The teacher must ascertain the smallest unit of which the pupil has, or can readily form, a working conception, and he will not attempt to require the learner to work with a much smaller unit. This is the natural limit from the educational point of view. To find it, and to keep within it, is the business of the teacher.

But the nature of the problem must guide both teacher and pupil as to the degree of practical refinement to be sought. It is in the problem that the pupil's interest focuses, not in the way of it, nor in the educational meaning of it. If the problem be to find the number of plants for his flowerbed, it is unmeaning, even foolish, to carry results to fractions. If the problem mean the cutting of a member for a play-house, the pupil knows quite as well as the teacher, that an eighth or a sixteenth of an inch becomes a matter serious enough to be attended to. The problem need not call for the actual cutting, save in imagination. The pupil readily pictures to himself from the more or less indirect suggestions of the arithmetical problem, what would be required, were he to tempt to do the actual cutting and measuring. With this measuring and cutting which he does in imagination he does not willingly take unwarranted liberties nor violate metrical properties.

Speed Different With Different Pupils.

A little attention to the spontaneous activities of children, when spontaneity is unchecked by adults, readily reveals that each child has a certain norm of speed of motor discharge. Careful observing of children at work shows an analogous norm of speed of mental activity. The child's normal mental gait is as thoroughly and characteristically a part of him as is his physical gait. At this gait he despatches work most economically and most comfortably, and the output of his effort maintains a uniformly high quality and quantity. To this pitch the music of his soul is attuned. To this chord the rhythm of his nature most fully responds.

At this gait the child is able to maintain a steady and high potential of thought-concentration. To force him by external stimuli to work at a higher rate than his norm makes his thinking uncertain, jerky, and flighty, and soon dissipates his fund of mental energy. To permit him to work below his norm is to make his thinking wobbly and ambling, and his attention scattering. His thought move

ments resemble those of the dying top, or bicycle. Low potential activity encourages mental loafing, habituates the child to going about his tasks in a half-hearted way, and tends to satisfy him with half-achievement. It engenders and fosters effort that is below the highest levels of possibility. Thus it occurs that allowing children to work below their norm of speed and forcing them by extraneous means to go beyond it end in the same deplorable issue dissipation, rather than concentration, of thought.

The arithmetic teacher must then study his pupils individually to ascertain as nearly as possible the norm of speed for each. He must seek to hold the effort of the pupil to the level of this norm. He should be neither dragged, coaxed, nor spurred beyond this rate for any great length of time, if at all. The pupil will raise his norm by working within it and close up to it, but not beyond it. Dullness, stupidity, and something like mental flabbiness, resulting in enfeebled powers of concentration are the outcome of abnormally lowpotential activity; while fitful and nervous activity, issuing in a sort of hysteria, standing also for enfeebled concentration, are the end of abnormally high-potential activity. Thus do over-strained and under-strained effort miss the mark of educational efficiency on the same side. I suggest that it is despatch, which means a reasonably high rate of turning off work of a uniformly high grade of excellence with comfort to the workman, that arithmetic teaching should strive for, rather than for mere speed.

COMMUNICATIONS

A KICK AGAINST AN ANCIENT IDEAL. The Wisconsin University has made rapid strides to the front, within the past two decades and it seems to lead in having created a university that meets the needs of the people. In the face of this progressive spirit it seems odd that it still clings to the mediaeval ideal of demanding a foreign language of all its students.

The boy who graduates from the English course in our High School may now enter the University, thanks to the vigorous campaign of the State Department of Education, but he must make up the work and study a foreign language at the University. He may elect or omit almost anything else. He may do work along a special line and take but little mathematics, history or English, but the POWERS have decreed that he must take a foreign language.

