pear, whereas talking would add to the disorder and reveal the weakness of the teacher. * * * "WAKE thou the sleeping angel in each heart" is the injunction given us by the poet and we shall do well to heed the counsel. It is a great task, to be sure, but if we accomplish it we shall feel all the joy of the victor. In order to do this the angel in our own hearts must be awake, yea, wide awake. * * * HERE is a quotation: "It is unprofessional to say anything that reflects upon the teacher's work of the year before. There may be justifiable reasons for the seeming lack of preparation. Instead of complaining, begin where you think the drill is necessary and do the best you can. If you are teaching sixth grade and the children do not know the tables, get after that but don't whine." * * * IN Yellowstone Park the fringed gentian grows in great profusion, and tourists are decorated with this beautiful flower all the while. There is frost in the park every clear night but the fringed gentian is hardy and the next morning it greets the sunrise with a smile. This may help to a fuller appreciation of Bryant's beautiful poem which constitutes a delightful part of our September task. * A BIT of gossip was going the rounds but the good old lady was rather deaf and did not get the drift of the talk. In time there was so much fervor in the conversation that she became curious to learn the subject under consideration. A friend began to give her the information but she forbade him to proceed when she learned that it was gossip and then she added, "Deafness has its compensations." * KEITH'S "Elementary Education" contains the best helps for study of any book we have ever had and no teacher need be at loss as to how to attack the work of reading it systematically. On pages 290-306 will be found an analysis of each chapter by which we may test our reading. On pages 307-316 there are topics for study, and later on there are fourteen pages of questions by the author which book. compass the entire These form an excellent apparatus. * * * Ir sometimes happens that a member of a board of education with but little education and no experience as a teacher will assume the role of adviser to a superintendent who has both scholarship and successful experience. In other lines of activity the superintendent is looked upon as an expert, but in teaching there are some men who seem to think that experience and expertness have no place, that anybody can manage a system of schools. Since there is no spanking-machine for such as these perhaps the best thing to do is make them the subject of prayer. * SUPT. C. L. VAN CLEVE of Toledo, is doing a great service for the people of Ohio with his noble lecture on moral training in the schools. His contention is that if the schools fail to inculcate integrity many of the children will never receive that training at all. There is ample opportunity for this training in connection with each school exercise and the teacher who has the skill to translate arithmetic or geography into terms of downright truthfulness and hon esty of the positive unequivocal sort, is doing a great service for the State, the home, and the individual. * * * ONCE upon a time a superintendent discontinued school work and entered upon the practice of law. On the board of education was a man of large means and much influence in the community. Many a time this man took issue with the superintendent on school affairs and set up his judgment against the judgment of the superintendent with all his years of experience. When the change to the law took place this board member entrusted to the inexperienced lawyer his business and never once questioned his judgment. This story has a moral that is easily found. * * IT is of great importance to the young teacher to learn that it is impossible to get something for nothing in the school, that what the child achieves is in direct ratio to the effort expended. The teacher is useful, of course, but only in the way of supplying right conditions for self-activity on the part of the child. We should say to ourselves at the beginning of each recitation "I can not transfer knowledge to the pupil's mind; he must do the work himself; he must work out his own salvation." Then the teacher will do as little of the work and the talking as possible. * IT would be too bad to read Bryant's "Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood" and his other poem "Autumn Woods" in a rocking-chair indoors. These poems need the environment of forest, sky, streams, birds, insects. They need a seat on the trunk of a fallen tree or on a stump with time enough for the delights of nature to filter into our souls. They need to be read to the accompaniment of nature's great orchestra of insects, birds, and the soughing of the wind in the tree-tops. We need to shut out the world with its rush and noise and serenade our souls with the music of these poems. A FEW boards of education have asked teachers to sign contracts waiving their rights in the matter of pay for janitor work and for institute attendance. This is clearly a violation of law and these boards must have known this fact when they imposed these conditions. Of course, the teachers never should have signed the contracts, but their signing them does not relieve the boards of the responsibility. These same boards will proclaim loudly, no doubt, that they want the