THE FUNDAMENTAL PROCESSES IN ARITH

METIC.

PRIN. THOMAS E. SANDERS, RACINE.

For a number of years I have felt that there was much waste of time in the subject of arithmetic. The retension of several half obsolete subjects in many of our arithmetics may account for part of this waste. There is still room for elimination and pruning in our text-books in arithmetic, but to my mind a far greater waste of time comes from lack of thoroughness in the early grades and especially in the mechanical abstract number work. Number work in the first four grades and arithmetic in any grade should have three aims:

1. Accuracy-accuracy in result and accuracy in reasoning.

2. Rapidity. 3. Neatness.

These three things are essential, and their importance is in the order in which they are named, -accuracy, first; rapidity, second; neatness, third. If you do not secure accuracy you fail, and the less accurate your pupils the greater your failure. No amount of apology will change a wrong answer. Your pupils must be able to add, subtract, multiply, divide, and to get correct results, and if they can not do this your teaching results in arithmetic are poor.

Rapidity is another essential. The demands of the time are rapidity. Keep pupils alert and active. Do not permit the formation of lazy, snoozing habits in number work. Slow number work cultivates sluggish mental habits, leads to loss of interest in class, and deprives the subject of that intense interest and enthusiasm that should accompany its teaching.

Neatness is less essential but is worth consideration. Neat, unmistakable figures, quickly made, orderly arranged, everything so carefully placed that any one may follow the figures and the processes, this is splendid training for life as well as for advanced arithmetic.

It is my deliberate opinion that from ten to twenty-five per cent of the time spent in arithmetic in the upper grades is lost because of lack of accuracy and rapidity in the fundamental processes. I believe also that the classes which at the end of the fourth year are proficient in addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division,-a proficiency which is desirable, possible and attainable

with all but a few delinquents-can complete arithmetic in three more years and have the eighth year for algebra or geometry. With proper teaching the drill work requisite for such proficiency will be a genuine delight to more than ninety per cent of the class, and the mental discipline secured can not be excelled in any branch of study either in the older or newer curriculum.

It matters very little what your method is, but it matters much whether you can deliver the goods or not. Your pupils should at the end of the fourth year be able to add, subtract, multiply and divide, to do it accurately, to do it quickly, and to do it neatly. This will imply that they know these things:

1. How to read and write numbers.

2. To know thoroughly the forty-five endings which are absolutely essential to quick addition and subtraction.

3. To be able to add and subtract by using these endings instead of the long, labored, drawn out, development process of building up or tearing down by units. It is well to show the child how to find out how many six and seven make, but he must at the end of the development garner and hold the result. Ever after he should know that seven and six make thirteen as well, as quickly, and as confidently as he knows his own name.

4. The multiplication table. This too may be developed but the teaching that stops with the development merely, without a thorough mastering and memorizing of results, is scandalously poor.

5. How to divide. This should include a knowedge of the relation of multiplication and division and a quick, accurate, working knowledge of the processes of both short and long division.

These things can be done and done well in the first four years of school. The teacher should not be satisfied with less, he must be earnest and enthusiastic, and he must use rational plans and devices for holding the interest and attention of his class. To hold the interest and attention it may be necessary often to appeal to the spirit of contest and friendly rivalry.

JACK-IN-THE-PULPIT.

"They call him Jack-in-the-Pulpit, he stands up so stiff and so queer

On the edge of the swamp, and waits for the flowerfolk to come and hear

The text and the sermon, and all the grave things that he has to say;

But the blossoms they laugh and they dance, they are wilder than ever today;

And as nobody stops to listen, so never a word has

he said;

But there in his pulpit he stands, and holds his umbrella over his head,

And we have not a doubt in our minds, Jack, you are wisely listening

To the organ-chant of the winds, Jack, and the tunes that the sweet birds sing!"

-Lucy Larcom.

VITALIZING THE TEACHING PROCESS.

