NAPLES AND POMPEII.

Prin. M. H. Jackson.

Ugh! I have just emerged from the sea aquarium and am feeling a little wobby still, so will sit on a bench in this beautiful little park until I re

cover.

In that circus of water cages the observer sees the strange menagerie at or above the level of the eye, so the effect is something as it might appear were we at the bottom of the sea with the strange animal life swimming or crawling about us. There are lobsters down there with feelers twenty inches long and with eyes raised on telephone poles. There are old shoes with fins. Here comes an old black slouch hat swimming by means of wave motions of its brim. Sticks of candy with flippers leer at me as they flit by. Long graceful silk ribbons coil about and swim away. There are big fish with monkey faces, swimming billy goats, and animated neckties, all alive and grinning at me. I feel just like the man who saw a giraffe for the first time and exclaimed: "You can't fool me, there is no such animal living!"

Vesuvius.

Old Vesuvius is enjoying a little smoke this morning. That rumbling last night was distant.

Here are wagon tracks cut in to the solid stone street pavements, steps of stone all worn down by feet that walked on them before the fatal year, 79 A. D. There are stone mills that stopped grinding when the ashes choked them down. There are theatres that were occupied on that fatal day. We invade private houses with their wall pictures and decorated floors. In the museums here and at Naples we find bread and cakes taken from ovens that were doing service nineteen centuries ago. A dozen eggs are here that look fresh laid, but which in reality are many centuries older than the oldest we sometimes buy at home. A pocketbook with money in it tells its little story.

The population of Pompeii was probably about 25000 and all but 2000 made their escape. On the plaster casts of bodies made in molds of ashes surrounding them may be plainly seen the facial expressions preserved from that awful day.

We walk about the streets and think and wonder! We go to church. We go to the theatre. We enter the shops. We knock at the doors of homes. We go out to the Roman forum. Every spot has its story. Only a few steps away stands Vesuvius, the accused, who grimly acknowledges his guilt, and threatens more at his own convenient time. Sullenly he gazes on the ruin he has wrought, and in imagination, I can hear a guttural sound down

They did shake a little down here while we were in Florence. If the earth here only knew how to stop shaking after it starts, I should like to experience a "slight quake;" but from what we hear and from evidence in sight even from this bench. I am not asking for it. The crater from which is now issuing clouds of smoke and steam, used to be the lower of two openings until the old mountain in a fit of anger blew up scattering the higher portions all round the surrounding country.

Pompeii.

The morning train takes us from the station at Naples out past Herculaneum to Pompeii, the cities covered up nearly nineteen centuries ago, and now being excavated. Nothing has ever been discovered that has cast so much light on past generations as the uncovering of Pompeii. Ashes and pumice stone to a depth of eighteen to twenty feet have preserved perfectly so much that was here that we feel we are living in a past age and meeting people of long ago.

chuckle over what has been done, and what is yet to be.

Herculaneum is covered more than sixty feet deep in lava,-hard rock, hot ashes and loose pumice stone, and it will be many years before she can be uncovered. Pompeii is being rapidly excavated. More than two-thirds of her streets and buildings are now brought to light, and during this century the work will be entirely completed. Naples.

Old Naples and "New Naples" are two quite different cities. Via Roma might well be taken for Grand Avenue Milwaukee, except that the buildings are not so high, and the stores are small and crowded together. The stores and shops are beautiful and well kept and the street is thronged with vehicles and pedestrians. Just off from such well kept and modern streets, the drive takes us into narrow, vile, ugly streets packed with denizens of the old town. They grin at us, they point at us; they yell at us; they even actually throw missiles

at us as we drive through. We are glad we have seen this vile quarter, but we are still more pleased to see the sunshine at the end of that "glimpse of the lower world." "See Naples and die" is a phrase handed out to us by those who have stood on the highest point of San Martino and have looked over the city and out across the beautiful bay; or it may have been said by the observer from the rocky cliffs at Sorrento as he gazed from the home of Marion Crawford upon Naples across the bay curving gently as it does around the shores of one of the most beautiful harbors in the world. It was never said by the poet after a drive through "Old Naples" unless he wished to shut out the horrid scene from his memory forever.