children to be trained into law-abiding citizens and yet they violate the law themselves for a few paltry dollars. Such men ought to be relegated to the rear. * * * A CAREFUL Study of The Recitation by County Superintendent Samuel Hamilton of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, fully justifies the statement that it is one of the most helpful books for teachers of all classes and especially for young teachers. It is writen by one of the most successful superintendents in the United States whose head and heart are in full sympathy with earnest teachers who are anxious to grow. Out of a wide experience and a sane mind he is able to speak with a directness and simplicity which are most refreshing in these days of wild theories and ponderous words so commonly used by writers who try, by this device, to cover up their lack of knowledge of the subject they discuss. Schools and Reading Circles will find in this volume of the Lippincott's Educational Series, edited by Dr. Martin G. Brumbaugh, an exceedingly valuable discussion of an exceedingly important subject. * to EVERY now and then we hear of a county examiner who seems think that it is the province of a board of examiners to pass a sufficient number of applicants to supply the schools of the county. We incline to the opinion that boards of education' are charged with the responsibility of securing teachers and that the province of the examiners is to ward off incompetency from the schools. If the county requires two hundred teachers and only a hundred and fifty applicants pass the board of examiners have no call to "let down the bars." Let the boards of education "walk the floor." Let them go in search of teachers, and let them offer sufficient salary to induce teachers in other places to venture across the county line. If the examiners assume the function of supplying the schools with teachers they are doing the very thing that will keep salaries at low ebb, and while they may solace themselves that they are favoring fifty weak ones it were well for them to reflect that they are working in opposition to the one hundred and fifty teachers of the county who neither sought nor received favors at the examination. Furthermore, this course militates against the scholarship in the schools that the leaders are demanding. It is easy for examiners to reduce standards of scholarship and salaries if they will, but it is certainly no part of their work to see that there are enough teachers to fill the schools. THE Los Angeles board of education has taken a long step in advance in the matter of recommendation as indicated by the following letter of inquiry which came to the editor recently: Miss who is about to take a competitive examination in order to secure appointment as a teacher in the schools of Los Angeles, has referred to you as one who can speak from knowledge of her work. The Board of Education has resolved not to accept general letters of recommendation, but, instead, to ask for private letters of information concerning the character, education, experience, health and general ability of the candidates who appear before it. May I ask you, as one interested in the welfare of the public schools, to tell me what you know in favor of the candidacy of and if you know of any reason why she should not be employed by the Los Angeles Board of Education? Your let ter will be regarded as a private communication, and its contents will in no case be made known to the applicant. It is to be hoped that the day of general recommendations is rapidly passing away and that the possessor of such documents can dispose of them to the paper and rag man and thereby realize on them. There will also be substantial gain in the saving of the return postage deposited with the board of education with whom the recommendations are filed. Then think of the saving of time on the part of some persons who are ready to recommend everybody regardless of qualifications! THE VOCABULARY AND ITS By Supt. John S. Alan, Mt. Vernon. In our teaching of English not enough stress is put on the acquirement of a vocabulary. True, most rhetoricians now devote a chapter to the subject; but we do not believe that in a few pages the student can learn the importance of his having at command a great variety of words. It seems strange, too, that though even the child is proud when it has become on speaking terms with a new word, and after using it a few times thrills with satisfaction over the achievement; that though we recognize the fact that our great orators have been known as such largely because they have been able to express their thoughts in fine phrases; that though the ability to combine words into beautiful, harmonious and euphonious lines has been the cause of many an author's success and popularity, we give so much time to the mechanical schemes of rhetoric, and make so little effort to have our pupils obtain a rich, working vocabulary. "A word is the sign of an idea," said Harvey; and all must acknowledge the intimate relation between the thought and symbol. We think ⚫ in words; not pictures. Every new word mastered by the student means a definite idea that he has never had before. It is unnecessary to enter into a discussion of the meager vocabulary of the average person. All know that the uneducated man uses four or five hundred words and the educated one about as many thousands. We