heavy and well developed there is indication that phosphoric acid is not deficient.

A chemical analysis of the soil means nothing so far as determining what plant foods are needed. An ordinary rock may show by chemical analysis that most of the plant foods are present.

That which is most desired is to know how to restore the loss of plant food by natural methods and how to make available plant food that is now unavailable. The uninformed may add something which under certain conditions will lock up or render unavailable plant food that was available.

It has been found that by adding lime to clay soils they become more easily broken and are less likely to bake so hard. Try working some very damp clay. Place it where it will dry. After it has dried it can hardly be broken to pieces. Take another piece and mix with it a very little lime. Place this piece where it will dry. When thoroughly dry only a few taps will knock it to pieces.

Lime may also be added to soil containing unavailable potash. The lime will decompose the unavailable potash compounds and render them available to the plant.

The average farmer has spent much time in considering food for animals. It would be productive of great good if plant foods and their preparation were as carefully studied.

The day has come when the farm can not be a "catch all" for those who are unfitted for other business.

TEACHERS AND WAGE-EARNERS.

THE PAY OF TEACHERS.

In some cases these figures are the minimum rates in the localities named; in other cases they are the

UNION RATES OF WAGES IN NEW YORK.

These figures are official. In every case the figures are the minimum, the least amount which the union will allow a member to accept. As a matter of fact, the figures given, for "overtime" (any time over eight hours a day) is paid extra at the rate of one-half more than the regular rate; and work done on Sundays and holidays is paid for at double rates. The yearly rate is based on three hundred working days of eight hours each.

SUBSCRIPTION RATES. Single subscriptions, cash, or subscriptions taken at the institutes, $1.00 each. Single subscriptions, time, $1.25. Subscriptions taken at the institutes and not paid before December 1, or within three months of date of institute, $1.25 each. Cash renewals $1.00. Time Renewals $1.25. Single number 10 cents.

MONEY should be sent by express, draft, money order or registered letter. Make all remittances payable to O. T. CORSON. THE MONTHLY is mailed the first week of each month. Any subscriber failing to receive a copy by the fifteenth should give notice promptly, and another will be sent. Any person wishing his address changed should send notice not later than the twenty-fifth of the month, and must give both the old and the new address.

NOTICE WILL BE GIVEN TO EACH SUBSCRIBER OF THE TIME HIS SUBSCRIPTION EXPIRES, BUT NO SUBSCRIPTION WILL BE DISCONTINUED EXCEPT UPON REQUEST SENT DIRECT TO THE OFFICE, ACCOMPANIED BY THE FULL AMOUNT DUE AT THE TIME SUCH REQUEST IS MADE.

BUT suppose a member of the board goes to the superintendent and insists upon the appointment of some one who the superintendent knows is incompetent. What is the poor

man to do in a case of this kind?

* * *

SMALL wonder that so many men abandon teaching to enter the mail service. Your Uncle Samuel believes in paying competent men a living salary. Witness his offer of from $1,000 to $1.500 a year for teachers in the Philippines.

* *

"I SUPPOSE if one were to try and concoct rapture without alloy for a

living creature, one could do no better than arrange that a child should meet an Angel, or what it thought an Angel, and should go home and tell mother." And this rapture is to be seen in many homes in America every evening when the child is telling mother about teacher.

* * *

PRESIDENT Lincoln at one time commented upon some of the generals in this wise: "Some of my generals are so slow that molasses in the coldest days of winter is a race horse compared to them. They're brave enough, but somehow or other they get fastened in a fence corner, and can't figure their way out." He was speaking of generals, not teachers.

* *

ONE of the ladies who recently received a life certificate took the examination, in large measure, because her father at one time expressed the hope that she might some day be thus honored. And there she sat during all the hours of those days with weary body and brain working as for life, paying tribute to the memory of her father. The picture is worthy the poet's pen or the painter's brush. What an inspiration a teacher with such filial devotion must be to her pupils.

* * *

THE summer school season comes on apace and we are sure that more teachers are planning for summer work than ever before. Many boards of education put a premium upon attendance at summer school, knowing full well that their schools will be the beneficiaries. If a teacher doesn't really want to go to a summer school he can readily find an excuse for staying at home. But if he does want to go, wants very much to go,

there is hardly any obstacle that he will not surmount in order to gratify this desire.