Now we leave Naples by boat, sailing to Sorrento and Capri Lying flat in our little boat sent out from the steamer at Capri, tossing wildly about under the over-hanging wall of rock, we are pulled into the famous Blue Grotto. Everything is blue inside,-water, boats, persons are as blue as indigo. Drops of liquid blue fly from the plashing oar. But you can read a full description of the Blue Grotto elsewhere, and I am very anxious to take you on one of the most wonderful drives in the whole world. From Sorrento, we are to be driven, four in a landau for eighteen miles. through rocks and by sea shores, along steep precipices and between high mountains to Amalfi. where we shall spend Sunday, then on to LaCava, another fourteen mile drive with scenery unsurpassed anywhere in the world.

THERE'LL BE OTHERS.

A teacher in one of our elementary schools had noticed a striking platonic friendship that existed between Tommy and little Mary, two of her pupils.

Tommy was a bright enough youngster, but he wasn't disposed to prosecute his studies with much energy, and his teacher saw that unless he stirred himself before the end of the year he wouldn't be promoted.

"You must study harder," she told him, "or else you will not pass. How would you like to stay back in this class another year and have little Mary go ahead of you?"

"Aw" said Tommy, "I guess there'll be other little Marys." -Tit Bits. Teacher:-"Now, Jonnie, which would you rather have, two-sixths of a pie or one-third ?" Willie: "One-third, Miss."

Teacher (sarcastically)-"You would, eh! and why so?"

Willie :-"Cause if you cut it into sixths I'd lose more of the juice."

The quietest school is not always the best school; if it were a few cents worth of chloroform only would be needed. There is the hum of educational industry about the ideal school that is not distracting or annoying, but positively enjoyable to anyone that appreciates the true school spirit.

face the way the arrows indicate. During the singing of the first four lines each one of the four walks up to some one in the circle, bows and takes hold both of his hands. Then the four couples skip while the rest sing "Tra la la," etc. While singing next four lines the ones who were chosen last escort their partners to the places in the circle from where they themselves were recently chosen and back away from them, waving their hands as suggested in the song, until they are in the position indicated by the arrows. Then they begin again and continue the play until all have been chosen for a skip.

This is a description of a game in "Singing Games, Old and New" by Miss Marie Hoferon. It is a book that would be particularly valuable in any teacher's library. It contains descriptions and music and may be purchased from A. Flanagan Co. of Chicago, at seventy-five cents per copy.

JEAN MITCHELL'S SCHOOL.

If you want the very best thing that ever has been written on "school management" for rural schools get "Jean Mitchell's School" by Miss Angelina Wray, from the Public School Publishing Co., Bloomfield, Ill.

THAT EVER PRESENT PROBLEM-SCHOOL

DISCIPLINE.

The question of school discipline is as old as is the school itself, and despite the influence of modern scientific method on education it is not entirely a dead issue today so far as the practioner is concerned, even if the theorist has been disposed to make it a mere incident in a larger problem.

The old fashioned ferule and the long list of don'ts tell the story of past theory as well as of past practice. One age tells us that the child is born in sin and is, therefore, bad by nature, the corresponding practice being explained by the one word suppression. Another age insists that the child is by nature good, and, had it succeeded in establishing its theory, would have done away with any institutionalized form of education. The present day theorist seems to accept the negative of both these conceptions, viz, that the child is by. nature neither good nor bad; and in practice, though there is yet need of an element of suppression, it is in abnormal situations only, and wholly subordinate to the disposition to give positive and intelligent direction to the child's energy ever leading and pointing the way to a natural expression of the child's real self.

In theory we regard education as a continuous process of adjustment, a growth, a becoming; and we have in mind the whole child, physical, social or moral, and intellectual. We insist that education is incomplete till the child's knowledge gets over into action; and likewise that the physical condition of the pupil is always reflected in his social and intellectual activity. That is, whatever educates educates the whole child and not a part only.

In practice, however, we are prone to consider badness in children just as we do highness of trees, viz, as a bald fact, to be dealt with separately and alone, and it is because the ordinary case of discipline presents itself to the average teacher of today in this light that I beg leave to propose a point of view, which is not only more scientific, but by far more human as well, from which to view the situation. Let our attitude be positive not negative, let us regard any occasion for discipline as an opportunity for socializing, and therefore educating the child. Let hope and professional enthusiasm at the prospect of solving what we now regard as a genuine problem in education re

place the worry and oft times hopeless attempt at correction upon the old and unsound basis.

THOUGHTS FROM LOWELL.

"Not only around our infancy Doth Heaven with all its splendors lie; Daily with souls that cringe and plot, We Sinai's clinch and know it not." "For a cap and bells our lives we pay, Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking. "Tis Heaven alone that is given away, "Tis only God may be had for the asking."

