any person may find instruction in any subject that may properly be taught to children. This means that students should have the opportunity of preparing to teach manual training both to boys and to girls in all grades, to become experts in the elements of domestic science, to understand the art of adornment of person and dwelling, to become expert in drawing, designing, moulding, weaving, etc.; as well as to become able to teach the various aspects of nature work in the grades. Such work requires division of labor for the student and multiplication of teaching force in the faculty. Yet if our normal schools are to be the fertile source of new ideas, if they are to infuse the potent spirit of their unquenchable enthusiasm to successive generations of teachers, these things they must do, this support and extension they must have.-American Education.

GOOD AND POOR TEACHERS.

BY SUPT. H. C. MISSIMER.

THE good teacher is first of all a stuof her own observation, her own thinking, her own reading. Her discipline is the application of common sense to actual conditions. It is always firm, never wob

own pupils counts as much in the system as the building, the course of study and the text-book.

The poor teacher is first and foremost always the one who would rather do anything else that would bring her the same pay; her heart is in her work only for what she is paid. She uses the same methods from year to year. She may

have good order in her room. She may even have natural graces of manner and person. She may have tact; but she neither studies nor devises the methods that produce the best results. She becomes in a few years a formal, artificial and lifeless teacher, in spite of grace and tact and natural qualifications. There are always such in the schools who are dead weights upon the entire system. They are the routine teachers who look only to the work of their grade, and do not concern themselves with what goes before or what comes after it.

How to get rid of the poor teachers, how to secure and retain the good ones, is the most vital question of all in our public school system.

CAPITAL AND LABOR.

BY HORATIO ALGER.

thetic. Her clear teaching is the result of scholarship that extends far beyond what she teaches. Her simple and direct methods in arithmetic come from her wider knowledge of algebra and geometry. Her power of developing thought in the reading or geography lesson comes from an intimate acquaintance with the best and noblest literature, and from a knowledge of the science of common things in earth, sea and sky.

The good teacher is a person of culture and refinement. She never stoops to sarcasm, she is free from vulgarities of speech and manner. Her pupils silently weigh her in the balance, and she is not found wanting. In their eyes she is always "lovely," or "all right;" and the accuracy with which these boys and girls of eight to twelve years of age size up their teacher should often make school committees, the school board, and even the superintendent, wonder at their own lack of insight. The teacher who stands the test of the searching judgment of her

Griffith, sat in a room in his elegant mansion one day in autumn. To judge by his face, his reflections were of an agreeable nature.

"The prospect is," he said to himself, "that my income for the present year will year will reach fifteen thousand pounds. That is a tidy sum for one who started as a poor boy. And I am not so old, either. Just turned of sixty! There is more than one nobleman in the kingdom that would be glad of John Griffith's income. My Katy will have a rich dowry."

He was interrupted here by the entrance of a servant.

"Mr. Griffith," he said, "there are three men who would like to see you." "Three men?"

"Yes, sir. They are not gentlemen," said the servant, who understood the question. "They are men from the mill, I'm thinking." It was a holiday, and the works were not in operation, so the operatives were off work.

Then was heard the tramp of heavy boots on the staircase, and presently en

tered three men, whose dress and appearance indicated clearly that they belonged to the class who are doomed to earn their bread by hard and unremitting labor.

What is your business with me, my men?" asked Mr. Griffith, rising and surveying them with interest. "Are you employed in the mill ?"

Yes, sir," said the foremost, Hugh Roberts; "Yes, Mr. Griffith, we are employed in the mill, and it's about that we've come to see you."

'Very well," said John Griffith, resuming his seat, "speak on, whatever you have to say to me."

་་

It's this, Mr. Griffith, sir, and I hope you won't be offended at what I say. We came here to humbly beg that you would❘ be pleased to raise our wages."

To raise your wages!" exclaimed Mr. Griffith, in a displeased tone.

"Yes, sir. I hope you won't be of fended."

"Don't I give as high wages as are paid in other mills?"

"Mayhap you do, sir ; but it's very hard to get along on three shillings a day."

But if I should pay higher wages than others they could undersell me in the market."

