"Wing of a Mosquito life size and as seen through a microscope" HUMAN INTEREST is always intense in matters microscopic. This fact explains the great success of Physiology, Botany and Zoology classes in which the microscope is employed, In your classrooms, use Bausch Lomb Microscopes For many years, they have proved their superiority in optical efficiency, mechanical accuracy and practical con venience. Model BH-2 is especially commended for class work. It is supplied with a 7.5 x eyepiece, 16 mm and 4mm objectives and double revolving dustproof nose-pieceand magnifies 75 and 320 diameters. The Good Health of School Children is the main thought throughout the GULICK HYGIENE SERIES. The series contains the minimum of anatomy, substituting instead the essentials of hygiene which shall develop in the child the habits of right living. In this aim the books are in direct accordance with the civic movements of the day and will do more for the promotion of health, morals and good citizenship than any textbooks on the market. The GULICK HYGIENE SERIES is everywhere popular and fast establishing a reformation in the teaching of physiology. FIVE-BOOK COURSE Book I-Good Health-40 cents. Book II-Emergencies-40 cents. Book III-Town and City-50 cents. Book V-Control of Body and Mind-50 cents. Good Health (as above) The Body and Its Defenses-65 cents. GINN AND COMPANY Wholesale Accounting No more practical, thorough and attractive work can you offer to your students than this. It is on the "individual business practice" plan, which means that the student receives his incoming papers fully made out just as they are made out in business, makes entries based upon them, fills out his own outgoing papers, and performs the other functions of the bookkeeper just as in business. Wholesale Accounting teaches business as business is done, reproducing forms and procedure with life-like fidelity to business; it teaches bookkeeping of a high order both as to subject-matter and volume and variety of work done. Please do not confuse this excellent and superior course with unsatisfactory courses which force the students to rely upon each other for model forms or in which each student must prepare his own "incoming" papers. Wholesale Accounting was the first of its kind, is today undisputably the best, and the probabilities are that many years will roll around before a better will appear. Our best advice to you is that you plan to use this course next semester. J. A. LYONS & CO. Why correct? Pupils learn by doing-a relaxation from ordinary school work. Boys handle corn while learning corn. Girls make bread while learning bread. Manual training, that is real hand training-not mere knife work. Indorsed by leading educators Big Six-Page Farm, Stock and Family Chart Free to Teachers. Agricultural Library of best books within reach of all. Special half-year Subscription offer just to get acquainted : From Jan. 1st to end of school year and including Oct. 1st number-eleven issues for 10 cents. Write today for full particulars. Free sample copies for each pupil if desired. Address nearest office. School Agriculture, Dep. N. Orange Judd Company Publishers Minneapolis, Oneida Building. Chicago. Peoples Gas Building New York, 315 Fourth Avenue Springfield, Mass., Myrick Building The Vol. XLIII FOR THE TEACHER, THE SCHOOLS, AND THE STATE. DECEMBER, 1911 EDITORIAL COMMENT No. 10 BY PROFESSOR M. V. O'SHEA, THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN. A PROFESSIONAL SPIRIT. The writer of these comments rarely attends an educational meeting without hearing more or less about a professional spirit being the chief requirement in a good teacher. And what do people mean by "professional spirit?" Do they have in mind a disposition to study the problems involved in leading children to adapt themselves ever more effectively to the social and physical world about them? Not at all. They usually say that a teacher who has a professional spirit will think of a pupil's welfare before his own; that he will sacrifice everything in order that his pupils may be made happy; that he will abandon self for the good of those under his charge, and so on ad libitum. We heard expressions of this sort at the last convention in Milwaukee, and they were repeated in one form or another at a convention in another state from which we have recently come. Undoubtedly the sentiment is wholesome, but it can be made too much of. We have taken special pains to observe how teachers respond to it when it is put forward too prominently. Often it makes them gloomy. No one, teacher or layman, can be thinking about selfsacrifice all the time without becoming depressed. This everlasting portrayal of teaching as a missionary business tends to develop despondency in many teachers. Human nature is so constituted that the joy of living takes flight when life is regarded as just one sacrifice after another. to enjoy life, to solve interesting problems, and to attain the great things for which every young person hungers, more of them than now do would attack their work with vigor and hopefulness, and there would be a more optimistic atmosphere in the schoolroom than there is at present in many places. To our mind, President Cotton, of La Crosse, struck the right trail when he was discussing "The next step in our effort to improve the country school" at the late Milwaukee rally. He said in effect that we can not improve the efficiency of teaching without increasing salaries, and improving the social and physical conditions under which the teacher works. He declared that the country school teacher can not live on high ideals alone. If this is not in accord with conventional pedagogy, it is at least in harmony with human nature. And it seems to us that we would get forward faster than some of us now do if we should make our pedagogy square with human nature more fully than it often does