to win all the patrons to your assistance as speedily as possible. Ascertain facts about boarding places and engage one that will be comfortable and of convenient distance from school. For your own improvement and social status, let this temporary home be, if possible, in one of the most cultured families of the section, even though the expense may be more. Cautions. 1. While it is desirable that you should obtain all the information about the school and the neighborhood that is essential to your success, in questioning school officials great discretion must be observed, since any appearance of prying into the affairs of others may be resented, and also because school officials themselves are sometimes not above prejudice and they may give information which is somewhat misleading.

2. Be especially careful not to engage board or to become too intimate with any family that have the reputation of being mischief-makers or gossips, but be guarded in your manner of inquiry. Whatever you say will probably be repeated and it may reach the very ears that should not hear it.

3. When you are settled in your work try to be brave and cheerful; avoid discouragements and homesickness by keeping busy, taking brisk exercise in the open air and by the daily morning "sponge off" in cold water, followed by most vigorous rubbing.

4. Never permit yourself to take sides in any neighborhood quarrels nor to repeat anything unpleasant that may be told to you.

5. Be kindly and courteous to every person you meet, and especially so to the poorest patrons of your school, who are liable to be supersensitive over their position in life.

6. Endear yourself to the entire community by a genuine sympathy in their pursuits, by the gentle graces of your own

life and character, and, last but not least, by doing the work for which you are hired with earnestness, interest, thoroughness and skill.

7. Disarm gossip and adverse criticism by uniform kindness and a gracious demeanor, and win the respect of the people you live among by treating them with unvarying consideration and by showing that you respect yourself. Give lessons in courtesy and self-control by example rather than by precept.

8. Lead a white life and hold fast to your ideals, your trust in God and your faith in your fellow creatures. In this way you are sure to get the best help from your neighborhood and leave it better than you found it.

5. The School Officials.-A wise traveler seeking information concerning a journey goes to the railroad officials whose business it is to give such information, knowing that no other course is safe to follow. Arriving in a great, crowded, strange city, he inquires his way from the city police or from uniformed attendants who are at the stations, employed by the railroads for the express purpose of furnishing travelers local information of any kind. So a teacher, in order to be quite safe, should go directly to the school officers who are to be in authority, respectfully seeking the information needed before school opens and from time to time thereafter. Others in the district may be as competent as they, but these are the ones to whom the public has assigned the task of watching officially over the school. They have been chosen as public counselors for the teacher, to help her by advice when difficulties arise, to warn her when hidden shoals and quicksands threaten to wreck the frail boat she is trying to steer safely through unaccustomed waters; they are the ones to whom she may frankly confess her aims and her limitations; they are the ones to weigh and consider the facts of any troublesome school case and

adjudicate without prejudice. Hence to them should the teacher turn for help in local matters.

Cautions. 1. Be alert in every sense and adjust your own difficulties as far as you possibly can, lest the community lose faith in you.

2. Be careful about trespassing upon the time of your school officials too often. Make a note of things needed day by day and, when it seems worth while, go to the officials, settle all these points at one visit, being careful not to publish abroad the results of such interviews.

3. Give to school officials the deference and courtesy due to their offices. As long as you remain under their supervision, work in harmony. Should this ever become impossible without sacrificing your self-respect, resign at once.

6. The Superintendent.-The teachers for whom this course is intended are all in one way or another related to some superintendent. If in district schools, they will be under the supervision of the county superintendent. If in town, village or city schools, a local superintendent may be in charge. The natural relation of teacher to superintendent is one of unfailing loyalty. Under ordinary conditions no one is in a better position to give encouragement and assistance than the superintendent, and usually he is competent to render it. If not, there is still a reason for loyalty while he holds the office.

The function of the board is to look after the material welfare of the school. The educational interests are largely in the hands of the superintendent. He is the logical adviser in all questions relating to the course of study or methods of teaching, as well as in management and discipline. Not infrequently in towns and cities the board delegates most of their authority to him, and he then becomes their agent for engaging teachers and for the administration of all school affairs. This is not usually true