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New School Readers. STEPPING STONES TO LITERATURE

By Sarah Louise Arnold, Supervisor of Schools, Bos ton, Mass., and Charles B. Gilbert, Superintendent of Schools, Newark, N. J.

Eight Readers one for each grade: beautifully illus trated, of the highest literary quality from the first to the last grade.

This series of Readers may justly be said to signalize a new era in school reading books, both from the excep tional character of the text and the number and beauty of its illustrations. Five volumes are now ready.

A First Reader. 128 pages. Over 130 beautiful illustrations, including 8 color pages. 32 cents.

A Second Reader. 160 pages. Over 100 illustrations, including 8 beautiful color pages. 40 cents.

A Third Reader. 224 pages. Beautifully illustrated with reproductions of masterpieces, portraits of authors, etc. 50 cents.

A Fourth Reader. 320 pages. Beautifully illus trated with reproductions of masterpieces, portraits of authors, etc. 60 cents.

A Reader for Fifth Grades. 320 pages with 70 beautiful illustrations. 60 cen:s.

Single copy for examination sent to any teacher on receipt of price.

"Your Readers surpass all others in attractiveness and typographical effect, and, above all, in the reading matter, and its arrangement to grades."-W. A. FRASIER, Superintendent Schools, Rutland, Vt.

Adopted in New York, Brooklyn, Boston,
Chicago, Baltimore, Bunalo, counties
of Santa Clara and Napa, Cal., the
state of Ohio, etc., etc.

SILVER, BURDETT & COMPANY.

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will aid you.

Ten large Natural History Supplement Charts free each
year-Ten large Double-Page Language Pictures-"Cut
Up" Drawing Cards-Arithmetic Cards-Story Cards
Supplementary Reading-Pieces to Speak-Correspond-
ence-Methods, Aids and Devices-Foundation Principles
-Special Day Exercises, Etc., Etc., Etc.
Established 1889. Eight Years of Increasing Success
48 LARGE QUARTO PAGES and SUPPLEMENT.
Monthly-Illustrated-$1.00 a Year.

Such a methods paper as the Teachers World is a neces-
sity to every wide-awake, conscientious teacher. The
dollar it costs is no measure of its real value to you.
But you also need a home paper to keep in touch with local
and state educational events, and for that purpose (not
forgetting the additional material it contains) there is
nothing better than the Western Journal of Educa-
tion to supplement your methods paper.
BOTH PAPERS ONE YEAR, $1.25.
Leaders in their respective classes, you will find in them
everything you need in your work, and much more than
you might get elsewhere.

Send $1.25 to the WESTERN JOURNAL OF EDU. CATION, 723 Market Street, San Francisco, and both papers will be mailed to you for one year.

To save $1.25 and miss the helpfulness of such a combination

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is mistaken economy.

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J. E. King, the able advertising manager of Williams & Rogers, has published a most excellent paper entitled, "The Improvement of the Service." He very happily presents the fact that the teacher is of more importance than fine furniture or fine buildings, and insists that the same pedagogic principles apply to commercial education as to any other. The book is well printed, and issued with the compliments of Williams & Rogers.

*. *.

Our Grammar School W. C. Doud, A. B, Stanford, a teacher in Curriculum, Bakersfield, has written a thoughtful pam

phlet on the above subject. It is to be regretted that in a brief editorial the pamphlet cannot be reviewed as it should be. Mr. Dond has some good ideas. Here is one :

"Specialization is a good thing. No one will question that it is better to do one thing well than to half do a number of things. But when the specialist asks the grammar grade pupil to specialize along a number of lines at the same time-when it is expected that he be a 'universal specialist that is simply asking the impossible. I for one, think it is time to turn a deaf ear to the advocates of further extension and to revert, at least to some extent, to the sturdier though simpler ways of our forefathers.'

The following on drawing however, is wide of the true mark: "To the average man and woman, the value of drawing as a permanent acquisition is not great. Drawing, however, trains the hand and eye, and is a source of great pleasure and interest to the young child. For this reason it might well be taught in a few of the lower grades but ought not to be allowed to encroach in the least upon the other work. It should be used to rest and divert the little children."

