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Lessons for Grammar Grades.

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ABRIDGEMENT.

EAD the following carefully and underline the clauses which contain the most important ideas. [Any appropriate selection may be used for this purpose.]

1. In old times, long, long ago, when Night and Day were young and foolish, and had not discovered how necessary they were to each other's happiness and well-being, they chased each other round the world, in a state of angry disdain, each thinking that he alone was doing good, and that the other, so totally unlike himself in all respects, must be doing harm, and ought to be got rid of altogether, if possible.

Old northern tales say that they rode each of them in a car with a horse to it; but the horse of Night had a frosty mane, while that of Day had a shiny one. Moreover, foam fell from Frosty-mane's bit as he went along, which dropped on the earth as dew; and Shiny-mane's mane was so radiant that it scattered light through the air at every step. And thus they drove on; bringing darkness and light over the earth in turn each pursuing and pursued; but knowing so little of this simple fact, that one of their chief causes of dispute was, which was going first. For, of course, if they had been able to settle that, it would have been known which was the more important of the two; but as they drove in a circle, the point could not be decided, since what was first on one side was sure to be last on the other, as anybody may see who tries to draw their journey.

Copy the following, underlining only those words which are absolutely necessary to carry the meaning.

"We are a dog-loving family. We have a warm side toward everything that goes upon four paws; and the consequence has been that we have always been kept in confusion and under the paw, so to speak, of some four-footed tyrant who would go beyond his privilege, and over-run the whole house."

"Carlo was a great tawny-yellow mastiff, as big as a calf, with great, clear honest eyes, and stiff wiry hair; and the good lady called him to the side of the little wagon, and said, 'Now, Carlo you must take good care of Charley and you mustn't let anything hurt him.'".

"At his own home Carlo had a kennel all to himself where he was expected to live quite alone, and do duty by guarding and watching the place."

ABRIDGING PHRASES.

What single word would convey the same meaning as the phrase, at the present time, in the following sentence?

At the present time it is impossible for me to go.

Ans. The word now: the sentence would then read, It is imposible for me to go now.

Remark. A sentence may often be abridged by using a single word in place of a phrase.

Example. He is the messenger sent by the teacher. Same rewritten. He is the teacher's messenger, Example. The stories, poems and anecdotes in the "Youth's Companion" are read by every boy and girl.

Note. By the stories, poems, etc., we mean the matter contained in the "Youth's Companion," so the sentence might read: Every boy and girl reads the "Youth's Companion."

Abridge the following by using single words for phrases whenever it can be done without changing the meaning.

1. This is a bat belonging to Tom.

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Reproduction Devices.

By E. M. POWERS.

HEN a child should begin the work of reproduction exercises has been a question, but when a child can write legibly he is ready for the first steps.

Let them tell in a few lines the story contained in the reading lesson.

Incorrect expressions and mistakes in spelling, and capitals should be carefully corrected and the pupils compare their productions.

Cut pictures from publications, place two or three in an envelope, and let them be distributed among the children; each will write the story they see in the picture. This trains the powers of observation and imagination.

Again, place but one picture in the envelope, but with it a card or slip of paper upon which is written ten words that can be used in writing the picture story. This enlarges their vocabulary.

Read or relate slowly some brief, vivid descriptive piece. Require them to close their eyes and relate in such a way that they will see the picture mentally.

When through require each to relate what he saw.

At another time for variety, tell them some imaginary adventures, with people, animals or things, take imaginary journeys, describe houses, meadows, brooks, villages, or relate imaginary scenes as, three people in a room, how they are dressed, what is done and said.

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Not long ago a bright teacher followed a new plan. She suddenly stands before her scholars and says, "See if you can find out what I am." "I am large but never went to school, I cannot read or write but am fond of children and often let them ride on my back." "A horse! a dog! a pony! are the answers but the teacher smiles and shakes her head, saying: "I like kind people, I dress plainly for I usually wear a gray coat. I drink a great deal of water and am fond of peanuts."

