BETWEEN US

I. I manage well enough with the actual teaching, but my problems of discipline are many. Can you help me?

The following lines from a teacher's letter have the true ring and may help you:

"Such a time as I have had in school for the week past! I went home tired at night, and came back disgusted in the morning. I couldn't control myself or the pupils. We had a fine time of it for a few days. But one night, when I couldn't endure it any longer, I saw that I had forgotten my individual pupils and had been working simply for a good appearing school. Next morning, when I went to school, I felt that I loved every chick and child there, and now the sun has come from behind the clouds."

II. I work every night until ten or eleven o'clock and then I do not seem to get all the work done that is expected.

Decide to devote a certain amount of time each week to sleep, recreation, school work preparation and growth, and social life. Give each its allotted time and don't worry. You will find that you will accomplish more in the long run than you You are overdoing one phase of your problem and neglecting equally as important phases.

do now.

III. I am teaching in a little country school. I have but a few pupils. There is very little opportunity for social life and I have lots of time on my hands when my school work is done.

If you are to succeed you must always be a student. You must continue to grow mentally. You will derive great benefit from systematic study along some one line of thought. The more we know, the happier we are and thereby become fitted for any rank or station in life. Why not choose a subject for each year and devote your spare time to it? The following subjects are such that we can study alone and all very much worth while literature, science, music, art, politics, trade and commerce, mathematics, industries, history, child welfare, playground movement, disease elimination, professional reading, moral and religious training.

IV. Do you believe in keeping pupils after school?

Under some circumstances, yes. To keep a pupil a reasonable length of time may have a very good effect on him if you have good reasons for keeping him. I would never keep a pupil if a parent sends for him, or if the parent lets me know that he does not want him kept. I believe the parent has the right to say where his child shall be after the regular school hours. On the other hand, any reasonabl parent will want his child to do what will help him most. Do a minimum amount of "keeping after school." Keep no one in at recess to make up work. Deprive pupils of recess only when they abuse playground privileges and then do not make them stay in their seats. Let them raise a window (for fresh air) and look out at the others at play.

V. We hear much talk about a teacher "training a child's will." Just what can I do? At times it seems a hopeless task.

I will let "The Teacher Magazine" answer you. "It is far more important to train a child's will than to train his mind.' This is an utterance by a distinguished clergyman; it does not mean, however, that the entire training of the child's will devolves on the teacher. How to train the will would require more space to expound than can be allowed in this department. If you secure from your pupils a courteous "Good morning" as they enter the schoolroom, that is the result of will-training to that extent. They have given up their way of entering the room, and have adopted yours. Now apply this principle to all the procedure during the day, and you will have trained their wills. To make it effectual they should adopt your way willingly; this is important to bear in mind."

COLOR YOUR OWN CRAYON.

Use Diamond Dyes, yellow for cotton, oesine, light blue, green, bismark, garnet, cardinal, red, crimson, volet, and purple for wool. Moisten the dye with a little cold water, then add a pint of boiling water. Bottle. Use for coloring crayons, mays, diagrams, and as a substitute for water color for brush massing.

Age brings experience; gray beards oft are wise, But oh! how sharp a youngster's ears and eyes! -0. W. Holmes.

OLD FASHIONED ARITHMETIC.

I have had an opportunity of discussing the subject of arithmetic with several teachers of the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades. I asked them, "What would you like to have us teach the children in the lower grades that we do not now teach them ?"

Without a single exception every teacher said, "Don't try to teach them any more than you try to teach them now, rather teach less and teach it better. If you will send us children to whom the handling of fundamental facts of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division and the recognition of the prime numbers to 100 has become automatic, it is all that we ask. Two-thirds of the trouble in arithmetic in our grades is due to the fact that it takes pupils so long to execute for results after they get a thought."

It was my privilege recently to spend a day in the schools of the city of Eau Claire, and to study the work in arithmetic in all of the grades.

Supt. W. II. Schultz is getting some quite marvelous results by applying some good old fashioned methods. The fundamental facts are drilled upon in the lower grades until they are made practically automatic. Mental drill is given ten minutes a day in every grade below the high school. The interest in "mastery" is so intense that the pupils appear to thoroughly enjoy every moment of the recitations. I believe his ideas along this line are right. We sin against no psychological law when we teach arithmetic in this way. The trouble has been that the so-called "doctrine of interest" has been misinterpreted by the most of us in the more recent past and the importance of cultivating an interest in mastery has been underestimated.

