teacher in order wisely to develop the body and mind of the child. Teachers can learn much from the fathers and mothers, for they have had many experiences that most teachers only theorize about.

In Green Bay, teachers' and parents' meetings are held in the place where it is most convenient for the parents to attend them, and at a time when it is most convenient for fathers as well as mothers to attend. By means of these meetings, we become better acquainted with the parents and we give them an opportunity of becoming better acquainted with the aims and methods of the teachers of their children. Since both are laboring earnestly for a common cause, an intimate acquaintance is mutually helpful. To this end, invitations are written on the blackboard by the teachers and these are copied by the pupils and delivered to every family in the district. How generously the parents have responded to these invitations may be observed from the fact that, at the last meeting which was held on the 15th inst., three rooms were crowded with grown people and it was necessary to repeat every number on the program three times. Some of the parents and many of the teachers have attended all of the meetings. The local papers have rendered valuable assistance by publishing the programs and by their accounts of the meetings.

Another purpose of these meetings is to show the parents how we teach school to-day, and what is taught in the schools at the present time. The class exercises afford an excellent opportunity for revealing the fact to the parents that the methods of teaching have undergone as much of a change since their childhood days as have the methods of conducting their business. By means of exhibits in drawing, penmanship, etc., and by conducting class exercises in nature study, music, or supplementary reading, we are able to enlist their interest in these new lines of school work and to get them to appreciate their importance and value.

In a district in which parents were reluctant to provide their children with material for drawing, a great deal of good has resulted from the discussion of "The Practical Value of Drawing." In a district in which there were many cases of truancy, the topic "Truancy, Causes, Remedies, and Methods of Dealing with Truants," has been discussed from the point of view of the teacher, the parent, and the board of education. In a district in which parents were inclined to be sensitive of the noise that children made on the playground, it has been helpful to have parents discuss

"The Rights of Children and the Rights of Others." For similar reasons and with uniformly good results, in different districts, we have discussed such subjects as "The Importance and Value of Habits of Regularity and of Punctuality," "Dangers of Forced Development-physical and mental," "Educative and Uneducative Punishments," "The Discipline of the Home and of the School."

By taking an actual part in these meetings parents are led to follow up a line of thought suggested by the discussions and other exercises that broadens their educational horizon and increases their interest in the school, the teacher and the child. By a better understanding of the aims, the methods, the character of the teacher, and the difficulties that he has to encounter, parents are better able and more willing to support and assist the teacher.

It must be remembered, however, that, in order to secure the best results, these public conferences must be supplemented by such private conferences of teacher and parent as the individual needs of the pupils may require. Both parents and teachers need to be watchful of the physical, mental, and moral tendencies of children and to hold frequent private conferences concerning the same. On account of the frequent change of teachers resulting from the current methods of promotion, it is of primary importance that this should be done as early in the year as possible. Teachers grope blindly in ignorance of a child's physical peculiarities which the parents understand. Defective vision and imperfect hearing often bring children under severe censure at school. A word of explanation from the parents would locate the child in the schoolroom at the most favorable point for overcoming the defect. Parents may know that their child possesses a nervous temperament which they have found a way of mitigating but not of controlling. The wise teacher will gladly coöperate with the parents in the use of like methods of discipline.

On the other hand, parents are frequently blind to habits and tendencies which the teacher's practical eye detects. If pupils develop certain characteristics at school which they do not manifest in the home; if imperfections of sight unknown to the parents are discovered by the teacher; if a pupil known to be hard of hearing grows more so; if a pupil is poor in one study or has some mental weakness which the teacher has discovered; if the teacher discovers any other physical, mental, or moral characteristics in his pupils which the parents do not know; or if he discovers any modification ci tendencies that are known to the par

ents, it is his duty to report the same and to coöperate with parents in their efforts to overcome these tendencies. Early conference, on matters of this kind, often leads to the correction of habits at a time of easy abandonment.

Again, parents do not always realize the importance of regularity in school hours. Children are called from school or kept out of school for some trifling service at home, or to do some errand that might be performed outside of schools hours without inconvenience to the home. By means of such unnecessary interruption, lessons are not properly prepared, interest in school wanes, careless habits are formed, and the value of school hours depreciated. A few minutes of calm conference of teacher and parent may remedy this and settle these questions for an entire school, and thus save time of both teachers and parents.

The value of these public and private meetings of teachers and parents is inestimable. They produce a better mutual understanding between the home and the school. They strengthen the hands of school authorities when these are honestly working for the improvement of the schools, and they furnish a means of checking them if they attempt to do wrong. Since such meetings have been held in Green Bay, the discipline of the schools has been much easier, because parents are naturally more willing to uphold a teacher who is personally known to them and with whose line of action they are familiar. The children themselves seem happier and more responsive while the stiff formal relation of parent and teacher has given place to a sort of friendliness that is very valuable.