"A monkey! said one child who only thinks of one thing at a time.

"I have travelled a great deal" continues the smiling teacher, amused at the excitement of the pupils, "and I always carry my trunk with me."

"An elephant!" fairly shouts a delighted youngster. "An elephant! chorus the class and as the excitement diminishes the teacher asks them to write about it. The composition has acquired a new interest for all.

Again, let the teacher write a question concerning a selected topic and after she writes it let the children write an answer. Then she turns to the blackboard and writes another and after the children have written each in turn, they find upon reading their complete answers that they have written the much dreaded composition.

Do away with slates in composition work. Few people are required to use slates in life. The grip given to the slate pencil is far different from the more delicate manner of holding lead pencil or pen.

Let the work be practical even to the materials used in reproduc-. tion.

LITERATURE.

"The Building of the Ship."

By EMILY C. CLARK, Los Angeles, Cal.

T was recreation day in Miss Murray's room. She taught fortyfive pupils who were in their seventh year at school, and ranged from twelve to sixteen years. It was customary to make something of an occasion of the completion of each piece of literature thoroughly studied, "to group all the pieces together and view it as one harmonious whole in farewell," as Miss Murray. said.

"The Building of the Ship" had been studied for six weeks. It had been the basis for reading lessons, spel ing lessons, and language work, and had illustrated the studies in history and geography. And now this entire afternoon was to be devoted to

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ivy in honor of the day. On the black-board beneath were the words:

"There is no death! What seems so is transition;

This life of mortal breath

Is but a suburb of the life elysian

Whose portal we call death."

Upon a little easel on the dainty oak stand was a view of Longfellow's house in Cambridge, and in the photograph case were photographs of Lowell, Holmes and Whittier, and views of scenes associated with their lives.

They began with a concert recitation

"The ocean old, Centuries old,"

and repeated the passage of twenty lines. The very rhythm of the verse suggests the booming of the breakers, and their steady, regular advance.

Then followed a little talk about the poet, the children contributing interesting items, and the teacher gathering all together in a pleasant story at the close. She spoke of Longfellow's boyhood in the "city by the sea," which, perhaps, colored the feeling of his later years. A love of water scenes is peculiarly strong in Longfellow of the roar of the ocean, its majestic ebb and flow, its sunrise splendors, glorious as the high priest's vestments. She gave a brief sketch of his travel in Europe, and described him as he was in Cambridge in the activities of middle life, and the benignant peace of age. The boys and girls listened as to the story of a friend whom they had seen and known.

Julia Colby loved to study about words, and had kept a full account of the word-work in her souvenir book, so she read selections from it. The vessel is to be "staunch and goodly," significant Saxon words. "The heart giveth grace unto every art." Grace has many varying meanings; with a metaphorical change it appears in the phrase, "the Christian graces;' its opposite, with a moral idea, is disgrace.

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"And first with nicest skill and art

A little model the master wrought."

Here nice is used with the meaning which really belongs to it, and not with those that we load upon it as when we talk of nice girls and nice dinners and nice picnics. The great Harry was "crank and tall;" crank has other meanings than that we generally give to it. "Wis," in "Our ship I wis" is the same root we have in wisdom. Sooth means truth. The Romans called those who foretold the future, soothsayers. Dexterity meant righthandedness first. Deer-haunted; "In the deer-haunted forests of Maine" is a picture-making word. Just that one word tells as much as some might need a long sentence to express.

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The sun rises "in all his splendors dight." Dight means arrayed and is an old English word. We might find it many times in Scott.

Miss Murray thought the class would be a little tired by this time, so she asked them to rise and repeat some of their memory lines those chosen for beauty of imagery. Then Frank Wilson explained some of the longer similes, and spoke of the differences between metaphor and simile. Miss Murray had given them the names of a few rhetorical figures, because they liked to know the "real names." She cared little, however, for such technicalities at their stage of advancement, provided they understood and appreciated the things themselves.

