He quality that makes for success. gives rich promise for the future. But he has dropped out of school and the rumor is current that he must go to work to earn money, that he must clothe himself. What tragedies there are all about us! Society permits this boy to do this and never utters a protest. Parents seem quite complacent, and, apparently, are unwilling to deviate from the regular order of things to keep him in school. The man falls overboard and there is great excitement; the boy falls overboard and the world wags on. NO USE to pose before these children and to protend this and that or even This and That. They know. Those eyes of theirs probe down into our very souls. They know what is pure gold and what is dross. They know what is genuine and what is spurious. No matter how they know. It is enough for us, yea, too much, it may be that they know. And when they turn from us, when they turn their eyes toward space instead of toward us, we shall want to climb down from the frail pedestal our own hands have made, and shall feel a longing to become as little children. * * * It may not be altogether conducive to a high degree of peace of mind and repose to reflect that the coachman who drives the children to our school receives more for caring for the horses than we receive for caring for the children, but there are always compensations. The father of the children who is also the owner of the horses probably takes a complacent view of the whole matter or he may make a great ado over his school taxes. But the teacher has the satisfaction of estimating the children more highly than the horses, no matter what the attitude of the father may be. * * * THE plow has completed its hibernation and is now sunning itself in front of the country store. The trousers of the small boy are shiny and his elbows are burrowing through his sleeves. There is just a hint of coming green in the fields and forests. Spring is beginning to be restless in its wintry bed. The robin is taking lessons in voice culture to be ready to wake the flowers with his song. The sun will soon start on his return trip. The pile of ashes back of the school-house has almost reached its maximum. Spring and .summer will soon bring lassitude. The seasons roll on and our work calls aloud. * * * How easy it all seems! A pleasant room, a shelf of books, a desk, a comfortable chair, and only forty boys and girls. Besides, only six hours of work in the whole long day of twenty-four hours. Then, too, think of the salary! If there is a sinecure in all this wide world the teacher certainly has it. She just sits there and asks a few questions or states a few facts and sends the children home. This conception of the teacher's work is more nearly universal than some of us might think, and so long as this conception obtains any sort of a meager salary seems too much. of giant proportions with our names painted upon it in huge letters of gold. So when the little craft came creeping into the harbor as quietly as the dawn we had no thought of its being our ship. It has no silken sails, no prow of gold, no diamond anchor. Its furnishings are simply a pair of oars just fitted to our hands. Nothing more. * * * THE teacher is always confronted with the question whether it is the mission of the school to feed the children or to make them hungry. Our mode of procedure would seem to indicate that we believe in the feeding process and, hence, we feed them to repletion and even to surfeit. Thus we produce, at times, a species of dyspepsia and they incline to eschew our bill of fare foreverNow if we were only wise enough to serve the food in such quantities and with such skill that they would hunger for more our work would be more effective. We need to produce a hunger that will last through life. more. * * * THE promotion of Prin. John S. Alan to the superintendency of the Mt. Vernon schools comes as a natural sequence of his fidelity to his predecessor and the ideas of progress he represented. They were in hearty accord, and Mr. Alan, better than any other man, understands the situation and can carry forward the work as it had been mapped out. In the promotion of Mr. Alan there is a lesson to all teachers which is altogether obvious. Had he been less progressive than his predecessor, or had he been a critic instead of a friend, or had he not made himself conversant with school plans, a promotion at this time might not have come. IN a recent questionaire Supt. I. C. Guinther of Galion asks whether the school should attempt to train the child in the hours out of school and, also, what means might be employed to get parents to exercise better control over their children outside of school hours. These are close questions and touch the vital elements in our work. Not a day passes but these questions, in substance, come to the teacher's mind. But no satisfactory answer is forthcoming. We see some of the difficulties but can not reach the source of the trouble. If we begin to probe we are in danger of being called impertinent. So what will you do about it? * * * SOME fine day we