The conclusion of the whole matter is that 'when Paris clocks indicate a minute past midnight on October 1st it is October 1st going east as far as the imaginary line just indicated, while it is September 30th going west up to the same line.

PRIMARY READING.

A primary teacher recently said to me, "The hardest part of the reading of script from the blackboard is just before they leave the chart. It is so hard to keep the children interested."

What is reading? Why, reading is getting the thought from written or printed matter. Very well. Then some day have a silent reading lesson. This must be carefully prepared for before hand. Tell the children to read the work to themselves and do whatever the message tells them to. Then write such messages as these, being sure to ask something which can be readily accomplished.

"Jennie may give Grace the large apple on the table."

"Maud and Harry may stand near the window with their noses on the sill."

"Grace may put the apple on her desk." "Joe may show John what is in his pocket." "Laura may bring me the small hand-bag in the cabinet."

"You may all stand very straight.' "All who are fond of nuts may sit." Of course you will combine words the children know, and if previous work has been well done, you will have no cause to complain of lack of interest.-National Educator.

A pleasant teacher makes willing pupils. A mischievous boy can break up a school if not handled properly.

Ability in the teacher wins respect. Only a genuine interest in his pupils wins their affection.

All your teaching is not done in the school room.'

Parents have some rights as well as teachers. To understand your pupils you must know their home life.

It is not enough to know how to read, if you do not know what to read also.

School boards count a hundred, one and two ciphers.

The best supervisor generally encourages good qualities rather than criticizes weak points.

The imagination is the faculty least provided for in our school courses.

A wise teacher will not try to govern all pupils alike. Teach things, not names, but teach the names with the things.

Good thinkers are not made by memorizing text books.

W.

GO ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS.

Upon the old Temple clock in London is a singular inscription the origin of which is said. to have been a lucky accident.

About two hundred years ago a master workman was employed to repair and put a new face upon the clock. When his work was nearly done he asked the Benchers for an appropriate motto to carve upon the base. They promised to think of one. Week after week he came for their decision, but was put off. One day he found them at dinner in commons. "What motto shall I put on the clock, your lordship?" he asked of a learned judge.

"Oh, go about your business!" his honor cried angrily.

"And very suitable for a lazy, dawdling gang," the clock-maker is said to have muttered as he retreated. It is certain that he carved "Go about your business!" on the base.

LESSONS IN MENSURATION.

(Continued.)

LESSON XVIII.

1. Of wood, card-board or other suitable material make a cube one inch long, wide and high.

Any solid containing as much as a cube one inch long, wide and high is said to measure a cubic inch.

2. What means a cubic foot? A cubic yard? A cubic meter?

3. Of card-board, or stiff paper, prepare a box four inches long, three inches wide and two inches high. In it and across its bottom place a row of cubes of a cubic inch each. How many cubic inches in the row? Why just so many? How many such rows will it take to cover the bottom of the box? Why so many? How many cubic inches in the layer that covers the bottom? How many layers will fill the box? Why so many layers? How many cubic inches in all will the box hold?

4. In the same manner find how many cubic inches in a box 10 by 8 by 5 inches? 17 by 30

by 16 inches?

11 by 7 by 3 inches? 122 by by 3 by 4 inches?

5. How many cubic feet in a ditch 160 feet long, 4 feet wide and 3 feet deep? 758 feet long, 18 feet wide and 12 feet deep?

6. How many cubic yards in a cellar 30 by 24 feet, and 6 feet deep? In a pit 44 yards long, 12 yards wide, 2 yards deep? 14}} yards long, 7 yards wide, 3 yards deep?

7. Find the number of cubic inches in a cube 12 inches high; 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 inches high.

8. How many cubic feet in a cubic yard? How many cubic yards in a cubic rod? How many cubic feet in a cubic rod?

9. How long, wide and high will you make a box that will hold just one gallon of 231 cubic inches? (Factor 231.) How long, wide and high will you make a box that is to hold one quart?

10. How many cubic inches in a box I foot long and wide, and 14 feet deep, inside measure? How do the contents of this box compare with that of a bushel, (2150 cubic inches)?

II. Suppose you are able to cut your cubes so as to suit your purpose, how many cubes of a cubic inch each can you place upon a triangle of 14 inches base and 10 inches altitude? How many upon a circle 10 inches in diameter? Upon one 7 inches in diameter?

12. How do you find the contents of any prismatic solid?

13. How many quarts will a milk can 8 inches in diameter and 20 inches deep, hold? How many gallons a cistern 7 feet in diameter and 6 feet deep? How many barrels, a well 49 inches in diameter and 462 inches deep?

LESSON XIX.

1. Of paste-board or card-board make (1) a rectangular prism, and (2) a pyramid of the same base and altitude as the prism. Of what shape will you have to make each of the four sides of the pyramid? What line is the base of each of these triangular sides? To find the altitude of each of these triangular sides, draw a line as long as a line drawn from the center of the base of the pyramid to the middle of the base of the triangular side; to one end of this line join, at a right angle, a line as long as the altitude of the pyramid. The straight line connecting the end points of the two lines that include the right angle will give the altitude of the triangular side of the pyramid.

