the class read constantly. The subjects read may range from a spirited newspaper discussion of the Italian question to a prosaic dictionary definition of a technical term, but insist that each shall be well read.

In summing up, I would say there are four steps essential to the achievement of our purpose: the desire to read well, an ability to recognize words at sight, a thorough understanding of the author's meaning, and the ability to give that meaning to the listeners.-School Journal.

The Country Teacher.

BY PROF. S. R. THOMPSON.

When, at the request of the Editor of The Monthly, I consented to "write something for teachers from the standpoint of a director," the country school teacher was in my mind, and still is as I write. Teaching in the city may be as laborious as it is in the country, but it is less discouraging. In what follows, the writer has sought to economize space and time by addressing the country teacher directly.

1. Do not allow yourself to think that your work in the country is less important than that of other teachers elsewhere. It is true that the city teacher has more comfortable surroundings, greater facilities, more encouragement, and is usually better paid than you are; but on the other hand, you have the best, because the most promising material to work on. Remember that from the country school have come at least fourfifths of the great, wise, and influential men and women of the present generation; and that this is certain to be true of the next generation as it is of this. The city and the country teacher may be compared to two workmen who are engaged in making axes; the one has the finer shop and forge, but the latter has the finer steel to work on, and makes the greater number of axes. The permanent influence of the faithful country teacher is usually far greater, and this circumstance may well be a set-off to some of the inconveniences of school teaching in the country.

2. You should set yourself to do some missionary work in the cause of education. You will find yourself sometimes in a neighborhood in which ideas of what education should be are terribly insufficient for our time and country. It is your duty, as it may be your high pleasure, to help change this state of things for the better.

You should feel bound by every principle of honor to make your profession as respectable as possible. Read, think, reflect, and having settled for yourself what good school work is, go in with all your force to realize your ideal. Show your patrons that you mean business, and that you have a distinct purpose in what you do, and know what you are doing. Zeal, energy and steady effort will make a mark in any community.

3. Do not think that because the people of the district do not visit your school that they are indifferent to the progress of the scholars. Doubtless, there are some persons in most districts who do not care how the school goes on, but their number is small, and they are usually persons of no influence, perhaps without much character. The chief reason why parents and directors do not visit their school is that they do not see how they can do it any good by such visits. It is a fact that very few persons are judges of school work; the common standard is as often wrong as right, and unless a visitor has such knowledge as will enable him to judge the school correctly, his criticisms are quite as likely to do harm as good. If your school gets on soundly, the fact will become known in good time, without visits from anybody.

4. Never despise the power of public opinion; it is a mighty social force in this country, and for this reason the wise teacher will try to use it for the advantage of his special work. Some earnest teachers, seeing that some trifling and inefficient teachers, by a plausible manner, and by using some of the arts of the demagogue or the small politician, make for themselves a reputation far beyond their real merits, are disposed to go to the other extreme and make no effort to become popular. Now, this is all wrong. No matter how good a teacher may be, popularity will add increased effectiveness and success to his work.

5. Get a copy of the school law and see what are your rights and duties under it. It is a shame that any teacher should go on teaching from term to term without any care or effort to learn what the law is that controls, or allows others to control his employment. Have your certificate and contract signed before you begin to teach; you may escape trouble sometimes by following this rule.

6. And finally, regard your business with pride and accustom yourself to think of it as a useful and honorable employment. Read the lives of Socrates, Aristotle, Pestalozzi, Arnold and other great teachers of ancient and modern times, not forgetting the Great Teacher, the greatest of all, and muster up your powers to follow in their footsteps.

Do not allow yourself to look upon your work as a drudgery. It is and will be laborious, but put your heart into it and the drudgery is gone. True, faithful, honest labor in the work, will result in steady growth of mind and heart, in a way that will be a constant gratification.—Ohio Educational Monthly.

Music as an Aid to Discipline.

BY E. D. K.

Medical authorities give facts concerning the power of music as a therapeutic agent that teachers would find of interest and benefit to them

selves, if they once saw its application to their own work. Music is declared by nerve specialists in medicine to be one of the effective aids in curing diseased nerves. By means of pleasing melody the whole nerve system is invigorated. Insane people are influenced by music to such a degree that the most dangerous are quiet in church service.

Who has more to do with tired nerves than the teacher-not only with her own overstrained nerves, but with the nerves of the children who are restless, inattentive, and "out of sorts?" Half a hundred are shut up in one room, with irritated nerves, starved of fresh air and oxygen, and it is a wonder that more disorder, instead of less, is not the result. If but three or four words were allowed to be prescribed for the undisciplined schools where everything is "on edge," these would be among the best-fresh air, exercise, music. The first is one of the most unobtainable luxuries in the United States, as school buildings are constructed. The second, unless conducted on principles and sense, only increases the nerve tension in straining after "show" effects. The third is usually considered merely ornamental, and is found only where public sentiment has reached a certain point. If teachers knew the power of music as a method of discipline, it would be considered a necessity to hire an instrument, if one is not furnished, and find some means to learn to play, if only a few familiar airs. This has not yet been dignified into a "per cent." requirement of teachers, but it is to be hoped that some day it will rank where. it belongs in a teacher's outfit. The kinder-gartners make it a requirement in their training of pupils, and it means more than the words say when they exact it; for nerves, spirits, ambitions, hearts, and morals can be wonderfully influenced by the power of music in the school-room when happily managed.