The training of the hand and eye also develops the mind. It gives a more practical bent to the education of the child. Mr. Doud is clearly mistaken, and has no idea of the practical value of drawing. At least he does not show that he has. His attack on school histories is uncalled for, and proves that Mr. Doud is entirely ignorant or willful in his statements about the text-books in history. There are a half dozen histories, including McMaster's School History, Silver, Burdett & Co's New School History, Fisher's New School History and books written by men of great ability, and are on the very lines that Mr. Doud emphasizes. The following on Arithmetic however, is to be commended:

"There is an ancestral sacredness about arithmetic that makes it very hard to eliminate any part of it from the grammar school work. The average man and woman believes that all the subjects taught in arithmetic are equally valuable and good. I wish the reader would ask himself this question: How many times in your life have you had occasion to extract the square or cube root of a number; to calculate the latitude or longitude of a place; to use continued fractions or circulating decimals; to use half of the weights and measures that you learned in school; to find out the relative value of stocks and bonds; to use your knowledge of general average, discount, domestic and foreign exchange, equation of payments, etc? Perhaps ninety-five out of every hundred who read this article will say that they never had any use for them at all. If not, then why do you maintain that a study of them is necessary and good? If the grammar school pupil would leave. those subjects of arithmetic alone which are to him of comparatively little value, and thcroly master addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, common and decimal fractions, the practical part of compound numbers, percentage with its practical applications, and the practical applications of mensuration, he would acquire something really valuable and practical from his study of arithmetic, and the thoroness in those subjects would have given him a far better mental drill than the half mastery of what he is compelled to study at the present time.

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twelve acres.

and related occupations. Austria, in 1890, had nearly 8,000 such school gardens for instruction in rearing trees, vegetables, and fruits. In France gardening is practically taught in 28,000 primary and elementary schools, each of which has a garden attached to it, and is under the care of a master capable of imparting a knowledge of the first principles of horticulture. No one can be appointed master of an elementary school unless qualified to give practical instruction in cultivating the ordinary products of the garden. In Sweden, as long ago as 1871, 22,000 children received instruction in horticulture and tree-planting, and each of 2,016 schools had for cultivation a piece of land varying from one to Still more significant is the recent establishment of many school gardens in Southern Russia. In one province 227 schools out of a total of 504 have school gardens whose whole area is 283 acres. In 1895 these gardens contained 111,000 fruit trees and 238,300 planted forest trees. In them the schoolmasters teach tree, vine, grain, garden; silkworm, and bee culture. They are supported by small grants of money from the country and district councils. In the villages, small orchards and kitchen gardens are connected with many primary schools. This movement has also widely spread over different provinces of central Russia. School grounds in this country have usually been devoted exclusively to athletics and play, but in 1891 a garden was started in connection with one of the Boston grammar schoois. A piece of ground 48 by 62 feet in the rear of the boys' yard was pre-empted for the purpose, and it was decided that only native wild plants, shrubs, grains, and vegetable roots should be used as stock. The pupils brought in many wild plants, and the fleshy roots of biennialsturnips in variety, carrot, parsnip, radish, beet, onion (bulb), cabbage, etc. cabbage, etc. In planting, they took turns in digging the holes and placing the plants in position. Observations were made during the flowering season. The structure of the flowers of the cruciferous and umbelliferous plants was studied, and the nature of biennials was revealed. Other economic plants, such as the potato, the tomato, and the gourd, were raised to show the individualism of plants. A square yard of ground was assigned to each of the ordinary grains-wheat, rye, oats, barley, and buckwheat. The first four, being most important members of the grass family, were especially interesting in their development. After that, grains meant more to the pupils. Nineteen species of wild asters were planted in one row. Ten of the finest flowering kinds formed another row. Later it was discovered that those plants blossomed the most profusely which sprang from seeds scattered at random around trees and beside rocks and fences In the fall, seed vessels were collected for study in winter, and bulbs, corms, and tubers were stored away for spring planting. Each member of the highest class had a particular plant to take care of and study. He dug around and watered it, took off all dead leaves and unseemly branches, and tied it up. Then he sketched its characteristic parts-flower, leaf, stem, habit of growth, etc.and took such written notes as would enable him to write an account of his plant and illustrate it with appropriate drawings On one occasion each of the thirty-two members of the class studied his own clump of asters, there being just clumps enough to go around. The importance of seeing and studying plants growing in large masses is not likely to be overestimated if interest and thoroness in learning about them are desired. Comparatively, a single cut specimen in hand means but little. By the aid of the boys a fernery was made in an angle of the school building on the north side, in a shady, sheltered position. They took handcarts into the woods half a mile distant and collected leaf-mold, which they mixed up thoroly with loam and sand, and then assisted in taking the ferns from scattered places in the garden and locating them by genera in the fernery. The name of each species was written on a flat stick, which was stuck into the ground near the specimen to which the name belonged.