believe that there is a closer relation between the word and the idea than is generally perceived; and that in our "system" we have been allowing the student, too often, to await some unusual experience to impress upon his mind the sign of the idea. How much better would it be to teach him the natural association of the two and encourage him to cultivate the ability to bring to a focus his scattered impressions in the symbols that stand for those impressions. The learner has often in mind a hazy idea that he is not able to express because he has not the necessary language. The teacher of English complains and scolds, and wonders why the children never will learn to be definite and accurate, and display unity and force and all the other properties so much dwelt upon in our rhetoric. Will the teacher attempt some day to convey the idea "oaktree" to her class without using the sign of the idea, and then see how clearly and definitely and with how much unity her thought has been expressed? After all these attributes depend largely on the use of words. But with so many thousands of words in our language why does not the pupil acquire a more extensive vocabulary? Largely because he is seldom encouraged to do so; rather he is discouraged in his attempts. Nearly every book on English strongly advises the student to use simple words because simplicity adds strength; and the one who follows the instruction too often imagines that the few monosyllabic words he learned in early childhood are all that he needs to give expression to the many thoughts of life. This is all very well in its way; but the book should make plain and strong the fact that these simple words should be the ones chosen by the composer after he has studied the numerous ones of greater or less length that will, with different shades of mean-' ing express his idea. Again, the learner meets with rebuff by the general public in his efforts to enlarge his vocabulary. When he makes use of a word of more syllables than he usually employs, he is laughed at by his companions; and even the teacher is too prone to smile at his, to her, bombastic language. So he gives up. It is hard enough to withstand the shock to his nerves when he hears himself uttering these strange sounds; but to observe the amusement it causes others, overcomes him entirely. Only an occasional boy has the courage to continue his interest in these discoveries; and only a few become proficient in the use of their native language. It seems to us that, if expression is the chief end of our study and teaching in this department, we must begin earlier in the course to encourage the pupil to become acquainted with the words of his mother-tongue. In the primary rooms, the child gets his first working vocabulary. Too often it is all he is ever sure of. As he advances in the grades, he acquires from his reading an understanding, a "passive" knowledge of words; but a very small part of those ever belong to his "active" vocabulary. If he goes to high school and reads Latin, he again adds to his list, for a while, almost as rapidly as he did in the early days of his education. He is constantly getting through reading and experience a few more of these all-important symbols, but left to himself his development along this line is very slow. If proficiency in the use of the mother-tongue is, as said by President Butler, the first test of an educated man, we need throughout the entire school course a more active and persistent study of words; and the teacher who will devote the time and attention to this work will, we believe, see her pupils growing in power as they will by no other one thing. THE NEW STATE EXAMINER. Commissioner Jones has appointed as a new examiner on the State Board Supt. W. H. Kirk of East Cleveland and certainly every teacher in Ohio will be delighted with this appointment. In this connection we can do no better than to repeat what was said concerning Supt. Kirk in the Monthly in March, 1906, which was as follows: No one who has noted the onward march of school matters in Ohio and the men who are marching in the front ranks can have failed to see Supt. W. H. Kirk, of East Cleveland, for he is now and has been for several years plainly visible. He has not sought to become conspicuous, quite the contrary. Indeed he has been so busy that he has had no time to consider his own rating among school men, and, in fact, he is always inclineď to rank others ahead of himself. This is only another way of saying that he looks after his work and allows others to look after his reputation. Like many other prominent school men in this and other states, he was reared on a farm and encountered all the experiences incident to life in the country. His lot happened to be cast in Richland county, Ohio, where he attended country school when he wasn't husking corn, feeding the stock, or looking after other matters of the farm. But he had aspirations, he dreamed dreams and when he graduated from Baldwin University in 1887 one of his dreams had come true. In 1900 he received the degree of M. A. from his Alma Mater. After graduating from college he became principal of the Richfield township high school, holding this position till 1891, when he was elected to his present position. At that time East Cleveland was small, but now there are 1,200 pupils and a corps of 40 teachers. In a few weeks they will dedicate |