of the work of some candidates who appear before the State Board of Examiners goes to confirm the conclusion that there is in the minds of many students, and some teachers, no vital connection between the axioms and fundamental principles of mathematics and the various common processes of elementary algebra. It is all a matter of dead mechanical routine. Perhaps it is a comprehension of this fact that from time to time leads to an outburst of opposition to the teaching of this subject in elementary schools. An unintelligent knowledge of dry formulas and processes never utilized in investigation of truth, yielding no perceptible product of firmer grasp on mathematical truth, and power to think logically and consecutively, is indeed poor return for a year's work.

A mastery of the simple principles of the science is likely to be far more helpful in advanced work or in preparing for examination, than any extended acquaintance with special devices, or a certain definite line of hard problems. The easiest problem seems hard to the student who has not seen it before, and who has no power to apply general principles to its solution.

WHITEWATER, WIS.

IN THE SCHOOL ROOM.

LANGUAGE EXERCISES.

T. B. PRAY.

I. Convert each of the following groups of sentences into a single complex sentence (1.) A bold expedient occurred to him. A good many people would have hesitated to attempt it. He carried it through successfully. (2.) He seized the king. He imprisoned him in the palace. He worked on his mind. At last he induced him to acknowledge himself a subject of Spain. (3.) He ordered him to be seized. He ordered him to be disarmed. He then conducted him to Gessler. Gessler put some questions to him. He answered these very haughtily. Gessler was in consequence both surprised and angry. 2. Change the following to the natural prose order :

"They sat them down upon the yellow sand,
Between the sun and moon upon the shore;

And sweet it was to dream of fatherland,

And child, and wife, and slave; but evermore
Most weary seemed the sea, weary the bar,

Weary the wandering fields of barren foam."

3. Arrange the clauses of the following in some other order: When spring comes the flowers will bloom again. The people could not refrain from capering if they heard the sound of the fiddle. There is something which is immortal in the sad, faint sweetness. The shadow of the earth in every position is round. In the early morning, the messengers, who had traveled all night, being very weary, dismounted at an inn.

4. Correct the following, and give reasons for your corrections: I don't hardly think he will come to-night. Who was Cortez sent out by? It is very likely that there was more than one concerned in it. Such prices are only paid in times of great scarcity. I told him he could stop at home this afternoon if he liked. I was in hopes to have seen you at the party last night. I can't understand how anyone can keep their temper. You can't deny but what you received the notice. What have you got in your hand? What did he say the name of this station was? Who did you give the parcel to?

5. Express clearly the two meanings which each of the following may have: You don't seem to like anything that I do. I was not aware that you had been absent till yesterday. He seemed to have more faith in us than his friends. I can't find one of my books. Common sense, Mr. Chairman, is what I want. He liked to hear her talk better than any of his associates.

6. Express the thought in different words: He proposed the immediate cessation of hostilities. The governor acted unconstitutionally in making unauthorized disbursements from the treasury. Canada sought new outlets for her surplus products. For a while the advantage in the struggle was on the side of the French, though the preponderance of population was vastly on the side of the English colonies.

SOME TEACHING DEVICES.

DRILL ON Elementary SoundS.-- Pupils learn at a very early age the elementary sounds of the language. The teacher should give frequent drills on these sounds, both singly and in connection with words. It is probably best to give a drill on the words first, and then have the pupils articulate the sounds irrespective of the words. These drills may be made useful also in giving training in pitch, by having pupils first give the pitch in such a tone as the teacher may request, then in a higher or a lower tone, changing from one pitch to another. The drills may be made useful also in teaching force, movement, etc. A drill on the elementary sounds should usually be in concert. It will have a tendancy to encourage the timid, and at the same time train all to act and speak in harmony. The chief benefits of the drills are that they give flexibility to the voice and train the pupils to distinct and correct articulation.— Raub.