2. Place your prism upon a smooth and level surface and fill it with some fine-grained, but not too heavy material, middlings, per

haps. By actual measurement you will find that from the material contained in the prism you can fill the inverted pyramid of the same base aud altitude exactly. times.

Hence, the contents of a pyramid are what part of the contents a prism of the same base and altitude?

3. According to what you have just learned, find the contents of pyramids that have the same bases and altitudes as prisms in Nos. 4, 5 and 6 in previous lesson.

(To be continued.)

CONTRIBUTIONS.

EQUIPMENT FOR TEACHING BOTANY.

It has come to be an accepted idea that physical sciences must be taught by the laboratory method if they are to be of any special value in education. Among these physical sciences are two which are required of students entering the University of Wisconsin. They are therefore taught, not only in almost every accredited high school, but also in many others. These two, physics and botany, are eminently adapted for the use of the laboratory method. 1 Indeed they are of little or no value unless so studied, for it must be conceded that the information imparted by the teacher or text-book is of very little practical importance. But if rightly taught, the training obtained is of great value. I do not undertake to argue the case of Information vs. Training; a decision therein has long since been handed down by the courts of last resort.

Taking it for granted, therefore, that botany is to be studied from plants and not from books, what is the necessary equipment for such a mode of study and of teaching? I leave out of account the intellectual equipment. Teachers who have really gained an appreciation of experimental work and of observational methods by thorough training in some laboratory are rarer than might be supposed. Pupils whose mental eyes have not been atrophied through disuse while they were reasoning and memorizing are the exception-not But the diagnosis and cure of these difficulties I pass by at present. What material equipment is necessary and

the rule.

desirable?

arily as a botanical laboratory. If it can be also adapted at other times to other uses which do not interfere with the main one, well and good. But the boot has been heretofore upon the other leg. A room furnished primarily for assembly, or for recitations in mathematics and languages, has been put at the disposal of the teacher of botany for a half hour. A strict injunction against disturbing the benches or desks has forced the teacher, if he tried it at all, to try the laboratory method under such adverse conditions that it must fail, unless carried to success by the teacher's unwearied zeal.

The teacher of algebra and geometry is not made to work against such odds. He is furnished, without a murmur, with ample blackboard facilities, crayon, rulers, pointers even blackboard compasses. Suppose that, to accommodate other departments of the school, the desks were put against the wall so that his pupils had to climb on them to reach the board, and straddle from one to the other as they worked out the demonstrations. Would this be any worse than forcing the teacher of botany to set his pupils at work on sloping desk-tops yards away from the light? The room required for a botanical laboratory will vary with the size of the class, of course. Whatever its size, it needs to be well lighted. If the windows receive the direct sunlight (as they may very properly do), they should be covered with white shades, having a spring roller at bottom, with cord, and pulley at the top.

Tables and chairs are its furniture. Nothing makes a better laboratory table than a common kitchen table with unfinished poplar top so far as working surface is concerned. If tables can be built specially for the laboratory, greater economy of space can often be secured, and drawers can be provided for keeping drawing- and note-books, pencils, instruments, etc. Each pupil should have at least 2 x 2 feet, and preferably 2 x 2 feet of table space.

Second. Indispensable apparatus. It is absolutely essential to proper work that each pupil be supplied with a magnifier. To secure uniformity this ought to be done by the school. The lens should be so mounted that it can be readily supported while the student is using both hands in dissecting. The socalled "bank-note lenses," of large size and adjustable in a tripod brass ring, are useful. But the dissecting microscope known as the "Primary" or "T" stand of the Bausch & Lomb Optical Company is the best cheap form at present in the market in my opinion. The so-called "Gray" and "Excelsior" microscopes

and similar patterns have very unstable and inconvenient arrangements for support of both lenses and object, though they have the advantage (not specially desirable if they belong to the school) of portability. The cheap lenses mounted in a brass tube with round openings near the bottom to illuminate the object are to be sedulously avoided, as are also the "linen-provers", et id genus omne.

A pair of needles, the eye-end pushed into soft pine handles, and a really sharp small blade in a penknife, complete the equipment, so far as necessary appliances go.

Among the necessary supplies of the laboratory, however, alcohol must not be omitted. In the study of botany we must be independent of the seasons, and a few gallons of alcohol, judiciously used, will enable teachers to lay in a stock of material for study which will make them easy whether spring is early or late. If classification must be the piece de resistance of the instruction, by all means let them collect, dry, and mount a considerable number of fine specimens of as many species as possible of six or eight of the larger orders. Then with a supply of flowers only (of the same species), preserved in alcohol, students may be set to work, not at identifying species, but at comparing them, deriving generic and ordinal characters, and so studying relationship.

