3.

"The wind has a language I wish I could learn,

Sometimes 'tis soothing, and sometimes 'tis stern;

Sometimes it comes like a low, sweet song, And all things grow calm as the sound floats along."-L. E. Landon.

"The east wind is coming, all moist with the spray

And the odor of brine, from the billows at play;

The hot day is ending, and this puff from

the sea

Is like a fond kiss of my mother for me." -H. S. Washburn.

For the Pupils.

Stories for opening exercises.
The Weather-Vane.

Eneas and Eolus.

How West Wind Helped Dandelion.
Odysseus and the Bag of Winds.
The North Wind at Play.

(The last three can be found in Emilie Poulsson's "In the Child's World.")

Drawings: Sail-boats; trees blown by the wind; windmills of Holland.

Making toy paper windmills; paper boats, kites, pipes, musical reedpipe.

What Winds Do: Cause leaves to rustle; ripples on the water; cool the brow; cheer the sick; sail boats; blow leaves, fruits and nuts to the ground; whirl snow; bring rain and so make plants grow; dry clothes; scatter seeds; make sad sounds, sweet sounds, low and loud ones; pilot clouds; kiss buds; whirl about fountains; bend the weeping willows; sob in the cedars and moan in the pines; fly kites; dry the ground, fences and houses after a rain; turn windmills.

Miscellaneous Queries on the Unseen Power and Its Blessings: Can you see the wind? Feel it? Hear it? Smell it? What is it made of (air)? What moves the clouds and raises the dust? When does a windmill turn most rapidly? What do we breathe into our lungs? In how many ways can you tell which way the wind blows? (Trees, weather-vane, clouds, clothes, dust.) In how many directions have you seen clouds moving at one time?

Poem to be memorized:

The Winds.

I saw you toss the kites on high,
And blow the birds about the sky;
And all around I heard you pass
Like ladies' skirts across the grass.
O wind, ablowing all day long!
O wind, that sings so loud a song!
I saw the different things you did,
But always you yourself you hid.
I felt you push, I heard you call,
I could not see yourself at all.
O wind, ablowing all day long!
O wind that sings so loud a song!
O you that are so strong and cold!
O blower! Are you young or old?
Are you a beast of field and tree,
Or just a stronger child than me?
O wind, ablowing all day long!
O wind that sings so loud a song!
-R. L. Stevenson.

When the air in the schoolroom becomes hot, what does the wind do for us? If the air in the city becomes foul and impure, how does the wind help us? Why does mamma open the bedroom windows wide every morning? "The wind brings. health on its wings. It brings rains that water the earth and make it bud and blossom. The winds help us to carry our messages and do our work. We could not live without them."

The Four Winds.

North wind from the cold country comes in winter, freezes flowers and water, breaks branches of trees and gives rosy cheeks to the children.

South wind from the land of oranges, bananas, birds and large trees, loves the sun, kisses the flowers, the grains and the trees, mats the grass, ripens apples, pears and grapes.

East wind from the ocean brings rain for the lilies, makes the rivers flow and the wells give water to drink.

West wind, soft and low, brings bright, clear weather.

Stanza to be memorized by the class: "Whichever way the wind doth blow, Some heart is glad to have it so.

Then blow it east, or blow it west,
The wind that blows, that wind is best."

Poem to be memorized by four pupils:

I.

"Which is the wind that brings the cold?" "The north wind, Freddy, and all the snow; And the sheep will scamper into the fold When the north begins to blow."

II.

"Which is the wind that brings the heat?" "The south wind, Katy, and corn will grow, And peaches redden for you to eat When the south begins to blow."

III.

"Which is the wind tuat brings the rain?" "The east wind, Artie, and farmers know That cows come shivering up the lane When the east begins to blow."

IV.

"Which is the wind that brings the flowers?" "The west wind, Bessie, and soft and low The birdies sing in the summer hours When the west begins to blow."

Scat

The Wind in a Frolic: Creaks signs. Closes shutters. Blows off hats. ters the clothes from the line unless securely fastened. Raises dust. Tosses colt's manes. Surprises the cows. Whistles with reeds on the river banks. Puffs birds on the sprays. Twists men's coats and ladies' skirts. Roars in the forest and cries gaily, "Now, you sturdy old oaks, I'll make you bow!" Cracks their branches. Makes the turkeys gobble, the geese scream aloud and sends the hens to their roost. Whistles round the corners of the house and roars down the chimney.

The Song of the Wind.

