hood is drawn up over the head, how very queer that white fur must look next to the black face of the wearer. The Mamma Eskimo often carries the baby in this hood-uses it for a hood and a cradle. The women wear the queerest boots, very, very large in the leg. What do they have such large boots for? They use them as pockets, sometimes as beds for the babies. What do they wear indoors? HOMES What kind of houses have the Eskimos? What are these houses called? Where built? Why are they built near the sea? What are their houses made of? Why are they not built of wood as ours are? What is the shape? What a tiny opening; how can they get into their igloos through such a tiny opening? Let us go inside of the igloo. In the center of the room is a small smoky fire. Why is it so smoky? Perhaps we would find a Mama Eskimo fixing skins. All around the fire are hung skins, coats, mittens, etc. Over the fire is hung a kettle. What is inside of the kettle? Perhaps soup for their next meal. All around the wall is a long bench made of ice and snow. These benches are covered with skins. In the daytime these benches are used for seats, and when night comes they are used for beds. How are their houses lighted? Describe lamps. Of what are the lamps made? What kind of wicks have they? "Their stone lamps look like large clam shells, the shell, holding the oil, and the flame being built along the straight shallow edge, while the wicking is the moss they gather from the rocks." If the fire becomes too hot, what will happen to the house? How do they mend it? (By throwing or ramming snow into the chinks.) FOOD What do the Eskimos eat? Why cannot they get food that we have? What kind of food can they get in abundance? Why are fish and animal foods the best for them to eat? They eat large quantities of raw meat. The name Eskimo means ,raw eaters." Why were they given this name? They like best the fat of animals and fish oil. Bones and fat are thrown into a kettle and soup is made. AMUSEMENTS What do the boys and girls do for amusement when out of doors? What are their sleds made of? They have no trees or boards and but little wood; what do they use? They use ice; also make wooden sledges from timber secured by trading with whale ships. The runners of these are covered with a coating ot ice. Why? What pull the sleds? Why do they use the Eskimo dogs? What do the older people use for horses? Describe the reindeer; show pictures of it. In how many ways is it useful to the Eskimo? It is used as a horse and it gives milk. Bones are used for what? Flesh used for what? What use do they make of the skins? What do the men do most of the time. Why do they spend most of the time in hunting and fishing? What do they hunt with-describe bows and arrows, spears and slings. When the long day comes how glad they will be! What will they do that day? It is still cold, but a little life comes. Read from Jane Andrews' "Seven Little Sisters," "The Story of Agoonack;" also "The Children of the Cold," by Schwatka. Lesson on Coal and Mining What do we burn in our stoves in winter? Why do we use coal? What do we call a substance which we burn? KINDS Soft and Hard-Difference in appearance of soft and hard coal. The soft is a silky black; the hard coal, a hard, stony, glassy, clean-looking substance. The soft coal is very dirty. Difference in the way it burns. How hard coal looks when burnt. For what kinds of fires do we use the hard coal? The soft coal? Difference in way of burning : The soft coal burns with a large flame and makes a great deal of smoke. The hard coal burns with a small flame, but gives a great amount of heat. How COAL IS MADE Long, long ago the coal was once leaves, trees and plants of various kinds. These plants and trees were buried hundreds of years ago. At that time the surface of the earth was covered with water. Great floods of water carried this vegetation and deposited it as mud, for plants decay in water. The mud made from this settled at the bottom of the water bed, it dried very slowly, and with the help of heat was changed into coal. We have many beds of coal; each bed was made from the layer of dried muds, so our earth must have been covered by water many, many times. Sometimes the impressions of trees, plants, ferns, mosses and fossils of Wherever the miners find an abundance of good coal they cut a tunnel or passage. down a shaft we would find at the with passages cut in all directions. What supports the roof of the mine after so many passages are cut? The roofs are supported by pillars of stone, sometimes by immense timbers. As soon as all of the coal is obtained from one place these pillars are sometimes removed by the miners. What is the result? The roof and walls fall in. Many men are killed by the caving in of the walls and roofs when the pillars are removed. When the mines cave in what effect will it have on the surface of the earth above? Damage to the buildings is often caused in this way. How MINES ARE LIGHTED Each miner has a little lamp fastened to the front of his cap. Why does he have it fastened instead of carrying a light? Gases. In coal mines there is almost always found a gas in the atmosphere. This gas is very If much like the gas which we burn in our houses. there is much of this gas in the atmosphere and a Many light is made, an explosion takes place. lives have been lost in coal mines in this way, for often the miners would make a light in passages where much gas had formed. The Davy lamp.