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esting thots is a pleasure. What child of seven or eight cares what six times twenty-two make? But when he and five companions each sees twenty-two red-winged grasshoppers on a given excursion, the question as to how many they have all seen is an entirely different one. What child cares to draw a mere figure, or some object taken to the school just for the sake of being drawn? But what child does not take an interest in drawing if he is asked to put on paper his ideas of a certain scene, or to represent, as he sees it, an object he is already interested in?

These illustrations might be continued indefinitely. But they will serve their purpose if they show how the interest of interesting work may be carried over to uninteresting work, and how all the work of the school may in this way be made interesting. It ought to be noted also that such work deepens the interest in, and the value of, the work that is already interesting. A child who draws a scene as it is in his mind, or an object as he sees it, cares more about the scene and the object than he did before he drew them. When he has read a story about an animal he is interested in, he is more interested in it than he was before. When he has used numbers to learn how many objects of a certain class he has seen, or what proportion one class forms to another class, the greater definiteness of his ideas is a source of pleasure. By connecting, then, the interesting work of the school with that which would otherwise be uninteresting, the uninteresting work not only becomes interesting-it adds to the value, and intensifies the interest of the work that is already interesting.-Gordy's New Psychology.

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Henry Ward Beecher used to tell this story of the way in which his teacher of mathematics taught him to depend upon himself:

"I was sent to the blackboard, and went, uncertain, full of whimpering."

"That lesson must be learned,' said my teacher, in a very quiet tone, but with terrible intensity. All explanations and excuses he trod under foot with utter scornfulness. ‘I want that problem; I don't want any reasons why you haven't it,' he would say. "I did study it two hours.' "That is nothing to me. I want the lesYou may not study it at all, or you may study it ten hours, just suit yourself. I want the lesson.'

son.

"It was tough for a green boy, but it seasoned me. In less than a month I had the most intense sense of intellectual independence and courage to defend my recitations.

"One day his cold, calm voice fell upon me in the midst of a demonstration, 'No!' I hesitated and then went back to the beginning, and on reaching the same point again, 'No!' uttered in a tone of conviction barred my progress.

"The next!' and I sat down in red confusion.

"He, too, was stopped with 'No!' but went right on, finished, and as he sat down was rewarded with 'Very well.'

"Why,' whimpered I, 'I recited it just as he did, and you said 'No!"

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''Why didn't you say 'Yes,' and stick to it? It is not enough to know your lesson. You must know that you know it. You have

learned nothing till you are sure. If all the world says 'No!' your business is to say 'Yes,' and prove it.'"-Southern Educational Four

nal.

NAMES WE MISSED.

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It was intended that Maryland should be called "Crescentia," but Charles I. changed it to "Terra Mariae," in honor of his wife, and we made it "Mary's Land," hence Maryland; the home pronunciation being "Merrylon.' William Penn wanted to call his state "New Wales," but afterwards decided upon "Sylvania," to which the king prefixed the word Penn. The territory on the west of Lake Michigan was to be called "Michigania," and that to the eastward of the lake within the peninsula formed by lakes and waters of Michigan, Huron, St. Clair, and Erie, was to be called "Chersonesus." The territory through which the Rock river runs was to be called "Assenisipia," and that to the eastward, in which are the sources of the two Miamis of the Ohio, the Wabash, the Illinois, the Miamis of the Lake, and the Sandusky rivers, was to be called "Metropotamia." The territory through which the Illinois river runs was to be called "Illinoia." The next territory joining to the eastward was to be "Saratoga," and that between the last and Pennsylvania, extending from the Ohio to Lake Erie, was to be "Washington." All that region adjacent to which are the confluences of the Wabash, Shawnee, Tanisee, Ohio, Illinois, Mississippi, and Missouri rivers was to be called "Polytamia." That territory farther up the Ohio river was to be called "Pelisipia." An exchange says, after remarks upon these names, "Verily, a watchful Providence seems to have guarded us from these afflictions."

PRIMARY READING.