NEW PHASES OF

[Extract from an Address by G. Stanley Hall, President Clark University.]

THE GROWTH OF THE HEART.

Lung-
It is

Take the heart, for instance. During adolescence, the heart grows in one year more than in four or five years at a later period. and in two or three years it increases nearly one-third in weight. Take the arteries; they expand rapidly during a single year or two in the early 'teens, and it is essential that they should. If that growth is not assured, the circulatory system is incomplete thru life; and the heart cannot bear the strain upon it. We see this very often in college athletes. Their heart is arrested in its growth at that period of adolescence and will not bear the strain. So it is with the lungs and every other part of the body. power grows immensely from seventeen to twenty three. estimated that strength in the average young man ought nearly to double between those ages. It is good to be strong and completely developed, because there is no part of the organism that suffers so much, not the heart nor the lungs, nor the nervous system, nor any group of organs that suffer so much when this arrest occurs as those tiny organs which are most closely associated with the transmission of the sacred torch of life from one generation to another. So, that, physically speaking, it is almost necessary that children. should be physically selfish, and should grow to be as big as they can; and parents should co-operate with them to this end, and understand that growth is then in order, and if not secured during the nascent period, which is its due season, it can never be made up later.

It is possible to control, to some extent, the form of the body by exercise. I think this has been pretty well established by anthropometrical measurements. We find that girls in this country grow tall very suddenly; taller than they ought to be, and they do not acquire the thickness in proportion early enough. Height Height is at its golden period before thickness; but it is the latter thickening of the body that is so often lost. So that, where this arrest occurs, it often leaves our young men and maidens disproportionately tall. That is a misfortune, because the body of a tall person loses more from radiant heat than a short person. We have so much heat in our body, and it can be measured accurately. It takes more energy to keep the body warm than it does a good many times over to do all the work that even a working man does. Now, if there is any undue loss of heat, there is just so much loss of economy. A tall boy or girl presents very much more surface than a short boy or girl; and therefore, they lose more heat. A person who is very tall has to sustain a long column. of blood, and if he has not grown thick, and the heat has not expanded, and the lungs have not the muscular strength to sustain that strength of blood, it often causes collapse in middle life or earlier. So that plenty of exercise in young men and maidens is essential, and it makes for the growth of the present and the future generation as well, because it is a very significant fact that these excessive lengths of the tall people are tallest in this single bone from the hip to the knee. If a person is tall, it is generally there that the excess exists. These dimensions are generally believed to be connected with those that act upon the transmission of one generation to the next.

Hence, it is very important that there should be plenty of exercise in due season, and that the body should be given a good chance to develop under suitable conditions. which can be prescribed for only by individuals who know the right adjustment of work and play during these later stages of growth.

There is another very important factor, the emotional nature should be exercised.

THE AMBITIOUS BOY.

I know a gentleman who has gone thru 200 lives of distinguished men; and in every case he has found they had enormous ambitions. How often do we see young boys who want to be Cæsar, Alexander the Great, or the president of the United States. And it is well, because the watch-ward "Excelsior" seems to be higher! higher! It seems to be one of the deepest things implanted in the human soul. It is this golden period of life to which the teacher should bring his consummated art. It does not do to rub in the "moral" all the time. That bores children, who are sometimes far wiser than their parents or teachers think,

CHILD STUDY.

I plead, also, for a great deal of emotional play or interest. It seems as if it. does for the soul something like what the cry does for the child. The cry is necessary sometimes for the child, in order to expand the lungs. That is the child's only mode of exercise. I do not agree with the kindergartners who take such pride in saying: "You never hear children cry in our kindergarten." I tried sometime ago to get a few boxes of cries on the rolls of our phonograph, but they all said: "Do not come to our kindergarten, they never cry!" Alas for the child who does not cry; because it exercises the lungs, makes them better, stronger. It is especially good for the voice, and Prof. Baterini, of Naples, who has written that splendid book on the voice, says that the reason Americans have such bad voices is because they do not let their children cry. When the infant cries and gets red in the face, it sends the blood out. and, as I said, irrigates the new forming cells and fibres; not to do it is to starve the baby.

ENTHUSIASM.

