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est, care for a co-operative school garden. Under the guidance of either a supervisor or teacher, the larger boys spade the ground. Then the pupils of each room are given a plot for which they are responsible. Here they are helped to discover many interesting and practical facts about plant growth and its requirements. At the present time, the seventh and eighth grade boys do all the work in the greenhouses that are connected with several of the

schools. During the winter they look after the geranium, salvia and foliage slips, which have been rooted by the children of the ward schools. They not only start the fifteen thousand tomato plants that are given the older boys and girls in the spring, but force the tulip and hyacinth bulbs so that each room in the city may have flowers in bloom on the window sill at Christmas. In addition to the garden work, the boys assist the instructor in beautifying the yards, setting out shrubs and making flower beds. and painting. After being taught to notice harmony of The child's artistic nature is developed by the drawing color and shapes of objects, he tries to represent what he sees, with crayon or brush. The scholar often invents designs to use in decorating booklet covers or any other handwork. This year each lower room child is supplied with a set of stamping blocks. When the pupil has put water color on one end of the block with his brush, he presses this wet stamp down on the paper and makes a "print." By using blocks of different shapes, as a square and circle or triangle and oblong, he gets various patterns.

Children of all grades are taught physical culture, which includes indoor gymnastics as well as outdoor games. The object of the first training is not so much to learn certain movements, executed in a given way, as to furnish exercise. The play time out in the open is much helped by slides, teeters, swings, and giant strides, furnished by the mothers' clubs.

The pupils do much individual and very little mass work in singing. They learn from the beginning to be careful, appreciative listeners. In the upper grades, they often hear good music played on the school victrola, to illustrate perhaps, the story of an opera that is being studied. The

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younger children hear the victrola never longer than five minutes at a time. They are always told to watch for a certain something in the selection. The teacher puts on the record of "The Clock Store" and then says, "Now you will hear the clocks strike in a store. Raise your hand when you hear the big grandfather clock."

Sixth and seventh grade girls learn to sew. They begin with the running, basting, hemming, overhanding and backstitching. Next they combine these, making a bag in which the different stitches are used. After this, they sew on tape, mend a tear and put on a patch.

These scholars read a history of the needle - how among uncivilized nations it was a fish-bone. They correlate a study of the different materials with the history lesson, taking special note of the cotton-gin when they have a geography

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lesson about the cotton-growing countries. Throughout the term, the girls always apply the knowledge they gain. These same scholars enter the cooking classes, where a special teacher tells of what a balanced ration should consist, and instructs them in the preparation and combination of food stuffs. They work together in twos in a domestic science room that is fully equipped with gas range, small gas lid burners for each group, all kinds of cooking utensils, a refrigerator, a cupboard filled with dishes, and a sink in which is hot and cold water.

While the girls are taking a cooking lesson, the boys of

the class are receiving instruction in the printing-room. They first apply the knowledge they have gained in the grammar lesson by correcting errors in the manuscripts. sent from the different wards to be printed for school use. Next they learn not only to read and set type, but all of the various other processes necessary for the production of a printed page.

Those in the manual training divisions make many kinds of useful articles. Individuality is allowed free play. One boy, for instance, has completed a night watch-case to hang up near a bed. It is a polished oblong of hard wood four inches wide, eight inches long and a half an inch thick. At the top is a hook on which to hang the watch. Directly underneath it is fastened a small incandescent bulb with storage battery attached. A button, pressed at the lower end of the oblong, turns on the light when he wishes to find out what time it is. He is now working on an electric candle. The white imitation wax part. in reality made of metal, is topped by an opaque glass bulb to which is attached the battery. The light is made to appear by pushing a spring which can be moved by the thumb of any person who is carrying it. is carrying it. This boy, so dull that he still stumbled through the third grade arithmetic when his classmates were entering high school, was allowed to leave school and

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enter this manual training class, where he showed truly exceptional ability the pupil was anything but dull in matters that interested him. Within a year he began to feel keenly his lack of grounding in mathematics. For the first time its relation to mechanical work was borne in upon him. He began to study arithmetic by himself, and at the beginning of the next school year entered the fourth grade, where his work in mathematics was entirely satisfactorya matter of real astonishment to the teachers who knew of his former discouraging record. The manual training was the means of bringing up his entire scholastic standard. This is one of the many cases that I have noticed during my school teaching.

By means of the nature study, physical culture, music, household arts and manual training, in addition to the regular work, these city schools are training their pupils to have, as Mr. Frank McMurray, a professor in the Teachers' College of Columbia, says, "Such a control of themselves and the world's resources, as will make them high-minded, appreciative, thoughtful, and generally efficient participators in the world's affairs."

Technical Schools in Liverpool

L. V. Arnold

Only four Day Technical Schools are maintained in Liverpool:

1 The Nautical College for instruction in Navigation and allied subjects.

2 Seaman's Cookery School.

3 Trade Preparatory School providing a course in Engineering, Building and Allied Trades.

4 A School of Domestic Science.

The most important of all these is the Nautical College, for Liverpool is not a manufacturing city, but a distributing centre. Her ships touch every port in every land.

The girls are not offered equal opportunity with the boys for further instruction after leaving the Elementary School. Many find employment in the tea rooms and restaurants, while others are employed in the shops (stores). The most capable go to London for employment in the trades.