shall have a teacher in every building who will train the pupils to speak English. We need it. But before the arrival of those halcyon days it will be necessary to train up a race of teachers in the high art of speaking the language. There is nothing finer than a clear, correct, distinct pronunciation of words in a voice that is well modulated. Our pronunciation of English words is not altogether unlike the sound of pop-guns and that must be remedied before we can possibly impress foreigners as to our scholarship. This work must be begun in the primary grade and continued through the college. his bed at eight o'clock, and who gets to school late, this boy thinks school a bore and the teacher a tyrant. He'd rather loll around and pretend to be what he is not. He simply lacks the fiber that work and responsibility would give him. * * * MISS ALICE G. KNIGHTON of Birmingham, England, has been visiting some Ohio schools, recently, under appointment by the Mosely Commission and finds much to commend. One thing, however, seems to cause consternation and that is our slovenly pronunciation of what we are pleased to call English. In our schools and in our homes she found the most flagrant mispronunciation of the most common words and a lack of modulation that caused her to wonder what people were saying. However, she received a grain of comfort from noticing that we seem to understand one another even if she was unable to understand us. * JUDGE BEN LINDSEY of Denver is doing much to arouse the public to something like an adequate conception of the value of a boy. His theory is that it is easier and cheaper to save boys than to punish criminals and his plan of dealing with wayward boys has in it the quintessence of sound pedagogy whether he knows it by that name or not. When the policeman insisted upon the punishment of five boys for the theft of bicycles Judge Lindsey said "You are trying to save five bicycles, while I am trying to save five boys." It would be well for all teachers to read up on the Judge's plan of dealing with so-called incorrigible boys. * THE Dayton board of education has entered upon a campaign for more cleanliness and better sanitary conditions in the school buildings. They are mapping out a course looking to better janitor service. They will banish the feather duster into the limbo of forgotten things where it belongs. It is the very acme of incongruity for a grown man and a voter to go flirting about a building with a feather duster. Why not get a good vigorous rooster and let him flap his wings a time or two? It would be cheaper and quite as effective. Then too, this Dayton board will insist upon a greater degree of personal neatness on the part of janitors. There is no law to prevent a man taking a bath even though he happens to be a janitor. ** W. E. KERSHNER, Business Manager of the Ohio Teachers' and Pupils' Reading Circle informs us that already he has sold for teachers more than five thousand books in excess of the total number sold during the whole of last year. This means, of course, that Reading Circle work is more popular this year than ever before, that more Ohio teachers are using this means of increasing their scholarship and efficiency in their work. No teacher can afford to ignore this work seeing that it brings to them books that are of great value and that gives them much that will help them in their work. Besides all this, membership in the Reading Circle is a badge of progressiveness which school men and women quick to recognize and duly reward. * are THE Commencement ought to be the great annual field day for the schools. The speeches of the graduates need not be long in order to satisfy all demands. A five-minute speech, well written and well deliv ered, is better than a longer one of the other sort. The annual address ought to concern itself with affairs that touch the very life of the school. It should arouse the community to greater interest in education for the children, to better pay for good teaching, and to home training that will best aid the work of the teachers. Such an address will work great good to the schools in the future. Many a time have we known such an address to place teaching on a higher plane and to stimulate an increase in salaries for the whole body of teachers. Such an address adds greatly to the value of the commencement. * CANDIDATES for admission to the consular service will hereafter have to submit to an examination into their conversational abilities. They must know one modern language besides English, something of the varied resources of the United States, be familiar with political economy and the elements of international, commercial and maritime law, and have some knowledge of modern history. Their fitness in these respects will be tested by a written examination. Then they will be examined orally to discover whether they use good English in conversation, whether they can maintain their end of an argument with courtesy and tact, and, in short, to ascertain whether they will do credit to their country if sent abroad to represent it. The