IS DENSITY EQUIVALENT TO STUPIDITY? One day a teacher asked her class to write an essay on London about which they had just been reading. When examining their papers later, she was surprised to read the following:

"The people of London are noted for their stupidity."

"Where did you get that from?" she asked of the little girl who had written the paper.

"Please, teacher," the little miss replied, "it's all in the book. It says the population is very dense."

HISTORY TEACHING.

What is the average boy or girl interested in when first beginning the study of United States History; and, what is there in the subject that is of real vital importance to the child? These are questions which every teacher of the subject would do well to place beside the two questions she usually regards important, viz: what are the facts to be learned; and, how much must be completed in this grade? I would not be disposed to say that the latter questions should have no attention, but prefer rather to point out some of the significance of the former, which all too frequently play no part in the teacher's preparation for her work.

In the first place, the value of any subject lies, neither in the logic of its arrangement, nor in the mere facts of which it is composed, important as these are; but rather in the nature of the child. Education is growth, which goes on by continuous adjustment to new experiences. If left to play what he chooses, a boy will engage in a game which has a meaning for him. If given a task to perform he works at it in his own particular way. Now the point for the teacher here is simp

ly this, the first bit of educational theory she ever learned, and never practiced, viz: "thinking goes from the known to the unknown." To put it another way let us forget that we are teaching history and remember that we are teaching real, live children.

From this, without inquiring further into the social and psychological laws involved in the processes of education, it is plain to see that the approach to history is to be in terms of the child's own interests and experiences, and that therefore all historical facts are not of equal importance.

What does this mean to the teacher? First that the assignment is not to be made by pages, for one page may contain important, another unimportant facts for the child; second that we are not only to leave out entirely the meaningless but that we are to simplify by the use of story books, poems, pictures, maps, etc., the facts which have great meaning for the child. Or briefly, we are to edit our text-book.

In editing our book certain social as well as psychological laws must be recognized; for we shall as often ask what future, as what present value has this or that topic. As we begin the task we say first of all that the child is more likely to live a life of peace than a life of war; therefore, we shall stress battles and dead soldiers less, and peace, industry, and occupation more. Again it is more interesting to the child and surely has greater future value for him to know what important things have been done, who did them, how did they do them, and why did they do them that way, than to know a list of dear old Spanish names, the dates of a dozen fruitless efforts at colonization, where De Soto was buried, etc. It is better and more natural for the child to enter into the spirit of the early life in New England through an inquiry into the real problems which had to be solved in a wild country than through stories of Indian massacres. Our forefathers did something besides shoot Indians. They got hungry then just as we do now; how did they get food, and what must it have been? Probably not cauliflower or dill pickles. They needed homes. and there were no lumber yards or saw mills there. What did they build them of, how did they do it, and what did they look like? What other buildings did they erect besides homes?

From this discussion it seems clear that the subject is full of simple as well as heroic deeds deserving our consideration. The man with the hoe must appear along with the explorer, the general, and the president. America has become. great not alone because men have wielded swords and delivered flowing speeches, but also because the quieter tasks of the laborer and the scholar have been performed.

It is this aspect of history that not only finds meaning in terms of the child's own experiences but likewise prepares him for citizenship in a country whose motto is peace.

THOUGHTS.

"What I cannot praise I speak not of." Goethe. "A heart unspotted is not easily daunted."

Shakespeare. "Your labor only may be sold; your soul must not." Ruskin.

"The greatest remedy for anger is delay."

Seneca. "He who reigns within himself, and rules passions, Milton. desires and fears, is more than king."

"It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust." Johnson.

"Weigh not so much what men say as what they prove; remember that truth is simple and naked, and needs not invictive to apparel her comeliness." Sir Philip Sidney.

"The difficult part of good temper consists in forebearance, and accommodation to the ill humor of others." Emerson.

Modest, yet firm as nature's self, unblamed Save by the men his noble temper shamed; Not honored then or now because he wooed The popular voice, but that he still withstood; Broad minded, higher souled, there is but one Who was all this, and ours, and all men's Washington.

James Russell Lowell.

GRADE TEACHERS WANTED FOR THE NEXT

SCHOOL YEAR.

This is the time when the wise teacher enrolls for a position for the next school year. Already superin. tendents have lodged with us requests for some good, strong grade teachers for the school year 1911-12. We have a special offer for all who register this month. Write for our 1911 booklet.

THE PARKER TEACHERS' AGENCY,

Madison, Wisconsin.