Frank took first the figure in lines 300 to 315. "Pastor means shepherd, he cares for his people as a shepherd for his sheep. The sailors are this pastor's flock, their pasture is the ocean, and their sheepfold a ship. Again the sailor's heart is compared to a chart. This minister knows all the sailor's feelings, his temptations and his noble traits, as the captain knows the chart of the seas.

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"The heir of his house and his daughter's hand."

In lines 100 to 106 the threads interweave,

"Cedar of Maine and Georgia pine

Here together shall combine.

And the Union be her name."

Again, line 117,

"Like a beauteous barge was she,

But he was the restless, seething, stormy sea.

So the building of the ship goes on, and a little later we see clearly the meaning of the whole; there is the bridal of the builder and the master's daughter, of ship and sea, of the nation and destiny.

Much hope of human weal is bound up with the nation's success or failure; it was shaped in stress and storm; it has our deepest love and our unwavering faith.

The class repeated the closing lines of the poem, beginning "Thou too sail on, O ship of state!" as if they meant them, as indeed they did. Then "Hail Columbia" was sung, a new meaning in the familiar words, and the pupils went home.

Speaking afterward about her aim in this work Miss Murray said: "It should result in increased imaginative power, in an added readiness in expression, and above all, in a quickened love for poetry. Of course character shaping is the aim nearest the heart of every teacher. No one has a grander opportunity than we who teach poetry, for we introduce our pupils to the noblest minds and the most inspiring lesons."

BOTANY.

Plant Food.

By A. A. KNIGHT, Mass.

First Day.

NOTE TO THE TEACHER. Give a few minutes talk upon the nature of plant food. Do not fail to mention that certain elements of plant food are essential to our own living, and that with the single exception of oxygen, all elements become mixed before they are of use to the plant; and that they are usually mixed with water.

Some plants live upon the juices of host plants. Many more live upon decaying animal matter. Write upon the board how the food is

eaten.

HOW IS THE FOOD EATEN?

I. The tissue masses of water plants are so perfectly saturated by the surrounding water that the food matters which it holds are taken easily into the plant body.

pond lily,

begonia,

geranium,

sundew,

primrose,

smuts,

plaintain,

rusts,

grasses,

ferns,

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Jack in the pulpit, duckweeds,

pitcher plants,

Decide whether each takes food from (a) surrounding waves, (b)

air and soil water, (c) other plants, (d) dead animals.

Rewrite your work, making from it one correct and full statement about each plant.

Write a statement about the food, and habit of eating, of three plants found in your neighborhood.

CAUTIONS.-(1) Do not leave out the item of location; that is, whether they are water or land plants. (2) Name the few food materials you know. (3) Always name one food material necessary to plants and animals.

Test II.

ORAL AND WRITTEN.

1. Name all the methods of obtaining plant food. Give the most common methods. Write an example of each.

2. Which holds the most plant food, well water or pond water? 3. Dictate the name of a plant,

(a) which takes food directly from the water in which it lies, and spends its whole existence.

(b) which has many leaves spread in the air, a stem with many breathing-pores, and many rootlets penetrating the earth.

Second Day.

HOW THE FOOD CIRCULATES IN THE PLANT. Review with the class at least two food materials, and in very clear and simple English give two methods of absorption,- directly from surrounding air or water and indirectly by diffusion from rootlets. Note the office of aerial members of the plant body in absorbing gases. Be sure you make plain the important aid of evaporation in the transportation of food matters by a strong upward movement of water. This water holds the plant foods and leaves them along its way for the plant's benefit.

Make equally plain that plant food can be diffused through plant tissues without any dependence upon evaporation. Diffusion of plant food in the tissue masses can progress by the constant changes in the particles composing a growing plant.

Remember that the transportation of most foods among plant tissues is unequal, by reason of unequal extensions of the plant body by growth.

What also hinders an equal diffusion of food throughout the plant tissues?

Ans. Chemical changes that happen as soon as food touches tissue hinder an equal diffusion of food matters.

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II. Leaves of land plants are steeped in the surrounding air, foods among tissue masses. and take from it gases which are plant food.