There is a distinction between learning to read and reading. The child learns to read for the same reason that an Eskimo boy learns to drive a team of dogs, because he needs to, the kind of civilization that is around him has made it necessary. The end to be gained is skill. The immediate effect of the process on the child's mental growth and happiness is fairly a question. Whether, on the one hand, it is, like learning to eat, healthful and directly beneficial, or, on the other hand, like cutting teeth, a necessary, but more or less serious disturbance to health and happiness, matters not here; that probably depends upon the teacher and the method. But the principal reason, in either

case, why a child should learn to read is the ultimate usefulness of the power to read.

Experience seems to show that an average child at the end of the third year in a good school, is, or should be able to read with satisfaction almost anything that is within his range of thought. That is, the power to get thought from a printed page has caught up with the power to think; and the art of reading has become so automatic and subconscious, that it no longer interferes seriously with the act of thinking. Assuming, then, that by the end of the third or at most the fourth year in school, the child's reading teeth are all cut, there remain four or five years in the grammar school course in which reading is primarily and almost purely a process of getting thought.-Frank E. Sanford, in American Primary Teacher.

THE LOVE OF READING.

An interesting experiment has been tried this term in the evening continuation schools of the London School Board. Arrangements were made for a story-telling evening once a week, and seventeen lecturers or story-tellers, were appointed to undertake the work. The aim of the course is "to inculcate a love of reading among the boys and girls who have just left school;" and, to this end, the stories told are taken from standard English works in prose or poetry, illustrated by selections from the writings themselves, and also by pictures and photographs. In this way the boys and girls have been introduced to such works as "Ivanhoe," "Adam Bede," "Westward Ho!" "David Copperfield," "Hamlet," and "The Merchant of Venice." The syllabuses vary considerably, of course, but in each case the teacher is attempting the same thing to develop the literary taste and whet the literary appetite of his listeners; to teach them to know good literature from trash, and to choose the former rather than the latter.

This experiment of the London School Board is of wide significance. It touches the whole of the educational field, and it may well cause us all to search our hearts, and honestly ask how far the ordinary curriculum of a secondary school succeeds in inculcating a love of reading in its scholars. How much does the ordinary boy or girl of sixteen know or care about English literature when he or she leaves school? And is it altogether their fault if the acquirement in each case is small?

There is a certain humor, and pathos, too, about the fact that "the love of reading" has to be taught in a special lesson outside the ordinary school curriculum. We have so carefully and methodically mapped out our school

time and planned the various subjects of study that such a vague and indefinite thing as "the love of reading" is, somehow or other squeezed out of our neatly drawn-up syllabuses. It is to be feared that a very large number of the pupils who pass through our schools step across the threshold for the last time with feelings in which a sense of relief is pleasantly mingled with one of finality.

The schoolboy, leaving school for business, throws his Latin book and his English history into the cupboard, and bangs the door on them, ejaculating, as he does so: "There, thank goodness, is the last of it! No more school-books for me." The schoolgirl, in much the same terms, expresses similar feelings, and looks forward to the time when she can put her hair up and her frocks down, troubling no more about "lessons" save, perhaps, a little music and painting.

One is not now concerned with the studious minority who distinguish themselves in examinations and, in some cases, proceed to the university. These may safely be left to themselves, though it may be said, in passing, that your examination specialist is by no means always a lover of books. It is of "the greatest happiness of the greatest number"-the non-studious majority that one thinks here. Could we not do more than we do at present to get them to care about books? The example of the London School Board might well be followed, and an afternoon hour might profitably be spent in fostering literary enthusiasm and developing literary taste.-Educational Times (England.)

THEORY AND PRACTICE.

COUNTY MODEL SCHOOLS IN ONTARIO.

By the School Act of 1871 provision was made for the appointment of a public school inspector in each county, or, where the counties were very large, for the appointment of more inspectors than one. By the act of 1877 provision was made for the establishment of a model school in every inspectoral division, and no person was thereafter allowed to enter the teaching profession unless he attended a term at the model school and passed the prescribed examination.