Something may be said for the emotional play and excitement at adolescence. We have a great deal of trouble with our young men in colleges, because they love to paint the town red, and to get excitement. But young men must have excitement; it is a necessity of the human body; and if young people can not get excitement in legitimate ways (and this is perhaps the most important thing I have to say to-night), they are just so much more certain to get it in illegitimate ways. Better a thousand times that young men should scream themselves hoarse on the football field, that they should occasionally have a fracture there, than that they should cultivate that dry rot of the soul that we so often see to-day in the academic youth,-those youths who rarely look the teacher in the face when he tries to interest them and to infect them with the enthusiasm necessary for the youth. They look the teacher in the face with a cold, stoic kind of stare. "Oh, yes! but I have been there before." You cannot get them interested; it is not good form to be interested in anything. You remember that awfully homely phrase of Matthew Arnold, "it is very important for young people to be taught to keep the nose clean, before they learn to turn it up." I think it has a very wide range of application in these days of academic indifference, and sometimes cynicism and criticism. Higher criticism, a criticism that precedes sympathetic understanding of the persons or the topics criticised, is always well; but I feel that in some quarters we are in danger to-day of losing the very best thing there is in youth, the thing that makes youth a blessing, i. e., enthusiasm! What is youth without plenty of it? It is the time to dream dreams and see visions. It is the time to plan and to be in fancy all that man has been and done in the world. It is the time when the soul gets its capital of energy and enthusiasm and altruistic zeal, and if that holy time is frittered away, it can never be made up again. If the excitement which is so essential is perverted, how great is that loss. They have sinned against all the rules of the body, and have been false to the supreme trust to transmit the sacred torch of life undimmed, but burning ever brighter, to future generations.

PARENTHOOD.

I think we forget that there is nothing so sacred in the world as parenthood; nothing that entails so much responsibility. Why, one of the greatest biological doctrines of all modern studies of life has been this, so far as the biologist can say from his standpoint alone: The reason why the standard of life has been prolonged has been to serve youth." How is it that with animals, a great many simply reproduce and die? They transmit life to the next generation, and then, incidentally, a great many forms of them die. As you go up to higher forms, you find life begins to be prolonged after the productive period. We know, for instance, that the eagle lives sometimes 200 years. We know the crow lives ninety, perhaps on the average, and you can go thru the animal world and make a scale just how long every animal lives after rereproductive activity, and you will find that the animal lives just long enough to bring the young to maturity. Those animals that die soon produce young that need no care. Those that produce young that need care live, on the average, just as long as this care is needed. So that, after the age of complete maturity, so far as we can infer from animals to man, the only reason for our living

on after this period is really, biologically speaking, to serve the young. A good test of a man or woman is "what they do for serving the next generation." Why is it that certain nations in the past have faded out? Why is it that there have been periods of decline and decadence, and total extinction of certain nations? It is because there have been great national sins, which God punished by extinguishing the nations. Therefore, I believe we have the germs of the best philosophy the world has ever seen when we say that those nations are the best that bring the young to fullest and completest maturity. Those families, churches, nations, schools, are the best that do most to bring the young safely up to complete maturity; who train them up to be better Christians, better men and women, both in soul and in body. The fact is that adolescence has always been recognized by every savage race, no matter how degraded. There is no tone that does not do something that might be called education, in the teens. That is the time when the Indian sends the young brave into the forest to get a new name; when other tribes mutilate each other by knocking out the front teeth, or cutting off a joint or two. It is when still more barbarous tribes inflict wounds on their bodies. It is when their young people are initiated into the rude myths that constitute the only culture these savages have. It is the time when the Greek youth began to study music or the arts. It is the time when a great many churches confirm, bringing home the solumn truths at that age. It is the most important period in life. It taxes the utmost wisdom of the parent and the teacher; and instead of being a brief period, it seems to be growing longer and longer.

How Mendelssohn Won His Wife.

He Captured the Prize by Wit of Brain and Goodness of Heart. The greatly honored Moses Mendelssohn, who was called the Socrates of his time, was visiting the baths of Pyrmont. There he became acquainted with the merchant Gaugenheim of Hamburg.

"Rabbi Moses," the merchant said to him one day, "we all revere you, but my daughter especially reveres and admires vou with the greatest enthusiasm. It would be the highest honor to me to have you for a son-in-law. Pray visit us some time."

Moses Mendelssohn was very retiring and shy, for he was sadly hunch-backed. At length, he set out for the journey. He went to Hamburg, and sought out Gaugenheim in his countinghouse. The merchant said to him: "Go up and see my daughter; she will be delighted to see you."

