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arithmetic.

The children took position with hands folded on the desks. This was called position one. A question was then given. As each obtained the result, he put his hands behind him. This was called position two. When ready for the next problem, the school took position one again and proceeded as before. This plan commended itself because it was quiet and orderly without imposing any more restraint than the frequent handraising, and enabled the teacher to see at once who had completed the work. I afterwards used that plan in a school that was noisy and hard to control, and found it much more of a help than I expected in bringing the school to order.

In the same room, I saw a very helpful exercise in form and color. Triangles, squares, oblongs, rhombuses, rhomboids, circles, etc., were cut from colored paper -the primary and secondary colors being used-and gummed to white cards. The cards having been distributed, some pupil was called upon. He came forward and turned the card he held toward the school. All who held similar figures stood while he described it. The square was described as follows: "This is a square. It is a square because it has four equal sides and four right angles. Its color is blue." The others who were standing were called upon to mention the colors of the squares they held. Another was called who had a right-angled triangle. After those holding similar figures had stood, he recited: "I have a right-angled triangle. It is a triangle because it has three sides and three angles. It is a right-angled triangle because it has a right angle. Its color is purple." The others gave the colors of their figures. So the exercise proceeded, the descriptions containing all the elements of geometrical definitions. When this part of the lesson was finished, resemblances and differences between the different figures were stated; e. g., "The square is like the rhombus in having four equal sides. It is unlike it because the square has only right angles, and the rhombus has acute and obtuse angles." The exercise is valuable for several reasons. It cultivates keenness of observation and exactness in the use of language, not to mention the addition to the children's store of facts. Many of them will never reach the high school and receive the valuable discipline of geometry. Doubtless many of us who teach geog

raphy have had trouble on account of the misspelling of geographical names. In a certain school the difficulty is solved in this way. The pupils are required to learn carefully to spell the words in each day's lesson. As each pupil recites, he is called upon to spell any words the teacher may select from his recitation.

A successful teacher told me of a course of exercises she was using as part of her Friday afternoon programme. The scholars voted for some animal about which they would like to talk the following Friday. When this was decided, two or three pupils were assigned to bring information on especial topics, as habits, locality, where found, etc. The rest of the school were to gather additional items, as pictures or anecdotes.

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SOMETIMES FORGOTTEN.

N old school teacher recently died. She had devoted her life to educating the children of other women. Other girls got married, but she went on teaching. All through the school year, from morning till night, she devoted her energies, her intelligence and her nervous system to making the next generation better. She got just enough to live on, and out of what she needed to live she managed to save something to help those worse off than herself.

Death came in due time, and found her ready. She had begun the world with nothing. She had worked all her life for others, and she left the world with nothing-not even enough to pay for a cheap grave and a cheap coffin. There is a rule which makes it necessary to bury all animals that die, including teachers, and under this rule she was to be buried at the expense of an appreciative public, in the Potter's Field.

The Department of Education stepped in and the superintendent announced that this should not be. It was necessary to prove that the public school teacher enjoys the respect, gratitude and admiration of the public. Therefore, whatever the cost, a separate burial should be arranged for this lady. It was arranged accordingly, and the Potter's Field was cheated. We should all be grateful for this, of course, and we are grateful. But, while we are thankful that a life's devotion to childhood insures even now a luxurious final resting place in a cheap

private grave, let us hope that even a better time will come.

There are just two important classes in the world, and with them no other can compare. First, the mothers who suffer to add a good man or good woman to the population. Second, the teachers who educate the child, and, through education, make it useful.-N. Y. Ev. Journal.

THE

INBREEDING.

HE custom so prevalent in this state of employing relatives as teachers whether they be good, bad, or indifferent is equaled only by the other custom prevalent in many towns and small cities of employing none but home teachers whether they have any qualifications at all. In fact, in some places the rule is followed so persistently that teachers whose influence was absolutely pernicious have been placed where they could do the most harm, in charge of the primary department. One of the poorest schools in this state has not a teacher from outside the limits of the town; and what is far worse, few if any of them have ever been out of town to visit another school. It is not to be wondered at that in their arrogant pride they boast of having the best school in the whole country. In another town in the state the force of primary teachers is annually recruited from the public school graduates, who have at best only the rudiments of an education, and who are without any experience in teaching, knowledge of teaching, or inclination to teaching, but accept the place because it is not hard to get and because the salary is good.