III. A watery abundance of these foods and all other necessary things to eat are absorbed by the root-hairs of land plants.

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"THE FAIRYLAND OF FLOWERS" is the best book for children on the subject of botany, that I have ever seen. The author must have a genius for teaching. She could not otherwise, in so deIfghtful a fashion, bring so much information and of such a kind within the comprehension of children. In the hands of a poor teacher, the book will almost do the teacher's work, and in the hands of a good one, supplemented by the flowere, can but accomplish wonders. E. CARVER, State Normal School, Westfield, Mass.

"The Advantages of Vertical Writing."

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URING the summer vacation a university student requested a teacher of penmanship to give him private lessons. He was in his final year and taking up honor work but his writing was so painfully illegible the professors had notified him unless he improved his chirography they would refuse to examine his papers.

This is but a striking case of what might reasonably happen at any time. Many students know that their illegible writing has played havoc with their examination standing. Merchants affirm it is a most difficult matter to secure employees who write a rapid, legible hand. Editors consign numbers of manuscripts to the waste basket unread, not having the time to deciper them.

The manager of an Educational Journal recently remarked: "Of the large number of manuscripts passing through our hands, written by some of the very best teachers in this country, but a small percentage are well or legibly written, and anything that will tend to improve the chirography of the teachers will be an educational advance."

But besides these testimonies, are not the illegible scrawls that reach and torment us daily sufficient to convince us of the general failure to establish habits of legible writing. Why all this trouble and confusion? Forming the habit of writing rapidly and plainly fifty-two alphabetical characters must be a most difficult matter. Educationists have long recognized the importance of this matter and special efforts have been made to improve systems and methods. Special teachers and supervisors have been appointed to improve the instruction and training in this one branch. The best primary teachers have long given much attention to this subject in connection with all their work. Many teachers by their skill, good methods, enthusiasm, and hard work get good results during the special lesson; fairly good in the general work of the classes; but when their pupils leave school and go into business their writing degenerates into a miserable scrawl. A few refuse to use the fetters imposed by the schools, follow the line of least resistance and develop a style of their own to which I shall refer again.

Now after all the pains taken by our superintendents, teachers and supervisors we cannot reasonably lay the blame of this degenerate writing on the primary schools, and common sense tells us we must look to the principles on which our standard writing is based. To how many has it ever occurred to enquire why our standard writing consisted of merely forward slanting lines? why the slant?

During the past two years a reform in school penmanship has been spreading rapidly through Europe and has already gained at least a footing in this country, that is, a change from the slanting to the vertical style. According to authentic report the new system has become established in the best schools of England, Germany, France and Austria. In Switzerland, after considerable agitation on the part of the teachers permission has been granted by the educational authorities to have a test of its merits made in their schools.

For eight years I have had charge of the writing in the public schools of Kingston, Ont., during seven of which we taught the Spencerian style, and while we got good results in the special work, I was never satisfied with the general work of the classes, and still less so with the work of the pupils who had left school to engage in mercantile pursuits. Several times I had heard faint echoes of the campaign going on in England and Europe against the prevailing sloped writing, and last year in an interview with a gentleman who had spent some time in Europe investigating educational matters and had attended the European Congress of Education, where vert.cal writing had been discussed, I received a brief description of the reform movement.

After considerable experimenting with myself and pupils I came to the conclusion that the vertical style is superior to the sloping style in every particular. For some eight months we have been using the new system in our public schools and the results have in every way been gratifying beyond our most sanguine expectations.

experiment

Fig. 1.

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Fig. 2.

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Fig. 3.

It is well known that our Standard script is a modification of the Italic print, (1) (2) (3) and that our standard print is the Roman, the letters universally used not only as a chief instrument in the education of children and all literature, the letters recognized as the standard by all artists, engravers and typefounders as the most sensible for printers use and the one that lends itself most readily to artistic design.

Why has it so long been thought necessary to complicate educational processes by two standards of letters? It must have been taken for granted it was impossible to have script based on other than the Italic forms.

