TO BE petty is to be a sinner for the soul is an organ of generous proportions and pettiness does violence to this conception of the soul. There is a happy medium between parum and nimium and any transgression of either gives a feeling of unwisdom. The teacher who gave the servant a tip of two pennies for special services illustrates one extreme, but the act did not tend to exalt the teacher in the eyes of the servant. A soul of that size can not fill a schoolroom full to overflowing.

degree of efficiency and that means that the best teachers will be chosen first for the positions that offer better salaries. The teacher who hopes to ride into port on the wave of prosperity without pulling an oar will probably be disappointed.

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SCHOOL superintendents, principals, and teachers can do much to foster high literary standards in connection with their commencements. Unless shown to the contrary the pupils are apt to incline to the comic element. If plays are used nothing but those that have real literary merit should be tolerated. If they are permitted to use cheap trashy stuff that will be the standard of excellence they will carry with them and the school can not afford that sort of reputation.

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How often have you seen people who gave rich promise of doing great things suddenly pass into the gates of sleep and become quiescent. There is no condition more tragic. The soldier who is willing to do camp duty all the time isn't much of a soldier. If some one would only devise some method of arousing the sleeper the world would hail him as a hero. The trouble is the sleeper doesn't know he is asleep. He thinks he is having a good time, because he is required neither to think nor to act.

OURS is a rich heritage and our mission it is to pass this on to the future with no diminution and, if possible, with some little addition. Growth is a slow process but it is a poor sort of man or woman who can not add a mite in the course of years. To do it just the same way year in and year out, with no deviation betokens a very sluggish circulation, a very low order of life and living. Yesterday may have been good but today ought to be better. What we give ought to be better than what we received.

service in the schools he is often said to be too aggressive, more zealous than wise, having more sail than ballast, and other things not altogether complimentary.

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As A general rule general testimonials do not serve any useful purpose and, in a special way, it may be observed that boards of education almost invariably consign such testimonials to the nearest pigeonhole and without any great degree of reverence. It is much easier to get a hat full of such testimonials than to get a member of the board to read even one of them. An applicant for a position would do far better to get the board sufficiently interested in him to make an investigation of himself and his work.

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As we grow older and wiser there is a tendency to slough off the old and take on the new, or, at least, the newer. Acting upon this delicate suggestion of both Age and Wisdom we have revised our repertoire of educational addresses and have added the following bran new captions: The Bath-Tub as an Element in Civilization; The Laundry Bill as an Index of Character; The Psychology of Clean Linen; Brushes and other Christian Graces; The Salvation of the Back Alley; Cleanliness, External, Internal, Eternal.

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THE boys in the high school are returning to the pompadour style of hair-cut and this augurs well for the balmy June days. It is a hopeful sign to see these fine young fellows giving some attention to their heads albeit they lay stress upon the outside. The hope will not down that later on they will discover the inside of the head and will devote

Can't

IS GOOD Spelling a lost art? the schools with all the improved machinery teach a boy to spell, to see the letters in a simple word on the printed page? The spelling of many pupils in the higher grades and even in the high school is deplorable. Are teachers indifferent to this matter or do they regard it as merely a necessary evil that must be tolerated? Are we not so anxious to have the show element in our schools prominent that we neglect this very important matter of spelling? What is the trouble anyhow?

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THIS may be a good thing, this course of study. It may be an asset or it may be a responsibility. Whatever its value it did not come from Sinai on tables of stone. It is a fit subject for amendments and revisions. It may not fit this particular boy any better than some complimentary degrees fit the recipients, even though they have done hard

ONCE upon a time in a large county-seat in Ohio there was a superintendent who was so fearful that he might jeopardize his tenure of office that he would not advocate any advance movements. He would not recommend the use of supplementary books, he would not recommend professional journals, he would not recommend membership in the Ohio Teachers' Association, he would do nothing for the Reading Circle. He was "afraid of the cars" and so let things drift. And they drifted. Then in a very short time he drifted drifted out into oblivion.

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JUST now is a good time for us to begin to agitate the question of attending the Put-in-Bay meeting. Superintendents, especially, at the meetings of teachers have excellent opportunities to put this matter in its true light. Of course, if they are fearful of offending the sensibilities of their teachers, they will say nothing about it. But, if they are really sincere in their statement that the State Association is good for all teachers, they will even go Much so far as to urge the matter. depends upon whether they have the courage of their convictions.

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THE one great lesson that Supt. Leland left us as a noble heritage is the lesson of courage. He was never satisfied simply to hold his position. He ran against people because he was in motion, but he never ceased to move merely to please peo

ple who are standing still. He often said that he would rather work on the farm than to stifle his convictions of duty and merely drift with the current. When he was certain that he had his chisel set right on the block of marble, he struck, and when he struck his heart and great sterling manhood were behind the stroke.

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THE sun has not taken to rising in the west nor has water contracted the habit of running up hill. The law of cause and effect has never been abrogated, and the seasons come and go about as of old. Human nature is about the same as it was yesterday or last year. Children are about the same as in the days of our ancestors. The man will repair your umbrella while you wait, but school teaching is a different thing. There is no patent process, and no amount of legislation or agitation can change a school-house into a hot-house.

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SOME one has defined conservatism as stupidity. This definition is far too radical but there is a sort of conservatism that borders very closely upon stupidity. The teacher, whether superintendent or subordinate, who doesn't have knowledge enough or life enough to bring things to pass can readily take refuge behind the word conservatism when, in reality, there is no conservatism in it. Stupidity seems a harsh term to apply to the dead calm that prevails in that school, but a teacher with abounding life would soon smash the monotony of that situation into smithereens.

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THE public has a right to infer that teachers are interested in public questions and have some opinions that they would like to express on proper occasions. The teacher

is supposed to be a leader in his community and if he shrinks away from the interests of the community he is sadly discounted. He can not be expected to carry all the burdens but he loses fine opportunities if he fails to use his best endeavors for the advancement of better conditions in the community where he is working. His voice should be clear and strong for better things.

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IN February there came to our notice two instances in which boards of education refused to release teachers from their contracts in order to accept more lucrative places. This works a hardship to the teachers but there is a note of hope in such episodes. It shows conclusively that boards have come to realize that good teachers can not be picked up in an hour and from every fence-corner. Such action on the part of boards betokens a better condition of school affairs and these two teachers can solace themselves with the thought that they are martyrs in a good cause.

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A PROMINENT superintendent visited a primary teacher in one of the smaller cities of Ohio at the holiday season and offered her sixty-eight dollars a month to go into the schools over which he presides, with a promise of seventy-five dollars next year. That does not mean, necessarily, that the salary of primary teachers has advanced in Ohio to seventy-five dollars a month. It simply means that this particular teacher has advanced to the seventyfive dollar class. It means that just now boards of education are willing to pay good salaries to the right people.

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He is a fine boy, having every