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Plowing," by Rosa Bonheur, the queen of modern art, representing a totally different period of art and class of subject, also illustrates the emphasis of repetition. The arch is the line of strength. A downward curve in architecture would weaken from each added increment of weight or work, while the upward becomes stronger by increased compactness. Our feelings, when in the presence of beams subject to great loads, correspond to these facts. I read the story of "Plowing" to be the faithfulness and dignity of animal strength harnessed in the service of man. The bowed backs of the laboring cattle show effort and strength. The bowed surface lines of the field, the landscape to the left and beyond, the plowmen, arrangement of cloud group, arched effect of the sky dome, all empha

size the curve of strength and obedient effort. The eager, interested tension of the eyes, ears arching forward and countenances of the front yoke of cattle unconscious of anything but duty; the strained effort, resentful indignation, mingled with accusing furrows of pain, and the glaring eyes of the goaded ox; the surprised fear of the near one that his time is next, and the anxious expectancy of the third pair of toilers,-all combine to tell the one story of faithful toil and service almost human.

The second group of oxen express the same idea with repeated emphasis.

In contrast to the huge brown furrows are the soft foliage and green trees and grass; the bright, quickening sunshine; the toiling plowmen battling with nature,—all suggestive of what faithful toil, guided by intelligent, heroic effort, may bring of the comforts and enjoyments of life.

The artist's manner is even more important in picture analysis than the story itself. The face-to-face and heart-to-heart talks of Vasari about art and artists, running through his four charmingly interesting and instructive volumes, invite the reader to the inner circle of art and to the fireside of creative genius. Or, to be more definite, his analysis of Leonardo da Vinci's methods of composition in Vol. II., his description of Giotto's frescoes in the lower church of Assisi, Vol. I., or Ruskin's interpretation of the same master's frescoes in the Arenal chapel of Padua, bring us into touch with the heart and brush that wrought so grandly.

The passing cords of creative fancy and the runs and trills of evanescent feeling may now be beyond recovery, but a living sympathy with their moods and high ideals and a living acquaintance with their methods and ideas are not. They are alive, and instinct with beauty, inspiration and lofty purpose. Someone has said that "melodies heard are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter"; and how truly are the great pictures and monuments of the masters but unheard melodies in oil and marble.

ENGLISH COMPOSITION IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS.

PROF. JAMES S. SNODDY, STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, VALLEY CITY, N. DAK.

BOY learns to plow by plowing; he learns to write by writing. Instead of having him memorize rules and definitions with regard to writing we should let him learn their application by practice. The one aim of the teacher should be the rousing of the pupil's interest. This can be done only by finding some means of appealing to his personal experience.

The first means to be employed in the teaching of composition should be conversations with the children about things which they have seen or about incidents which they have experienced. The children should be encouraged to engage freely

in these conversations—to tell about things they have seen, and to tell their experiences. The next step might be the telling and reading of stories. These stories should be made topics of conversations, and the pupils required to reproduce them in their own words as fully as possible. The stories may be taken from history, travels and biography; but fables and fairy stories should not be neglected; they are, in most instances, the best of all. The active imaginations of the children demand them. In addition to these fables and stories the beautiful myths of olden times can be made both profitable and interesting.

While these various stories, fables and myths are being used as means for teaching the first steps in composition, selections from our best authors can be made to subserve the same purpose. There are scores and scores of little verses that could be used as memory gems and topics of conversation in the composition work of the lower grades. Take, for example, the poem. beginning with,

"What does little birdie say
In her nest at break of day?"

or the poem beginning with,

by Alfred Tennyson;

"We are the sweet flowers
Born of sunny showers,"

or the one beginning with,

"The cock is crowing,
The stream is flowing,
The small birds twitter,
The lake doth glitter,"

by Leigh Hunt;

by William Wordsworth;

or the four lines found in Robert Browning's Pippa Passes,

"The lark's on the wing;

The snail's on the thorn;
God's in his heaven,-

All's right with the world!"

or the little four-line poem entitled Rain, by Robert Louis Stevenson,

"The rain is rain all around,

It falls on field and tree,
It rains on the umbrellas here
And on the ships at sea."

Similar extracts from our best writers might be put on the board, and each be allowed to remain several days for convenience in composition work. By and by more difficult passages might be interpreted and memorized; for example, Coleridge's "He prayeth best who loveth best

All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all."

The committing to memory of such choice extracts not only serves little children in the lower grades as helps in the use of language and incidental training in oral composition, but stores their minds with that which will charm and interest them in later years.

In addition to selections taken from standard literature there are many valuable collections, as Mother Goose Rhymes, Aunt Effie's Rhymes and Nursery Nonsense, that might be used as helps in teaching language in the kindergarten and primary grades. Scientists who have given special attention to child study, and those who have had experience in kindergarten work, tell us that children have a keener appreciation of the grotesque than adults have; but I question the propriety of giving little children such whimsical and incongruous rimes as, "Three children sliding on the ice Upon a summer's day;

As it fell out, they all fell in,

The rest, they ran away."

The majority of these "Rhymes," however, should certainly have a prominent place in the kindergarten and primary grades ; but while there are so many excellent verses in our best literature which are so well adapted to the needs of these grades it seems to be misused time to teach meaningless rimes such as the one just quoted. The watchword in the teaching of language in the lower grades should be, Give the children the best literature; begin early, and give them as much as possible.

One means by which composition writing in the intermediate grades may be made to appeal to the pupils' every-day experiences is to have them write letters to some of their friends and to allow them to send these letters through the mail. Exercises of this sort will bring this phase of composition writing into

touch with real life. But in the composition work of the intermediate grades we should endeavor, as in the lower grades, to arrange our plans so as to keep the work in touch with good literature; for literature, in its broad meaning, is life. In order to show the young pupils that literature is at least a part of life, let them use some of the selections which they have taken from literature for memory gems in their composition work in such a manner as to interweave their own experiences with them. Take, for example, those two dainty little poems written by Jane Taylor: one entitled The Poppy,-the proud flower that held up its

the other, entitled The Violet,—the modest flower that grew "Down in a green and shady bed."

Let them read and contrast the thoughts contained in these two poems, and then write a composition expressing their own thoughts and feelings in regard to pride and modesty as made manifest in the characters of different people whom they have seen; or, better, of different people about whom they have read. There are many other poems that could be used in the same way Emerson's The Mountain and the Squirrel is full of suggestions that appeal to the country boys. So are many of Bryant's poems. Can it be possible that there is a country boy whose feelings do not respond to the thoughts expressed in the line,

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They rustle to the eddying gust and to the rabbit's tread"? And, if given an opportunity, will he not write a composition expressing his feelings about the rabbit's tread among the rustling leaves? Longfellow, as well as Bryant, loved children, and wrote many of his poems expressly for them. For a long time he was called the "children's poet," both in America and in England. But the honor has been transferred; it now belongs to Eugene Field and James Whitcomb Riley. These two poets have brought to the child world a charm hitherto unknown.

The greatest difficulty that teachers in the grades generally haye in correlating literature with the composition work is the lack of materials in convenient form. But this difficulty is now