the nature of the organization and ownership, can not afford this opportunity. The town hall, where there is one, is usually at the service of the people, but it is generally an inhospitable and unwelcome room for comfortable intellectual contact and rational discussion.

Picking up balls of cotton wadding from off a polished table with a teaspoon is as exciting as a potato race, without the uncomfortableness of bending down to the floor.

While enjoying such games as these, the time will pass very rapidly, and both girls and teacher will become better acquainted and more at ease with each other.-Edith Chester, in the Country Gen

tleman.

OUR SCHOOL HOUSES.

GREATER RETURNS POSSIBLE FROM THESE INVESTMENTS.

STATE SUPT. AARON GOVE.

HIS plea is made for a more general

THIS

use of the school houses of the country. As at present planned and constructed, generally these institutions are adapted for the use of day-schools for children and for that only. The approximately parallel instances are those of semi-deserted buildings of the Protestant churches, which are, as a rule, closed, except during a few hours of the week. The nation's investment in these school buildings-$450,000,000-seems to justify a greater outcome than is at present reached. No individual or corporation, outside of the churches, invests so much money with so little return, compared to what might be obtained. The education of adults is beginning to assume a positive form in the American community. The old-time lyceum and lecture course is re-appearing in the form of current literature classes and conferences of the people on affairs of municipal and community interests. A convenient and comfortable place is needed in every village and in every ward of every city, where the neighborhood can assemble and confer about the matters that pertain to the progress, reform, and betterment of the common weal. Every community re

I present the reasonableness of so modifying the construction of the village and city school house as to have provision made for a meeting place for the neighborhood, and that room to be at the service of the people for proper purposes, excluding only such discussions or presentations as involve the creation of violent prejudices and antipathies. It is a tradition, and with some reason in spirit at present, that the school house is a sacredly educational building, equipped and furnished for the children, and the law in many cases has prohibited its use for any other purpose. To illustrate: The people of a village erect, with some financial tension, a school house at a cost of $15.000, a comely, convenient, and commodious building. It is made habitable in warmth and light and surroundings for five days in a week, six hours in a day, and not to exceed two hundred and ninety days in a year. All the rest of the time it stands idle, unused, superfluous. For an additional thousand dollars one more room can, by the architect, be added to that house; a room of easy access from the street; of ample proportions for the gathering of two hundred people. The house having been warmed during the day, the room can be warmed at night with little extra expense. The lighting for evening meetings is a minimum cost. The care of the room can be added to the duties of the janitor with no very great extra burden. Such an apartment, in the school house of a village, could be made and would be made the rallying point for the intelligence of the community. Groups of citizens of different shades of religion, politics, or economics, would from time to time gather there, and by contact one with the other serve to enlighten and forward the highest interests of the people.

In many cases small reference libraries would find a place in these same rooms. I do not present this as an open daily reading room or library; nor as a continual, open-door entertainment room; but as one point, where, for the consideration of all educational and musical and kin

dred subjects, the people can gather without the expense of hiring a hall, without depending upon a few citizens who have large and ample private apartments, and who could feel that each had the same right as the other in this meeting-place afforded by the people for the people.

We have been mistaken in drawing around the school house the sacred circle which sets it apart for the one purpose of school teaching. That feeling has come about naturally enough, for we regard that as the first and important, as the chief factor in the conduct of our towns. But without crippling the efficiency of the school, without interfering with the conduct or management of the school, the same roof that covers it can be made to cover the rallying-room for the education of the adults on Saturdays and Sundays and evenings.

I have no thought of urging the occupancy of the legitimate schoolroom proper, by an invited number of citizens. The furnishing and apparatus of the school is of such a character as to forbid its use by a promiscuously made-up party. The room would be made and furnished at the outset in such a manner as to prevent injury or defacement from an ordinary crowd of adults.

The embarrassments in the management of such a room are limited to the authorities, who must decide what sort of meetings shall be permitted there. They would draw the line somewhere between instruction and rational entertainment on the one side, and disreputable shows, sectarian religious meetings, and personal political caucuses, so common in many localities, on the other.

My proposition is that the public school house at present is not placed sufficiently at the service of the people; this house belongs to the people, is built by the people's money, and can serve the people excellently well without interfering with that other more important service, namely, the education of the children and youth of the community.

During the long summer vacation, covering in time from two to four months, these houses stand idle and forsaken, facing the weather and deteriorating by time, when scarcely a week would pass, could they be used by the people, without the doors being thrown open to a representative group of interested citi

zens.

An architect friend tells me that the

maximum additional cost for such an addition as I have indicated would not exceed 10 per cent. of the total cost of the building.

In writing this I think of so many occasions when the people of the village or of a part of the city would find the use of such an apartment desirable, and I think, too, of the minimum expenditure and the maximum result. I must, in conclusion, continue to plead that the attention of our communities be drawn to the thought that we are not receiving an adequate return for our investment in school houses.-Northwestern Monthly.

GRAMMAR TO PRIMARY PUPILS.

I

SUPT. W. L. MORRISON.