However the case of the High School graduate is mild to that of the Normal graduate. In most cases

the Normal graduate teaches for some time after graduation and goes to the University at the age of perhaps thirty. In many cases he has had no foreign language and he wants none as he is past the age when he can acquire a language and have it do him any great amount of practical good. He comes to the University to get help along the lines he hopes to teach. He elects a course which will fit him for his work and in addition he must elect two years of a foreign language. The idea of making this requirement is the height of nonsense. I have talked with many Normal-University graduates and I have yet to find the one who has made any great amount of use of his foreign language or who does not consider the two years spent in its study almost a loss of time and who would not have found the time far better spent had he taken other work.

I do not wish to be misunderstood. I do not contend that a foreign language has no value. A volume might be written in its favor, but the ancient idea that a man cannot be educated unless he has a foreign language; the idea of forcing a language upon a man of from 25 to 35 years, is insane and does not have an ounce of reason back of it; that is, from the under dog's standpoint. E. H. MILES,

Principal Weyauwega High School.

IS LATIN PRACTICAL?

Prof. Slaughter, like all specialists, has been singing the praises of his particular subject in your columns, much as in my own high-school days, each of my teachers extolled his own subject as the only one worth studying-to our great dismay. I happen to have thought the same as Prof. Slaughter in my own younger days, and now that I am converted to another view, I feel that I must speak, if only to relieve my feelings.

Prof. Slaughter's plan for making Caesar vitally interesting appears to me to be a makeshift. It only happens that Caesar's subject matter can be treated so. Do you remember Hoar's and Thurston's magnificent speeches on imperialism? And we can have imperialistic debate without studying Latin for the purpose.

Really, it seems to me that there is but one real use for Latin as there is for Choctaw, or for Hindoostanee. If Latin or Cuneaform or Winnebago will aid us in any scientific work, learn it. Hebrew and Egyptian are necessary. Prof. Breastead could not have written his wonderfully valuable books without it. Prof. J. H. Robinson needs Latin in his research work in Mediaeval history. But because a Mediaeval scholar needs Latin, should I learn it? Because an ethnologist needs to learn Zulu, should I?

My Latin has taught me to read, very haltingly, my diploma! I have a friend who is a B. S. and cannot read his diploma, but then, what calamity it that? Write the diplomas in a living language, and there

you are.

The plea that Latin opens a great field of literature to us is true but while I was struggling with subjunctives and ablatives, in order to read Vergil (who is far inferior to Goethe) and Cicero (who is not in a class with Webster or Bossuet) I was taking time from Shakespeare and Schiller and Moliere and other men who wrote in languages that are living today.

When I was a high school freshman we studied syllogisms. Here is one. "Latin and Greek train the mind because they are difficult. We study these subjects because they train the mind. Chinese and Choctaw are difficult, therefore we should study them." and I wondered what was wrong about it. We have no time for abstract mind training. Let us train our minds on subjects that will not only disci

pline them, but also add to them some real, valuable knowledge-which Latin is not. We can keep Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, and Feejee on ice for the man who needs those languages for his life-work.

Latin and Greek were studied during the Middle Ages, because they were the only subjects that could convey to youths any culture. That is no longer true, and ceased to be true about the time of Hobbes, Newton and Locke. Then, when Mathematics was put in, and Latin retained, the "disciplinary" fiction was invented to excuse it. This fiction has kept the secondary schools in absolute slavery for two centuries. Under the influence of the new psychology, we may thank heaven it is disappearing.

Very truly yours, WILLIAM MORRIS FEIGENBAUM. 1514-76th St., Brooklyn, N. Y.

A MATTER OF FACT.

In order to keep the record straight I would like to repeat the substance of a conversation I had with a well-known educator at the November meeting of the Wisconsin Teachers' Association. He said that he was in substantial accord with my official acts as State Superintendent, with but one exception. That was the passage of the law requiring the State Superintendent's approval of the qualifications of teachers in the high schools, and its immediate application to those interested. It seemed to him exceedingly cruel and unjust to throw out of employment so many teachers without warning or opportunity to make preparation.

