and in the results of which the child may acquire skill and judgment and courage to enter upon life's duties himself. But homes are rare in cities and towns where there is any opportunity to provide useful occupation for the child that will utilize his innate active force in a way that will tend to his development. The conditions of modern city life, the narrow home, and the school combine to suppress the active impulses of the child.

The sewers, the water-works, the gas companies, the street cars, the delivery and express wagons, the great army of men who clean alleys and streets, the grocer, gardener and farmer who bring food to the door, combine to take from the city child the opportunity of useful activity. For a little while each day, in spite of the forces of suppression, he breaks out in riotous play in street or alley, unguided and with little result except muscular exercise. Where these combined forces of modern city life succeed in keeping the child quiet it results in the death of all prospects of his becoming a strong, hopeful, courageous, useful citizen. boy and girl are compelled to be idle much of the time and are prevented from living lives of use to those around them.

The

Bad

habits and bad thoughts result from the suppression of motor and physical instincts.

The problem before us is, can the school of the city supply the child with this opportunity for useful, joyful, directed physical effort. Can the school provide means which will result in a training of the eye and the hand, in giving the child an abiding belief

in his own power to do, in coordinating his power to do and to think, in giving the child work in which he is interested because of the value and beauty of its product, and become a direct means of instruction and true culture? Simply stated, from three to four hours daily in the life of every healthy, growing child should be given to physical activity. Shall the school by means of manual training departments direct a portion of this activity to educational ends?

This question is being answered in the affirmative by many of our best cities and by all the great leaders in educational movements of to-day. It cannot be many years until all cities that seek to do their whole duty in the education of their children, make the manual training a department of all elementary and high school work.

Finally, the life of the true citizen is to be largely spent in doing useful things for those around him; into putting into being the production of his own thought and power, in "externalizing his internal" for the benefit of society. Shall the bright days of childhood and youth be spent without being given opportunity to do daily that which is good or beautiful, to develop the latent powers of training work in connection with the school self expression? In the Sloyd and manual opportunity is given daily for the growing child to put forth into reality the product of his thought, to externalize his ideal, to develop his powers of self-direction and selfexpression. Every detail of this work will seek to unfold and develop the whole being and complete life of the child.

RICHMOND, IND.

That

servation, memory and judgment. these faculties may be developed or dwarfed is recognized. The ideal school is one in which the natural faculties are developed and directed into proper channels. That helpless children may be so guided capable and faithful pilots are essential. Experience is a sure but a merciless teacher, yet each human being must depend to a greater or less extent upon the guidance of this hard master. Old river pilots tell us that no chart can be prepared which can be followed absolutely by the pilot of one of the great Mississippi River packets; the main channel is indicated, the general sweep of the cur rent; permanent snags chartered, and the outlines of sand banks shown but each pilot, on each trip, must judge for himself as to the changes caused by the unforeseen results of combination of wind, height of water, and shifting of currents; in a word, of the best channel to select at the moment of actual trial. This selection is the resultant of all his previous experiences under similar conconditions. On one trip the channel may lie on one side of the stream but before the next trip it may have shifted as far as possible within the limitations of the actual river banks. Each pupil may be compared to the channel found in a single trip. The course that may be safely pursued in one instance may wreck the undertaking in the next. Moreover, in the case of children the changing causes are difficult to determine, and only the most careful observations corrected by the impressions of previous experiences can ensure a reasonably safe voyage.

The primary objects to be attained in the lower grades of the school life are first, the formation of correct habits of observation, correlation of judgments and of expression of such results. This involves the necessity of clear, concise and logical expression of thought. To speak clearly and well requires a broader vocabulary than the average child is likely to gain either in home or school without the aid of good literature. There is, unfortunately, a tendency among too many people to dignify by the term literature whatever is printed and bound, and since the classification of printed matter as trash or literature is a matter of personal opinion rather than a fact which can be demonstrated with mathematical accuracy, it is to be feared that more or less friction will always hamper the selection of reading matter for public schools.

Signal success has crowned the work of the Committee of Ten, and succeeding committees, and their friends and supporters in the substitution of much really good literature in the place of the scrappy and often valueless collections of stories and selections so long used as reading material for the lower grades of public schools.