The class in physiology was studying the nervous system. Four wide-awake, active, healthy boys were puzzling their teacher by their failure to construct a mental picture of the spinal cord and its branching nerve fibers. The teacher then had a talk with the boys along the following lines. "Well, boys, if you were to take charge of a machine, you would try to learn all about that machine, wouldn't you? You would understand exactly how it was put together, and you would fit rourself to take the best of care of it. That is what a locomotive engineer does with his engine, isn't it boys ?"

This time a ready assent from every boy.

"Now let us see what that has to do with the physiology lessons. Have you ever thought that your bodies are machines which you will have charge of all your lives?"

"No," in a surprised tone, accompanied by brighter eyes which showed the awakening to a new idea.

Then followed a quick, simple explanation of the wonderful work performed by the nerves of our bodies, and a brief statement of the use of physiology as a school study. And four boys went back to their work with a new view point and a new working motive for the study of physiology. Will the boys understand and master those heretofore dull and meaningless lessons? Of course they will for they have been furnished with a motive for study, the work has been connected or rather made a part of their life.

Why not cease endless and ineffective preaching upon the necessity for learning lessons as lessons, and instead furnish our pupils with the key to the real, vital use-value of physiology or geography, or history, or whatever the subject may be?

Clarence L. Moulton, Readstown, Wis.

TWO SIDES TO THE QUESTION.
Girl. My teacher's going far away
To quite another land.

How I shall miss her, when no more
Beside her desk I stand;
But then I'm going to the shore
To frolic in the sand.

Boy. And I shall miss my schoolmates dear
When I am far away;

But then I'll have a jolly time

A-raking up the hay!

Vacation's coming, aren't you glad?

Hooray, hooray, hooray!

One evil effect of slates and cheap tablets was to drive out of the schools the subject of Mentai Arithmetic. When the means of written calculation became cheap people resorted to those means rather than use up brain tissue. Thus a practice was driven out which should find its way back into the schools, the practice of rapid oral calculation and rigid oral analysis of problems. Two of the best reasons for teaching Arithmetic are the fact of its practical application to life and the further fact of its value as a disciplinary study. It loses much of ts practicability if all computation must be through the fingers and on paper and it loses all its disciplinary value unless pupils are required to think out solutions step by step, retain these steps in mind and state them in logical order. At least five minutes of every Arithmetic period should be devoted to brisk oral drill.

C. B. STANLEY.

NOTICE! SCHOOL CLERKS.

This paper is now going to your address in the name of the District, and if you are not re-elected at the annual meeting it is your duty to report the fact to us at once with the name of the new clerk. The District is responsible for the subscription price, not you individually, unless you allow it to continue to your address after your term of office has expired. Attention to this little detail may save you and us not a little annoyance.

THE PUBLISHERS.

On June 29, 30, and July 1, the regular examination held by the state board of examiners will be conducted at Madison, Oshkosh and Eau Claire. The next examination is to be held at Madison only on August 10, 11, 12. The December meeting will be at Madison only on December 28, 29, 30.

The institutes this summer will open on July 12, and every prospect is for a larger attendance than ever. Supt. Cary will issue as usual an institute circular of instructions for the conductors. The list of assignments will be ready by about the middle of this month.

The following corrections are made to the list of county superintendents given last month: R. O. Moon is re-elected superintendent of Richland county; Dan P. Gibson of Trempeleau county (present address, Ettrick); Miss Cynthia Carlyle of Durand is the winner in Pepin county; Miss Ella B. McDonald of Oconto is the correct name for that county; Lida M. Blanding, St. Croix Falls, for Polk county; Supt. F. A. Lowell (elect) permanent address, Rhinelander; and Oren D. Stiehl of Jackson county will remain as principal of the Friendship high-school until the close of the present school year.

The legislature has provided for four more county training schools, making a total of twenty-four. Three of the additional ones allowed have already

been provided for in Green Lake, Price, and Brown counties, leaving only one more for the rest of the counties of the state.

EIGHT MONTHS SCHOOL HEREAFTER.

The bill providing that all school districts participating in the state school fund shall hereafter have eight months school, instead of seven as heretofore, has become a law. This means that at the annual meeting this year provision must be made for an additional month's expenses for those districts which have been holding only seven months school.

THE ANNUAL MEETING.