"I don't know, sir; but I think we should work more cheerfully and do more in a day if we felt that we had a little more to live on, so that the wife and children needn't pinch and go hungry."

These words were uttered in a manly and straightforward tone, and there was not a little pathos in them, but it seemed lost upon Mr. Griffith.

"It's only sixpence more a day we ask, sir," said Hugh Roberts, pleadingly.

Mr. Griffith made a mental calculation. He had three hundred men in his employ. He found that sixpence a day additional would make a sum total during the year of over two thousand pounds. This reflection hardened his heart against the applicants.

"

No," he said, "your request is unreasonable; I cannot accede to it."

"But, sir," said Hugh Roberts, "think what it is to support a family on three shillings a day."

"It is hard, no doubt," said Mr. Griffith; "but I cannot afford to make the advance you desire."

"Then you refuse, sir?"

"I do. If you can do any better, of course I won't prevent your bettering yourselves."

"We can't do better, sir," said Hugh, bitterly, crushing his hat between his toilhardened fingers. "We have no other way to live, except to work for you and take what you are pleased to pay."

"Think it over, my men," said Mr. Griffith more good-humoredly, for he had carried his point, "and you will see that I can't pay more than other manufacturers. I've no doubt your wives and children will earn something to help you along."

The three men departed with sad faces, looking as if life were a weary struggle with little to cheer it.

Scarcely had they left the room when Katy Griffith entered.

Born when her father was comparatively late in life, she was his darling and the light of his existence. It was for her that he wished to become very rich, that he might make her a match for the highest, as he was wont to express it.

"They will overlook old John Griffith's pedigree," he said to himself, "if his daughter has a good hundred thousand pounds to her dowry."

Katy entered, a bright-eyed, attractive girl of fifteen, of whom her father might well be proud.

"How are you, my darling?" said her father, smiling fondly upon her.

"I'm always well," she said lightly; "but, papa, who were those poor men that I met on the stairs? Had you been scolding them ?"

"What makes you ask, Katy?" "Because they looked so sad and discouraged.'

"Did they?" asked Mr. Griffith, with momentary compunction.

Yes, papa; and I heard one of them sigh, as if he were tired of living.' "They were men from the mill, Katy." "And what did they come for? Do you tell them about the work."

"No, the overseer does that." "What did they come for?" "You are very curious, my darling." "That isn't telling me, papa," said the young lady, persistently.

Then, if you must know, it was to ask for higher wages."

"Of course you gave it."

"Of course I didn't.

Why should I?"

"Because they need it. How much do they get now?"

"Three shillings a day."

"Only three shillings a day!" exclaimed Katy, "and have to support their families out of that."

Sixpence a day."

"Only sixpence a day, and you refused!" said Katy, reproachfully.

"But consider, my dear, on all my workmen it would amount to more than two thousand pounds a year."

"And how much do you make in a year, papa?"

"This year," said Mr. Griffith proudly, "I think I shall make nearly fifteen thousand pounds."

"You don't surely spend all that, papa ?"

"Not more than four thousand."

"" And the rest ?"

"I lay up for my Katy.'

'Then," said Katy, as it is to be mine, pay the men a shilling more a day. There'll be enough left for me. I shouldn't enjoy money that was taken from so many poor people. Think, papa, how much good the extra shilling would do to your poor men, and how little difference it would make to me.

I shall be as rich as I want to be. Come, papa, you were once poor yourself. You should pity the poor."

At those words Mr. Griffith realized the difficult struggle he had early in life, and the selfishness of his present treatment of his poor operatives struck him forcibly. His own heart joined with his daughter.

a general air of want and discomfort. He did not understand the summons, but thought he might be going to receive his discharge in return for his bold request. Again he was ushered into the presence of his employer.

"I have been thinking of your request, my man," said Mr. Griffith in a kind tone," and though I doubt whether any other manufacturer would grant it, I have made up my mind to do it."

"Bless you, sir," said Hugh Roberts, his face lighting up. Heaven reward you. Then we will have three shillings and sixpence hereafter?"

"You shall have four shillings." "Four shillings! Are you really in earnest, sir?"

"Truly so. The overseer shall receive my instructions to morrow."