But much depends upon the teacher. When the use of Gayley's Classic Myths was introduced as a foundation-text in all the grades of a certain large public school the degree of success depended in a marked degree upon the familiarity of the teacher with the subject-matter and with general literature. As Mr. Hamilton Mabie well says: "Every social condition has left its record in books; every conception of the family is to be found in them; every standard of personal and public morality, and of private and public action; every ideal of life; every form of beauty which men have pursued; every stage of development through which they have passed; every experience which they have shared; every hope which they have cherished; every dream to which they have clung-all these countless aspects, conditions, stages, and facts of life are to be found reflected, described, interpreted in the books of the world." It follows thus that the teacher who has the greatest fund of experience at his command, personal or by proxy through books will, or should be best able to assist the child to comprehend the great facts of life. We have been too much addicted to giving the child weak concoctions of words instead of placing before him the classics of literature. We have underestimated his ability to draw mental nutriment from the highest sources and so have fed him on weak, poor stuff, and then wondered at his flabby brain power. Too often the introduction of the pupil to really good literature savors of the experiences which befell the manager of the old-fashioned magazine coal-stoves. There came a period when the fire burned dimly-or not at all. Then the builder who tried to build a bright fire on the foundation of clinkers and ashes came to grief; the only wise method was to clear the stove completely of unburned coal, clinkers and ashes, and with a firm foundation of fresh material start a new fire. there is always a difficulty in maintaining a parallel between the material and the mental. It was possible to remove the ashes and clinkers from the stove: it is impossible

But

to remove the clinkers resulting from a poor selection of mental nutriment or the ashes of improper reading material from the brain of a child. Whatever is done must be done in spite of the trammeling mixture and if by dint of much nursing the bright fire finally burns much time and strength have been inevitably lost. It is possible to familiarize children with the vocabulary and style of writers who are, in general, beyond them. I well recall a class of third and fourth grade pupils who were not considered too bright. They found the myth work exceedingly interesting; the nature myths

discussed in geography, they read Hawthorne's Wonder Book with intelligence and interest, sometimes supplying voluntarily words for those whose pronunciation was beyond them, and often apparently unconsciously. Among the myths to be given to the class was that of Prometheus in whose sacrifice they were intensely interested. Occasionally it was possible to give them a few lines of Lowell's "Prometheus" and before the subject was ended they asked to have the entire poem read and selected "gems" to learn. The class were much interested in comparing the crude judgments of the ancient Greeks and other people whose myths were discussed, with their own remembered childish ideas. Frequently while reading from the supplementary matter supplied they would detect an expression which bore some resemblance to the ancient myths, and endeavor to trace its rise and growth. When

giving them oral work in geography they delighted in trying to assign physical causes for racial distinctions. Some of the pupils knew something of the different tribes of Indians and were ingenious in discovering the relations between their environment and their peculiarities. Such work is practical and helpful. The pupils learn to observe closely, to describe accurately and report correctly. If the teacher is to be competent to lead them she must be familiar with the customs and environments of as many different peoples as possible. Since few are enabled to travel to foreign countries this information must be secured through reading, and at present, with the great numbers of well-written books of travel and novels distinguished by local color, no teacher is excusable for ignorance. Too many teachers read with no thought but of the romance in the story. The psychological elements-the development of character through the environment-physical, political, social-the description of scenery, of occupations, of costume have no attraction for them, hence, make but little impression. Such teachers can not direct the mental growth of children in helpful channels. The opportunities, even in the lower grades, to introduce children to the best literature, to train them in character-forming habits of observation and judging, and in fine expression of thought are legion, but they are lost whenever the teacher is incompetent.

MADISON, WISCONSIN.

VII.