A PLAN FOR OPENING EXERCISES.

This plan for opening exercises has stood the test of almost two years and has proved successful. It was worked out in a two department school.

The objects of this plan are: To minimize tardiness, to apply class work to good advantage, to make this period of the day thoroughly enjoyable to the pupils, to provide teachers and pupils with a social period (this social hour is so commonly neglected in the ordinary school routine), and last but not least to bring both departments of the

13. Guessing of book titles through conundrum illustrations.

The following arrangement was followed: talk was given on Monday mornings, teachers alternating. On other mornings, pupils of the two departments alternated. This plan gave each room time to plan ahead and confusion was avoided. The time allotted to these exercises was fifteen minutes.

The benefits of such exercises in common can scarcely be overestimated for excellent results. were derived from them.

Note by Editor:-The above was contributed by Miss Pauline G. Liebig of West Bend. We take pleasure in offering it to our readers and feel certain it will prove a helpful suggestion to many. We hope to hear from other readers in similar way from time to time.

God made the glow worm as well as the star; the light in both is divine. -George McDonald.

A word to parents:

You may safely commit the child's clothes to the servant, but the rest of the little one you had better take care of yourself. -Anon.

A RURAL SCHOOLROOM.

This is a picture of the interior of a little, oneroomed country school in Burnett County. What an attractive place it is! The pictures, the organ, and the flag were purchased with money raised by entertainments.

See the little border that decorates the blackboard! It is not so wide that it takes the space needed for the demonstration of regular work.

Some of the children's "best" papers are given a place of honor above the board.

Was not the "Madonna of the Chair" a good choice when the number of pictures had to be quite limited? The bouquet of flowers on the teacher's desk adds another element of homelikeness to the room.

CHOICE OF STORIES TO TELL.

"Jimmie giggled when the teacher read the story of the Roman who swam across the Tiber three times before breakfast.

You do not doubt a trained swimmer could do that, do you, James?

'No, sir,' answered Jimmie; 'but I wondered why he didn't make it four and get back to the side his clothes were on.'"

The reading of the above clipping reminded me of something that I have had in mind for discussion in these columns for a long time.

Do you ever stop before deciding to tell a story to your pupils and ask yourself whether the story is really worth telling? If it is a "fast" story will it "prove?" If it is a fairy story does it bear a message worth while? If it is a humorous

story, is the humor sufficiently refined? It it is a nature story, is it probable?

Even if you choose the stories from educational journals, that fact does not settle the question of their desirability. There has been a lot of trash published in educational journals under the headings "Stories for Reproduction" and "Nature Stories."

The hours that a child spends in school are precious hours and few compared with the probable length of his life.

Let us waste no time giving him the kind of literature that though better than none, he will always find it easy to secure but let us introduce him to the very best of prose and poetry. Let us be particularly careful what kind of nature stories we give him. We may be able to give him such a taste for the better thing that he will seek it himself after he leaves us.

Many people have prepared lists of stories suitable "to tell to children." It might be worth while to work on the negative side of the question and prepare lists of stories "not to tell to children."

WASH DRESSES FOR TEACHERS.

Recently I found the following quotation in a daily paper:

"People seem to think that dark clothes don't get dirty because you don't see the dirt, but it's really there just the same and I don't think it's healthy. Just imagine if you wore a white dress day in day out all winter what it would look like. And then remember that the same amount of dirt is on your dark blue serge, only it doesn't show and it's enough to make you sick. And besides that side of it, dirt rots clothes and makes them wear out more quickly." It didn't refer to the dress of teachers but it suggested this thought: How much cleaner teachers could be, and how much neater they would look if they would wear wash dresses all the year to school! I knew a teacher once who dressed in white the year round. She always looked clean. Her pupils seemed to reflect her cleanliness and she had the cleanest little band of boys and girls I ever saw in a schoolroom.

When the weather was very cold, she wore a woolen skirt to and from school, left her cotton skirt at school and changed the one for the other on arrival and departure. We cannot on our small salaries afford the laundry bills for white, perhaps, but we can afford it for dark ginghams.