BEGINNING TO READ. -It was in a Chicago primary school that we saw a genuinely modern teacher take a class of little folk but a few weeks in school. They knew cat. She eraced the c, and they easily pronounced at. They knew the sounds of the letters she used to make hat, rat, mat, pat, fat, bat. She did not hurry them, did not "jump on to" the first hand that was raised, but made sure that all were thinking and that most were ready. She had them pronounce the at each time before writing a consonant before it, and then had them pronounce the word with no thought as to the word or its meaning. Then when they had spoken the word their little eyes would sparkle and their hands come up to tell something they knew about the word. From the word man erasing m and

leaving the an, she had them go through the words pan, can, fan, ran, and, hand, hands. The last word gave some of them a deal of trouble. Then returning to man, and eracing the n she made the words mat, mad, map.— Am. Teacher.

SUGGESTIVE PARAGRAPHS.

EDUCATION is the knowledge of how to use the whole of one's self. Men are often like knives with many blades; they know how to open one, and only one; all the rest are buried in the handle, and they are no better than they would have been if they had been made with but one blade. Many men use but one or two faculties out of the score with which they are endowed. A man is educated who knows how to make a tool of every faculty-how to open it, how to keep it sharp, and how to apply it to all practical purposes.—Henry Ward Beecher.

WHEN the teacher is easily provoked and falls to scolding to remedy existing evils, it may be set down at once that he knows little of the doctrine of discipline. It is the delight of a certain class of boys to tease, and we don't say their dispositions are very perverse either. Tell one of these quick, fun-loving boys to do a thing, and impress its importance with a scowl and a menacing threat, and if he has any snap about him he will do the opposite. The reason is that the request comes as a stern demand -as a "I dare you not to do it." The corner grocery man, who had just had his front painted, placarded with big black letters on white cardboard-"Freshly painted-don't touch it." It wasn't the "Freshly painted" that caught the boy's eyes, but "Don't touch it." Every little fellow had to try it to see if it would stick. Don't placard too many "Don'ts." Patience and plenty of work before these trying spirits will make the best of citizens out of them.- Missouri School Journal.

THE best way of getting out of this narrow life is to have generous purposes ourselves; is to feel that life is something more than the particular occupation in which we are engaged, and that success in that may be coincident with complete failure as a whole. A man who gets a generous aim and endeavors to live by it will soon learn to respect the larger aims of other men and to understand that their different habits and methods may be quite surperior to his own. The war for the liberation of humanity, in which the great German poet Heine wished to be counted a faithful soldier, is not focused at one or two points; it is a strife which goes on the world over; it sometimes divides households, as when a son or a daughter develops some talent for an occupation different from those in which the family fortunes have hitherto been made; it breaks out in a neighborhood when some man dares to depart from the conventional usage and wear a coat of his own cutting or utter a truth of his own finding. Before condemning let us search our own hearts, lest in our presumptuous ignorance we pass judgment on a prophet. Such things have happened and may happen in every community.- Christian Union.

OUR BOOK TABLE.

CONCERNING SCHOOL HOUSES.

TOWN AND COUNTRY SCHOOL BUILDINGS; A Collection of Plans and Designs for Schools of Various Sizes, by E. C. Gardner. E. L. Kellogg & Co., N. Y.; 128 pp.

