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many of these weak little chaps form a colony, imitate each other in color and all, perhaps crawl under the wing of some big, powerful animal or plant, is often just enough to save them from ruin. All animals and plants living under the same conditions form such a colony. Some may be huge, others small; some high and intelligent, others low and insignificant, but no matter what a curious, mixed-up collection they may be, they all live together in peaceful contentment, and fill to the uttermost the strip of land, or water, they inhabit.

Almost every place on the sea or land, however barren, has been made to support hosts of living things, that utilize every particle of livable element, and all these taken together can be called a colony, which means simply, that each is not an isolated hermit, but has many things in common with his fellow-colonists.

Among men the relationships of blood are not always very apparent, because families have come to be widely scattered, but among animals this family kinship is vastly harder to trace, because the family traits are so completely hidden under numberless variations, and individual peculiarities that have come about from a change of form and habits. So it happens, that the relationship between animals that simply happen to live together, even tho they may represent widely separate families, is much more striking and should not be overlooked by the young naturalist. He should ever be on the lookout for the many little ties that bind animals and plants to each other, such as mimicry of form and color, the sharing of the food supply, the growth of smaller forms upon larger ones. If he does this the face of nature will have a new meaning to him. Where before he saw merely a mass of animals living in apparent confusion, he now sees one of nature's social institutions, every member with a definite place to fill. have a splendid clue for the unraveling of her mysteries.

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You do not have to go far afield to find one of nature's colonies. can be found everywhere, and there are colonies within colonies. them are so large as to embrace a whole prairie, a mountain range, or a lake, and others, complete and thriving, can be found under almost any bush or log.

Some of the most remarkable colonies are to be found along the coast where the abundance of animals and plants living together is something wonderful, and I want to describe briefly a few of the colonies to be found in San Diego Bay. Here every condition is favorable, and we might say that these marine creatures grow very intensely - an enormous variety thrive in an extremely limited place. On land the conditions change - it may be hot or cold, there may be much or little rain, and likewise, much or little food, but the grand old ocean is never variable, to his tenants at least. He houses and feeds them from year to year with unrestrained liberality, and they show their appreciation by colonizing every available part of him with a multitudinous variety of colonists, both great and small.

San Diego Bay has rocky shores, sand-flats, wharves put in for the shipping, and deep channels filled with fresh sea water twice every day, and

every one of these various locations has its peculiar colonists, making the most of every drop of water, and foot of shore or bottom.

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Perhaps the most interesting of all is the tide pool colony, that covers the rocks, with a good protection of water at high tide, but when the tide is out its home is laid bare to all who would see its beauties. Here the rocks are hung with a wonderful tapestry of seaweed, red, brown, and green, that is nowhere so gorgeous as along our Southern California coast. There is every variety, from slender, little, red threads of plants that only the microscope will reveal, to huge brown kelp plants, floating out from the rocks for hundreds of feet. These great kelps are the homes of innumerable animals. Crabs, big and little, of the correct kelp brown, crawl among their thick leaves, ready to devour, I blush to say, any of the weaker colonists within reach; little shellfish cling tight to the leaves, together with little clusters of curious marine worms, the Bryozoans, that do not look very wormlike, but live on branching stems or flat encrusting plates like make-believe corals. There are other marine worms, too, that live in coiled tubes, so small that they look like tiny white dots over the leaves of the kelp, and little branching animals that live in clusters on stems. These are the Hydroids, they look, for all the world, like miniature flowers. All these find ample protection among the leaves of the big seaweeds, that float them out in the fine, clear sea water, that is just swarming with microscopic animals and plants for food. The sides of our tide pools are so completely covered with a multitude of animals, that the very rocks almost seem to be growing. High up, where they bask in the sunshine all day, except at high tide, are the barnacles and mussels, glued so securely that they seem a part of the rock, and protect it from the wear and tear of the waves by way of rental. A little lower down are the sea anemones, soft and delicate, by the side of the barnacles, but of such tenacity that they rejoice in the roughest breakers. Then down where the water always covers them, we find a variegated assemblage of all sorts and conditions of rock lovers. Big five rayed starfish plant themselves unconcernedly on any sort of resting place they can find, and devour in barbarous style, any of their neighbors they can get hold of. Worm tubes, of a dozen varieties of coil and composition, cling fast to the rocks. They look as dead as mineral at times, but wait until all is quiet, and you will see the most beautiful, many colored tentacles appear at the free ends and sweep the water in search of food,― gay reminders that there is life within. And the pools are lined with sponges, little oval ones already for some pygmy's bath, and thin, encrusting ones that cover large portions of the rocks. Sea squirts, ready to prove their name whenever touched; shellfish, big and little, and others of the same group without a shell; the big, burly sea hares, and last but not least, the nudibranchs, that add a touch of delicate finery to the pools with their exquisitely tinted tentacles carried just for show. All are found in this curious family of a common home. All its members are either attached directly to the rocks, or move about only with difficulty, and hence are very dependent on their surroundings. The seaweeds alone harbor a whole colony of weak little fellows o

