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The Educator for September-The Educator for the coming year-The Inter-
national Date Line-The teachers' reading circle-County institutes-Vaca-
tion schools-Summer schools-The Washington meeting-School hygiene-
Chicago's new superintendent-The Chicago schools-The war to-day
Educational information. .

With the new books.

Kentucky State uniform questions for July with discussions

Indiana State Board questions for July with discussions .

PUBLISHED BY

THE INLAND PUBLISHING COMPANY
TERRE HAUTE, INDIANA

BOPYRIGHT, 1898, BY THE INLAND PUBLISHING CO.

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THE INLAND EDUCATOR-Advertisements.

FOR NEARLY A HALF CENTURY

The Indianapolis Business University

SOUND
BUSINESS

Has Ranked With the Largest and Best
Business Schools in the United States.

EDUCATION

The public holds the Indianapolis Business University responsible for the correct business training of the young people of to-day. By these many years of successful experience we have developed the best and simplest system of instruction, so that we are now able to

Guarantee the Best Business Training to be obtained in all America.

Backed by a half century of continuous success, endorsed by the leading business men and educators of the day, enrolling the largest number of students, employing the largest and best faculty of experienced business educators, securing for more dents than all other schools combined, this institution resorts to

LIBRARY OF THE

STANFORD UNIVERSITY

No Fake MSTANothing but Straight Business.

Complete Courses: Bookkeeping Short and Re-
porting, Typewriting, Telegraphy, Penmanship,
Banking, Business Practice, Law, Newspaper
Sketching. The Business World Supplied With Competent Help.
School all the year. Enter any time. Terms easy.
Time short. Graduates assisted to positions.

20,000

Former Students Pleasantly Situated.

Write to-day for Catalogue and full particulars.

INDIANAPOLIS BUSINESS UNIVERSITY

B. & S. When Building. N. Pennsylvania St., opp. P. O.

49th year begins September 6th.

E. J. HEEB, President. University extension courses same as above BY MAIL.

INDIANAPOLIS

MODERN
UNIVERSITY
CREDIT
SYSTEM

COLLEGE OF LAW,

26-40 N. PENNSYLVANIA ST Sessions 7:30 P, M.

Pedagogically modern in method of work.

Log

Next Session Opens September 12. Really arranged two year's course leading to de

gree. STRONG FACULTY of attorneys, judges and university men. Students graduate at any time they finish the course of eighteen credits. Modern popular custom of evening sessions to accommodate those who desire to continue in regular employment, and for others who desire to spend the day in law libraries and offices, or upon the attendance of the various courts-county, state and federal. Many students are self-supporting. TUITION MODERATE. ELEGANT QUARTERS. MODERN CONVENIENCES. For terms and catalogue call at office, 79 When Building, or address secretary, INDIANAPOLIS COLLEGE OF LAW. University extension course, same as above, BY MAIL, adapted to everyone. “su

When writing to advertisers please mention THE INLAND EDUCATOR.

A JOURNAL FOR THE PROGRESSIVE TEACHER.

VOL. VII.

AUGUST, 1898.

No. 1.

M

ADAPTATION.

By D. W. DENNIS.

"The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats; the rocks for the conies."

ISS A. was standing at the window of

her school-room on Friday, January 1st, 1898. It was the time of the noon recess. She had been in the habit of having an outing every two weeks with her pupils. This was the day on which one should have occurred. The wind was blowing a gale and the ground was covered with snow. An outing was impossible. She had a musical ear. The alternating crescendo and diminuendo of the varying gale caught her attention and soon the children were all gathered about her and she found herself interpreting the art of nature to her little listeners. The trees swayed back and forth in curves which were music to the eye not less than the sound was to the ear. The whole tree yielded to the storm and every separate limb yielded also on its own account. "It is thus," Miss A. said, "that the tree is adapted to resist the storm; and it is by resistance that it has come to have the strength it has—

'Strong grows the oak in the driving storm, Safely the flower sleeps under the snow, And the farmer's hearth is never warm 'Till the cold wind starts to blow."" "And is the storm then a good thing for the oak?" asked Lucy; to which Miss A. replied by asking another question-"Where is the trunk strongest?"