In each of these places the principal or superintendent is, in plain words, a figurehead. The board of education make all rules and regulations, employ teachers and sometimes adopt text-books; all without consulting the superintendent. The schools in these cities will always be a disgrace to progressive and cultured communities until men with educational ideas and with backbone take charge, and by contrast show up the pigmies who, accidentally elected on the board of education, are convinced that the wisdom of all the ages lies within the narrow confines of their empty pates. The superintendent who dares oppose such men will be a martyr and his successor will be a

martyr; but in time the eyes of the people will be opened and they will elect men on the board of education who have common sense enough to know that if a man has any qualifications whatever for the superintendency of city schools he knows a thousand times as much about building up the educational system of that city as all the board of education put together.

If the members of the board of education in these places were wise we would say "Give your superintendent full control. Let him be responsible, and if he is not equal to the responsibility, get another in his place," and we would then rest content with the thought that "a word to the wise is sufficient." But if we wait for that, many moons will wax and wane before we rest in peace. the meantime public opinion must be moulded and the eyes of the people opened.-West Va. School Journal.

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A STORY OF EDISON.

In

TALL young countryman, looking as green as a suit of "butternut" clothes and a slouch hat could make him, applied for work in the Broad street, New York, office of Maury Smith, in 1871. Mr. Smith was manager of the consolidated telegraph lines then in opposition to the Western Union. Like all other managers, he could make room for an expert operator, and told the young rustic that an engagement depended altogether upon his skill.

"Try me; I can keep up with the best of 'em," said the stranger.

Mr. Smith noticed that the applicant appeared to be quite deaf; but, out of curiosity, and possibly with the idea of having some fun with him, he gave him a table and told him to "receive" a message due from Washington.

You will have to work pretty fast," he warned him, "for our Washington man is in the habit of rushing things."

As a matter of fact there was no message expected from Washington, nor did the wire lead there. Mr. Smith connected the receiver with a "sender" in another part of the same operating room, and put his fastest operator, "Dick Hutchinson, at work sending a twothousand word message. Edison, for it was he, grasped a pen, and, as soon as the instrument began to click, dashed off

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the copy in a large, round, legible hand. While deaf to all other sounds, he could catch the faintest metallic click. On came the message, faster and faster, twenty, thirty, forty words a minute. A crowd of operators gathered around, curiosity and then amazement depicted on their faces. Page after page was reeled off, with never a break, and with the last click of the instrument the fortyminute message had been received perfectly, and lay in a heap of manuscript on the table. The young man's triumph was complete. Hutchinson rushed up and shook hands with him, and Smith gave him a job on the spot.-Success.

THE METHOD OF SOCRATES.

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BY EDWIN M. HARTMAN.

T was very much like Socrates to say, "I would rather write on the hearts of living men than on the skins of dead beasts." He did write on the hearts of men as never man did before or since, excepting the great Teacher who alone surpassed him. Socrates, like Christ, never literally wrote, but only spoke. It is fortunate for us, therefore, that he had a Boswell in Xenophon and an able, sympathetic and thoroughly appreciative disciple in Plato, through whom we can study the methods and influence of such a world teacher. When we hear Phædrus say to his master, "Pray that I may be even as thou art," and when we hear Alcibiades say, "He charms the souls of all who hear him with the music of his words. I myself am conscious that if I did not shut my ears against him and fly from the voice of the charmer he would enchain me until I grew old sitting at his feet," we too would like to find the secret of the charm that can thus fascinate the pupil. We too would like to find the secret of the power of which Grote speaks when he says, "There can be no doubt that the individual influence of Socrates permanently enlarged the horizon, improved the method and multiplied the ascendent minds, of the Grecian speculative world, in a manner never since paralleled. Subsequent philosophers may have had a more elaborate doctrine, and a larger number of disciples who imbibed their ideas, but none of them applied the same stimulating method with the same efficacy; none of them

struck out of other minds that fire which sets light to original thought; none of them either produced in others the pains of intellectual pregnancy, or extracted from others the fresh and unborrowed offspring of a really parturient mind.”