oral test will count for as much as the written test in determining the eligibility of the candidate. Those who pass will have to be good all-round men. * * * WHAT we want and what we need are very different matters. What we want might prove our undoing. What we really need might be very distasteful to us. What we want is excitement; what we need is repose. What we want is an automobile; what we need is a knowledge of botany that will cause a walk of a mile to yield us more pleasure than a forty-mile spin in an automobile. What we want is more money; what we need is sense enough to spend what we have for the profit and real pleasure of ourselves and those about us. What we want is a gold-headed cane; what we need is a level head so that any cane will be a superfluity. What we want is an inlaid mahogany writing-table; what we need is brains enough to write something worth while on this pine table. What we want is diamonds; what we need is a personality that will win without the aid of veneer. What we want is the applause of others; what we need is the approval of ourselves. What we want is to seem; what we need is to be. What we want is luxurious living; what we need is life. THE N. E. A. AT LOS ANGELES The disappointment in not holding the fiftieth anniversary of the N. E. A. in Philadelphia, where it was born, is as deep as it is universal. Teachers in all sections of the country were planning to attend the great meetings to be arranged by President Schaeffer and Supt. Brumbaugh during the week which includes July 4. It is generally believed that the attendance would have exceeded that of the Boston meeting. To know that this failure to realize the earnest expectation of the members of the greatest educational association in the world is due entirely to the action - stupidity seems the only word to characterize such action of Trunk Lines which would have received the greatest benefit resulting from favorable consideration, arouses indignation on the part of every member of the N. E. A. In view of the fact that the Executive Committee presented to the members of the Trunk Line Association opinions by legal counsel and rulings by the Interstate Commerce Commission which removed all doubts as to the legality of the usual ralroad rates and ticket conditions, the adverse action of this association, under the pretense that such rates and conditions are a violation of the provisions of the Interstate Commerce Law, is the best evidence that at least some of the railroads of the east are determined to do all in their power to discredit legislation which an overwhelming majority of the people believe is both necessary and just. It is pleasant, however, to turn from a consideration of such unreasonable and unjust action on the part of the Trunk Lines, especially those terminal in the city of Philadelphia, to the generous guaranty of the Santa Fe and Southern Pacific, the California terminal lines of the Transcontinental Passenger Association, which accompanied the cordial invitation of Los Angeles to hold the Anniversary Meeting in that beautiful city, where it was entertained with such rare hospitality eight years ago. This guaranty assures a rate of one fare for the round trip, plus the N. E. A. membership fee, from Chicago westward, with all other arrangements precisely as agreed upon for the San Francisco meeting which was to have been held last July. It will thus be seen that our cloud of disappointment has several silver linings. First it is a matter of congratula tion that the Executive Committee of the N. E. A., with President Schaeffer at its head, had the courage not to submit to the unfair, unreasonable, and unjust terms which some of the eastern roads seemed determined to force upon the Association. Their refusal thus to submit has earned for them the gratitude of every member of the N. E. A. Then it is a source of great satisfaction to know that the western roads were ready to place a sane construction upon recent railroad legislation and not use it as an excuse for refusing to grant the accommodations which have been enjoyed and appreciated by the members of the N. E. A. for so many years. And finally last but - last but not least - the meeting is to be held in Los Angeles and California. What memories of fruits and flowers, of sunshine and balmy air, of mountain and valley, of cordial people and good hotels and hospitable homes, of welcome genuine and hearty the names of both city and state aawken! We are all sorry we are not going to the Atlantic coast in July as had been planned, but out of the regret which necessitates the change arises the joy that our faces are turned toward the peaceful Pacific and the Land of Flowers where the "Buckeyes" will certainly go in large numbers and with their usual enthusiasm. O. T. CORSON. AN INTERESTING CITY. Altoona, Pennsylvania, in its surroundings is full of interest. cated near the summit of the Alleghanies with the famous horseshoebend only a few miles away, this rapidly growing city of 65,000 people is widely known for its beautiful natural scenery. |