Citizens generally, and members of school boards especially, should post themselves thoroughly on the duties connected with the annual school meeting which will be held this year on Tuesday, July 6, at seven o'clock in the evening.

State Supt. Cary has in preparation an important circular bearing upon this matter and a copy of the same will be sent to each member of the school board in all the districts of the state. The distribution will be made through the town clerks. If the suggestions in this circular are followed, there will be no need of so many squabbles and misunderstandings as have resulted in the past. Anyone can receive a copy of this circular free by sending a postal request to the State Superintendent, Madison, Wis. Get a copy from your town clerk, or write for one-but get it, and then read it through and go to the meeting thoroughly posted as to your rights and duties in the capacity of a

voter.

"The World is caught in a wonderful net
Of beautiful, tremulous golden hazze,
And is laid asleep to dream and forget
That winter cometh and stormy days."
-Charles Turner Dazey.

The Clerk Is Not Obliged to Board the Teacher:The clerk of a certain district has boarded a teacher for over six years. This year the clerk said that he would not board the teacher any longer and consequently. the teacher quit her school because there was no other suitable boarding place in the dis trict. Is not the clerk obliged to board a teacher?

No, the clerk is not obliged to furnish a board-. ing place for the teacher. Neither can any elector in the district be obliged to furnish such boarding place. If no teacher can be secured for the district the district will quickly loose its rights and powers as a school district.

The Clerk has not the Authority to Close School:The clerk orders the school closed one month before the contract with the teacher expires. Has the .clerk authority to do this?

He has not. If the contract has been made the school may possibly be closed by the executive committee if the town is under the township system of school government. The teacher would, however, be entitled to her salary for the last month, notwithstanding school was closed. If the executive committee has provided for but an eight months' term of school and cuts off the last month, having but seven months taught, no apportionment can be made to the town for the children in that sub-district. In a district under the independent system the board will have no authority whatever to close the school on their own motion. The Teacher Must Enforce the Rules:

Is a teacher doing her duty by making rules and not enforcing them?

No. Every teacher is held responsible for the good government of her school. There can be no good government unless certain rules and regulations are observed regarding the discipline of the school. Any teacher who fails to keep her school in a condition whereby studious pupils may be perImitted to study without interference from mischievous or idle pupils, fails in her duty to the district. A teacher who lays down a number of reasonable rules for the government of the school and permits these rules to be openly and regularly violated can not be called an efficient teacher.

None too Young to Obey:—

Are any children of school age too young to obey orders?

No. It is an easy matter to teach obedience to

even the youngest children. Rules made for the good government of a school should apply to the older pupils as well as the younger and to the younger as well as the older.

School Board Members should not Guess at School Conditions:

Which one of the school officers is most likely to know how the school is being conducted,-one who visits the school once or twice a month or one who stays at home and permits his children to tell him what is going on at school?

It seems a very reasonable conclusion that the officer who visits the schoolonce, or oftener, each month, if the visit is one of any duration, would be more liberally informed as to what is going on in school than one who believes what his children tell him. It sometimes occurs that where children discover that their parents are fond of listening to what is going on at school they are prone to magnify little things that happen in school and consequently give the parents an idea that there are many things that interfere seriously with the school work when the matters are really unimportant. It is the duty of every school officer when, through his children or otherwise, he learns that there is slackness in the management of the school to immediately call the attention of the other offi cers and then visit the school to determine for himself what the facts in the case are. There is not a school officer, even though he may be limited in the matter of education, who can not give teachers, especially young teachers, much valuable advice in regard to the management of a school, and by his co-operation assist the teacher materially in bringing about satisfactory conditions.

A School Office must Be a Resident of his District:

A lives in sub-district No. 3. There are three subdistricts in this town numbered one, two and three. Can A run and be elected for school clerk in district No. 1 and district No. 2?

No. A can be elected to and hold the office of district clerk in district No. 3 only. A school officer must reside in the district in which he is an elector and officer.

Legal Holidays:

Kindly let me know whether or not Lincoln's birthday was a legal holiday.

The legislature this year passed a bill which be