But what becomes of the water that sinks still deeper down? We could learn a great deal about it if we could follow a miner as he digs the shaft of a mine, or even by going down a newly dug well, the sides of which had not been walled up. Probably you can learn a good deal about the matter at the nearest railway cut, where, to get a level track, a road had to be made through a hill. there are, it is true, many different kinds of such

cuts, and the one you inspect may not be exactly like the one we are going to describe. Examine all within your reach and you may find one such as the following. You may discover that it consists of sand or a permeable soil above, but at a certain depth down you come to clay. Usually the line of division slopes in some direction. If the main slope is in the direction of the track you will see that the rain which soaks down through the sand can not get through the clay; and so runs

down along the surface of the clay and where the cut has been made the water oozes out between the sand and the clay. But if the main slope be across the direction of the track, the water runs down hill away from the track on one side and toward the track on the other side, and more water flows into the cut on one side than the other. Now, if the cut be a long one and you follow it you may be able to find where the sand stops and only the clay is left. This will, of course, be on a side hill. If you leave the track where the sand or soil ceases you will be able to follow along the side of the hill the line that divides the soil above from the clay or, perhaps, the rocks below. You will then probably be able to see what becomes of the water that sinks through the soil. If, in leaving the track, you have taken the direction in which the surface of the clay slopes you will find springs or wet places, showing where the water runs out between the soil or sand and clay. This is one of the simplest ways in which springs are formed. If you know of any springs in your vicinity you should see if they can be explained in this way. If not you may find that they are produced by little streams issuing from cracks in a rock, through which the water has sunk.

VIII.

In the preceding we have supposed that clay or an impermeable material through which the water will not pass comes out to the surface on a side hill near the bottom of a valley. But this may not be the case. The valley may not go deep enough to reach that layer. How, then, shall we get at the water? Evidently we must make an opening down to it. Such an opening is a well. In an ordinary well we know that the water has to be raised by a pump or bucket, but there are others called artesian wells, which require no bucket or pump, for the water, when we once reach it, rushes up to the surface. What is it that produces some kind of pressure below and forces the water up? If we could see down an artesian well we would find that at its bottom there is water confined in a permeable substance like sand by one layer of an impermeable substance like clay above and another impermeable layer below. Now, let us in imagination start from the bottom of the well and follow this sand layer. We will find that it slopes upward, and at a great distance comes out on a hillside, where it catches water when it rains. This water runs down through the sand, being prevented from escape by the two impermeable layers, and accumulates in the sandy layer so as to produce great pressure. When this reservoir of water is tapped by the hole bored down, the water rushes up with great force. If

you wish to see how such action takes place punch a small hole in the bottom of a tin can (say a twopound coffee can) and after half filling a bucket with water, push the can down into the water and notice how the water spurts in through the hole, rising nearly to a height of the water in the pail.

does contain salt, while There are places where thousands of tons of salt

We thus see that a spring is a place where water comes to the surface after a long underground journey. Is it the same kind of water as when it went in? Try a drink of fresh rainwater and then a drink of spring or well water, and see. You will probably find the rainwater rather flat and tasteless compared with the spring water. The difference will remind you of how food, for instance oatmeal, tastes with and without salt. In fact, the spring water the rainwater does not. springs are so salt that per year are gotten from them. But the spring water contains other things also, chiefly lime, and this is what is left when the water is boiled away in a kettle. Thus we see that water is continually busy transporting materials from the depths of the earth to the surface. The things which are thus brought up are often of great importance. The lime contained in the water furnishes material for the bones of animals and the iron, which is another ingredient, supplies the coloring matter for their blood. It is true that most of what is needed of these materials is gotten from our solid food, but as spring water contains them it is healthier than rainwater for drinking and cooking. When we thus think of the water carrying away material from the solid rock we can see how so many cracks and fissures come to exist. As water passes through a very small crack it carries some material away with it, and so enlarges the crack, and so the crack grows until quite a stream can pass through. We now see how rivers continue to run during hot weather when no rain falls. They are supplied by the water from springs and underground streamlets, and as this water often has great distances underground to travel it only reaches the river a long time after it has fallen as rain. Some of this water must evidently be many months journeying in the earth before reaching the river and a small part of it perhaps even years. But at last it emerges, joins the river and reaches the ocean.

IX.

You may imagine that now its useful work is done. By no means. For let us see what happens to it after reaching the ocean. We have already seen that it carries a large burden of mud with it. This it drops gradually, some near the shore and some far out at sea. Thus it coats the