-A man by the name of Davy found out, by experimenting, that if a flame could be so protected by a fine wire screen that it could not reach the gas in the air, no explosion would take place. Davy invented a lamp which is called the "Davy Lamp." In this the flame is surrounded by a fine wire gauze through which the gas cannot penetrate; neither can the flame reach the gas. This lamp is much used in the mines now, as it is a very safe one. What is done to the coal after it is drawn to the top of the shaft. There are small cars at the top of the shaft. These cars are loaded and drawn away to a place where the coal can be put into large cars or boats. Where will it go then? USES OF COAL To burn as a fuel.-In stoves, furnaces, steamboats, steamers, engines, mills, factories. Coal oil. How found? Uses. Tell of oil wells. (The accompanying specimens were painted by children and pupils. ranging in age from five to ten years.) A good many of the teachers in our country have been much interested within a comparatively short time, in ink and water color painting in our schools. Ink painting is most useful in teaching the children a free manipulation of the brush before the use of color. My experience in this work may be helpful to fellow-teachers; so I will try to tell you in a few simple words how these lessons may be conducted : In the first place, to those who have never seen this work in ink it is almost impossible to imagine the artistic effect of a branch of the woodbine with its berries, the rose hips on their prickly branches and many other specimens so easy to find even in the late fall and winter if one's eyes are on the alert. The painting is done on gray drawing paper (which can easily be secured) with Japanese brushes, Rosamond Before rangement would look best, and in what position. The brushes are now to be dipped in the ink, the older ones using the ink-wells, the little ones having their ink in small butter plates. There is no need of getting a particle of ink on hands or clothing. Tell the children to paint the branch or twig as they see it, using enough ink so that the stroke may be smooth and true. Never allow them to go over the work a second time. Once done, it must remain as it is. If the teacher can herself sit down and paint for a group of pupils, then let them work, the result is better. After a little practice one becomes more proficient than may at first seem possible. Let the children work for themselves, with only suggestions from the teacher. Teach them to see form in everything: rose hips spherical, stem cylindrical, and so on. These lessons in painting are very helpful lawyer in Springfield. I He Lincoln's will always made a way for him. read law books at every opportunity. Sometimes he was perched upon the counter in the store where he worked, again he was stretched out under the trees; but always reading or studying during the His law books were borrowed of a spare minutes. He would walk there for one, then would be seen walking home with the book open and studying it eagerly. People laughed at him, then they wondered at his studying, and at last were astonished. But Lincoln kept on studying the book. ing the book. He carried a law book about with him on all occasions. Very often at night, he would go into a cooper's shop and kindle a fire out of waste material lying about. Then with this light he would read far into the night. He was elected in 1834 to the legislature at Vandalia because of the knowledge which he had won for himself. He was told at Vandalia that Henry Clay had even inferior chances to his. This en couraged Lincoln. II "So many great Illustrious spirits have conversed with woe, Have in her school been taught, as are enough To consecrate distress, and make ambition Even wish to frown beyond the smile of fortune." Then welcome each rebuff, That turns earth's smoothness rough, -Browning. LINCOLN AS PRESIDENT I At the supreme moment Lincoln proved himself the supreme leader. His sufferings, to another, would have been insupportable. He bore disheartening failures, sharp rebuffs, unjustifiable taunts, villainous treacheries and constant dangers. From his enemies came threatenings and attacks. From his friends came displeasure and anger. From the North came apprehension and gloom. From the South came heartache and misery. From the whole nation came expressions of humiliating grief and bitter afflictions. Amidst all this Lincoln stood strong, unwavering, courageous, faithful. He stood, the nation's burden-bearer. The safety of millions depended upon the president. No impracticable step must be taken, no unjust measure approved, no hasty decision given. Honesty, justice, goodness, judgment, and almost superhuman wisdom were demanded. Lincoln unflinchingly rose to the occasion and lifted himself and his people into a Unionism in its truest and broadest sense- -a Unionism which was, and ever will be, incomparable with that of any other land while history lives or love of country exists. The President's English It has been demonstrated already, I believe, that the Harvard examiners who criticized so severely the slipshod English of young students wrestling with their "prelims," laid themselves open to similar censure in the very report which contained their own strictures. But what are we to think, when the president of the university justly reputed to be a master of precise and elegant diction, is credited in a Sunday paper, in what purport to be his exact words, with giving his sanction to a far too common solecism by saying: "Everybody cannot play football," instead of "Not everybody can play football." We trust that President Eliot has been misreported, which would of course be the natural presumption; but in any event, we wish to enter a protest against the common but vicious misconstruction illustrated n the above-quoted sentence. -Transcript. |