Mendelssohn made the visit to the daughter. On another day Mendelssohn came to Gaugenheim's counting-house. He spoke of the agreeable and intellectual character of the daughter.

"Yes, revered Rabbi," said Gaugenheim, "should I speak frankly to you?"

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Certainly."

"You are a philosopher, benevolent and wise. You will not take it in bad part from the child; she was shocked when she saw you, because you-"

"Because I have a frightful hump."
Gaugenheim bowed assent.

"I thought so," said Mendelssohn, "but yet I will call and take leave of your daughter."

He went up into the dwelling apartments and seated himself by the daughter, who was sitting near the window in a raised seat, with a piece of needle work in her hand. They talked together pleasantly and intimately, but the maiden did not look up, and Mendelssohn did not look at her. At length the maiden put the question: "Do you really believe that matches are decided in Heaven ?"

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'Certainly! And something very unusual happened in my case. You know that, according to a Talmudic saying, at the birth of a child, it is announced in Heaven. This and this one will have this one and this one. Now, when I was born, my wife was called out for me,--but it was also declared that she would, alas! have a fearful hump. 'Dear God!' I said, 'a maiden who is deformed will very likely be bitter and harsh; a maiden ought to be beautiful. Dear God, give me the hump, and let the maiden be beautiful and comely!"

Scarcely had he said this, when she fell upon his neck. She became his wife, and they were happy together. They also had beautiful and brave children.--Translated for "Success" from the German.

The Punctuation Points.

Six little marks from school are we,
Very important, all agree,
Filled to the brim with mystery,-
Six little marks from school.

One little mark is round and small,
But where it stands the voice must fall.
At the close of a separate sentence all
Place this little mark from school.
One little mark with gown a-trailing
Holds up the voice, never failing,
Tells you not long to pause when hailing,-
This little mark from school.

If out of breath you chance to meet
Two little dots, both round and neat,
Pause, and these tiny guardsmen greet-
These little marks from school.

When shorter pauses are your pleasure,
One trails his sword-takes half the measure,
Then speeds you on to seek new treasure,—
This little mark from school.
One little mark, ear-shaped, implies,
"Keep up the voice-await replies.
To gather information tries,
This little mark from school.
One little mark with an exclamation
Presents itself to your observation,
And leaves the voice at an elevation,-
This little mark from school.

Six little marks! Be sure to heed us,
Carefully study, write and read us,
For you can never cease to need us,
Six little marks from school.

Luck and Labor.

-St. Nicholas.

Luck doth wait, standing idly at the gate,—
Wishing, wishing all the day;

And at night, without a fire, without a light,
And before an empty tray, doth sadly say:
"To-morrow something may turn up;
To-night on wishes I must sup."

Labor goes, plowing deep the fertile rows,—
Singing, singing all the day;

And at night, before the fire, beside the light,
And with a well-filled tray, doth gladly say:
"To-morrow I'll turn something up;

To-night on wages earned I'll sup.'

When Henry Ward Beecher was in Indianapolis, there was a store where the different ministers used to drop in to hear the news and to try each other's metal with a joke. No matter how sharp the hit was, it was always given and taken in a friendly spirit. On one occasion, Mr. Beecher, while riding to one of the stations of his mission, was thrown over his horse's head in crossing a river, and was thoroly soaked. The incident, of course, furnished talk for the habitués of the store; and, when he made his appearance the next day, he was greeted by his good friend, the Baptist minister: "Oh, ho, Beecher; glad to see you. I thought you'd have to come into our ways at last. You've been immersed, I hear; you are as good as any of us now." A general laugh followed this sally. "Poh, poh!" was the ready response, "My immersion was a different thing from that of your converts; you see, I was immersed by a horse, not by an ass. A chorus proclaimed that Beecher had got the best of the joke after all. The Methodist preacher once said to him: "Well, now, Brother Beecher, what have you against Methodist doctrines?" "Nothing, only that your converts will practice them. "Practice them?" Yes; you preach falling from grace, and your converts are always doing it with a vengeance.

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There are two ways of doing work. One may go about it with a clouded brow, a lagging step, and a general expression of disgust and weariness; or it is possible to be alert, energetic, bright of countenance, and elastic of step, as if the labor were really enjoyable. The work is done in either case, of course, but there is something in the latter manner that inspires confidence in the worker and assures him of a reward that would not crown his efforts were they put forth in the other way. of selling goods as it is of any other labor. appears to delight in his vocation that wins,

This is just as true It is the clerk who

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