AM teaching grammar to a second primary grade. Does this fill your soul with exclamation points, dear language teacher? Grammar is being taught, technical grammar, to little children, and the result is fully satisfactory. It has been shown that children can be taught philosophically instead of swallowing the doses at a gulp, and repeating them as so much parrot talk.

The effort was to teach the correct use of is and are, was and were, have and has, etc. The first step in the instruction taught the children to recognize and call by name the subject in the simple sentence. Never have I seen pupils of any age search for the unknown quantity with more eagerness and delight than here. Never have I seen better results as the subjects were found and recited. In four lessons, most of the class could quickly and intelligently find both simple and compound subjects of any ordinary simple sentence.

The next step was to teach the number of the subject. Then came the rule: "If the subject means more than one, use are, and if the subject means one, use is." The same rule is used with were and was, and other verbs so often incorrectly used.

Now we are ready for the drill; ready to fill blanks, or to correct errors whenever we find them. In carrying on a crusade against false syntax, as the teacher of language should always do, material for this drill can easily be obtained. Possibly it can be found in the teacher's speech.

One day I said to the class, "Has anyone heard somebody say it wrong since I

told you about it?" Quickly the answer came, Yes, I heard my mother say, 'The dogs was under the stove."" "What should your mother have said?" I asked. The boy answered promptly and proudly, "The dogs were under the stove.' "Why?" "Because the subject means more than one." "What is the subject?' "What is the subject?" I asked. The entire class responded, "Dogs." "Why use were?" "Because when the subject means more than one, we should use were."

From this we are running into the rule, "Never use him, her, me, etc., as subjects." This can be followed by many another rule of grammar, and be intelligently discussed by even primary pupils.

Of

The "Polly wants a cracker" practice has taken possession of too much of our instruction of children. The "Hi-diddlediddle" jargon that they are so accustomed to listen to is bringing about unthinking parrots. There is about as much thought involved in some of our milksop language exercises as can be found in the turning of a grindstone. The inquisitive child that annoys us so many times with his whys, deserves better treatment. all the discrepancies in teaching that I have ever observed, the non-exercise of the thinking powers is the most signal. We spend many an hour working beneath the mental capacity of the child. Children are not putty, and they can think; and it is our duty to give them something to think about. There is much question about "good habits of speech being caught rather than taught."-Western Teacher.

and eye dilated, his great body, trembling with the excitement caused by that voice he loved, stood kidnapped "Carlo."

"Oh, come, Carlo!" cried the child eagerly. There was a merry bark, and the dog was by the side of the wagon in a twinkling, wagging his bushy tail and prancing in doggish glee. The Brooklinite laid his grievance before the court. It took two days to hear the case.

The complainant put in evidence to show that he purchased the dog of the man who reared him. On the other hand, the defendant described every mark and scar on the dog.

"I think I'll postpone the trial in order to have the dog in court as a witness," said the judge.

A deputy sheriff brought the canine to court the day following. Carlo !" called the livery-stable keeper. The dog only sniffed and moved uneasily.

"Oh, Carlo! Carlo!" cried the farmers's child. The huge St. Bernard's tail went round. In another second he was bounding down the corridor to his mis

tress.

The case was then submitted to the jury, and after five minutes' deliberation the jury returned with a verdict for the farmer, and the dog was the hero of the hour.

BETTER THAN MONEY.

WHAT an

THAT is this pow-wow about?" asked an old man, bringing his white head into a group of youngsters who had been in lively debate.

"We are settling our futures," answered one. "Rich man, poor man, pretty man, chief; doctor, lawyer, peddler, thief.' That's about the list."

"To

"I'd like to give you a pinch of my experience," said the old man. those of you who are free to be what you will, let me make a suggestion. Choose that work which gives you daily opportunity of helping somebody. Then, whether you are financially successful or not, you may have joyful satisfaction in each day as it passes. There are some callings whose only aim, as far as one can see, is to make money. Oh, boys, if you can choose, give yourself to some work in which the work itself, and the good it does, is first, and the pay second.

When I was a half-starved young doctor, struggling for a city practice, my

ANY one who has traveled through the comparatively treeless countries around the Mediterranean, such as Spain, Sicily, Greece, Northern Africa and large portions of Italy, must fervently pray that our own country may be preserved from so dismal a fate, says President Charles W. Eliot. It is not the loss of the forests only that is to be dreaded, but the loss of agricultural regions now fertile and populous, which may be desolated by the floods that rush down from bare hills and mountains, bringing with them vast quantities of sand and gravel to be spread over the lowlands. Traveling a few years ago through Tunisie, I came suddenly upon a fine Roman bridge of stone over a wide, bare, dry river bed. It stood some thirty feet above the bed of the river, and had once served the needs of a prosperous population. Marveling at the height of the bridge above the ground, I asked the French stationmaster if the river ever rose to the arches which carried the roadway of the bridge. His answer testified to the flooding capacity of the river and to the strength of the bridge. He said: "I have been here four years, and three times I have seen the river running over the parapets of

that bridge." That country was once one of the richest granaries of the Roman empire. It now yields a scanty support for a sparse and semi-barbarous population. The whole region around about is treeless. The care of the national forests is a provision for future generations, for the permanence over vast areas of our country of the great industries of agriculture and mining upon which the prosperity of the country ultimately depends. A good forest administration would soon support itself, but it should be organized in the interests of the whole country, no matter what it costs.-Atlantic Monthly.

