a degree, to awaken in their minds a distrust in the value of a former teacher's work, however indifferent it may appear to the critic, is to plant seeds in the minds of children which will bear fruit of the bitterest kind. Teachers do not elevate themselves by belittling their fellow workers. In remarking to their co-workers, nil nisi bonum should be the rule. If teachers would win the respect, affection, and appreciation of pupils, they should eliminate the demon of envy from the heart, and plant in its place the spirit of goodwill.—Common School Educator. The little device presented below may be of help in teaching young pupils division in cases where the divisor is a large number. The pupil writes the dividend and divisor in the usual position. Before proceeding further he stops and makes out his table-that is, he multiplies the divisor by the first nine digits, and retains the products as a table of reference. A glance is sufficient to show him what is the proper quotient figure; the corresponding product is subtracted from the partial dividend, and so on to the end. The advantages are many and obvious. I will name two: The chance of making a mistake is reduced to a minimum, and there is eliminated the troublesome "How many times will it go?" But it is longer than the ordinary method, provided the pupil can work by the old method without making mistakes. In that case he needs no help.— South-Western Journal of Education. -What is the object in teaching pupils to read? Of late there has been a wholesale condemnation of the methods heretofore pursued in the teaching of this subject. It certainly is very true that under the old method pupils read chiefly to pronounce words, with little thought of expressing the sentiment, but are we not making the mistake of requiring too little from the child in the way of gaining power to call words at sight? We give it as the experience of some very able grammar school teachers that the child who has learned to read wholly by the word or the sentence method has too little power to help himself when he meets a word which has not been previously presented in a class drill. We make no objection to the word method, but we seriously doubt if any method ought to be exclusive. The child ought at some time, if not at the first, to be made acquainted with the alphabet, because in time it must be the key by which he will help himself not only to call words at sight but also to acquire a knowledge of new and unfamiliar words. The child recognizes words as wholes just as he recognizes persons as wholes, but the time comes, and very early, when he differentiates and recognizes one word from another by its analysis, its distinguishing marks, just as he differentiates in his recognition of persons, in order to distinguish one from another. Let us not forget in our zeal to make reading attractive and easy, that the child has a future and that a great part of the teacher's work is to prepare the child to grapple confidently and firmly with the difficulties which that future will present. It is the thinking man, the self-reliant man, that makes the successful man of the world. -The other side of the Question. SOME QUESTIONS IN PHYSIOLOGY AND HYGIENE. 1. What is the largest gland in the body? Where located? What is its function? 2. What acts constitute respiration? What muscles are employed in regulating these acts? 3. What is the patella? What is its use? 4. Mention three causes that quicken the circulation. 5. Name the organs of the nervous system. 6. What is the general effect upon the system of the use of alcohol? 7. How is the temperature of the different parts of the body kept substantially equal under normal conditions? 8. How are the muscles attached to the bones which they are intended to move? 9. Name four conditions that tend to develop consumption. 10. How may exercise relieve headache caused by over mental exertion. -"What Shall Our Children Read?" is the title of a paper read before the Saratoga meeting of the New York State Teachers' Association by George E. Hardy. The subject discussed is one of great importance. Its central thought is found in the words of Stanley Hall:"The school has no right to teach how to read without doing much more than it now does to direct the taste and confirm the habit of reading." Mr. Hardy is right in saying that "the great masters of thought must be known, not by reading selections from their works. and then leaving them, but by a continuous reading of their works in course." He emphasises the fact that a single first-rate book read till its flavour is caught, raises the level of the whole mental and moral character, and that the ability to read great books is a faculty to be acquired, not a natural gift. The work Mr. Hardy has undertaken is great one. It is to be hoped that he may impress his thoughts upon the teachers and text-book makers of America, says the "School Journal." -The question as to what constitutes literature is an important one. The term as a rule is used so indefinitely that we may be misled by it. One might almost conclude that all that is written goes to constitute literature. But such a conclusion would be a serious mistake. For instance, a treatise on any scientific essay, an account of a trip through the wilds of Africa can not come within the range of literature. The French give as a name belles lettres, which more nearly covers the area. All productions that display the finer texture of the mind, that are the offspring of imagination, that show us nature and nature's God-these belong to a nation's literature. Hence poetry, the essay, the novel by right are assigned to the realms of literature. It will be remembered of course that all that has rhythm, or rhyme, cannot be called poetry. Neither will we dare to give all essays a dignified place-in this honored kingdom. Novels such as most of Scott's, possibly one of Dickens', and one or two of Thackeray may come within our territory. Now, this is a very rough outline. As we go on we may find it difficult to say whether a work properly possesses enough of merit to be ranked with those productions that gratify our higher nature and in many cases become part of our being. TESTS WORDS FOR PRONUNCIATION. -Presume, tenet, exhausted, bronchitis, laryngitis, tune, pronunciation, squalor, scheme, piano, picture, aggrandizement, abdomen, avalanche, auxiliary, orthopist, alternate, altitude, appalachian, moslem, sacrilegious, sacrifice, caliope, gone, tournament, bivouac, resuscitation, was, resume, Berlin, Helena, dog, exhibition, exactly, interested, possess, appreciation, revolt, illustrate, patriotic, matron, opinions, measured, lenient, tirade, wont, consummate, programme, volume, cordial. Correspondence, etc. To