School Records.

be brought to bear at all times upon the children, which will serve as a substitute for more than half of all the corporal punishment that is now inflicted by teachers who have not learned the use of school records.

Similar remarks might also be made respecting the records of attendance and scholarship, and similar lessons drawn from them, respecting the importance of obtaining the best results by the best means.*

In compiling and arranging the forms herewith presented, the two great objects sought were simplicity and completeness. The writer examined and compared a large number of the blanks used in different cities, and endeavored to copy their best features. A trial of over four years in the schools of Chicago, has proved the efficiency of these forms in accomplishing the object for which they were prepared.

The form marked A is the upper portion of a single folio of the Class-Book, arranged for a month of five weeks. When the month contains only four weeks, the last week of the form will be left blank.

*"As a general rule, the teacher, as well as the merchant or ⚫ man of business, who keeps his accounts in a loose, irregular manner, and seldom posts his books, is the one most likely to meet with failure, without knowing the cause."-Rochester Report.

"Those teachers who so employ a well-adjusted method as to reach the highest results, deem the practice of keeping records not only a most valuable agency in the whole management of a school. but quite indispensable, for which no equivalent can be found as a substitute."--Ariel Parish, Member of Mass. Board of Education.

School Records.

The Scholarship and Deportment Averages may be found by deducting the number of marks for bad lessons and bad conduct from 100, provided the pupil has been present through the month; but if the pupil has been absent any part of the month, the number should be proportionally larger. If teachers give their pupils marks of special credit, these may, at the discretion of the teacher, be applied to cancel a limited number of errors or marks of demerit. Thus, one or two special credit marks may cancel one error or mark of demerit; two or four credit marks may cancel two errors or marks of demerit, etc. But rules for removing marks of error or demerit should be applied with great caution. Pupils should never be suffered to feel that it is an easy matter to secure the removal of errors or marks of demerit which have once been placed against their names.

When the month contains five weeks, the Averages may be found by deducting four-fifths of the marks from 100. When the month contains only two weeks, the Averages may be found by deducting four halves of the number of marks, or twice the number; and for three weeks, four-thirds of the number may be deducted. The same principle applies to the Attendance Average.

It may in some cases be proper to deduct more or less than the exact number of marks for bad lessons or bad conduct. Whatever rule is adopted, the results arrived at in the General Average should be such that ranks from 95 to 100 may be designated as highest; from 90 to 95, high; from 80 to 90, mediate; from 70 to 80, low; and under 70, lowest.

In noting the Relative Standing of different members in a class, it will often be found that several pupils have the same General Average. In such cases they should be marked alike. Thus, if two pupils have each a rank of 98, and that is the highest rank attained by any one in the class, they should both be marked 1 in the column of Relative Standing, and so of any lower rank.

The Monthly Report to Parents is copied directly from the right-hand column of the Class-Book. See accompanying form marked B.

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Self Reliance.

which we at any time possess, it requires a repetition of mental efforts, equal in degree to those which we have put forth before, to prevent actual deterioration. Every considerable step of advance from this point must be by a new and still higher intellectual performance.

There are many impediments in the path of the student, which it is desirable to remove; but he who attempts to remove all difficulties, or as many of them as possible, wars against the highest law of intellectual development. There can not be a more fatal mistake in education, than that of a teacher who adopts the sentiment, that his duty requires him to render the daily tasks of his pupils as easy as possible.

There is, perhaps, no error in our schools at the present time more deeply seated or more widely extended than the ruinous practice of aiding pupils in doing work which it is all-important they should do for themselves. Our progress in the art of cultivating habits of earnest, independent thought, has not kept pace with our improvements in other departments of education. Familiar explanations, and illustrations, and simplifications, and dilutions, too often spare the pupil the labor of thinking for himself, and thus dwarf the intellect, and defeat the highest object for which our schools are established.

To secure from a pupil the solution of a difficult problem will often cost time which the teacher can ill afford; it may often cost more effort to secure a solution from the pupil, than it costs the pupil to do the work. The pupil has tried the problem, and