The Trade Preparatory School is intended to provide a general, practical education for the boy from the Elementary School who, at the age of fifteen or sixteen, becomes an apprentice to the engineering or building trade. "The instruction is designed to make the lad ready to take up useful work and thus save himself and his employer valu

able time." Boys taking the two year course find no difficulty in obtaining positions and their advancement is rapid. Many of the firms engaging apprentices make it a rule that they shall attend upon Technical (Evening) instruction for two or three nights a week during such apprenticeship. The employers throughout Britain are generally not awake to the benefits derived from allowing time off to their employees for instruction during the day. For many of the apprentices the strain of this instruction is very severe. In order to reach work at six many must rise at or before five, and leaving their work at five at night cannot reach home in less than an hour. The evening instruction begins at 7:30 P. M. and continues to 9:30 or 10:00 P. M., which makes a very strenuous day at least twice a week, during the school period. A general labor law which will place all trades on an equal time basis is greatly desired and will be granted shortly. This law will require that apprentices be given a certain number of hours from their employer's time weekly for instruction. At the present time each employer considers that he would be working at a disadvantage with his competitors if he granted the time off privilege to his employees.

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The Continuation School provides instruction for apprentices in trades, juniors in commercial offices, and others. In some of these schools, classes are maintained for pupils not sufficiently advanced in the Elementary courses to enter the special classes. These courses are arranged to meet the requirements of those pupils who desire to enter different occupations and in addition the continuance of their general education.

"The Continuation Schools are intended primarily to provide scholars leaving the day schools with opportunities of continuing their education and preparing for the practical duties of life. The time which they spent in the day school was, for the most part, taken up with learning how to learn; that is, learning how to use the so-called tools of education, Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, etc. . . . In the Continuation School the scholar begins to apply the previous knowledge and training and to prepare for his or her daily work in the shop, office, or home. . . The actual knowledge and training a youth receives is acquired partly by observation of his fellow-workers, partly by their

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THE NAUTICAL COLLEGE

This school was opened in 1892 and since that time more than four thousand members of the Mercantile Marine have taken courses. More than thirty-four hundred men have obtained Board of Trade certificates after being duly examined. It is stated in the Syllabus that "The object of the college is not merely to give abundant and efficient training to apprentices and officers who wish to obtain Board of Trade certificates, but to afford the members of the Mercantile Marine the means of obtaining a thoroughly complete and scientific training in all the subjects embraced in a liberal technical education equally well adapted to Deck Officer and Marine Engineer.'

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Students are required to attend the College for a certain time when the vessel is in port if that is possible. The authorities recognize the fact that many times it will be impossible when the vessel must make a hurried sailing and must be overhauled, victualed, loaded with cargo, etc. To provide for this emergency, books and courses of study are provided that the pupil may continue his study at sea, thus making the work continuous. The instruction is graded for Apprentices, or Seaman, Pilots, and Officers.

The college requires at least forty half days' attendance for instruction, the satisfactory passing of an examination, and the satisfactory report of service while at sea before awarding the Junior Certificate to Seamen. For the Senior Certificates to Pilots and Officers at least a part of twenty days must have been spent upon instruction at the college. For the Junior Diploma the course covers mathematical principles applied to navigation, Coast Line Geography, ports, products, etc.; Elements of Navigation; Nautical Astronomy; Meteorology. For the Senior Diplomas of Pilots and Deck Officers, the last four topics are taken up at length and mathematics receive a broader application. In addition the course includes Nautical Surveying, Mechanics and Stability, Magnetism and Deviation. The courses are very thorough and comprehensive and the diplomas have been of distinct value to their possessors.

The Liverpool Steamship Owners' Association views the College with much favor and strongly recommends all officers and others desiring employment in vessels owned by the Association to avail themselves of the advantages offered by the College. The Association maintains a training ship of its own.

Audubon Societies in Texas

Myrtle Middleton Powell

The United States Department of Agriculture and the National Audubon Society are sending out bulletins, warning the people against reckless and indiscriminate slaughter of the birds of our country. According to the information therein contained there are comparatively few of our birds that do more harm than good on the farm, and in the orchard and garden. It is not a mere question of sentiment, but one of grave importance to successful farming that impels. these authorities to admonish the people against the de-. struction of birds of all kinds.

Professor William Eilers, Superintendent of the Public Schools of Lavaca County, Texas, has been instrumental in having Audubon Societies organized in a number of the public schools of his country. The children in the schools where these societies are organized are taking deep interest in the study of bird life in its various details. They are thus not only learning the economic value of each bird, but the boys addicted to the habit of destroying the nests and the killing of birds that are protected by law are taught the wrong of committing misdemeanors and growing into manhood with a callous indifference to law.

Through this study of birds the children become impressed with the idea that it is wrong to take the life of a harmless bird unnecessarily. And certainly the inculcation of right moral principles and sentiments should be regarded as a part of the education of the child at

school.

Professor Eilers says, referring to the work of organizing Audubon societies: 'Several of our schools did good work with their Audubon societies last year and at our County Teachers' Institute fifty-four teachers joined the National Audubon Society. They have just received their literature and at this time I am not able to say how much work will be done along this line. However, I am pushing it as much as I can."

Professor Eilers also stated that a majority of the negro teachers in his county gave talks on the protection of birds last year and they are subscribers to a farm journal which contains an article on birds in every issue.

By introducing this study into the public schools of his county Professor Eilers is doing a service that must bring beneficial results to the agricultural interests of the country, and he has set an example which all those who have the supervision of schools would do well to emulate. \

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