The Stories That Skall-Lal-A-Toots Told. BY MARA L. PRATT. little white boy you ever knew. You should see him stick his little fists down into his girdle and strut about among the other little Indian boys. His father laughs at him, but the children sit at his feet and listen, listen, listen! "Hark! I think Skall-lal-a-toots is going to tell a story now." Skall-lal-a-toots is a little Indian boy, and he lives away out on the Pacific Coast. He is a tiny little fellow, and that is why his mother named him Skall-lal-a-toots. But Skall-lal-a toots is growing larger every day, and if he grows brave and daring his father will change his name to Pusspuss. For, you see, Skall-lal a-toots means "little fairy," and Puss-puss means "Mountain bear." What little Indian boy would not rather be called Mountain Bear? Skall-lal-a-toots has funny little slanting eyes; you would almost think he was a Jap, but he is not. He is an Indian and very proud is he of his people, you may be sure, for no people in the world are so wise as the Indians-so little Skall-lal-a-toots thinks. No other people are so skillful in making canoes as the Indians are. Why, Skall-lal-a-toots' father can cut a fine canoe out of a tree in one day; and it will be sure to balance in the water just right the very first time it is floated. will not be too long, it will not be too short, it will not be heavier on one side than on the other. Surely, no white men can make canoes as skillfully as that. Then there are the totem-poles that the Indians can carve. Once Skall-lal a-toots carved a totem pole himself; a wonderful thing it was. It had three faces, and the eyes and mouths were a marvel to behold! Skall lal-a-toots himself was almost scared to look at it! It seemed as if the eyes were staring at him, and that the mouths would eat him up! After Skall-lal-a-toots got used to the totempole he was very proud of it. and some day Skall-lal-a-toots will make a canoe too. When he can carve totem poles and make canoes, then his father will give him his new name- -Mount ain Bear. That is what the children cry when Skall-lal-a-toots says he will tell them a story. "What story do you like?" Skall-lal-a-toots asks the children. The Thunder Bird! The Thunder Bird," they answer. Then the make-believe T-so lo man begins': "Boom, boom, boom! Boom, boom, boom!" That is what Skall-lal-a-toots always begins his Thunder Bird story with. Then the children say, "What is that we hear?" And Skall-lal-a-toots says, with a very sober face, "That is the Thunder Bird-the Thunder Bird that makes the rain, and this is how he came to be: "Quootz was a witch. Too-lux was the south wind. One day Too-lux came to the cave of Quootz: Oh, give me some fish, old witch," he cried. 'Take the net," said the witch, "and go and catch a whale. I will cook it for you." So Too-lux took the net and went down to the sea, and what a big whale he did catch! and how proud he was of his sill! "Now take the sharp shell," said Quootz, "and cut the whaie down the back. from head to tail." But Too-lux was so hungry he did not hear what Quootz said, so he took the shell and cut the whale straight across the back. Then it was as if there were two whales. And what do you think happened? The two halves of the whale flew up in the air. They were two big white birds now, and away they flew up into the monntains; there they made a nest. Then the mother bird laid some eggs, and the father bird watched over them. "We must have those birds," said Quootz, so away the witch and the south wind flew-after the birds. And when they found the nest, the south wind blew, and blew, and blew, and blew, until he blew the nest off the mountain, and the eggs went rolling down the valley. All the eggs were broken but one. From that one the Thunder Bird was hatched-the Thunder Bird that makes the rain and hail! TO THE TEACHERS OF RIVERSIDE COUNTY: May I suggest a diversion for you and your older children some Friday afternoon or some day when the regular lessons drag? It is this: To give an exercise on the planning of a school ground. Perhaps nowhere in the world are there more beautiful homes than in Riverside County. Nowhere are the conditions and possibilities finer for producidg striking and wonderful results in the adornment of the earth. We have neither time nor skill for the teaching of landscape gardening; but we can direct our children's eyes to the fact that it is a delightful task to plan out a ground for home or school. We can awaken their minds to the fact that an intelligent idea beforehand is necessary for the results we all admire and desire; and to the fact that it is a pleasing thing to use our brains in working available materials to the best advantage in planning homes for ourselves or our schools. The future of our county is wrapped up in these children we teach. Who knows what improvements, what symmetry in drives and grounds, what beauty of tree and shrub and flower may spring from this little lesson, pleasantly and easily given? D-Palm Tree with Rock Border. The rough sketch above * will give an idea of what may be done by the children. Perhaps it would be well to make two exercises of it-one day a dictation lesson at the blackboard, to give them the idea at which you are