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She says:

where they are.

Children, we are going to see what rivers we can find, and You see that some of them run to the Lake, some to the Ohio River. This enables us to divide them into groups or "systems." Now we will take them up one by one, beginning in the Northeastern part of the State. What is the name of the first one? In what part of the State does it rise. In what general direction does it flow? Where does it empty?" Then the second will be taken up in the same way, then the third, and so on. Then the rivers of the southern system will be similarly studied. Next will come the cities, care being taken to locate them correctly as respects the part of the State that they are in, and the rivers that they are on, if any. Then a few great lines of railroad should be studied, the pupil observing the general direction in which they run and the leading cities which they connect. A few principal counties should be located; at least Hamilton, Franklin, and Cuyahoga Counties. No harm will be done, but good instead, by putting upon the blackboard a map of the Western Reserve, with the counties properly marked, and requiring the pupils to study it carefully. Along with this map-study should go a certain portion of the descriptive geography. This will be sufficient for an outline study of the State. It will be seen that it includes only the most general facts. Later it will be necessary to study the State, particularly Ohio, more carefully, filing in a considerable number of details herein omitted.

It will be observed that the above remarks do not cover the whole ground of geography. They relate to map-study, and to the descriptive work only so far as it relates directly to the map. So far as it goes, this method should be pursued in the study of all States, countries, or other geographical units; first, the whole, then the parts; first a general outline, then a filling in. How far the process shall go in the filling-in, will depend upon a variety of facts. In some cases, such an outline as is sketched above is all-sufficient, and more detailed work is not called for. In other cases, as in the more important States of our Union and the leading countries of Europe, nearly all the work found in the text-book should be dore. For a general guide perhaps nothing better can be given than the following:

The geographical facts pertaining to different parts of the globe should be taught with different degrees of fullness. The principles that should govern are easily discoverable; some of them may be here set down: 1. First of all comes the United States. The pupil is more interested in his own country than in any other; also, in his own State. 2. Business and commercial connections may be noticed. 3.

Historical connections are very important. 4. The places that countries and peoples occupy in literature are hardly less important than historical connections. 5. The relative prominence of countries in the world of to-day is a cardinal fact. After North America, the geography of Western Europe is more important to the American child than any other part of the world. England, Germany, and France have most importance to most American children on historical, literary, and commercial grounds. England more than any other. The model presented above, based on the State of Ohio, will not be full enough for an outline in every case. Ohio contains no mountains, no considerable inland waters, has no capes or deserts, and is destitute of other physical features often found.

The point that is all-important here is to lead the pupil to study the map questions. If this method is wisely followed several advantages will follow : 1. The pupil will seem to be finding out things: he will seem to be on a voyage of discovery; and will share the interest and delight that always attend such experiences. 2. He will, by degrees, so work the map into his mind that it will become a picture. 3. This ideal map will serve as a skeleton or frame-work in which, both then and afterwards, a great number of facts can be readily grouped so as to bind them together into a whole by natural principles of association. It is the nearest possible approach to an orginal survey.

The other method, and perhaps the one most frequently pursued, is for the pupil to take up the map questions and search out the answers one by one, never combining them in a general view or picture, but leaving them fragmentary and isolated. A great many useful facts may be learned in this way and be carried in the memory, but they are no more the geography of Ohio, or any other State or country, than a handful of disjointed and scattered fish-bones are a fish. That the pupil's knowledge may be real knowledge-that it may have living power -it must be organized; and the above method of study will lead to its full organization.

The teacher must not, indeed, suppose that the map questions are useless, and therefore to be discarded. It may indeed be said that the school geographies would be better adapted to their use if they contained no map questions, since then the pupils would be compelled to study maps structurally; but, probably, the weight of argument is on the other side. The map questions will do no harm if the pupil is not allowed to use the question-and-answer method, but is required to study maps; on the other hand, they will do good as indicating the kind of map-study desired, and as furnishing a measure of the ex

tent to which it shall be carried. Besides, it will be found that the pupil, when he has well studied his map, as above directed, will have learned all the map questions that are really important.

Here it should be added, these directions to teachers must not be literally followed in one respect. In the beginning, the pupil will need to be carefully led along step by step-boundaries, surroundings, etc., in their order; but after a time he should be left mainly to himself in the preparation of his lesson, for he will have learned what he ought to learn as well as how to learn.