A

LAFAYETTE MONUMENT.

FREDERICK H. GILLETT, Member of Congress from Massachusetts.

BOUT a year ago there came before the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives, of which I am a member, a small delegationmostly from Chicago-to urge the propriety of erecting a monument to Lafayette in Paris. Their scheme was that the school children of this country would easily contribute the two hundred thousand dollars necessary, and all they wished of our committee was to incorporate a few distinguished gentlemen into an association so that there might be no question of the reliability of the sponsors. Some of the committee were inclined to oppose even this modest request; some because they didn't want to impose upon the school children, others because they doubted the success of the project and thought it would lead to a request for Congressional assistance; but this was so stoutly denied by the advocates that their request was allowed and the incorporation authorized. About $40,000 was raised, I believe, from the school children, and now Congress has been asked to give the balance.

I took occasion to study anew the life of Lafayette, and I was surprised at his eventful history. There is an old adage that no man is a hero to his valet, and so it sometimes happens that, as you study closely celebrated characters, you find that the mist of time through which they loomed had magnified them, and when you strip off the veil of tradition and see them in their true proportions, they seem petty and insignificant. Just the oppo

site is true of Lafayette. We may well give him a monument, not simply because he chivalrously brought us important aid, but also because his whole life illustrated heroic devotion to our principles of liberty.

His first step in coming here showed a spirit far above his era. He was only nineteen years old, the heir of a noble house and a princely fortune, married to the lovely daughter of a ducal family, welcome to an office in the inner circle of the royal court, where every sense was gratified and all was offered that could feed vanity or satisfy desire. What was deemed the amplest reward for distinguished services was his by birth; and his natural career would have been a votary of pleasure in the gayest city of the world at its wickedest era, living in the gratification of each passing whim, and finding the excitement of action only in the hunt or in the duel. What are deemed the prizes of life were his from the cradle, and he lacked the ordinary motives for exertion. He used to say with amusement in after life that when he came here his companions were apt to ask him, as their first question: "What do you do at home for a living?" To work for a living is the rule of an American life, but all which we work for, except self-ap. proval, was his at the start. From such an alluring prospect of elegant ease and unruffled enjoyment he stole away, against the protest of his family and the command of his king, and eagerly exchanged his bed of luxury for a couch in the snow, and voluptuous delights for cold and hunger and peril. The boy had in him something of the hero.

Our Congress was then experiencing much trouble with foreign adventurers who sought military commands, but Lafayette showed at once that what he sought was not emoluments or selfish promotion, but an opportunity for service, and he was speedily made a MajorGeneral. Doubtless his fellow officers, who had earned their stars by stern service, looked with some contempt on this gilded patrician, whom the democratic Congress had made their equal; but his reckless courage under fire soon silenced their sneers, and as he was given an independent command he showed a prudence and generalship far beyond his years, and well befitting his rank, and by the end of the war his gallantry, his fortitude, his sweet disposition and his mili

tary skill had won for him the confidence and admiration of his brother officers and the whole army. At this period of his life he seems to have had some of the traits of military heroes of more recent days, for he writes of a reception: “I was greeted warmly by all the men, and, better yet, kissed by all the women."

Having accomplished all this at the age of 25, he sailed for France, laden with the blessings of the country he had done so much to establish, and entitled, one would think, to wear in ease the laurels he had plucked from so much danger. But life was just beginning for him, in experience as in years; and, having written his name indelibly in the history of the new world, he was destined to write it as high and engrave it as deeply in the history of the old.

To trace the extraordinary vicissitudes of his remaining fifty years is here impossible. He filled almost every station, from the practical dictator of France to the hunted refugee and the occupant of a loathsome dungeon. But whatever his position, whether tempted by great promises or threatened by terrible punishment, he never swerved from the principles of self-government which he learned in his service here. The government of France changed repeatedly; almost every public man changed with it, but Lafayette was constant. And as I see him in this era of his life, at first the idol of the populace, putting aside the glittering prize of the dictatorship rather than give reason to suspect his motives, laying aside forever the titles of nobility which his family had worn for centuries that he might with more consistency proclaim that all men are free and equal, faithful alike to the weak king who would betray him and the fickle populace that would desert him, unbought, unterrified in an age of renegades and sycophants, the one constant, unchanging, serene, virtuous character in all that wild drama, he is to me even more impressive than when rallying our routed troops at Brandywine or leading the last successful charge at Yorktown. And in all those later years of his life, when he was serving his own country in that inestimable rôle of a private citizen without personal ambitions, but whom every one must respect and trust and turn to in hours of peril, he merits our especial admiration and gratitude, for he was perpetually teaching in France the lessons he had learned here.