aiming; and another, where each pupil GROUNDS FOR BELMONT SCHOOL. or two. By Kate Gray. works out his own notion independently on paper. Be sure to save these papers for the superintendent's next visit they will be very interesting and original if the matter be well managed. The exercises may very properly take the place of either drawing or geography for a day You may either give the dimensions of an imaginary house and grounds, or have the pupils go out and measure the actual dimensions of your own school property, and draw roughly to scale. If it be thought desirable to plan for a home rather than for a school, well and good. The materials that the children may use are: fences of all kinds, gravel, cement, trees, shrubs, flowers, vines, rock, brick, faucets, fountains, wells, windmills, water troughs, arbors, hedges, roads, paths, borders, etc, etc. Caution them against attempting to get in too much, against making an impossible jumble. Have no trees or plants allowed that are not likely to thrive under your conditions. Use materials that can be readily obtained. Do not put out things that will be readily destroyed or that will not bear the vicissitudes of a schoolground existence. During the blackboard exercises it will be well to talk over all materials, so that the pupils may thoughtfully consider them and try to adapt the maues to the end in view. Before attempting the lesson the teacher should herself draw a plan. Put trees where shade will come where you want it, and give room for them to grow to large size. Do not tire out the children by insisting upon the niceties of drawing or exactness of scale so that they will not express their own tastes and ideas freely and easily. Your object is to encourage each pupil to form an idea of his own and to roughly express it by diagram. Then you have a noble opportunity to soften the barbarities, smooth the incongruities, enrich the poverty of those ideas. Thus you lead your flock to have more ideas and better ones than they otherwise would. Thus you make your mark upon the future of this, our world. Very respectfully yours, EDWARD HYATT. NOTE.-The idea of the above exercise was obtained from the Hemet High School, and its teacher, Mr. Rice. The best plans that come to me are those that come from our own teachers at work in our own schools. Jebruary-California. Small, kindling pulses in dry stems, And lo, the lovely march of flowers -Warren Cheney, in Youth's Companion. Three of the five deaths of students in Chicago University the past year are attributed to actual starvation by President Harper, who also affirms that in every large university poor and ambitious students sacrifice health, comfort and life itself in the thirst for an education. Startling as is the statement. it emphasizes one of the greatest needs of the age; a proper understanding of the chemistry of cooking, and the detriment to mind and body of unsuitable or insufficient food. Two kittens of the same litter were recently set apart by a scientist and brought up under identical conditions, except that their food was diametrically unlike. At the end of four months whenever the scientist held out his finger to one, the kitten rubbed lovingly against it; while the other would bite and draw blood. No wonder, says a witty commentator, that around some family tables the women scratch and the men swear. 'The evil that men do lives after them." Dr. Thompson, master of Trinity College, Cambridge, was a scholar and an administrator; but his fame rests on his sharp, witty, and often bitter epigrams: He said of Ely, where, as profassor of Greek, he held a canonry, "The place is so damp that even the sermons won't keep dry there;" and at a college meeting, where some of the young fellows were treating with very little respect the opinions of their seniors, he said, "None of us is quite infallible, not even the youngest." Of an amiable and excellent scholar, he said: "The time that he spends on the neglect of his duties he wastes on the adornlecture he attended, "I little thought that we should so soon have ment of his person;" and of an eminent professor, whose first cause to regret his predecessor, Professor-." Many persons oppose a spelling reform, so-called, on the ground that a simplified orthography would deprive the language of its richness by destroying the evidence of the derivation of words, and making the words themselves look cheap and undignified, so to speak, when printed. They are not without examples that seem to bear them out in their contention. THE SUPERVISION OF RURAL SCHOOLS. Extracts from a discussion on the Department of Supervision by Supt. T. J. Kirk of Fresno Co., at the State Teachers' Associa tion: "In my judgment, this is the most important and far-reaching report that has yet emanated from the National Educational Association, for it not only touches all the vital points in the courses of study, for which the other principal reports are famous, but it embraces the entire field of popular education. A CRITICISM. "There is but one criticism which I shall indulge, and I am not sure that I have ground for that. If the committee are to be understood as considering our rural schools a class sui generis, if from any point of view they would have the