at present. PEDAGOGY OR HUMAN NATURE. We are well aware that we are not exactly in line with the conventional attitude in regard to this matter; but this is not conclusive evidence that we are wrong in our view. It is our opinion that if young teachers heard less about self-sacrifice in teaching and more about the opportunities. SOLVING PROBLEMS. It has always appeared to us that what teachers need is advice which will help them to solve everyday problems in the schoolroom. The teacher who has gained some insight into child nature, and some skill in presenting the materials of education so that they will appeal to the young and arouse proper responses in them, will make a success in the schoolroom, even if no word is ever said to him about playing the rôle of a missionary. At least ninety out of a hundred people who go into teaching are by nature seriously inclinel. They have an unusually large endowment of the altruistic spirit. They want to serve their kind. But the trouble with many of them is that they don't understand how best to serve. The com IN THE SCHOOLROOM Elizabeth R. McCormick, Editor, Su perior, Wisconsin. The New Year Yesterday is a part of forever, Bound up in a sheaf which God holds tight, With glad days and sad days and bad days, which never Their fullnes of sunshine or sorrowful night. Let them go, since we cannot relieve them— God in his mercy receive, forgive them; Every day is a fresh beginning; Listen, my soul, to the glad refrain: -Susan Coolidge A SUNSHINE SONG. Would you make some saddened heart Would you make some burdened life Drop a word of hope and cheer; With your notes of love and joy, Would you smooth the rugged path Just a deed of kindness done Just a little word of cheer Sprinkle sunshine as you go, -Christian Endeavor World. INDOOR GAMES FOR THE WINTER. The following games are played in the lower grades of the Superior schools: Bean-bag Toss. The teacher tosses a bean-bag to a pupil. As soon as he gets it he stands and tosses it back to the teacher. Changes in the direction of the throw are made quickly from one part of the room to the other so that all pupils are kept on the alert. Seat Pupils. Several children One child leaves the room. exchange seats. The one child returns to the room and gives his memory a test in trying to send each pupil back to his own seat. Here is another game similar to that and one which is more of a memory test. It is, therefore, suited to a higher grade. Two children leave the room which is divided into two equal parts. All children take a different seat. The two children return to the room and have a race to see which will have all the children in his assigned half of the room properly seated. Hand Over Head. Seat children so that there will be equal number in each row. On each front desk lay an eraser or a bean-bag. Give a signal. Have the first pupil seize the article with both hands, pass it over his head and drop it on the seat behind his own. Have the next player do the same thing. So continue the play until the last pupil in the row gets it. He must immediately run forward to the front desk. The entire row must then move backward one seat. Continue the playing until pupils are back in their own seats. The row that finishes first wins the game. If all the rows play at once, the running and changing of seats must be done in the same aisle. Alternate rows may play in two sets and the two winning rows play to decide the champions. International Race. On each front seat is a flag of a different nation. The teacher gives a signal and the child in the front seat of each alternate row leaves his seat from the right side, runs forward around his seat, then to the rear, running all the way around his row to his own seat. As soon as he is seated, the next child does the same way, and so on till the last child has encircled the row and come back to his seat. The row whose last player is seated first wins. As this last player passes the front seat in his row, he seizes the flag which he finds there and raises it as soon as he is in his own seat. The other set of alternate rows then play in the same way. The two winning rows play again. and the victory is awarded to the "country" which has earned it. While there is always a flag of the United States in evidence, the U. S. isn't always victorious. Cat and Mice. One child representing the cat hides behind. some piece of furniture. Several others the mice-creep up softly and scratch the floor, or something else previously decided upon, to represent the nibbling of mice. As soon as the cat hears the noise she scrambles out and trys to catch one before he reaches his seat. The one caught is cat the next time. If no one is caught, the teacher chooses the cat. Moving. The teacher says "Change right," or "Change left." Each pupil slips from his seat into the aisle and the outside row runs around the front or back of the room to the vacant seats of the other side. The moving command is repeated until all are back in their own seats. School tries to see how quickly the move can be made. THE COLUMBIAN. We are in receipt of a copy of The Columbian for November, 1911, published by the County Superintendent of schools and the faculty of the Columbia County Training School, for the teachers, school boards, parents, and pupils of Columbia County. It contains many practical suggestions for all. An article called "Seat Work for Primary Children" arranged by Miss Elga Shearer of the Training School is particularly suggestive for elementary teachers. The work outlined is graded for the first, second, and third year. wish a copy might be in the hands of every beginning teacher in the state. If you are interested, write to Mr. S. M. Thomas, Prin. Teachers' Training School, Columbus, Wis. SNOW CRYSTALS. Is there anything more beautiful than snow crystals with their unvarying six points and filmy, lacelike edges? |