We must realize that the charm and power were, as they always are, primarily in the teacher, rather than in the matter and method of the teaching. Only a Socrates could use the same method with

equal effect. Yet the method of one whose name has world significance in the history of education must have in it something that should have eternal value and universal application. It was not so much the question and answer, nor any other form in which the teaching of Socrates was given that made it so striking and effective. The suggestive value of his work lies rather in a full comprehension of the condition and needs of his fellow-men, a clear conception of a definite end and a nice adaptation of method to this end. All this is comprehended in "the method of Socrates."

The ultimate end which Socrates had in view was the regeneration and reorganization of society through a reform of the new individualistic movement which had swept away the basis of the old institutional order. This new movement needed a universal principle which could give it system, and an end which could give life real worth. It was to be reformed however, not as a whole, but through the regeneration of the individual. And the individual was to be regenerated through education, for Socrates believed and showed in his life that true knowledge issues in virtuous living.

In order to this reforming education it was necessary to purge the mind of the individual of its false conceptions, to develop in it a craving for something better and then to assist it in its search for truth. In the application of this process Socrates recognized three grades in the intellectual scale of man:

1. The lowest grade was unconscious ignorance, self-satisfied, and mistaking itself for knowledge.

2. Conscious ignorance, unmasked, ashamed of itself, and pained, and thirsting after knowledge as yet unpossessed.

3. Actual knowledge, only attainable after passing through the second stage as preliminary.

The above process, together with the grade of the individual in the intellectual

scale, determined what we may in a narrower sense call the method of Socrates.

In the judgment of Socrates a large proportion of his fellow-men belonged to the lowest grade in the intellectual scale. The knowledge which men arrogated to themselves was merely "the conceit of knowledge without its reality." Men proclaimed confident, unhesitating persuasion on the greatest and gravest questions concerning man and society without sufficient reflection to be aware that they involved any difficulties. Such persuasion had grown up gradually and unconsciously, partly by authoritative communication, partly by insensible transfusion from others. Upon this basis the fancied knowledge rested; and reason, when invoked at all, was called in simply as an handmaid, expositor or apologist of the pre-existing sentiment, not as a test or verification. Such a state of mind may have been desirable in the old order of society, where it was the business of the good citizen to believe and obey, but it was unfortunate for the new order, in which it was his duty to think and act on his own initiative. Such a mind, if left to itself, lost the habit, yea even the power, of examining what was presented for its acceptance and much more of❘ giving birth to any ideas of its own.

The passage from this first stage of mere seeming knowledge, to the second of conscious ignorance and thirsting after true knowledge was by far the most difficult step. It was in order to get men to take this step that Socrates resorted to his probing, testing cross-examination, whereby he questioned affirmations that were not supported by proper evidence, unmasked all kinds of falsehood and purified the mind. This dialectic process, largely and necessarily negative and destructive at this stage, is the first and most prominent characteristic of the method of Socrates. A good illustration of this process of purifying the mind preparatory to its receiving or bringing forth true knowledge, is the conversation with Euthedemus the Fair. (Mem. 4: 2.) In the course of the conversation the haughty young man, who prides himself on his knowledge and ability, is brought to a consciousness of his ignorance and a state of humiliation in which he acknowledges he knows nothing, feels himself little better than a slave, and from that time forth becomes a sincere and eager seeker after true knowledge.

Through the tact and skill of the teacher this pupil was disillusioned and led to take the difficult step from the first stage to the second.

Epictetus seems to realize the need of this kind of teaching when he says, "The school of a philosopher is a surgery. You are not to go out of it with pleasure but with pain; for you come there not in health, but one of you hath a dislocated shoulder, another an abscess, a third a headache. Am I then to sit uttering pretty trifling exclamations, that when you have praised me you may go away with the same dislocated shoulder, the same aching head or the same abscess that you brought?"

This negative process in the method of Socrates led to the following positive results:

1. It purged the mind of imperfect and false conceptions.

2. It aroused interest and created a desire in sincere men for true knowledge.

3. It developed the habit of examining from every point of view, and putting to the test of reason everything that was presented to the mind for acceptance.

