THERE are many things in life that bear no price-tag and that for the reason that they have no money equivalent. But this is not an easy lesson to teach, Ears have been dulled to fine sounds by the vulgar clinking of coin and eyes have been be-filmed by the vulgar display of bank-notes. The gifts of Raphael, Rubens, William the Silent, Abraham Lincoln, Shakespeare, Longfellow and Hawthorne to the world can not be measured in money. What our young people need to learn is that the thing we call education can give them power to extract more joy from life than ever could be purchased with money. * * * WE are all more or less inclined to blame some one for the disagreeable things in our lives. The merchant may find his partner useful in this respect, the wife may find the husband a convenience and the teacher may use the pupil for a like purpose. When we are having a disagreeable time we keep aloof from the mirror. It may be indigestion or loss of sleep, or fatigue caused by a too ardent indulgence in social gayeties it matters not about the cause. The result is the same. The boy in the front seat may be called into service at any moment to bear the brunt. He knows the whole truth, but with heroic fortitude amounting almost to stolidity he makes the sacrifice for Dear Teacher. * * * I WANT my child to attend the public school, for there he will be imbued with the fundamental principles of true democracy. He will be given credit for meritorious. work though his clothing may be coarse and his pockets empty of coin. He may not ride to school in an automobile; he may have to eat a cold lunch; he may not know the latest slang of the theater and the skating-rink, but if he does his work well he will have the approval of his teacher and of his schoolmates. He may live in a poor home on a side street, but that fact does not militate against him if he is faithful to his duties and respects himself and others. If he doesn't learn the meaning of democracy in the public school he is hopeless. * ANENT the subject of teachers' examination the School News quotes one of the county superintendents of Illnois as follows: “I care very little about just the number of facts on a given subject which each teacher happens to have in mind at the hour of examination, but I do care very much to know how thoroughly she has digested a few facts and how she is likely to think about any problem that may arise in the school room. In other words, the whole question of teaching is a matter of the personality of the teacher. The real question is the character of her mental habits, how she looks at things; how she thinks about things; whether she thinks about things at all, or simply remembers things. Now all this is to be found out as much by tone of voice and expression of face as it is by word." * IF by any chance the superintendent should muster up courage enough next spring to drop one of the "dead ones" off the recommended list there would ensue in a single day more activity and signs of life than that same teacher has shown altogether in the past ten years. He, she, it would be up and doing at once. Possibly, such rastic measures might prove a real blessing to such a teacher in. giving a new lease on life-physical, spiritual, and professional. Such a "dead one" seems to feel secure because she has not been dropped before. The old colored man on July 5th said, "Well, I got a long time befo' me yet, for I mos' allus notis dat if I live till aftah de Fo'th of July, I live out de res' ob de yeah." * A MEMBER of a board of education who is also something of a philosopher, said in a conversation recently: "If you are going to stir up a hornet's nest you ought to use a long pole." There it is in a nutshell! This is much the same as the old story about living in glasshouses and throwing stones, and much the same, also, as the story about extracting from the eyes motes and beams, and the lesson is the same. The best way to rebuke a wrong act is to do better. The best way to get rid of the weeds is to hoe the potatoes. While one man stands railing at some real or imaginary evil the other man has been doing something for his kind. and has added somewhat to the sum of human happiness. The selfappointed critic may have his uses but his method of work doesn't always bring the answer. PRAY, let us not reproach the boy for his curiosity. That is the very lever with which he will pry open the secrets of the sciences, the lan guages, and mathematics. If he hasn't curiosity he hasn't much of anything and we teachers will have a dreary time trying to inject our precious facts into his noddle. That children should be seen and not heard is a philosophy as cruel as it is false. Curiosity is not only the child's right but also his great boon. If he doesn't ask questions he needs a physician, and if he does ask questions his teacher and his parents. should rejoice and be exceeding glad. His questions may drive us into a corner, but with the child to lead us we ought to be able to find our way out. * THE scolding, nagging teacher very soon transforms sublimated order into chaos and then thinks the children are to blame. Scolding is an evidence of a lack of resourcefulness, and simply means that we are trying to throw upon others the blame for our own inefficiency. The scolding preacher soon empties the pews. The scolding platform speaker soon finds himself without dates. The scolding house-wife drives her husband and sons from the house. This is not because of the scolding alone, but because we all crave that which is positive and are not content with the negative. The children may not be able to get away from the scolding teacher, but they long to be somewhere else. Indeed, their bodies may be present but their hearts are absent. ** If we are absolutely certain that nothing but a surgical operation will save the boy, then, by all means, let us have the courage to perform the operation. Oh, yes, we may have a parental visitation or even a lawsuit, but that is the risk one always runs in an effort to save a life. The fireman takes risks; the sailor takes risks when he jumps into the sea to save the man who has fallen overboard; the miner takes risks when he goes down the