report construed to favor or suggest a segregation, in any manner, of rural schools from city or town schools, I wish to be understood as strenuously opposing their views. I can conceive the conditions of the rural schools in the Eastern States being such as to make such view of the report reasonable and applicable. "If we compare our city schools alone with the city schools of the East, the odds are frequently against us. It is only when we put all our schools into comparison with all their schools that we take the highest rank. The reason is, because our rural country schools are better than their rural schools, because they are more closely related to and connected with village, town and city schools-the weak with the strong, the rich with the poor. The rural schools are helped without any detriment whatever to the cities and towns. It would not be easy to determine, all things considered, which receives the greatest benefit from this relation. "We will do well to bear in mind that by rural schools the committee of twelve mean not the schools of one teacher only, but, as a rule, all schools outside of cities having 8000 or more inhabitants. A SCHOOL MAINTENANCE. "It is gratifying to note that, wherever throughout the report the matter of school maintenance is alluded to. general approval of the California system is manifested. Our honorable State Superintendent, as a member of that committee, concisely and at the same time very clearly sets forth the financial plan of our public school system. I beg to repeat my words in a former paper before this association, that if we of California should never cease to remember with gratitude the pioneer educators of California-John Swett, Andrew J. Moulder and others-who succeeded in establishing at the outset in California a State school system in contradistinction to the old district system, which Horace Mann labored so arduously to eradicate in Massachusetts. We have here what may be termed the happy blending of the State, the county and the district units of taxation. SUPERVISION OF SCHOOLS. "In the discussion of supervision, it is clear that the com. mittee consider the professional rather than the administrative duties of the Superintendent of primary importance. With this there can be no disagreement: The value of professional super vision, of expert inspection of school work, cannot be over-estimated, and our rural schools are neglected in these essentials, but I do not believe that the multiplicity of duties that come solely within the administrative purview of the Superintendent can be intrusted, as would seem to be intimated, to other than expert minds and hands. These administrative duties are more than clerical. They are such as require wisdom, sagacity and judg. ment. Plans for school houses are to be inspected and approved, and our law is at fault in not requiring the Superintendent, also, to inspect and approve every article of school furniture and apparatus that may be purchased or required. It is his province to advise and direct as to the best means of lighting, heating, seating and of general sanitation and arrangement of school buildings and premises. He is to sit in judgment upon petitions for the formation of new districts, and for the change of district boundaries, to adjust differences between boards of school trustees, and between trustees and teachers. He is held responsible for the legality of orders that he honors, and is required to approve all demands upon the library fund for books, and if his powers were still further enlarged, in these last named particulars, the right sort of superintendent could protect the schools and the people against a horde of venders of books, apparatus and supplies. These venders have ever preyed upon a fund that was intended to be and is a valuable feature in our educational school system. "The matter of annually securing an ample county tax levy depends largely upon the force and character of the superintendent. A State, a county, and a city superintendent as well, should be as nearly an all-round man as any possibility can demand. To the qualifications of a scholar and an expert educator should be added those of a thoroly honest, good business man. Much might be said as to the manner of electing county and State superintendents. "I trust that in the discussion which is to follow this paper some of my fellow superintendents will tell us how, under the present conditions, school work may be best inspected. "One amendment in this relation, in my opinion, would be an improvement, make the county superintendent ex-officio a member of every board of trustees in his county, outside of cities employing city superintendents. He should have a voice in the selection of every teacher in his county. The objection to be offered to this is, that it is dangerous to give to the superintendents so much power. While adding greater authority, it would impose upon him additional responsibility, but with increased responsibility and enlarged powers the office has grown in efficiency and importance, and it is my belief that with these still further care will be exercised by the people in selecting a man for the place. TRAINED TEACHERS, "The committee strike a keynote when they state that rural