* * *

Ir is a mistake to suppose that children will be satisfied with the second best. They understand and want the best. We need not speak or read down to them unless we wish to offer an affront. Indeed, if there are children at our elbow the chances are they will help us to a better interpretation than we ourselves would find. No baby talk-no diluted food-no patronizing for these children about us. They understand,

and we underestimate their intelligence when we assume that they do

not.

As we peruse the almanac with its diagnoses we are often led to feel that we ourselves are afflicted with all the maladies therein set forth, so potent is the law of suggestion. Similarly, when we listen to oratorical reverberations on the subject of needed reforms in our school system we are apt to think that Ohio is menaced with sudden dissolution by reason of her many pedagogical ailments. However, all we need to do is to put aside the almanac and go right on teaching school and very soon we shall feel pretty comfort

able.

THE article in this number from the facile pen of Mr. Sprau, of the Zanesville high school, is worthy of more than one careful reading. Some day, through the influence of such teaching as his, we shall come to know that to train the physical and the intellectual is only a part of the process. There is a spiritual side of the child that must be touched somehow in the process if we would make

WASHINGTON, Lincoln, Longfellow. That's a good program for February and worthy of the teacher's efforts. Not a school in the land but should give at least an hour this month to celebrating the life and work of each of these men. Material

is abundant if the teachers will but look for it. In every schoolroom in Ohio the Gettysburg speech should be given by one of the pupils, "The Psalm of Life" ought to be known by every pupil. "My Captain" in this issue, by the "good grey poet Whitman" will be found helpful for these programs.

* * *

TEACHING school is such hard work that the teacher needs all the time possible outside of school hours for relaxation and recuperation. Possibly there are times when the reading and grading of papers at home must be done, but any great amount of this sort of thing imposes an unjust tax upon the teacher's strength and militates against tomorrow's success. As a general rule school work should all be done within the limits of school hours.

*

THE article by Miss Armstrong of Woodward High School, Cincinnati, which appeared in our December number has attracted wide attention. This is not to be wondered at since it has to do with one of the most vital questions of school experience. It applies to every grade of every school as well as to the high school. We must not allow good reading to become one of the lost arts but must

push it to the fore where it properly belongs. It is one of the highest accomplishments and is well worthy. every teacher's best efforts. The Friday afternoon drill in speaking "pieces" is most excellent if only worthy selections are chosen. Many a pupil has received an impetus toward public speaking by just such exercises.

his

*

THE boy wears shabby clothes, shrinks away from the other boys at noon-time because of the poverty of lunch-basket, brings into the school palpable evidences of humble and hard work outside school hours, never hears the music of money jingling in his pockets, and, hence could readily be made a social outcast. Just here is the teacher's great opportunity, and she embraces it with alacrity. By ways all her own she very soon has him taken into full membership and yet has not made. him conspicuous. Somehow, she has made him feel at ease and by her tactful treatment has won for him the respect of the entire school. This is the American school.

*

IT should not be forgotten that while we are trying to lead the boys and girls out and up into the "Kingdom of Light" that we may be alienating them from the traditions and standards of the homes in which they have been reared and, therefore, from their parents. 'Tis a delicate work to inculcate better standards without abating fealty and affection. for home and parents. This boy's mother must be to him the best and dearest person in the world even when he has graduated from college. and we teachers need to handle the situation with great tact and sympathy.

EVERY teacher is vitally concerned in the forth-coming report of the Committee on School Revenues and their Proper Distribution which was appointed at the meeting of the Ohio Teachers' Association. This report will be printed and distributed a month in advance of the next meeting at Put-in-Bay and every teacher owes it to himself as well as the cause he represents to secure a copy and study it carefully in order that he may be thoroughly conversant with its provisions. The character of the men who constitute this committee warrants the conviction that the whole question will be set forth in the most thorough manner.

*

On this particular morning teacher unmasked a battery of whose existance, up to this time, we had been in blissful ignorance. Forthcoming, also, was a supply of ammunition that must have been accumulating for many moons. After the smoke of battle had cleared away and the color had returned to our faces and to teacher's as well, lessons were resumed with a silence that was almost oppressive. Then came recess, blessed recess! Whereupon we held a convention and a resolution was carried unanimously that teacher must have been up late the night before.

* * *

THERE are one hundred and thirtythree centralized schools in Ohio, according to statistics just compiled by Prof. A. B. Graham, who is authority on this subject. Ashtabula, Trumbull, Portage, Summit, Geauga, Medina, Champaign, Ross and Knox counties are the counties where centralization most largely obtains. Almost half the counties of the state have one or more centralized schools.