"At the ground," said James; "I have seen many trees that had been blown down and they always break above the ground or blow up by the roots."

"And I have tried," said Joseph, "to split a stump, and it is so tough and twisted it won't split at all; I know the tree is strongest just at the ground."

"The tree is largest just at the ground, and its roots run out in such a manner as to brace it there on all sides," said Paul.

"And is it not true," continued Miss A., "that the strain on the tree is greatest at the ground?"

All agreed that it must be so.

"And when the tree was small," Miss A. continued, "and could yield to the wind, so that its top could be bent entirely over to the ground without breaking anywhere, the grain stood the greatest strain at the ground and was twisted and gnarled there most, and so it seems the storm strengthened it where the storm is likeliest to break it; the tree is adapted by its strengthened stump to its environment the storm." It happened that the tree in question was a walnut tree; the children all knew this; they had all hulled walnuts under it only last fall; it was growing in a fence-corner quite out in the open country. It had a wide bushy top; the limbs branched out not over eight feet from the ground and extended out to right and left as far as the upward growing branches of the solvent axis extended toward the sky.

Miss A. asked if walnut trees are always shaped so.

"My father," answered Mary, "hauls saw

logs, and I have often seen walnut trees in the woods where he cuts them, and they are not shaped like this at all; they are fifty feet or more to the first limb; they grow large and tall and straight in the woods."

race. Even the minister seeking the highest and best for his congregation and town, rises under the spur of his neighbor minister's success when alone, in the country, he would content himself with the same dead level. The merchant who can serve the people better or more cheaply than his neighbor merchant takes the trade, and so each is brought always to his best and becomes in consequence a better man. Competition has been a chief means for the betterment of life from the beginning until now. Struggle for success which seeks to damage an op

"Why," asked Miss A., "does the walnut have one form in the woods and another form in the open field?" All sorts of guesses followed: "the open country tree would grow the most walnuts; it would cast the widest shadow; it was by far the most beautiful; it would not blow down and hurt or kill something; it grows in a different soil." Miss A.'s Socratic questioning at last tri-ponent in the contest is wrong; but struggle umphed: "plants require light and air; the potato growing in the cellar shows it; houseplants that turn toward the window show it; plants growing with one half in shadow, as on the edge of a thick forest, have the largest and most vigorous branches on the outside. The tree growing in the country can get light and air in all directions; in the forest these are to be had in only one direction, upward. Trees crowded together begin to struggle upward for that which they most need; as the race goes on they become taller and taller until the monarch of the forest is the result."

"Is it better for the trees then to have to compete with each other for light and air as well as to struggle against the storm?"

"Undoubtedly it is, Lucy," said Miss A.; "struggle is everywhere a good thing; it not only makes trees tall and strong and valuable, it is struggle that keeps all life healthy."

"Is it good for men?" asked Lucy. "Where," asked Miss A., "do our great men live-in the country or the city?"

A long discussion followed in which it was concluded that men become great in cities for the same reason that trees do in forests: "the lawyer with his theory of the case is met by another with a counter-theory and the struggle to win lands both on a higher mental plane. The physician who does not work hard, study his cases, and keep up with the times soon falls out of the

which seeks to render a better service to man than ever was rendered before is right. There may indeed be some other way for men to grow wiser and better than through struggle to win, but it has not yet been discovered. The common proverb 'necessity is the mother of invention' is a popular half statement of the same thing. The playground is one of the best places to fit one for life, because the generous rivalry which seeks to win by outdoing, instead of obstructing the course of another contestant, is just what the world always has needed and needs to-day."

"But is it not selfish, Miss A., for the tree. or the man to try to outstrip neighbors?" asked Lucy anxiously.

"No," answered Miss A. confidently, "the tall fine tree bears more fruit, casts a longer shadow, yields better lumber, is one of the grandest objects in the landscape because of its competitive growth. And the strong man can be of far more service to his fellows because he has strengthened himself. If every individual in society took care of himself and those naturally dependent on him what need would there be of our board of charities and corrections and our alms-houses? For their sake,' said the Great Teacher, 'I sanctify myself.' Some hundreds of thousands of men in the world to-day are spending large sums of money on themselves, preparing to render good service to man later. This is a thing as different from selfishness

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