4. It led men to see the necessity of clear definition and full comprehension of terms.

5. It demonstrated the importance of founding knowledge on absolute fundamental principles.

In the wider field of knowledge and the more intensive and detailed study of every subject, these elements are probably more essential to the acquisition of true knowledge to day than they ever were in the past. The first concern of the true teacher of science, for instance, who wishes to develop in his students a truly scientific spirit, is to loosen their hold on and shake their confidence in the crude and indefinite general notions which were acquired through superficial work or accepted on faith as given by another. Only as the mind is pure, unprejudiced, and unhampered by proconceived notions, can it honestly and advantageously approach a subject, view it from all sides and in all relations, put it sincerely to the test of fact or reason and reach a valid conclusion. And this disposition of mind should characterize not only the student at school, but the man in practical life as well. If Socrates were to walk among us at the present time, he would find today, as he did in Athens of old, many a one whose knowledge rests merely on

tradition or current opinion so that he can give no reason for the faith that is in him, and no justification for the course he may often pursue. He would find many a self-satisfied mind, which, in the figure of Plato, needs the shock of the Socratic "logical battery" in order to resuscitate the dormant power and tendency to examine and test the opinions and prejudices which are often fatal to the best interests of him who holds them, and always detrimental to the progress of the truth.

In the positive work of leading from the second stage of conscious ignorance and thirst for knowledge to the third stage of real knowledge we see the second prominent characteristic of the method of Socrates. It is based on his famous principle that all truth is implicit in the human mind; that knowledge cannot be imparted, but must be evolved from the individual's own mind. His theory that the mind has in it principles of truth which have never been acquired through the senses nor imparted in any way from without, and that it is the teacher's function to aid the mind in bringing these truths to consciousness, is beautifully illustrated in Plato's "Meno." Socrates calls up a young boy who had never studied geometry and has him solve a problem. The unique dialogue is as follows:

S. Tell me, boy, do you know that this figure is a square? B. Yes, I know.

S. Because all these four lines are equal?

(its sides). B. Yes.

S. And also these other two lines are equal, which are drawn down the middle? (the diagonals). B. Yes.

S. May there be a square greater or less than this? B. Yes.

S. May there be a square twice as great as this? B. Yes.

S. How long must one side be, that the square may be twice as great? B. Twice as long as the side of the first square.

You see, Socrates says, I tell him nothing. I only ask him questions. And now he thinks he has answered right. But I must revive his recollection that he may see his error. So you say that the square on a double line will be double of the first square? You know I mean a square, not figure that is long one way and narrow the other; but as broad as it is long, like this square, only twice as large. Now let us fit to one end of the first square, a second square that is equal to it. And let us fit two other squares of the same size to the sides of those two squares. Then we have a new square, have we not? B. Yes.

S. And how many times is it greater than the first square? B. Four times greater. S. Not twice as great, which you said? B. No; four times.

S. Well: but how long must the line be that the square upon it may be twice as great as the first square? B. I do not know.

Now, says Socrates, mark, that out of this not knowing, he will come to know, by seeking with me, just as he comes to know when I question him without telling give him my opinion, I only get his. If him anything. You will see that I do not we draw a line across this first square, from corner to corner (the diagonal), it cuts it into two equal parts, does it not? B. Yes.

S. And if in this square, which is made up of the four squares, we draw the four diagonals, so as to cut off the four outside corners, each of these diagonals will cut one of the squares into two halves? B. Yes.

S. And these four diagonals will be equal and form a new square? B. Yes.

S. And this square is made up of the four inside halves of the four squares, is it not? B. It is.

S. But the first square is made up of two such halves, is it not? B. Yes.

S. And how much is four times greater than twice? B. The double of it.

B.

S. Then how many times is the new square greater than the first square? It is the double of it.

S. Then you have got a square that is the double of the original square? B. Yes.

S. Namely, the square upon the diagonal of the original square? B. Yes.

You see, Socrates says, he was really possessed of all his knowledge before. Those who do not know, have still in their minds a latent knowledge.

dialogue is an illustration of the power of suggestion rather than a proof of the principle which Socrates maintained, but this does not destroy its suggestive value for the teacher.

We know well enough that the above

As Socrates never accepted anything for himself that he could not evolve and test and approve in his reason, so he never offered the product of his mind to others for their acceptance. He was, however, always ready through questions and answers to aid his pupils in discovering and bringing to light the knowledge that lay hidden and dormant in their minds. The action of his mind on the pupil's mind, helped the latter to bring forth knowledge which the pupil could not have given birth to without the master's aid. Socrates therefore likens his function to that of the midwife. He says, "My function as midwife differs from that of my mother in that I assist men in bringing forth and not women; and that

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