The workman burst into tears, but they were tears of joy.

"The men will bless you," he said, smiling, and the words had a pleasant sound for Mr. Griffith.

A hearty blessing is not to be despised.

It was found on experiment that the profits of the business were but little affected by the increased wages, for the men now worked with a hearty good will which enabled them to accomplish more work in a day, so that Katy's sacrifice will be less than was supposed. And every day she rejoices over the thought of the additional comfort secured by the extra shilling paid at her request.

RESPONSIBILITY OF PARENTS.

"Are

T is a very serious question whether the manners of the young men and the young women in this country are not deteriorating. It is not easy to judge of the manners of a generation, because the standards of the past seem higher as one looks back than the standards of the present; and because, in considering any particular aspect of a period, there is the temptation to separate that aspect from the complete movement of the time, and to be misled with regard to its significance. There is no doubt that the wide practice of athletics by young men and young women has, on the whole, been extremely beneficent. Athletics is fast making Americans a vigorous race physically; it has furnished a safety-valve for the overplus of vitality which, in the colleges at least, in former days often

took the direction of dissipation. It has brought young men and young women together on a natural and wholesome basis, and has made them comrades in a rational way. These gains must be taken into account. On the other hand, it has bred an informality, not to say a freedom, of manner on the part of young men towards young women which involves a positive loss, and fostered an ease of intercourse which may lead to disastrous results if it is not moderated by the experience of older persons and controlled by judicious social conventions.

The American girl is so trustworthy that it is very difficult for a foreigner to understand her. He finds it quite impossible, looking from the standpoint of his own social traditions, to believe that so much freedom can be combined with entire purity. There is, however, not the slightest question, amoug those who are well informed, regarding the essential moral healthfulness of American society. There will always be exceptions, both in remote country districts and in great cities, to this general statement; but, as a whole, American society is singularly free from soclal corruption. But the freedom which the American girl enjoys may be carried too far, and the freedom of the American boy often degenerates into license. A great many fathers and mothers in this country have practically abdicated their authority and surrendered a responsibility from which they cannot release themselves, although they may evade it. No father or mother has a right, through easygoing complacency, or dislike to exercise authority, to pass over to children that direction of the home which ought to rest, not only on a sympathetic interpretation of the needs of young people, but also on a knowledge of life far in advance of the experience which youth can acquire. The head of a preparatory school for boys said not long ago that it was extremely difficult to enforce the rule against smoking when boys of thirteen frequently drove up to the school from the stations, accompanied by their fathers, both smoking vigorously. Every boy of mature physical growth has a right to decide whether he will smoke or not; but no father has any right to let a growing boy smoke, for well-known reasons. That is an authority which he cannot delegate without inflicting a serious injury upon the boy. The boy's

wishes ought not to be consulted in the matter any more than the wishes of the child who is anxious to play on the edge of a precipice. If the boy of thirteen knew what excessive cigarette smoking means, he would never indulge in it, for he has no desire to dwarf himself physically or mentally; and when he grows up and realizes what has happened as the result of his indulgence, he is likely to have anything but a kindly feeling towards the father whose laxity and carelessness failed to protect him from his own ignorance.

An Eastern community was shocked recently by a mysterious tragedy in which a young girl and two young men were concerned. That tragedy, whatever its character may be, was made possible by a freedom of intercourse under unusual and improper conditions which ought never to have been permitted. Every girl ought to understand that she is respected in the exact degree in which she is inaccessible to any kind of famil iarities, and that it is impossible for a woman, if she wishes to secure not only confidence but admiration, to hold herself too sacred; and it is the fundamental duty of every mother to protect her daughter by instilling into her an ade quate idea of the relation between the essential dignity of womanhood and the conventions which protect that dignity in social life. If American society is to preserve in any way the qualities which the best Americans in every generation have instilled into their children, there must be a far deeper sense of responsi bility on the part of heads of families to their children than at present exists. There must be far less license permitted; there must be far more judicious and rational supervision.