their broad leaves, any one of which would perish by itself. Then the colonists of the tide-pool surround, cover up, and protect each other in many ways, and the big fellows are sure to have hosts of tiny ones clinging to them, gratefully content with their inconspicuous place in life.

So we could examine all the other locations about the bay. The sand flats are characterized by burrowing animals, that all seek the kindly shelter of the sand. Big clams stay well below, and reach up to the surface by their long siphons, that carry down pure water teeming with invisible food. Big worms, that are as brown and plain as a hose-pipe when you pull them out, but wait until you watch them undisturbed in the water. They protrude from their burrows in beautiful circles of tentacles, some white, others many colored, but the moment you disturb them, away go tentacles, worm and all, into the sand-covered depths below. Sand dollars peep up above the sand, always slanting just so that the waves can pass over them and never wash them out. Their cousins, the blunt-rayed, red starfish and big sea cucumbers, scatter themselves over the surface and add a dash of color here and there to the otherwise monotonously mud-colored surroundings. It always seems to be afternoon in this colony, and the colonists always seem to be asleep. You would never suspect their existence if you didn't prowl around under the surface. Even the stingrays,-those harmless looking skates with the poisoned tail, sleep most of the time half-buried in the sand, but step too near them, and the sand suddenly seems to come to life, and it keeps you hopping about to avoid the dreaded sting.

Then on the piles of the wharves we find another clinging colony, very similar to the one in the tide-pools. But it includes the vicious little toredo that fairly revels in the wood until the piles are all gone, and the old wharf tumbles down on his ungrateflul head. Sponges, sea squirts, and hydroids festoon the old piles with a many-colored drapery, and form splendid retreats for crabs, worms and starfish.

In cantrast to all these clinging fellows, are the colonists of the oper channels--little chaps, most of them so small that a drop of water is a whole world to them. Naturally we must have a microscope to reveal their wonders, and one who has never thought of a drop of sea water as worth studying by itself, has lost one of the greatest lessons in the world. It gives you a new conception of things to see hosts of real, live animals moving about unconcernedly in as much sea water as you can pick up on the end of a lead pencil. But there they are in endless variety. Many of them are the young, free-swimming stage of the animals we have described in the other colonies, but many of them end their days, all in a drop of water. other larger, free-swimming animals are not true colonists. imitate beautifully the colors of the rocks and seaweeds. independent, roving life that takes them far out to sea, while our true colonists are made of the same stuff as our Anglo-Saxon forefathers, who made homes and stayed by them. Above all, they love their homes, for to stray away, would be death.

Most fish, and Many of them But they live an

Manual Training in San Francisco Public

Schools.

BY CREE T. WORK.*

By introducing manual training into the grammar grades San Francisco has taken a step in educational matters commensurate with her progressive spirit. The adoption of this feature of school work is not merely to provide for the hand and eye training of boys, that they may be the better fitted for earning their living by skilled labor. It includes more than that. The endorsement of the manual training movement by the leading educators of the present day is in recognition of the interdependent relation existing between the physical, intellectual and moral powers of the child; of sense-training as the basis of the development of the powers; and of the present realities of industrial and social life as among the mightiest forces in promoting and shaping this development.