shaft to save a companion. True enough, the par ent stands by and watches the surgeon mutilate the body of his child with no word of criticism or complaint, and we could wish that this same parent might look upon our work as being no less important than the surgeon's. But he may not. We have to take risks. THE whole matter of discipline resolves itself into the question of teaching power. The real teacher has small concern with discipline. Given excellent teaching and discipline is wellnigh forgotten. Of course, there are those who can keep order but can do little else. A policeman might do that. But, as a general proposition, the really good teacher has little or no trouble in the matter of discipline. There is a subtle power emanating from the very presence of such a teacher that makes for the orderly progress of school affairs, and that wins not only attention but also an interest in whatever is being done. The day of the martinet has passed away and we are now living in a time when good teaching is the po bears the caption "The Meditations of an ex-School Committee Woman" and from this essay these extracts are taken: "A clergyman's profession offers the nearest parallel to that of a teacher, but the former is supposed to be under the direct guidance and protection of the higher powers, whereas the teacher, with most of the clergyman's responsibilities, is obliged to accept as his immediate Providence a school board of whom it is not always possible to say, 'Of such is the kingdom of heaven.' It is true that we as parents, have more far-reaching duties toward our children than their teachers can have; but if we do not choose to perform these duties, there is, unless we transgress the law of the land, no one who is entitled to call us to account. There are, however, periods when we exist simply for the purpose of calling the teacher to account. Is he not paid out of the public treasury? Go to, then! If our children are not models, is it not his duty to make them so? "It is, to the initiated, a selfevident fact that for the thoroughly successful teacher there is but one standard; he must be an angel for temper, a demon for discipline, a chameleon for adaptation, a diplomatist for tact, an optimist for hope, and a hero for courage. To these common and easily developed qualities of mind and heart, he should add india-rubber nerves, and a cheerful willingness to trust a large portion of his reward to somet other world than this. * * * "There used, in the former days, to be a good many poetic similes in which the unfolding of a child's mind was likened to the gradual opening of a flower, leaf by leaf. The revised plan admits of no such sentimental and slow-moving process. A child's mind is like an umbrella, expanding equally and instantaneously at all points, and, fortunately for the child, it also resembles the umbrella in that it sheds a good deal more than it retains. * "During her official working hours the teacher is responsible for the health, manners, and morals, as well as the intellectual progress of her pupils. She is equally at fault in regard to the bright ones who are kept back and the stupid ones who are not brought forward. On the days when rank is announced she is to expect to be greeted with tears and innuendoes on the part of those pupils who habitually expect rewards they have not worked for. All the loss of time and mental energy brought about by practice in athletics, by dancing schools, evening gayeties, and the like, lies, of course, at her door. As a rule, parents know that these things must be the teacher's fault. "But does the teacher have no recreations? Certainly her recreations are many, but not varied. Not infrequently the school superintendent has a hobby, in which case he forms classes in psychology, history, pedagogy, or what not, and the teacher may find recreation by joining in these intellectual revels. If she does not join, it may be suspected that the root of the matter is not in her. There are teachers' meetings also, sometimes for conference and for conveying information of real benefit, and sometimes for the purpose of telling the teacher something she has heard before, or that she knows has no practical truth in it. * "When the society of which I have dreamed has been organized, it will involve the sending of female teachers during each vacation period to some frivolous place of resort where the labels will be taken off their backs, and they will be forbidden under penalty of law to listen to papers or lectures, to talk shop, or 'take a course' in anything. but hilarity. They will be encouraged to ride and row, play golf and tennis, to climb mountains for the fun of it, without making the least effort to find out what ingredients enter into the composition of the everlasting hills. They will also be allowed to dance, to talk with young men on subjects distinctively uninstructive, to sit on the sea sand, and ask no questions about what the wild waves are saying, and to wake in the night without utilizing the time by repeating the multiplcation table or giving the parts of speech. * * "Every one of those children is legally entitled to two parents. There must be some use for parents in the everlasting economy of things, though many of them don't seem to suspect it. If the time ever comes when the enriched natural history courses demand that the pupil shall be sent into wild beasts' cages in order to observe their habits, it is the teacher who will be doomed to accompany him. And if during the visit the lion begins to lick his chops and demand food, it is the teacher who will be expected to come cheerfully to the front and say, 'Eat me! When I accepted my present munificent salary, I prepared myself, of course, not to falter at little sacrifices like this.' In the meantime the child will have retired in good order, and the parent- the female parent-will be safely at home embroidering a doily, or writing a paper for the Woman's Club. What the male parent will be doing is one of the things 'no fellow could be expected to know.'" TEACHERS' INSTITUTES. The close of another institute season in Pennsylvania seems to be an opportune time to record a few observations relative to Pennsylva |