"I've a great deal to do, a great deal to do; Don't speak to me, children, I pray. There are bushels of apples to gather to-day, And O! there's no end to the nuts. There are thousands of leaves lying lazily here,

That needs must be whirled round and round.

And I must not slight Betty, who washes so clean,

And has just hung her clothes out to dry.

ESSAY WRITING IN THE GRAMMAR GRADES.

MRS. E. E. OLCOTT.

A county superintendent gave me the following copy of an essay handed in at a regular examination by an applicant for a license, during the spring of 1898.

Its author was trying to secure a year's license. He held a six months', and it is my impression that he had taught school.

DANIEL WEBSTER.

Daniel Webster was born about the year of 1835. He was one of the great statesman in the time of the revolutionary war. He was a man of great famous. He invented electricity by flying a kite in the time of lightning as to catch the origin of electricity which was a noted thing and is a great advantage to use to-day. He was the author of our first dictionary of the United States of America which was very useful to those in that time. Since that time he has published the onabridge dictionary that is used in every school thruout the United States schools and within nearly every household. Being the author of the onabridge dictionary made him more notable than he was before.

"Writing maketh the exact man!" In that essay, how utterly lacking is exactness! The applicant for license to teach had somewhere gathered or absorbed these facts: Daniel Webster was a statesman. He was famous. Some famous statesman by means of a kite had discovered something concerning electricity. Webster's dictionary is known and used throughout the United States.

Because he could not remember distinctly nor reason closely upon what he did remember, he jumbled the facts into a ridiculous essay in which not one sentence can be called correct.

His teachers must bear a large share of the blame, for evidently he had never been required to state his thoughts clearly in writing; and, as we learn in "How to Teach Reading," "expression comes by expressing," which is equally true whether that expression of thought be oral or written. Hence there should be written lan

guage work in the lower grades and more elaborate essays in the upper, especially in the seventh and eighth.

The value of carefully prepared essays can not be overestimated, but to the busy teacher the burden of examining them seems a veritable Old Man of the Sea. Some one has said, "Scan difficulties closely to see what may be overcome, what mitigated, and what must be borne."

The difficulties in grading essays may be somewhat mitigated by the use of what Hart's Rhetoric styles the independent paragraph. Such a paragraph is a miniature essay; and, as Hart says, "gives an opportunity for correcting the writer's chronic faults," because it will contain as many "kinds of error" as a long essay. The pupil who breaks rules in rhetoric, grammar, and spelling, will almost certainly violate them in writing a paragraph of one hundred words; if he wrote a thousand words he would merely make ten times as many mistakes under the same rules.

By using the independent paragraph, the whole class may be required to rewrite the essays, in which case each member, the strongest quite as much as the weakest, is to strive to improve what he first wrote, by expressing himself with more grace, clearness, or force.

The usual oral recitation in history, geography, or kindred subjects may occasionally be varied by requiring one or two questions to be answered in writing. Such answers are virtually independent paragraphs. They may be exchanged among the members of the class for examination, part of them read aloud, and all finally given to the teacher, who returns them or not at her pleasure.

The right spirit should be awakened. and the essays exchanged for criticism, all being afterward handed to the teacher for examination.

Let the essays be written with ink, the pupils mark with black pencils and the teacher with a colored one. By the close of the term, each pupil should have examined an essay of every other member of the class. It is better not to have the

essays exchanged in pairs; if A, B, C and D have essays, let A hand his to B, B to C, C to D, and D to A, rather than for A to exchange with B, and C with D.

That the purpose of exchanging be clearly understood, say to the pupils: "You need to compare your own essays with those of your classmates, that you may benefit by their good points and avoid their errors. If a critic does not mark a mistake, then I know that either he was careless and did not notice it, or he was ignorant and did not recognize it. If good points are commended and errors indicated, it shows an able critic. So each essay gives me a view of two people. I want you to feel that appreciating good points in an essay is quite as important as seeing mistakes."

The essays may be on important current events, on historical places, on discoveries in science, on, biographies of authors, artists, orators, musicians, statesmen, reformers, indeed of any person whom the world knows.

Require the seventh and eighth grades to memorize and, so far as in them lies, to apply to their study and recitation the following: "The great end in education is to learn to think consecutively to put out one's hand, close the fingers, grasp the subject with the mind, and make it hold on to what is desired." Test their ability to do so by essays containing from fifty to two hundred words. Give them a general idea of the independent paragraph by reading to them paragraph editorials in leading papers and magazines. If after such training a pupil dare say anything akin to "Daniel Webster lived during the revolutionary war, he invented electricity, and was author of the onabridge dictionary," his mistakes be upon his own head!