Reference has been made to the work of the imagination in studying geography. This is very important. Perhaps the child's greatest trouble is that the things with which he deals do not strongly impress his mind. The mountain or lake is a trick of shading, the river is a line of ink, the whole map is a picture. Only the imagination can make these representations real to him. Hence a large observation of external nature-field and forest, hill and valley, mountain and river, land and water-will be of incalculable benefit to the child; the child who has seen little of the country, or has never seen it at all, is at a great disadvantage. Here the teacher will meet one formidable difficulty. Many of her pupils will not have an experience of nature large enough to interpret to them the words of the book and the map. This difficulty she will struggle to remove, stimulating the imagination of her pupils by drawing out from their minds such experiences as they have had, and presenting to them new illustrations. She will thus seek to give some adequate conception of what the terms river, mountain, desert, country, etc., mean. The advantage of thus appealing to the imagination is two-fold: it is essential to the successful study of the matter in hand; it is valuable as an educator of this power of the mind, which has so much to do with the affairs of life. In fact, there is no other study taught in common schools so well adapted as geography to the development of the imagination.

Geography-teaching should, for the most part, turn on the large facts. Large mountains or rivers are more important than small ones. Emphasis must be put upon the structural facts; upon general features. A river system is more important than a particular river; a mountain range than a particular mountain. The Southern Ohio slope is a more important fact than the valley of the Scioto; the Amazon valley more important than the Maderia; the Rocky Mountain range than Mount Hood or St. Elias. Then the larger facts are a frame-work for the smaller, just as the large geographical features control the small ones. This paragraph, cut from an educational journal, is a good hint:

The subject of railroad geography does not receive the attention it deserves in schools. After the physical and the ordinary geography of our country is known, there should be a thorough training, from the railroad maps that can be easily procured at any general ticket office on the great routes of travel. American civilization is now deepening all its channels along these great routes of intercourse. The leading commercial towns, even the educational centers, are found on these lines; and a school-boy ignorant of this feature of American progress is all afloat in his practical estimate of home geography.-Supt. B. A. Hinsdale's Directions to Cleveland Teachers.

Friday Afternoon.

In answer, says Supt. G. O. Mastin, to a letter of inquiry asking for suggestions relative to "Friday Afternoon Exercises," a leading and progressive teacher wrote this: If I were teaching in a country school I should make my Friday afternoons the happiest half-days of the week. With this object and that of instruction in view, success will surely follow. Pupils may be led to do much work, under the impression that they are playing. Among the many things that you may do, the following are presented as examples:

1. Have a pronunciation test. Prepare and put on the board at least ten words commonly mispronounced. Do this soon enough to enable the earnest pupils to consult the dictionary.

2. Devote twenty minutes to "spelling down," using a list of words. commonly misspelled.

3. Have a chart or map exercise.

4. Read a short sketch, and have the pupils reproduce the thought orally or in writing.

5. Give out work, either orally or from blackboard, requiring work in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division combined. Teach squares of numbers.

6. Let each pupil give a sentiment from a standard author. If possible, induce the pupil to develop the thought in his sentiment. (Language lesson).

7. Put queer "queries" on the board for investigation. Do this a week in advance. It will stimulate observation. Parents will grow interested.

8. Require pupils to answer rapidly ten questions about current

events, dates, places, persons, etc. Number the answers from one to ten, and criticise as in written spelling lessons.

9. Give a practical lesson in civil government.

10. Conduct an exercise in false syntax. This work is very practical. Require pupils to correct sentences without giving the grammatical reasons. In this way you can do much to teach the true use of the verbs teach, lie, sit, lay, set; the true use of the past tense and past participle of irregular verbs; and also discountenance many vulgarisms. It is better to do this than to teach the list of Presidents of the United States.

II. Require old pupils to write, fold properly, inclose and address a letter of some kind.

It is an

The above are among the things that pupils can and will do. You cannot expect to bring about all of these results at once. easy matter to state what to do. But it takes time and patience to learn how to do these things. When the very young pupils grow weary, let those of them who prefer it go home. You need not hope to secure the willing co operation of all your pupils. If half of them try at first, you may feel encouraged. Giving sentiments is a pleasant exercise. Every teacher should own an Emerson or a Longfellow calendar, and place it in his school room. If you know of anything in addition to the above that adds interest to the above suggestions, please let the teaching fraternity hear from you. If the plan of having "Friday afternoon" exercises impresses you favorably, don't fail to attempt it, no matter how small your school, nor how unruly, nor how limited your supply of books and appliances, nor how brief your experience. But of one fact you may be assured: Unless you are willing to do much extra work out of regular school hours, you can hardly hope to win.-Practical Teacher.

Problem.

To divide a plank in the form of a trapezoid into two parts equal in area by a line drawn parallel to the two parallel bases of the trapezoid.

Suppose the plank to be 12 feet long, 1 foot wide at one end, and 11⁄2 feet wide at the other end.

ARITHMETICAL RULE.-Square each base, add the squares, divide the sum by 2, and extract the square root of the quotient, to get the

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