In conclusion, it is but just to say that very much of the success of out meetings is due to the hearty and intelligent coöperation of the board of education, and of the teachers with whom I have the pleasure of being associated. F. G. KRAEGE.

Green Bay, Wis.

THEORY AND PRACTICE.

WASTE IN EDUCATION.

If a child, on mastering the words given on the first twenty pages of his Second Reader, is able, with a little help, to read intelligently in the Third Reader or even in the Fourth-and not a few children are able to do this-it is both wasteful and a form of fetish-worship to keep him dragging through the intervening pages. Nowadays the less that children see

of Third Readers and Fourth Readers the better.

Mathematics.

The

Boys who go to college at eighteen have, as a rule, spent from one-sixth to one-fourth of their entire school life in studying mathematics. Yet they know very little mathematics; what they know they usually know very imperfectly. They have wasted untold months, perhaps years. The mathematicssuperstition is still very strong in this country. Mathematics is thought to be more "practical" than literature, or science, or history, which seems to me absurd; and to be an unrivalled training for the reasoning powers, which is easily disproved. Mathematics has an indispensable place in education, of course, but that place is a much more subordinate one than it has been in the habit of occupying. It is, as now administered, a very wasteful subject of instruction, and more than any other it impedes the improvement of the average course of study. The child first "goes through" a primary, or elementary arithmetic; then he "goes through" an advanced arithmetic, devoting more than half his time to the identical topics contained in his former textbook. This is simple waste, of course. problem of the arrested development of children, which is the most fruitful field of investigation that lies before the child-study specialists, is bound to engage attention in the near future; and I am of opinion that the closer we get to it the more clearly will it appear that mathematics, "as she is taught," is the chief offender. I am familiar with a public school system in which much time is given to mathematics. The elementary school children study it for many hours each week. Those of them who get into the high school keep at it with the same devotion and energy, and study pretty much the same subjects as they did. when in the elementary schools. When the brightest high school graduates pass over into the city training class to fit themselves to teach, the asking of three questions is sufficient to prove that they do not know any mathematics, that they have not the dimmest idea of what it is all about, and that its boasted. power of logical training has been wholly lost on them. What it has done is to keep them from learning something else. So they are taught the same mathematics again. This is not an isolated, but fairly typical, instance of what is going on all over our country.

Literature and Nature Study.

To plan intelligently for a child's education means to keep him constantly at something

that is new and something that is real to him, something that is adapted to his capacity and related to what he already knows. It is to make a plan for a particular child; but it may involve grave error to copy it exactly for his brothers or sisters or cousins or friends. It is to make a plan that aims to discover and to develop capacity, no matter how young the child may be. Whatever the variations in detail, literature and nature study should be the earliest and ever-present elements of any plan. From the hours that a child spends in his mother's arms, he should be brought into contact with the material and form of genuine literature, literature that means something. This does not mean Homer or Dante or Shakespeare, of course, but the fairy tales, the myths, and the nursery rhymes that are part of the inheritance of the race. A boy ought to know a good deal of literature, to love it, and to have caught a bit of the literary spirit, if only by imitation, long before he knows by sight more than half the letters of the alphabet. From his first stumbling steps about the nursery he should be kept similarly in contact with nature in some form. Animals and growing plants should be his earliest teachers in nature study, and when he first takes his seat in an organized school, a considerable number of the facts of nature should be familiar to him, and he should be truly appreciative of them. To the query as to how this is possible, it may be bluntly answered because it has been done and is being done all the time by observant mothers. Of course, if the child is so unfortunate as to be given at this time the task of acquiring some facility in speaking French or German, from association with a nursemaid or a nursery governess, at the expense of gaining an idiomatic and careful use of the mother tongue, and if all his mental energy is turned inward instead of outward, then an educational chaos is likely to result, that does incalculable damage and prevents any number of good things from taking place in his mental life.

Once in school the chief elements of wasted time for the child are: (1) annual, or even semi-annual, promotions that may not be departed from; (2) reviews and examinations in the interest of so-called "thoroughness;" and (3) bad teaching.