The American child is generally regarded by foreigners as the most offensive representative of his country, and, unluckily, there is very much to justify this opininon, as all candid Americans who see American children in summer hotels and elsewhere must concede. Too many of them are rude, noisy, forward and disrespectful, not only towards their parents but towards others. They reveal the laxity of their own homes in moral discipline and in the teaching of good manners. It will be necessary presently to preach a crusade or organize a movement for the education of American fathers and mothers, if the traditions of the

Americans of earlier times are to be preserved, and if American society is to have any distinction either of aim, of taste, or of manners.-Outlook.

It

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

T was Stevenson's great gift of humor that made him often laugh at himself, and he was the last of men to desire biographical coddling. The fact is that as a boy and young man he was eccentric, whimsically vain, and a puzzle in many ways. His biographer deals at some length with the early days, and with reason; not only because, as he says, the boyhood of the singer and interpreter of childhood has peculiar interest, but because Stevenson was in a beautiful and

sweet sense a boy to the day of his death. His eccentricity mellowed into gentle humor; affectation and precocity disappeared as the imagination strengthened; as real problems faced him there developed unsuspected tenacity and noble purpose; high spirits he had even in pain and suffering.

There is little in the animated and humorous letters which have made Stevenson a living personality to a world of readers to show that he was constantly fighting for life. "I was made for a contest," he wrote Mr. Meredith, "and the Powers have so willed that my battlefield should be this dingy, inglorious one of the bed and the physic-bottle." But rarely was there heard from him a word of complaint or a tone of melancholy. His brilliant romances are alive with character and rich in humor and fancy; bis subtle essays are keyed on optimism; hischild-poems are open-doored and openhearted; his very journeys to the ends of the world that he might find a place where he could live and work made him the friend, counselor, and teacher of the weak and oppressed.

Nothing is more difficult to define than charm. What is the quality about Stevenson as man and as author which has endeared him to the world far more than some of greater intellectual force? Mr. Balfour thus defines it :

"To deal with Stevenson's intellectual qualities alone is to approach his less fascinating side, and to miss far more than half the influence of his charm. I have referred to his chivalry, only to find that in reality I was thinking of every one of the whole group of attributes which are associated

with that name. Loyalty, honesty, generosity, courage, courtesy, tenderness, and self devotion; to impute no unworthy motives and to bear no grudge; to bear misfortune with cheerfulness and without a murmur; to strike hard for the right and take no mean advantage; to be gentle to women and kind to all that are weak; to be very rigorous with oneself and very lenient to others--these, and any other virtues ever implied in chivalry,' were the traits that distinguished Stevenson. They do not make life easy, as he frequently found. One day, his step son tells me, they were sitting on the deck of a schooner in the Pacific, and Stevenson was reading a copy of Don Quixote. Suddenly he looked up, and, with an air of realization, said sadly, as if to himself, 'That's me.'"

Turning from Stevenson's charm to his literary art, it is brought out in this book better than ever before that even from early boyhood he had a real passion for striving after style. In a sense he may be said to have acquired style before he had anything of his own to say. When his imagination reached its powers, the tool was at his hand. Those who think exquisite writing comes by inspiration should note that Stevenson, referring to style rather than to matter, said: “I imagine nobody had ever such pains to learn a trade as I had; but I slogged at it day in and day out, and I frankly believe (thanks to my dire industry) I have done more with smaller gifts than almost any man of letters in the world." Often his best work was re-written ten times. Here, in a somewhat abbreviated form, is the often-told story of his self-imposed apprenticeship:

"All through my boyhood and youth I was known and pointed out for the pattern of an idler, and yet I was always busy on my own private end, which was to learn to write. I kept always two books in my pocket-one to read, one to write in. As I walked, my mind was busy fitting what I saw with appropriate words; when I sat by the roadside, I would either read, or a pencil and a penny version book would be in my hand, to note down the features of the scene or commemorate some halting stanzas. Thus I lived with words. And what I thus wrote was for no ulterior use; it was written consciously for practice. It was not so much that I wished to be an author (though I wished that, too) as that I had vowed that I would learn to write..

"Whenever I read a book or a passage that particularly pleased me, in which a thing was said or an effect rendered with propriety, in which there was either some conspicuous force or some happy distinction in the style, I must sit down at once and set