If anatomy and morphology be the chief matters for study, alcoholic material is equally desirable. In either case some large individual butter dishes or small saucers will be needed for dissecting such preserved material under water. Teachers may be glad to know that almost any plants wanted may be had in quantity, well preserved, at reasonable prices, by addressing Laboratory Supply Department, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Holl, Mass.

It will be

Third. Desirable equipment. observed that I have not reckoned a compound miscroscope among the indispensable appliances. I consider it strictly a luxury, so far as high school work is concerned; first, because so few schools can afford a sufficient equipment for class work, and second, because there is so much to be learned as to methods of study and observation by means of the eyes and an ordinary magnifier, that it is not specially desirable that they should afford it. if opportunity offer, I advise teachers to get, not one miscroscope at an outlayof $80 to $100, but four or five at $20 each. These can be made very useful, not for regular laboratory work, but for demonstration of recondite matters in which pupils may become interested from laboratory study or reading, and which

But

the simple microscopes are not sufficient to exhibit. This use presupposes skill in preparation and mounting of sections and dissections on the part of the teacher.

Even before the purchase of compound microscopes, there should be added to the necessary equipment, some good wall charts. The only ones I have ever seen in public schools were Henslow's. These are devoted wholly to illustrating the orders of flowering plants, and the details are much too small to allow the charts to be of any great value in instruction. Instead, I recommend a series by Frank and Tschirch, entitled "Wandtafeln für den Unterricht in der Pflanzenphysiologie." These are published by Paul Parey, Berlin, at 3 M. each. They are on heavy cartoon paper, 69 x 85 cm. The well known series by Kny (Botanische Wandtafeln), of which 90 have been published, in the same style, at 4 M. each, by same house, are exceedingly useful. These can be purchased as desired. Little duplication occurs between the two series and both ought to be obtained as rapidly as pos

sible.

Large models of parts of flowering plants in papier maché by Auzoux of Paris can be had. and similar forms of all sorts of plants by R. Brendel of Berlin. Catalogues and price lists of these makers can be obtained from any importers. Such firms as Richard Kny & Co. of New York, and the Educational Supply Co. of Boston, are glad to send them, and selections to suit the money available and the course given may be made. Such models are very useful in class work, reviews, and lectures.

It only remains to mention one important matter in laboratory work, viz., the time required. I have seen teachers endeavor to use laboratory methods of study with a single recitation period devoted to it. No sort of success can attend such a plan: it is only an aggravation to teacher and pupil. Since no outside preparation is required insist on having double the usual recitation period for laboratory work. An hour and a quarter ought to be the minimum, an hour and a half, perhaps, the maximum.

I add in closing one item aside from the subject: a new laboratory guide for high school work by Prof. Spalding has just appeared from the press of D. C. Heath & Co. Barring the omission of all reference to the Fungi, and the inclusion of a good deal of too difficult matter, this is in my opinion one of the best of laboratory manuals. It will at least prove very helpful to live teachers who have had some laboratory experience themselves. C. R. BARNES.

SEMINARY: LANGUAGE TEACHING.* Education-how? and to what end? Education is through the experiences of life, the most potent of which is the distinctive national life, and it is the function of the school to focus these national influences. The aim of education should be the perfection of the individual; thus there is a universal element present in the education of the human being. A subject must be found which is universal in its character, and it must be a concrete subject containing the abstract in its purest form. This is necessary, because, while dicipline of Reason will attain perfection of the individual, it is too abstract for the young. This subject, Laurie finds, is Language. He divides the

study of it into three parts. I. As a formal discipline. 2. As a concrete or real study. 3. As an aesthetic or art study.

Language as a formal discipline, is the best of all possible disciplines of the intellect, because it is a study of the intellect itself, but in a concrete material, and because all the processes of the mind are presented for analysis.

Art

But Language as a concrete study, Laurie holds as more important, as containing the substance of thought, and educating the mind of man. Through this real study of Language it becomes the universal teacher of art. is the beautiful, and the beautiful is the ideal of its kind. The most universal form of art is to be found in Language as literature, because it is the universal medium of expression. Thus we attain the perfection of the individual through language as literature, as it has fewer limitations than any other art.

Language studied as substance of thought nourishes and trains the mind. Pupils must be taught to understand literature and live the thoughts in it. Laurie divides language teaching into three stages in showing the method to be pursued.

1. Infant stage (up to seven years of age). Our business as educators is to give significance to words in a child's vocabulary and help add to it. This is accomplished by stories, object lessons, memorizing verses, and requiring the children to tell stories themselves.

2. Primary and Upper Primary stage; (eight to fourteen years of age). Good collection of prose and poetry should be chosen, and these reading lessons should become language lessons. The lesson becomes besides a lesson in deciphering words and in intelligent utterance, a lesson of thought, imagination and feeling. The teacher should talk over and discuss lessons in an informal way, ex*Linguistic Methods, by S. S. Laurie.