I assured him that I was very glad he had mentioned it as it was likely there were others who had the same idea. I told him that, so far as I know, there were but two who lost their positions on that account. I said that I wrote to every one affected, stating that, while it was the purpose of the law to secure properly qualified teachers as soon as possible, it was not my intention to cause any one to lose his place because of it. I said to them that every one would be required to use due diligence in preparing to meet its requirements. To this end, they must attend the next session of the board of examiners and write upon a reasonable number of subjects. If they passed a satisfactory examination, I would give them a certificate to teach until the next meeting of the board, when they must write again, and so on until their legal qualifications were completed. In this way all were tided over, except two men who refused to write.

O. E. WELLS,

Prin. Marathon Co. Training School.

CHANGES IN MINNESOTA EDUCATIONAL
OFFICERS.

State Supt. J. W. Olsen has accepted the Deanship of the school of agriculture of the University of Minnesota, and Mr. E. G. Schulz, the assistant, has been appointed to succeed him. C. R. Frazier, superintendent of the Winona schools and formerly a Wisconsin high school principal, becomes the assistant state superintendent. We understand that Mr. Olsen a few days after his appointment as Dean tendered his resignation to take effect next August, but it is the general belief that he will be retained in the Deanship and that the slight friction occasioned by his appointment will have disappeared by that time.

Many high schools in the state are seriously considering the advisability of not admitting pupils from outside districts on account of the over-crowded condition of the buildings. In most instances this will not be a paying investment.

TEACH THE PUPILS TO BE METHODICAL IN SOLVING PROBLEMS.

Teacher, in your arithmetic classes, are you teaching your pupils to be methodical and intelligent in their work with problems, or are you permitting them to waste their time in aimless figuring? If you are permitting the latter practice you are letting them miss one of the great values that should come to them from their study of arithmetic, namely, the power to think that should be developed in the application of abstract processes to the solution of concrete problems. Moreover you are unwittingly letting them form a habit of doing things by guess rather than from careful deliberation-a habit which carried out into life. will invite failure and disaster.

If there is one thing that school work in arithmetic should give above everything else, it should be the ability to think accurately and clearly from a set of given conditions to a correct conclusion, but many children get through school without getting this power because they are allowed to solve problems by haphazard processes or else by stereotyped rules or so-called analyses.

A Sensible Method of Solving Problems.

Is there then a rational, sensible method of attacking and solving problems? Most certainly. There is a good way of doing most any thing. Let us try to work out one for solving problems.

In the first place, what is a problem? A problem is simply a question to be answered. Most problems have nothing to do with arithmetic. Arithmetical problems constitute only one class of problems. Before any problem can be answered, however, there must be a set of related conditions on which an answer can be based. For instance, if some one should ask, "Do you think it will rain today?", before answering I must note the appearance of the sky, the direction of the wind, whether the temperature is rising or falling, and whether With atmospheric pressure is high or low, etc. these conditions in mind I can give a fairly good forecast. Without them, I could only guess. What then is the first thing to do in attacking a problem in arithmetic? That's easy, you say. Read it, of course. Yes, but that is where the greatest trouble comes. I once heard no less an authority on arithmetic than Prof. Shutts of the Whitewater Normal say that most of the trouble in solving problems comes from inability to read,

and the longer I teach arithmetic the more I am convinced that he is right. Failure or inability to get clear mental pictures of the conditions given makes further procedure difficult, if not impossible, except by guess work, which is a timewasting and mentally demoralizing habit to fall into. The pupil should be taught to read the problem with a definite purpose, i. e.; to determine what is given and what is to be found, and he should study the problem until he can state both of these clearly. This, then, is the first step. If the problem is a fair one there will be certain relations existing between the conditions given, likewise between these and the result asked for. The pupil's next task is to discover these relations. To do this he must think. Thinking is seeing relations. The great value of work with problems lies in the necessity for close, accurate thinking. "Any device or assistance enabling the pupil to get the answer without thinking out the problem defeats the aim" which is to develop thought power. For this reason, the so-called analysis which is printed at the head of a set of problems to be learned and applied to each problem in the group is no analysis at all so far as the pupil is concerned. The true analysis, oral or written, is the statement, by the pupil, in his own language, of the relations he has discovered between the conditions given and between these and the result asked for. This, then, is the second step. By this analysis he has discovered the processes that will need to be employed and the order in which they are to be employed to obtain the desired result. He should next express these completely by means of signs and symbols. This statement is for two purposes. First, it enables him to get a bird's eye view of the problem, so to speak, and enables him to discover any errors that may have been made in analyzing. Second, it enables him to see and use short cuts in computation and so save time in this way. This, then, is the third step.