schools suffer from the lack of trained teachers. I will go a step further and say that all our schools suffer for the same reason. The rural schools do not contain all the novices in teaching. Our schools suffer from the too frequent change of teachers. Under our system of county board examinations, a vast army of unprofessionally trained teachers are semi-annually licensed to teach. Armed with these county certificates, they are, by the aid of friends, able, very frequently, to supplant the normal graduate or the experienced teacher. True, we often secure excellent teachers thru these county board examinations, and occasionally the normal school sends out a very inferior teacher. Between these two classes of teachers, communities all over the state are in doubt as to where they should look for strong teachers. The licensing of teachers by county boards is wrong in theory and pernicious in practice. It was meant only to meet early conditions of the state, and should cease soon, if not at once. The normal schools and other institutions that are training teachers should supply us with sufficient teachers and with better teachers. The professionally trained teacher should be so decidedly superior to the untrained one that the most backward community might readily recognize the difference. "I am inclined to the belief, from statements received from the principals of our normal schools, that more normal teachers would today be in our school-rooms if greater encouragement placing teachers. A large number of normal graduates fail to get were given by superintendents and by those with influence in schools and many drop out of the work for lack of appreciation and preferment. I find them ready to go to our isolated rural school districts. We should demand that our normal schools and such persons only as are specially qualified. It is perhaps a little other institutions for the training of teachers pass and send out presumptuous in me to so state, but my observation and experi ence lead me to believe that due discrimination is not always exercised in graduating teachers; yet we school superintendents should show our preference for them and encourage their coming to our counties. SCHOOL TRUSTEES. "Next in importance to the superintendency, if not, under existing conditions, of greater importance, is the office of school trustee. Teachers in institute may resolve, legislatures may pass wise laws and superintendents may plan and instruct; but unless the schools are controlled by boards of intelligent trustees in full sympathy with and with proper appreciation of the work, it will never be possible to bring our schools to the high standard of excellence for which we are striving. They hold the purse strings. Under the present conditions they are the powers supreme. I would not seek to dispense with them. They are close to the people and are essential factors in our school system. As a rule they may be taken as the highest average of intelligence and of business ability in their communities. With few exceptions they desire the greatest good for the schools for which they are selected to manage. The difficulty is that they are not fully informed as to the duties and responsibilities which are entrusted to their care. No standard of qualification is required, no provision is made for their training or preparation. No compensation is given for service rendered. Occasionally over-officiousness is seen, but generally their failings result from negligence, indifference and lack of knowledge of what to do, or what not to do. What can be done to secure greater efficiency is an all-important question. Is it possible to provide for some sort of school trustees' annual institute? I hope to hear some discussion on this subject. COURSE OF STUDY. "What to teach, when to teach it, to teach it in what relation and in what proportion of time, have been the all absorbing questions in educational councils, in teachers' institutes, and in other educational gatherings thruout the state during the past few years. "With so much thought centered upon one line of work, it would be a sad reflection upon the educators of this state if a flood of light has not been thrown upon this subject. We certainly may with safety claim that by eminent leadership of Dr. Elmer Brown, ably seconded by a score or more of other experts, we have had placed before boards of education in this state during the past four years many sound principles and wise suggestions which have been incorporated into courses of study which are undoubtedly bearing good fruit today, and which may be expected to return a fuller fruition as time passes. All absolute truth in reference to courses of study will probably never be discovered. In the effort put forth to reach the ideal lies the hope of progress in all things. "We note that Dr. W. T. Harris and his two colleagues of the special committee are not of one mind touching several points in their report to the committee of twelve on 'Instruction and Course of Study.' "The chief question to be discussed in this connection is, May the country school of one or two teachers, with many or all grades, profitably pursue the same course of study that is adapted to a city school having a teacher for every