the Editor of the EDUCATIONAL RECORD: SIR, I have to thank you for the very courteous reception you gave me in your columns the other day, and to ask the privilege of extending the notice of the curriculum of studies I then attempted whenever time and opportunity should favor. I am led to believe, from your editorial review of my letter, that I gave proof of having diagnosed the disease correctly enough, but failed to prescribe a remedy to reach it. This may be all very well, and I shall have no reason to complain if, in the meantime, you assure me that you are able to keep a little professional secret I am willing to impart to you. You have often, I have no doubt, heard of doctors disagreeing, and possibly a good many other things not to their credit; but it remains for me to tell you that I am not the first, and, doubtlessly, will not be the last to diagnose a case that we do not pretend to cure-at all events, unless there is a better prospect of getting a fee than there is in this instance. The trouble here, however, seemed so easy to point out that the only wonder is that it had not been located before and the sufferer relieved. You are endeavoring to give an extensive course of instruction to as many of our young people as possible; and, I repeat, I am in full sympathy with you in that. Still, for some reason or other, you are unable to reconcile my desire for the elimination of some portions of our ideal "course" with the statement that I would add more Latin and Greek to it, if I had the chance. The assertion was certainly made, but it was intended to be a qualified one-to convey the idea that the proportion of languages is a little out of joint, taking it all in all; or, if you prefer it in other words, those who happen to be over-freighted with time and strength sufficiently to complete the whole course in safety-those who stand the chance of proving the doctrine of "the survival of the fittest" would be all the better for just a little more classics. On no account would I urge more languages upon others, and possibly not upon them, so long as you adhere to the present limitation of time. The curriculum is, indeed, a comprehensive one, whatever other merits it may possess, and there can be no doubt that the little fellow who works it all up will be fairly well educated. He will get a basis for future study that can be relied upon to serve him to good purpose when he wants it, and, in spite of myself, the thought forced itself upon me at the time I suggested it that such an emergency might arise in the case of some exceptionally strong and ambitious student. Everyone knows how important a matter it is for the pupil learning any of the natural or any other sciences to have a good knowledge of those languages, especially the Greek; and I know of a certainty that the young man entering the study of my own profession without it will labor under serious difficulties. All, or nearly all, the modern terms used or created to express new thoughts in these sciences are, as everyone knows too, derived from that language, and that the meaning of the word from which the thing or thought is so derived often conveys to the mind of the student as good an idea of them as anything else can do. It was these, among other well understood reasons, that forced me to yield to the temptation to attach the importance that I did to them; and yet, if you insist upon confining every one of our children to the time at present occupied by the "course," I might be possibly induced to advise the exclusion of the languages altogether, French and all, or at least their equivalent. I know there is nothing in this world worth having that we don't have to work for, but we can't very well do it all in three years. now in But to the point, and to business. You seem to want more specific notions of any changes I have to propose that I should define my position more clearly; and I do not see that I can do better than to take you into my confidence a little farther than I did before. The situation is not so serious as it appears at first sight. The work is more than half done the moment you make up your mind that there is anything wrong. In the first place, as neither the talents nor the requirements of everybody are alike, or ever likely to be, two or three 66 courses might be arranged for, retaining the one use for one of them, if you are very much in love with it. In this way there is a chance of meeting the views and wants of all without, perhaps. mixing things too much for the teachers. Then, there is the proposal I made, and intended to have emphasised in my former communication, of lengthening the term from three to four years. The third way out of the difficulty is to instruct the teachers to give shorter lessons, even at the risk of not finishing every subject in the curriculum. And, lastly, there is the more drastic plan of eliminating a few of the weighty ones, with the understanding that those so wiped out should furnish the work for a fourth year, involving as it does a slight re-construction or re-arrangement of the classes. For my own part, I would much prefer the latter way out of the trouble, for the simple reason, as you state, that the one now in operation has been the growth of years, and has already outgrown its clothes. The soil it has been planted in cannot be expected to sustain so vigorous a growth without hastening the process of exhaustion sooner or later. I need not tell a gentleman of your wide range of experience and sagacity that it is better discipline for the mind to digest one thing thoroughly than it is a dozen indifferently to know even a part well than it is the whole imperfectly. Large numbers of the people do not seem to want and will not let you give them any more substantial mental exercise than they can get in their English grammar, their arithmetics and geographies, with, of course, reading, writing, and spelling, and it cannot be truthfully asserted that these subjects do not form a tolerably fair foundation for all practical business purposes. Neither can it be well disputed that they are not all the masses are ever likely to feel any necessity for. No one expects ever to make water run up hill, and we might as well spare ourselves the effort at once. Would you like me to do the eliminating and transposing for you? I am not a very good hand at the business, but you will come pretty near doing justice to the situation, in my judgment, if you erase from the "bill of fare" history (with the exception of Canadian), algebra, geometry, physiology, hygiene, drawing, and some of the higher |