Performing the Operations.

The next thing to do is to perform the operations indicated. If the pupil has been sufficiently drilled in the process of pure arithmetic this will be in most problems but a short matter. Thus we see that work in problems instead of being a matter of endless and aimless figuring should be mostly a matter of reading and thinking. To illustrate the process as described take this problem: A

dealer buys 3,000 men's collars at $1.92 a dozen, and sells them at 25c each. How much does he gain on the total number?

Reading, we find that we have given a certain number of collars, the purchase price per dozen, and the selling price per collar, to find the amount gained. Since he buys them at $1.92 a dozen he will pay for 3,000 collars, as many times $1.92 as 12 is contained times in 3,000. The sum paid for the collars may be expressed thus 3,000 x $1.92 or

THE OLD-FASHIONED SPELLING CONTEST.MAKE MORE OF IT.

Debates and oratorical contests are good in their place, but why not have more old-fashioned spelling mtaches?-not old-fashioned in the sense that words of "learned length and thundering sound" like valetudinarian, asafoetida, phthisic, and incomprehensibility are to be asked, but one in which common words are given out and spelled.

Some years ago in northern Minnesota the neighboring high schools held spelling contests. The test was both in oral and written spelling. The winning school received a cup which it kept till defeated. Great enthusiasm was felt over spelling-even down in the grades. It was a great honor to be a delegate to the Inter-School Spelling Contest, and the students worked for that honor. As one boy remarked, "Why, we can't all play football, or take part in the Declamatory Contests, but we all stand a show to do something in spelling." Among all the other leagues that Wisconsin has, is there not room for sectional spelling leagues? L. W.

CONDITIONS AND CHARACTERISTICS OF SUCCESSFUL PRIMARY READING II.

MARY D. BRADFORD.

(Concluded from last month.)

Ease and quickness in getting results in primary reading today come from the better operation of the school machinery. As already said the wheels are greased with interest and turned with the steady motive power of purpose. We are coming more and more to realize that the feelings are the great motive power in life. No idea which the feelings fail to welcome can abide in the home of the mind. The teacher who would instruct the intellect and fashion the will, must also win the feelings. When the child, as in olden days, began with learning the letters, or when by the word method he began with long lists of words, or when by the phonic method he had to learn at the start all the phonic elements before beginning to read, he was groping in the dark; he could not see where it all tended, what it was all for. But now we give him from the start a vision of the goal, and there is motive and conscious gladness in the effort.

When children learned to read quickly by the old unpedagogical methods, it was because circumstances had given them "a vision of the goal," and they reached it in spite of hindrance. It was purpose that gave strength to the will, while special natural endowment enabled them to get there, even though obliged to take a circuitous route, instead of being helped along an air line to it, open. today to all children, slow or bright, whose teachers are properly qualified. One of the greatest helps toward giving the child skill in word mastery is the teaching of phonograms. He is early made familiar with the sound units, and taught the simpler laws of pronunciation. An illustration of the last is the law so generally operative in determining the sound of a vowel in a syllable ending in silent e. Even a first grade child can be made to understand that short a in an becomes long a in ane; short i in it becomes long i in ite.

Possessed of a hundred or more basic units of words, he makes rapid strides in word mastery when taught how to use these. Words of several syllables do not trouble him if he has been taught to attack these words one syllable at a time. This use of phonograms has done away with the need of bothering the child with diacritical markings,