In writing, legibility is the first consideration. We all dislike reading an author who does not express his thoughts so as to be easily understood; how much more a writer who wastes our valuable time and our still more valuable energy of eye and nerve and brain to discover even the words he has used. As a medium of thought expression, therefore, that is the best writing that requires the least effort on the part of the reader.

Every reader must be aware of the fact that the Roman letters are much easier to read than the Italic, the chief reason for this is: the main lines of the former are much farther apart than those of the latter. It is a simple law of optics that the farther lines are separated the more easily and distinctly they are seen; the, closer they approach each other the more confused they become. (4). The sim

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ple right-line illustration given here shows that according to the degree lines,-drawn from equi-distant points,- slope they approach one another and hence appear more confused and indistinct. While a single glance will enable the eye to determine the number of lines in the top row, it is with some difficulty that those in the lower row can be counted, especially when the paper is held some distance from the eye.

Speed is the next important element in goood writing. I fancy some of the readers exclaiming: surely the sloped or running style has a great advantage over the apparently upright style. It is here that appearances are most deceiving. The position of the pen, hand and arm have much to do with the freedom of movement and therefore with the rate of speed.

On the inside of the forearm there are a set of muscles called the flexors, which bend the fingers and cause the hand to close, and the pronator muscles which cause the back of the hand to turn towards the body. On the outside of the arm are the extensor muscles which straighten the fingers, and the supinator muscles to turn the back of the hand from the body.

According to the standard system of writing the hand is supposed

to be held in a position that keeps the flexor and especially the pronator muscles continually tense. Is it any wonder that teachers have always had so much trouble to train pupils to hold their hand in the approved position, and that the utmost vigilance and even corporal punisment have often failed to prevent a return to the natural position?

Writers who are forced to cover large quantities of work in the least possible time, e. g, editors, teligraphers, or bankers testify that it is impossible to hold their hand in the approved position and do the work required of them. These are some of the persons who no matter how carefully they may be trained in the sloping style in the schools develop a hand of their own; and this almost always a sort of vertical style. They learn from experience that it is much easier to pull the pen than to push it. One reason for this is the upward and forward stroke of the oblique writer encounters more opposition from the paper and is consequently much harder to make, than the side stroke peculiar to vertical writing. The tendency of the pen in oblique writing to pierce the paper and spatter the ink is well known. After careful calculations it is found that vertical writing necessitates the pen travelling over twenty per cent less length of line than oblique writing of the same size, and therefore occupies twenty per cent less time. Unless the advocates of oblique writing can prove that it takes as long to travel four miles as it does to trave five, it is evident that vertical writing must be more rapid than oblique.

NOTE-In the next number the advantages of vertical over sloping writing as regards ease in teaching, economy and hygiene will be treated.

Physics.

I.

By the art of experiment we converse with Nature, asking her ques tions and receiving from her replies. The instructor is to be the guide, but Nature is to be the teacher.

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COMPOSITION.

Describe the experiments with salt, ink, musk, and a piece of slate pencil. Name other substances which can be divided. What do these experiments show? Give the definition.

Now the pupils are prepared to appreciate a few facts which they cannot acquire by exp., showing how matter is built up of extremely minute parts.

-Published by request.

School Etiquette.

A little ceremony at times has a good effect, especially upon boys and girls in the country,—a formal “Good morning," on opening, and a formal "Good night," at dismission. While this is made formal, it should by no means be heartless; let the tones be round, full, and hearty, and let time enough be taken to make an impression. On the entrance of a visitor, it may be well at times for the teacher to allow the school to rise and greet him with a proper salute. Visiting the schools of Toronto at one time, in company with Superintendent Hughes, nothing impressed me more pleasantly than to see the children rise and, in response to the superintendent's "Good morning, children," make a graceful gesture with the right hand and return a ringing, hearty "Good morning, Mr. Hughes." Some such well-managed ceremony does much to remove the awkwardness and boorishness which too often trouble children in the country.

- Pub. Sch. Journal.

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