A school that moves forward in February or June in solid phalanx, and then only, might do for wooden Indians, but it is not suited to growing human beings. A pupil ought to be changed in grade just as often as it is apparent that he is either overtaxed where he is, or that he is not taxed enough. Theories must

give way to facts. The "system" is for the pupils, not the pupils for the "system." Of course, to deal with the needs and capacities of each pupil costs trouble; but then all education is more or less troublesome to somebody. It worries some principals and teachers to think that a pupil promoted in November, for instance, will be likely to "lose" all that his old class goes over from November till February, and all that his new class has gone over from September to November. there is to worry about is a puzzle to me. It seems rather a cause for congratulation that this particular child can get along without some scraps of information that others seem to need.

Thoroughness.

What

The fetish of Thoroughness is another form of the pedagogue's paganism. To know anything thoroughly does not necessarily mean, happily, to be able to call it by name, or to recall it on any and every occasion, but to know its relations to other things or occurrences, its causes and its effects. That sort of knowledge comes, and can only come from reflection. To do a thing or to repeat a thing over and over is by no means to reflect upon it. Repetitions are not always reviews, and memory-tests are rarely examinations. A review and an examination should always be reflective in character.-N. M. Butler in the Outlook.

THE RECITATION.

The time when pupil and teacher face each other in the class is the most important period of the school day; it is the one devoted to actual teaching; the rest of the day the pupil is supposedly studying. That this period is often frittered away will be agreed to; very conscientious teachers are as guilty of it as others.

Not long ago a school was visited where the principal had a class of fourteen boys and girls in interest. He was a competent man, well posted, and a good manager, and yet he produced a feeble result; he was aware of this, and charged two or three pupils for being absent and not knowing the lesson as the cause of the defective recitation. First, he assigned each a problem, and all except one went to the blackboard, and went vigorously to work; this he questioned and debated with, but as the rest were at work, they did not get his explanations. This was the first defect. All having finished, one was called on to explain a problem in computing interest at six per cent. A mistake had been made in "pointing off," and

the teacher questioned for the rule for pointing off in division of decimals. None could give it accurately for some time; full half of the period was spent thus. Then percentage was taken up; there the pupil showed ignorance, and the rest of the class was called on by questions. As they understood the matter they were not interested. Finally, one after another analyzed problems; but as the rest understood them, some yawned, and others looked in books and thus passed the hour.

Another class was visited in another school studying the same subject-computing interest at six per cent.—and it seemed to me he accomplished an adequate result. This was his method: The class was larger than the other, having twenty-two pupils; (1) ten problems having been assigned on the preceding day, and the method explained, the teacher asked: "Any who have not performed the problems?" No negatives being given, he credited all with ten. Each pupil handed in a "scratch-book," with the problems, and received the books they handed in yesterday. (This demanded that each should have two books.) (2) The problems to be solved tomorrow were given out. The teacher had a blackboard beside him, and quickly worked out a problem, to illustrate the method by which they were to be solved. Any one that wanted to, questioned. (3) A small blackboard, three by four feet, was put on the easel on which one of the pupils had previously placed a solution of one of the problems for the day.

All now gave close attention; (a) one stated the problem, (b) one gave the first step, (c) another the reason, etc. The teacher questioned closely and rapidly: "Why was this?" "Why was that?" The "pointing off" came up as in the other class, but they had been over it so thoroly that it offered no obstacle. All this was done so rapidly that there was time to spare. (4) A problem was given out to be solved in their "scratchbooks," one pupil performing on the blackboard. The teacher demanded, "Work fast." Then followed criticisms on the method of the one using the blackboard.

There was no yawning for inattention in this class. The teacher was asked, "Suppose a pupil is absent what then?" He said: "If one is absent three days, that amounts to thirty problems. I insist on these being performed, unless the pupil is sick. As these are not too difficult, they bring me their "scratchbook," with the solutions, when they come." The teacher must have a method that gives him possession of the pupil at the time of the recitation. He must think of the blacksmith

at his forge. at his forge. He must contrive to keep every one busy, thinking on the same subject. At their seats they are busy, but there they think on different things; that is needful, of course. In the recitation, he must contrive to hold them as the orator does; but not by his words; they are held by the thoughtsthe arithmetic, the geography, etc.

A well-managed class like this last one described will often be found to need no recita

tion. (1) They understand the problems perfectly. (2) They compare from the computations rapidly and accurately. In this case, the skilful teacher will employ the time (1) in reviews, (2) in anticipating matters that lie some days in advance, (3) or in some problems that will demand skill in untying knots. Some teachers frankly say, "You need no help from me, and may return to your seats."

In the recitation, the teacher should stubbornly refuse to teach one pupil; it is his business to teach all. If one pupil cannot perform the problem, he is not to stop and show that pupil. That he did yesterday when the problems were given out. To-day he will perform a problem in the light of whose solution ten others can be performed, varying in particulars. To-day he will have one solution. inspected with microscopic care, and the whys and wherefores given. This is the place where the one who cannot perform the problems is to gain help.