At a recent commencement exercise in a crowded opera-house in a large city, the audience sat listless and breathless. The night was one of intense heat, and thousands of people who had listened to the first orations with deep interest had drooped as perceptibly as the flowers they wore. Eloquence fell powerless, and every breath was an effort. The faint applause of the last speaker had scarcely died away, when the fine orchestra woke the audience with an outburst of "Dixie." The magical effect can only be imagined. Fans fluttered, smiles beamed, feet tapped the time unconsciously, and even the piled up flower baskets looked fresher. The whole aspect of the house had changed, still nothing had changed but spirits-nerves; yet the next graduate received a tribute of interest and applause not due for superiority. There is never a schoolroom of children that cannot be "made over," when interest droops, by the skilful introduction of music.-School Journal.

cuse.

"For Grain Will Grow From the Seed You Sow."

BY MRS. LAURA EHRENFIELD.

If it were a first term, ignorance might be some palliation, some exBut when a teacher goes on term after term in this manner, not making any visible effort to do more efficient work, something should be done to make him do better or quit the profession. He should be made

to feel that his mistakes will injure his pupils for life. When a teacher assumes to be other than he is, and by this pretension secures a position for which he is not fitted, and where his mistakes will permanently injure and may ultimately ruin those under his influence, then he should be made to feel that his ignorance is no longer ignorance, but crime.

Patrons, see to it that you have a live, progressive school. And to make your school a success from the lowest foundation-stone to the topmost turret, you must have an A No. 1 teacher in the primary (and in every other room if possible). Superintendents and principals, see to it that your primary teacher is all that he or she should be, for much of your present, and more of your future success, if you remain in your present position, depends upon your teacher down in your first primary.

Life is a wonderful giant as well as a wonderful fairy in the schoolroom. The live teacher can enthuse, wake up, and excite such a spirit of progress in the pupils that the dryest, hardest school drudgery becomes a pleasure. The very atmosphere of the school is charged with progress, and the children gather much, perhaps more, from this source than from any other influences. The atmosphere is cheerful, wide-awake, bracing, and the tones heard are firm, clear, brisk, with a ring of kindliness, and of common conversational pitch, for the school is a phonograph and will repeat what has been committed to it. The ranting, turbulent teacher reproduces himself, while the listless teacher who lacks energy reproduces himself.

A teacher of the latter class, by his languid, uninterested manner, will finally kill the enthusiasm and paralize the energies of the most ambitious pupil. Finally the school dies for lack of force in the teacher, although he is sometimes educated and accomplished. He is deficient in motive power. It might be said of that school what a little boy once said to me when I enquired what killed his dog: "Dunno. Didn't anything 'ticular ail him; guess he died for want of breath."

The main business of the primary school is to form habits. Sow an act, says a modern writer, and you reap a habit; sow a habit and reap a character; sow character and reap destiny. This sowing is chiefly done by keeping the little people busy in the right way. They will busy themselves in the wrong way without much help, and every time a little one commits a wrong act he is training for worse. Every piece of work

poorly done trains him to do worse. The tendency is always to do again. what he has done. Then in the name of justice and common-sense, have him instructed and trained correctly from the very beginning.

Accuracy and rapidity in the use of numbers, distinct articulation, correct pronunciation and expression in reading, with correct, concise use of language, are a few of the habits that should be formed in early school work. Spelling necessarily occupies much time. With a number of boxes filled with letters, either print or script, one-half inch square, and ten or fifteen minutes of the teacher's time devoted to methods of using them, a child will learn to spell, and use more words in a month than the pupils in the school I mentioned can possibly learn in a whole term. From these boxes referred to, come notation, addition, subtraction, sentence-building, and even composition lessons, if the teacher be the magician to invoke them. The pleasure and profit derived from their use, and the minimum amount of the teacher's time required, make these boxes a veritable bonanza to the intelligent, go-ahead teacher.

I would not have a hobby in the school-room, but if I did it would be spelling in the primary. In childhood the memory holds details more tenaciously. What the child sees and experiences he is able to recall and reproduce when wanted. Later, the developed mind refuses to take that interest in details which is essential to their recollection. The foundation of good spelling is laid in the first years of school life, and poor spellers are started on their unfortunate journey in the same period. My experience and observation have convinced me that a person who has not acquired the art of spelling by the age of fourteen seldom if ever attains it; now, it may be no great honor to be a good speller, but all will admit that it is a serious misfortune to be a bad one.

Froebel says: "As the beginning gives a bias to the whole afterdevelopment, so the beginnings of education are the most important." If the most important, then the primary teacher should not be a beginner, but one of the best. You say the teacher must begin; that only by practice can experience be gained. True; but he should begin where he will do the least amount of harm, and that is not in the primary department. Here are to be sown the seeds of all mental, moral and physical habits; and how can he implant in others what he himself only vaguely feels and partially understands? Aside from the primary, the best place to begin is where you can get a position. Wages should be a small consideration. at first. To our young friends who expect to begin teaching I would say: Make up your minds to be good teachers. Even greatness is attainable, according to the Rev. Sam Jones. He says any person of average health and intelligence can be great if he so will it. He may not be able to achieve greatness in the world of intellect, but by becoming a great worker he makes success certain. To insure this success, make