The county model school, subject to the regulations of the education department, is under the direction of a board of examiners, of whom the inspector is one, and not more than two other persons holding first-class certificates of qualification appointed by the

municipal council of the county. The board of examiners is authorized to select from among the large public schools in the county or inspectoral district the particular school which in its opinion will best serve the purpose of a model school for the training of teachers. Usually the school in some incorporated village or town having the largest number of teachers, and the most easily accessible to the district, is selected. A school so established receives a special grant from the provincial treasury, and also from the county, in addition to all ordinary school grants.

The model school opens on the 1st of September and continues four months. No teacher is admitted to the county model school who has not passed at least the examination required for third-class literary standing, and who will be not less than eighteen years of age at the time of the final examination.

I.

In order to guarantee the efficiency of the model school the department requires: That the principal shall hold a first-class certificate--i. e., a certificate of the highest grade issued by the education department-and shall have had at least three years' experience as a public school teacher. 2. That not fewer than three of the assistants on the staff of the school shall hold at least second-class certificates. 3. That the equipment of the school shall be in every respect satisfactory to the Education Department. 4. That in addition to the number of rooms required for the public school, a separate room shall be available for the teachers in training during their attendance at the model school. 5. That during the model school term the principal shall be relieved of all public school duties except the oversight of his staff.

It will be observed that a county model school is therefore presumably the best and largest public school in the inspectoral division, with a principal of considerable experience and high professional attainments, with a well-organized staff, and with all the other equipments and appliances necessary to the efficiency of a good school.

Every teacher in training is required to provide himself with a set of all the text-books used in the public school, and with such other books as may be required for training purposes.

Course of Study. The course of study in county model schools consists of (a) instruction in school organization and management based on Baldwin's Art of School Management adapted to Canadian schools; (b) a course of lectures in the methodology of all the sub

jects taught in the public schools; (c) practice teaching with a view to the establishment of correct methods of presenting subjects to a class and of developing the art of school government; (d) a course in physiology and school sanitation; (e) instruction in the school law and regulations relating to the duties of teachers and pupils; (f) special instruction in music for primary classes; and (g) drill and calisthenics.

During the first six weeks of the term the work of the model school consists of (a) lectures by the principal; (b) class teaching by the principal; (c) class teaching by the students, and general criticism. After the first

two or three lectures by the principal, classes are drafted from the public school, by means of which the principal of the model school illustrates his method of teaching the subject to which he wishes to direct the attention of the teachers in training. This done, the principal assigns a lesson for class teaching by the model school students, which any student, if called upon, shall be expected to teach the following day-the other students to take notes for subsequent criticism. For six weeks, by means of lectures and class teaching by the principal and the students, with appropriate criticisms, the teachers have acquired enlarged powers of observation, greater confidence in themselves, and some conception of the logical order in which a subject should be presented to a class.

During the remainder of the term the time of the teachers in training is divided between lectures by the principal, observing methods of teaching in the different rooms of the public school to which the model school is attached, and in teaching such subjects as may be assigned to them. Every teacher in training before conducting a recitation in the public school is required to prepare a plan of the lesson which he is to teach, and to submit the same for the approval of the principal or assistant in charge of the class. While teaching, the assistant or principal is required to take notes of the work of the teacher in training, such as his attitude before his class, his mode of presenting the subject—whether logical or otherwise-his mode of questioning the pupils and of dealing with their answers, his mode of explaining difficulties-whether clear and complete or otherwise, etc. These criticisms are made known to the teacher in training privately, or are made the subject of a lecture by the principal for the benefit of the whole class at a later stage.

A small reference library is provided for each model school by the education depart

ment, consisting of such books as are considered most helpful in preparing teachers for their work, and in increasing their knowledge of education, both as a science and an art.

Final Examinations.—The final examination consists of practical teaching by the teachers in training in presence of the board of examiners, and also a written examination on papers submitted by the education department. The examination in practical teaching consists of two lessons of twenty minutes each, for one of which the teacher is allowed ample time for preparation; the other is assigned forty minutes before it is to be taught. These two lessons are not to be taught in the same form, nor in the same subject, nor before the same examiners.