On

In the first class described, all the pupils were supposed to be able to add, subtract, multiply, and divide; and yet they spent much of the time in the class on these operations. But this time is too valuable. I had heavy paper boards, three by four feet, covered with slating, thus making small blackboards. these, each pupil put a solution before the recitation period. Then one placed his on the easel and rapidly explained; then another, and so on. It was not uncommon when one was placed before the class to ask, after it was inspected, "Is there anything here that needs explanation?" If no one spoke, it was laid aside.

These suggestions are made to induce teachers to rightly use the recitation time. In some way he must compel himself to give up teaching one pupil, and give himself to the task of teaching all. He can teach one thru all, but not all thru one.-By M. L. Townsend, Iowa. THE COUNTY INSTITUTE FROM THE TEACHER'S STANDPOINT.

A large number of women and a small number of men form the teaching force of this state. They work at their profession for nine

months out of the twelve faithfully, and most of them cheerfully.

Out of the three months of the year left they are called together for two weeks of institute work; presumably two weeks of study that will make them better teachers, inspire them for the coming year's work. Such is the original purpose of the institute.

When we join a crowd of these teachers going to institute do we hear them eagerly discussing the new ideas they are gaining? By no means. If you ask the reason for this some one will laconically inform you that they don't get any new ideas.

If they have attended as many as two institutes before the new has worn off, then you will hear nothing but grumbling and fretting and criticism.

I know it is easy to find fault, but are we to use this tendency of human nature as an explanation of this complete lack of interest? Are the teachers incapable of taking their own medicine? All the year they have been teaching the children to study, to love to study, and now are they unable to do the same thing themselves? No.

In an institute the new has no business to wear off. The purpose of an institute is to be fresh and living, new and inspiring. The old ruts are the dangers of teaching, and it is from them that the institute should save us.

What does it do?

The primary, intermediate, grammar, high school and country teachers all study arithmetic and grammar, history and geography as they are taught in the grammar rooms. They not only have them this year, but they had them last year, and the year before, and the year before that, and so on back for every year since they entered the profession, at which time it was decided by an examination that they were already fairly well versed in these studies.

It is understood that thoro mastication is necessary for proper assimilation of food, either mental or physical, but there is nothing you can chew on forever-except rubber gum. And these studies are not gum.

There is nothing grander than the study of our English language, its growth and history, its grammar and use in literature. The enthusiast's eyes will always grow bright over the beauties in the science of numbers and quantity.

But these are the enthusiasm of specialists. We all know that the institute simply takes up or tries to take up part of the work of the grammar grade or high school.

There are the problems in arithmetic, the grammar review, a peep into algebra and

physics; just a hint of what the high school scholar is expected to have mastered.

Is it to give culture that this week of study is granted the teachers?

Mental culture is only gained by the mind teaching new paths of thought. There is nothing gained by threshing over old straw; no wheat, nothing but dust.

Is it for professional training? Then we are all to be grammar grade or high school teachers. No primary or intermediate pupil was ever taught problems in discount and mensuration, analysis of sentences or the inflection of parts of speech.

Then is it to prepare the teacher to pass the examination?

Haven't we wandered a little from Horace Mann's institutes? Any teacher can accomplish more in one hour in her room reviewing than in the whole week of institute classes.

So far as the common branches are concerned you have known it all once, else how did you get your certificate? It is simply a question of refreshing your memory. The affair resolves itself into a problem of economy. Is a teacher to pay money and spend two weeks of time for a review that she can do better in as many days at home and save her money?

But the new laws require other than the common branches.

Yes. Imagine preparing for an examination in political economy, algebra, physics, by a recitation in each of an hour a day for two weeks.

Now, how much breadth of thought, how much appreciation of the sociological and political problems of the day is gained by the mastery of that little hand-book on political economy with which we were favored the year that study was introduced?

Our legislators have been throwing out laws something like ready-made clothing, leaving the superintendents to fit them. It was only human, in this rush of adaptation, to cut off the coat-collar rather than the teacher's head when something had to be done.

But the fact remains that we have left with us a two-weeks' institute in which to prepare for examination.

Time and money worse than wasted in idling over the common branches; time and money worse than wasted in getting a smattering of the new studies. The whole thing absurd on the face of it. A worry to the superintendent, an exasperation and aggravation to the teacher who is capable of independent study, a crutch to teachers who are indolent, a benefit to no one but those instructors who are hired to do the teaching.