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The late General Francis Walker, in cautioning against a too narrow view of manual training, once said: Manual training is not so much to teach boys how to make a living as to teach them how to live." It is this. larger comprehension of manual training that warrants its introduction into every district where pent-up child-life is seeking the opportunity of expressing itself; into every school, where the life interests of the children should be one of the strongest stimulants to action; into the life of every normal child, whose intellect flows with his blood, vibrates with his nerves and moves with his muscles.

The general nature of the work being done in the San Francisco schools is indicated by the following outline taken from the course of study for 1900:

SEVENTH GRADE.

Models. —A series of models in soft wood to be worked out by the classes. Other materials, as nails, glue, wire, cardboard, cane, etc., will be introduced as occasion may demand. All regular material is provided by the school, the pupils to own their products, except in special cases where the teacher wishes to reserve them. That the work may be real to the pupil, the models will consist of such objects as appeal to his interest and provide a wholesome motive.

TOOLS.-Rule, square, rip saw, back saw, turning-saw, jack plane, block plane, knife, chisel, auger, hammer, and other fundamental wood-working tools will be used. Proper care of the tools will be emphasized, with instruction in whetting the simplest edged tools.

INSTRUCTION.-Class instruction will be an essential feature of the work.

*Mr. Cree T. Work, Supervisor, State Normal School, Indiana, Pa.; Sloyd Training School, Boston; Teachers' College, Columbia University; six years teacher in ungraded, graded and high schools; two years Superintendent of City Schools, Du Bois, Pa.; eight years Director Psychomanual Department, State Normal School of Colorado.

This will be supplemented by such individual instruction as conditions may require. An important aim of the teacher will be to inspire self-help in the pupil.

OTHER FEATURES The production and the use of working drawings. will be taught as supplemental to the mechanical drawing in the regular drawing course, in cases where necessity may require it. Working sketches prominent. Original work will be encouraged. Invention and modification of models permitted, subject to the approval of the teacher. Spontaneous effort on the part of the pupil is both a compliment and an opportunity for the teacher.

Apparatus, devices, etc., that are useful to the pupil in other departments of the school may be included in the list of models, thus affording closer correlation of the manual work with other parts of the curriculum.

Observation of manual occupations and mechanical devices to be encouraged. Short talks will be given about sources and preparations of various materials used. Stories of industry and invention will form an interesting part of the course. Pupils and teachers will make collection of pictures and samples illustrative of facts, materials, and processes related to the work.

Correlation of the work with other subjects must be borne in mind. Manual training affords many opportunities for emphasizing and applying facts and principles in drawing, arithmetic, geometry, botany, physics, geography, etc.

EIGHTH GRADE.

MODELS.-A series of models will be worked out, involving different kinds of wood, nails, glue, wire, and such other materials as may seem appropriate. TOOLS. -In addition to the tools used in the seventh grade, the smoothing-plane, simple carving-tools, screw-driver, miter box, etc., will be introduced. Thirty or more different tools may be used by the pupils in the work of this grade. The use of the grindstone may be taught here.

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INSTRUCTION.-Both class and individual methods of instruction will be used, according to the size of the class and the discretion of the teacher.

OTHER FEATURES.-The work will be similar to that of the seventh grade, but more extended, including familiarity with practical mechanical terms, devices, etc.

Encouragement will be given in making home collection of tools, and in keeping notes and clippings pertaining to invention and mechanical and industrial progress.

A visit to the Polytechnic High School, and, if practicable, to a few centers of industry which are illustrative of a variety of skilled labor, will form part of the observation work.

Teachers will keep in mind a constant recognition of Colonel Parker's doctrine, that "Helplessness is the product of too much help." In this connection, pure dictation and imitation are to be minimized, and investigation and originality encourged.

Correlation in this grade may be especially promoted by the regular teacher in the history class. Such topics as life, travel, invention, and in

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