The prominent characteristic of our country school houses at present is the lack of ideas shown by them. Not only is there in them no effort at architecture, but there is also no appreciation of what is absolutely necessary in order to make them fit for the use of a school. They are too often rude boxes with a chimney in one end and a door in the other, pitched in an unsuitable way upon an unsuitable site, and shamefully abused and neglected. There can be no sufficient excuse for such a state of things. The opening paragraph of this book states the case clearly: "Even in frontier regions where only primitive resources are at hand, it is expedient in building school houses to pay due regard to matters of taste, convenience and health. The rawest kinds of raw material may be put into artistic forms by thoughtful arrangement. Convenience does not depend upon complex machinery, and experience proves that the simplest precautions and expedients are of vastly more importance in sanitary matters than the elegant and elaborate devices that have come to be considered a part of modern civilization." Our rural school houses are what they are because of gross ignorance and apathy in regard to such matters in our communities. Books like this, therefore, are much needed and ought to be received with favor. It presents twenty-three plans and elevations for school houses, ranging from the simplest one room building to the village high school. These plans are artistic, and sufficient details are given to guide in the construction. But besides the plans the book discusses a large number of important details to be considered in building after any plan, such as the preparation of the ground, arrangements for lighting, heating and ventilation, provision for clothing and for drying it, construction and care of out-buildings, provisions for play in rainy weather, protection against fire, fences, yards, blackboard, and so on,- - a great number of practical subjects so discussed as to set fourth underlying principles and show how to adapt them to a great variety of circumstances. Teachers and school officers should be interested in such a book, not only when building is contemplated but at all times, since the practical suggestions it contains will aid them in improving and caring for their present surroundings. The book is finely illustrated and very satisfactory in its appearance.

- Second LessONS IN ARITHMETIC, by H. N. Wheeler, (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.; 282 pp., 6oc.) is a book that teachers of this branch will find it greatly to their interest to examine with some care. It is based on the well-known Colburn's First Lessons, and is a very successful attempt to apply the "Inductive Method" to all the topics thought worthy of mention in a practical text-book.

The author has been more successful than most others in so arranging his matter as to induce the pupil to gain an experience of his own which will enable him to regard every definition as the result of his own personal observation and thought, every rule as a statement of the methods by which he has done something, and every new word as only a labor-saving device for the expression of a familiar idea." The treatment of decimals, especially in multiplication and division, is particularly successful in leading the pupil from the simplest problems to the most difficult by easy steps with an abundance of illustrations and examples. The section upon Interest is equally full and carefully graded so that no difficulty is presented till the pupil is prepared to meet it. The usually troublesome subject of stocks affords another illustration of common-sense methods. The simpler operations of the stock exchange are fully described and illustrated by an abundance of practical, and therefore simple, examples taken from ordinary newspaper reports. The author's idea is closely adhered to throughout, of meeting the usual difficulties of practical arithmetic by explaining the facts underlying processes, and by excluding all non-essentials. That he has struck out boldly from the beaten track will be evident when it is seen that divisors and multiples are only briefly treated toward the close of the book, denominate numbers reduced from its usual space of 80 pages or more to about 20 pages, and interest set as the first topic to be treated under percentage. While the author's independence and good judgment are to be admired, this last change seems rather inconsistent, since duties, taxes and stocks do not involve the element of time, and must therefore be simpler than partial payments and discount. The book is to be welcomed as a hopeful sign of the introduction of better methods, accompanied by a reduction of the variety of work required; but must proportion, or the old "rule of three" go too? P.

-The Stories Mother Nature told her ChiLDREN. It seems as if the problem of supplementary reading for primary and intermediate grades were rapidly being solved, by the appearance of many books for both home and school. Among the books of this class, we reckon those so well known to teachers written by Jane Andrews. A new one has been issued under the title, "The Stories Mother Nature told her Children." These stories were written many years ago for the " Young Folks," and we are glad that the present generation may share in our pleasure as we re-read them. They are equally interesting to young and old. Mother Nature's teaching cannot grow old. She gives us in these stories glimpses of sea and land, of forest and lake, of giants and fairies. She does not tell us all, she only gives us clues that we may follow if we will. The stories are like the beads of Jeanie's amber necklace, each one different. Here an insect who tells his story of life; there a bit of moss or an acorn which has seen the changes of ages. Each tells its story in its own way. Mother Nature teaches in everything the lesson of love and She teaches that "perhaps there is something white and beautiful in all that seems dark and ugly, if we only will watch and wait for it, and be willing to come at the very dawn of day to look for it." W.

reverence.