Helps for Helpers.

Education should develop love for labor, skill in effort, tenderness of sympathy, joy of appreciation, sensitiveness for the right, alertness of intellect, and strength to hold on.

It should give the student a mastery of the printed page and make known to him the message of star, rock, flower, bird, painting and symphony. It should also help him to find his work, render his utmost of service and feel his personal responsibility.

Teachers must learn that it is not what they say or do but it is the size and quality of the person behind what is said or done that gives it power.

The teacher is to an extent responsible for the interest the best people in the community have in the work she is trying to do. The best people of the community are responsible for the interest the teacher manifests in the children under her instruction and the quality of the work she helps them to perform.

One of the great thinkers read a great poem, listened to classical music and studied a great picture each day.

Would not teachers do better work if they learn a lesson from one of the masters?

The wise teacher studies books a part of the time and children all the time.

When the teacher is what she should be in tone, carriage and conduct, then will the children go from our schools with the instincts and graces of gentlemen and gentle

women.

Any teacher who is observant of children knows that their thirst for sympathy is so great that it is impossible for a child to do his best unless he feels that he has the kindly, individual interest of his instructor. This interest may be indicated by a word, a look, a tone, or a gentle hand upon the shoulder. A great man has said that even a dog goes down the street with a better heart if he has a pat on his head when he starts.

It is as true in teaching as in any other work that things should not be done unless there is a sufficient reason for doing them.

While we should use the utmost precaution to prevent children from using stimulants or narcotics, we should use no less effort to prevent them from indulging in mental and moral dissipations which will be equally fatal to their welfare.

Instruction that does not influence pupils in their morals, manners and reading out of school is poor teaching. The

teacher does a great service for the children when she impresses them with the fact that cheap thought and cheap action result in cheap people.

To develop the power to do, the child must be thrown on his own resources for themes of thought and means of growth. He must be brought into closest contact with his tasks and nature and left to work out his problem and his mental salvation. His work must tend to concentrate his thoughts and form the habit of digging out his results without the aid of others. He must develop the power to return and work upon his problem until the point of saturation is reached.

The best test of the value of one's scholarship is found in the quality of the company he is in when he is alone and the profit with which he entertains himself.

Education should not be valued for the facts we learn

but for the power it gives us to do better work.

We are not educated until we can see, feel and appreciate instinctively and hence unconsciously.

We never know facts as we should until we know them so well that we are unconscious of our knowledge and they cease to be a burden.

The school which fails to develop right motives fails grievously.

The school is responsible for such training as will make it easy for the children to observe conventional forms.

A true education will help us to see objects, appreciate thought and understand relations. It will enable us to combine facts, weigh arguments and draw conclusions. Our purest feelings will control our acts, mould our conduct, direct our thoughts and give tone to our life.

Teachers and school officials would do well to keep silent until the people realize the difference between furnishing employment for teachers and instruction for children.

If we put more intelligence into the administration of our schools we would need to put less money into jails and the administration of our criminal code.

It is discouraging to realize that many people do not want to know how to do, but instead want things done for them.

The school that does not make the indifferent in the community different, needs to be changed.

Those who have our school interests in charge would do well to consider seriously the following question: Can we improve the schools if we continue to use the machinery now in existence, or must new methods be devised for their administration ? Put in a more general form, is it possible for any age to use successfully the methods which were useful in a preceding time?

Many of the children who attend rural schools will never attend any other school; hence the importance of having

those schools so administered as to enable the children to prepare for life.

The power that makes the school go is the sentiment which exists in the community in favor of it. If it is hearty and intelligent the school will do much for the children. If this interest and sympathy are wanting it will fall but little short of a failure. No school is doing the best work until it is recognized as the social, literary and art center of the community. No teacher can fill the position in which she is placed until she can make it such a

center.

It will be well for the schools when we realize that some of the old fashioned things were good enough in their day and would be helpful in these days. If we had more mental arithmetic; if the pupils did more of their own work; if they were able to analyze some of the English classics in such a way as to understand their thoughts and appreciate their beauties, we should be doing some things much better than we are doing them at present.

Exhibitions of bad manners, manifestations of selfishness and an unwillingness to think seriously of serious things should make us apprehensive of what these same children will be when they become men and women.

It is natural for young people to be ambitious and when we find them limp, lifeless and frivolous, we do not wonder