As the examiner is either the inspector or an experienced teacher of the highest standing, he is fully qualified to pronounce judgment upon every teacher in training that comes before him. By personal observation he can form an opinion as to his manner before his pupils, his force of character, his power to command attention, and the many other elements only perceptible to an experienced eye and ear, which are essential to a teachers success and to his influence over his pupils. These qualities he appraises according to a scale of one hundred marks. If the candidate falls below fifty marks he is rejected, and is required to attend another session if he still desires to enter the profession.

The written examination is conducted on papers prepared under the direction of the Education Department by a committee of inspectors or teachers of the highest standing. These papers are printed by the confidential printer of the department, are transmitted under seal to the inspector, and are given out to the teachers in training according to a time table prepared by the department. The answers of the candidates are read by the board of examiners and appraised according to the standard of marks assigned to each paper by the department.

In order to protect the candidate at his professional examination, as has already been indicated with regard to the literary examination, the examiners consider, conjointly with the examination which they are authorized to conduct, a report from the principal of the school with regard to the standing of every teacher in training during the term, and on the strength of these three different estimates of his attainments-viz., teaching in their own presence, the answers of the written papers, and the report of the principal and assistants of the model school-a candidate is passed or

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half.

They both attended all the year, and are both in school this year. A few of our students are completing the course in three years, while others cannot complete it in five years. The average student carries three studies, makes nine credits a year, and completes the course in four years. We require at least thirty-six credits for graduation, but one of our graduates last year had forty-eight, and another one who had thirty-six is attending regularly this year. Reports are made at the close of each month, and finals are entered at the close of the year. If a student fails two months in succession he is required to discontinue that study until the following year. "Conditions" are not so frequent in this manner, as they are imposed only for absence from examination or poor work toward the close of the year. The effect of this system is to make students less eager to graduate and more eager to make a good record. It also appeals to their sense of justice, because they are rewarded according to their individual deeds. We find the system highly satisfactory. sample report will serve to explain some of the details. H. F. KLING.

Evansville, Wis.

After eighteen years' experience of the working of county model schools, it is the universal opinion of the profession in Ontario that the training, even elementary and limited as it is, is invaluable to the young teacher. His knowledge of the philosophy of education may not be very extensive; he may not even have acquired sufficient knowledge of school organization to classify properly a large ungraded school; but he has, however, learned the necessity of teaching according to some preconceived design or lesson plan, of guarding against all unprofessional peculiarities which might mar his usefulness, of practicing selfcontrol and personal dignity before a class, of cultivating the attentive interest of his pupils, and of presenting his own thoughts with clearness, fluency, and animation. When he takes charge of a school for the first time, he knows Principal. Forty-one credits. what to do, and within certain limitations how to do it, and consequently avoids the mistakes of a teacher wholly inexperienced. also become acquainted with a wider field of professional literature, and is impressed with the necessity of higher educational attainments. In many cases the professional esprit de corps, aroused at the county model school, has been the means of leading the young teacher to to professional eminence. county model school has certainly secured for Ontario a system of preliminary training for teachers at once effective and inexpensive. — The School System of Ontario, by G. W. Ross.

CONTRIBUTIONS.

CREDITS IN THE HIGH SCHOOL.

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Differences in the ability of high school students have given rise to five years' courses, preparatory classes, and other devices, but the real difficulty is best overcome by a simple credit system similar to that used in universities. A brief statement of the method followed here will serve to explain the system. We count five recitations per week for twelve weeks, or sixty recitations, as one credit. Last year one of our students made thirteen credits, while another made just one and one

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Report of Standing in Evansville High School. Student.-Susan Wilkins. H. F. Kling,

1895 to 1898,

inclusive.

CLASSICAL.

First Year

Periods

Final

General Hisory: 36
Latin....
Phys. Geography.
Readings..

Weeks. per week.

standing. Credits.

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