China to prevent wholesale "piracy" of American textbooks by local Chinese publishers who, with their cheap materials and abundant and inexpensive skilled labor, are able to perfectly imitate the American books and put them on the market at a figure considerably less than the cost price to the American publisher. Until this point has been settled in favor of the United States the sale of American textbooks in China will be beset with much uncertainty and many difficulties. Richmond Dr. Wiley and his campaign against food adulteration are awakening the American people to an attitude of alert watchfulness over what they eat. Both consumer and merchants are beginning to display an intelligent desire to know for themselves what constitutes purity, and how to detect its adulteration. The latest and simplest treatise on the subject is a very readable little book by Professor John C. Olsen of the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute. The name is "Pure Foods, Their Adulteration and Cost," and it is published by Ginn & Company. Here one learns the elements which make up the common foods, how the foods are produced and prepared, how preserved, how flavored and colored, simple experiments for testing the genuineness or purity of manufactured food articles-in fact, all the necessary everyday knowledge required on this point in ordinary domestic or mercantile life. Dallas Be a Good Loser [Suitable for Recitation.] Try always to be a good winner and a good loser. Remember, there are always more vanquished than victorious in a tournament, so learn to take both victory and defeat as it comes, with a smiling face, not as one unduly elated or unduly cast down. When luck is against you and the umpire makes bad decisions at critical times in your opponent's favor, do not lose your temper or your pluck. Then is just the time to show the stuff of which you are made. It may be that at the very moment when things look blackest, the tide of the battle will turn and everything go your way. Determination to succeed has won many contests not only in tennis, but in life, and even when defeat is inevitable, as in some cases it undoubtedly is, ward it off as long as possible by playing your very best.-E. WILLIS SCOTT, in St. Nicholas. Interesting Statistics The population of Buenos Aires, on June 30, 1911, was 1,329,697, an increase in one year of 59,463. The Argentine city of La Plata is estimated at 100,600. The hotels of New York City are said to represent an investment of $275,000,000. There are fifty thousand rooms for guests in the "first-class" hotels alone. One hotel has a refrigerating plant which cost fifty thousand dollars, and a kitchen whose outfitting cost another fifty thousand. The final report indicates the largest cotton crop ever gathered in the United States; 13,868,337 bales are reckoned on. This is 200,000 more than the great crop of 1904. The crop of 1910 was 11,426,000 bales. There were nineteen mercury mines in this country in operation last year, fifteen in California, two in Texas and two in Nevada. Philadelphia has 333,650 private dwellings, or more than one to every five of the population. Less than 4 per cent of these houses are frame, due to Stephen Girard, who provided in his will that bounties be given to all persons who would tear down their frame buildings and replace them with brick or stone. There are no human beings south of Cape Horn, more than 2,300 miles north of the South pole. With the exception of sea forms, animal and vegetable life are practically absent, save for a few forms of hardy lichens and mosses. Two 1911 crops of broom corn in the Central Illinois district sold in September for $200 per ton, a figure that has not been reached by growers since 1907. ers predict a price of $250 per ton. Buy Old Winter Old Winter sad, in snowy clad, Is making a doleful din; Ay, let him lift from the billowy drift And scowling stand, with his wrinkled hand And let his weird and sleety beard And, rustling, chime to the tingling rime Let his baleful breath shed blight and death And brooks and ponds in crystal bonds Let him push at the door,—in the chimney roar, Let him in at us spy with his icicle eye, Let him gnaw, forsooth, with his freezing tooth, But we care not a whit, as we jovial sit Come, lads, let's sing, till the rafters ring; -T. Noel. AMONG THE NEWEST BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE Ginn and Company's Supplementary Reading Catalogue gives a complete descriptive list of the best books for children to read. The following are our most recent publications: Those children who have loved the old favorite Pinocchio, the wooden marionette, will find a new delight in this wonder story of his adventures in Africa. Quaint illustrations make the book still more appealing to the child. Coe's Heroes of Everyday Life 40 cents This is just the kind of book for the boy who wants a thrilling story. In these chronicles of the achievements of engineers, miners, divers, firemen, and life-savers one gets into close touch with bravery in its highest sense and because the stories are true they hold an interest that is well worth while. Dillingham and Emerson's "Tell It Again" Stories 50 cents For the smaller children these little tales will prove very entertaining. The book contains forty-two stories of all sorts, selected from those which have long appealed most to certain kindergarten children. Matthew's Seven Champions of Christendom 45 cents Stories of the Old World that give the child of today vivid pictures of the enchanting days of chivalry and the knights and ladies who made those days an inspiration to our modern ideals. Quest of the Four-Leaved Clover 40 cents A story of Arabia adapted from the French of Laboulayé's "Abdallah." In tales of life in the Orient, its deserts and its bazaars, there is always a charm. This narrative shows Arabian character at its best and is full of vigor and color. Lansing's Barbarian and Noble and Patriots and Tyrants 40 cents each (Mediaeval Builders of the Modern World Series.) In Barbarian and Noble tales of Attila, Alaric, Clovis, Charlemagne, Richard the Crusader, Rollo the Viking, and King Alfred are carefully selected and with other stories woven into a narrative showing how barbarian unconsciously became noble and in turn took his part in the progress of the world. Patriots and Tyrants presents picturesque stories of the Old World through which the child learns of the beginnings of our modern government. These collections of prose and verse have been made in accordance with the definite requirements of the New York Commissioners of Education, as set forth in the Course of Study and Syllabus for Elementary Schools. The notes given are interesting, but carefully limited to those parts of the text where information is not easily accessible. There are also included biographical sketches and a pronouncing vocabulary. GINN AND COMPANY BOSTON ATLANTA NEW YORK DALLAS CHICAGO COLUMBUS LONDON SAN FRANCISCO In answering advertisements please mention "The School Journal" |