grade? Right or wrong, reasonable or unreasonable, unless I am misinformed, the superintendents and county boards of education of fifty-seven counties in the State of California have, unless some departure has recently been made, been requiring this very thing. "The superintendent or teacher who is familiar with both city and rural school work can testify that the pupil from the country stands well up in thinking power, in a knowledge of the branches, grade for grade, with the city pupil of the same age. Teachers in our high schools can corroborate the statement that among their strongest students are those who have had more or less training in the country schools. These facts are particularly noticeable in the high schools of the smaller cities, where a great many of the high school pupils come from surrounding country districts. "May it not be a mistake for the city teacher to have only one grade or division under his or her instruction? May not the largeness of the class and the smallness of the perspective both work injury to the pupils? "I hold that, if the course of study be given proper flexibility, if the live teacher be given sufficient latitude and tact and talent to combine classes skilfully, the rural teacher will do as much and as good work as the city teacher in the same length of time.' A writer in Vanity Fair of London has discovered "another honest American. His name is Jordan, and he is, I understand, what is known as an official expert. He has just been giving his opinion on the decrease of seals in the Bering Sea. 'It is due,' he says, 'solely to England and the United States. The latter'mark this, and digest it please, American editors, if you can'has never come into any conference with clean hands. We bave allowed our pirates to destroy the seal herds of ourselves and of And then the Vanity Fair representative adds, our neighbors.""' "I should like to shake bands with Mr. Jordan.' Why? Because his hands are of those which he declares unclean? Feb. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. March 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 23rd. Clover. 9th. Medicago denticulata-Bur clover. 15th. Ribes glutinosum-Wild currant. 23rd. Ranunculus Californicus-Buttercup. 23rd Dentaria Californica-Toothwort. 23rd. Mimulus glutinosus-Sticky monkey flower. 23rd. Trillium sessile-- Californian Trillium. "Wake Robin." 1st. Enothera ovata-Sun-cups. 7th. Cynoglossum grande-Hound's tongue. 7th. Solanum umbelliferum. 7th. Castelleia parroflora-Painted cup. 21st. Montia perfoliata-Miners' lettuce. 21st. Viola pedunculata--Wild pansy. 21st. Nemophila insignis--Baby-blue-eyes. 21st. Brodiaea multiflora-Wild hyacinth. 33. April 9th. Amilacina amplexicaulis--False Solomon's LATEST EXPRESSION ON CHILD STUDY. By G. STANLEY HALL, President of Clark University. [Extracts from an address delivered before the Child Study. Congress, New York City:] I fancy that if a general consensus was taken of all those competent to express an opinion concerning what scientific instrument among all the hundreds that exist was the best, had done the most for men, and promised to do the most in the future, I feel quite persuaded that most of the votes of the competent would be given to the microscope, because it has created at least half-adozen sciences in the things which no naked eye ever saw, or ever will see. Bacteriology, and hall-a-dozen other sciences that pertain to the deepest of all human interests-life, death, reproduction, and disease-all have been created by this wonderful instrument which has revealed them. What is it toward which all the microscopes in the world today are directed? All those having the eyes of investigators who are attempting to make new discoveries, rather than those who are practicing and learning and rehearsing what is already known. What is it toward which all microscopes Lent on discovery are directed? They are directed toward that mysterious, wonderful history of life, by which you and I and everyone began only a few months before our birth as a single invisible microscopic cell. That cell divided when it grew too large to nourish itself from the outside, and as those halves grew larger they divided again, and so on, until at last, you could see under the microscope that this was to be, not one of the lower, but one of the higher orders of life, and later it was apparent that it was to be a man That wonderful history, is, I think, the most eloquent of all the facts of nature, and, to my mind, the most divine fact in all natural religion, because it speaks in more eloquent tones than any other of the wisdom, goodness, and power of God. THE BODY THE MOST MARVELOUS MIRACLE. of forty, one is a philosopher, an invalid or a fool." A philosopher one needs to be to keep really well nowadays. One can easily become an invalid, and if one is a fool, he does not have to sustain the moral activity, which is the most trying for the health. The first thing, then, is the body. Among the earliest functions of the body are "the measurements of the eye." A student in Germany recently put together statistics of the defects of the eye in the schools. He discovered that these increased rapidly all through the school-grades, reaching at the age of eighteen