GEOGRAPHY WORK. I.

Our new geographies for the fifth grade had not arrived and what were we to do? What could we do? We asked our superintendent and he suggested a review in the

form of travel. We were still left to act as our own notion might suggest, so upon inquiry we found several among the class that had been in other cities in Indiana. Our own city lies in a beautiful prairie with here and there a slight elevation called a "ridge." The first boy questioned had lived a year in or near New Albany. Now the change in the physical appearance of our own country, and that hilly, broken land about New Albany attracted his attention, for he told us much about the hills called the "knobs" and the general character of their soil. He had become greatly interested in observing the action of the water upon the soil there. He explained the deep gullies among these hills; how the water after a heavy rain would come dashing down those ravines and as the water was muddy it meant that soil had been softened and loosened by the water and was floating down to "settle" and form a bed of mud or sand, somewhere. In the Ohio river just a few miles above this city is a large bed of limestone over which the river flows, which is called the rapids or the "falls." He had noticed that the water had worn away great channels in this rock and loosened and carried away large pieces of the stone. Some member of the class had learned the meaning of erosion and applied it here,

much to the interest of the class. But this first boy insisted that what the farmer needed as one interested in the lands of that locality, was, how to prevent erosion upon the hillsides that were tillable. To plow these hills frequently and leave the top of the soil loose meant that every heavy rain would carry off this loose soil and leave the land impoverished. Let me use the boy's own words to catch his meaning: "If these hills are plowed often they will wash away faster; hence we must plant them in something that will not need to be plowed very often and whose roots will hold the soil in place and let the water run off. Grass, berries, orchards, and small fruits of all kinds would be good for these hills."

But our time was up and we carried over the unfinished work for to-morrow.

LIFE AND THE TEACHING LIFE.

MARGARET E. DENNIS.

What are some of the things which enter into the forming of an equipment. for life, which shall be part also of the best equipment for our profession?

First, so placed, perhaps, for the reason that it comprehends so much, is the will to make one's life helpful to others, to hold it ready to meet other lives at as many points as their needs may seem to require. This is not necessarily a wholly unselfish attitude nor in any exclusive sense altruism. Miss Addams has said that she and a friend started the Hull House project because they wanted the experiences and the benefit to their own lives, the unfolding of their own characters, that the experiences would bring. They gave themselves, as all the world knows, but they gave knowing that they would receive in unstinted measure in return.

The men and women who are devoting their lives to the education and elevation of the mountain whites at the Berea College have given themselves apparently at great sacrifice to that work, but without exception they would testify that in the enrichment and enlarging of their own. lives they have found compensation far outweighing any measure of sacrifice.

Galahad said: "If I lose myself I save. myself," when he alone of all the knights dared sit down in Merlin's enchanted chair, and only Galahad beheld the Grail.

We see lines, "vertical, transverse and oblique," gather year by year on the faces of some teachers. We see them gradually settle into narrow ruts and harden into cynicism and bitterness. We say, "This is the effect of teaching." Say rather that it is because the teacher has missed the best that the opportunities of teaching might have brought into his life, has never realized how his profession might have been

made to work the enriching and expanding of his own nature.

Another trait of character of which there is great need, both in and out of the schoolroom, is a cheerful, sunny and genuine optimism; a determination, first, to establish one's own attitude of good will and kindly purposes, and, second, to have faith in a similar attitude on the part of others.

For the teacher the range will be from the children to the parents and trustees or board of education, taking in the superintendent and associate teachers by the way. The persons who have selfish, sinister or darkly ulterior motives toward one are really very rare, and even where one exists there is a sort of genial hypnotic effect produced by assuming this position that has a wonderfully curative effect on such propensities.

It is a fact that as a rule even superintendents and school boards really mean to do the kind, fair, just and honest thing toward every teacher employed by them. A very small object held close to one's eyes will shut out the sun and its light, and it is possible for one to hold his personal ambitions or grievances so close to his mind's eye as to exclude all remembrance or thought of the rights of others.

Teachers are always underpaid and sometimes overworked, though the latter is not so universally true as one would gather from articles which from time to time appear in the various "literary" magazines. More injury is done to their nervous systems by fretting over conditions of whose existence they were fully aware when they began teaching and by brooding over real or imaginary personal grievances than would be wrought by the performance of double their daily tasks.

If the wrongs are real, right them if you can by brave, sensible, straightforward effort, but if you can not secure their redress one of two courses is always open to you either to adjust yourself easily to