the alarming proportion of forty-two percentage. NERVOUS DISEASES. Nervous diseases also form a whole group of special researches by themselves. It is these diseases that seem to follow in the wake of eye-trouble. There is the worry of examination, for example. I can often tell, by the very look of a child's face, whether there is an examination approaching. It causes a kind of strain. a nervous tension, that deprives him rather too much of what I consider his right joy and happiness. I do believe that in many places, at least, the modern examination system has been carried too far, for the best interests of the children. At any rate, that is one of the fruitful causes of some of the nervous diseases. Of course, some are simply curvatures of the spine, of motor incoordination, disturbances of the small muscles, and they make up one of the most important parts of the whole body. Within two or three years after birth, all those fibres that go from the brain to the large muscles that move the shoulders, the lips, the hips and the nose are complete, and therefore they can be used without danger; but it is a very different thing with the little muscles that move the fingers, that move the organs of articulation and facial expression, are developed much later in life. MUSCLES CHANGE WITH CHANGE OF THOUGHT. Speaking of the body in which we live, I think we have It is these little muscles that are most c'osely connected with the mind. abundant reason to marvel, and to say that of all the natural mirNo part of the body, except the brain, is so much an acles going on to-day, this is the most marvelous. It is no wonorgan of the intellect as these tiny muscles. You see this is what der, then, that the story of the development of life is what every is known as "mind-reading," or "thought-reading," which is student of biology is giving his chief attention to. It is no wonsimply "muscle-reading." It is because it is almost impossible der we are having all these new departments in biology and in for anyone to change his thoughts without changing his muscle kindred sciences; but it is the development of the history tension. It is this that explains all those marvelous performances of the body, which is being studied with the greatest care, that you often see upon the s age. Indeed, there are plenty of and with most marvelous results. Just as we formerly studied laboratory experiments to show that the tension of these muscles natural history in the museum, so now it is essential to have a changes with every change of thought. We can frequently read large collection of skeletons and dried specimens and microscopic in a person's face what is going on in his mind. There are, of slides, in order to study every form of stuffed animal, pickled anicourse, notable exceptions. It was said of Disraeli that he used mals in jars, that the world has ever seen. his face as a mask. But another thing has It never revealed anything in his mind; it come in; a kind of work that does not need the museum, i. e., the was quite impassive. Gladstone is said to be quite the opposite, study of the human soul. his face always betrays the thoughts he expresses. Just as heretofore we worked by the study of classification and analysis of the adult man, now we are coming to approach the study of the human soul by another method, viz., its 'gradual development," and we are getting a new point of view for discussing all these great problems of the intellect, the feeling and the will. PHILOSOPHER, INVALID OR FOOL AT FORTY. Holiness To begin with, we have to consider the body and health; and I think we all shall agree that the best of all physical blessings is good health. Good heaith and holiness are the same. really means "completeness. It is akin to the Saxon word "hal." So that health to the Lord ought not to be forgotten along-side holiness to the Lord; and I am inclined to think that it is one of the best conditions to leading a religous life. But first of all, be well! This, of course, is of supreme importance for children. The soul needs a good body, and while it is true that a great many of the best thoughts have been those of feeble body, have often been geniuses, still to-day I feel no one can be found to dispute the prime necessity of perfect health. Indeed, I am inclined to think that health ought to be put with holiness. You remember the philosopher who said the feat he performed, of keeping his feeble body alive at eighty years of age, was a greater achievement than even to have written all his books; and there is some truth in the homely German proverb: "By the age It is therefore of the greatest importance that these tiny muscles should be healthful, and we know there is a disease called "corea," which, although a pronounced disease, is one of the most common symptoms we meet in the street. We go into a school-room and set the children to making marks with a pencil. They at once begin to twitch the face, showing the lack of control, which is so fundamentally important for thought. This may appear but a slight matter, but it is of the greatest consequence in future development. Very often these muscles gain far more control than is imagined. swayed her head continually; finally she began to rock, and could |