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the end of the term. The first week the pupils visit an hour, the next week they stay half a day, and if these quick, bright "shining stars" are capable enough, they go on to the second grade and cease to be a visitor in their home" but become a real wideawake second-grader. I never hold the bright ones back. Grouping and regrouping sends them on to the next higher division after they can read fluently and independently in any first-grade reader. I keep always at least six different kinds of first readers and turn from one to the other, so as to strengthen the firstgrader's vocabulary.

Every term a few, four or five pupils, go to the next higher section and stay. I hardly ever have complaints that the bright ones I send up are behind the class they enter. I keep inquiring to see if I am sending on pupils too fast. If I am, I "slow up and don't push so fast the next group of "shining stars."

Further technique in first grade. - Another first-grade teacher described the library table which was supplied in the corner of the room for supplementary activities, including cutting up old magazines to secure pictures for language work and words for reading drill. Two special points of technique she brought out in the following paragraphs:

Low cupboard. All supplementary materials are kept in a low cupboard which is easy for the children to reach and to keep in order. Children cannot stand on tiptoe on a chair and reach as far as they can for something without disarranging the other materials and should not be expected to do so.

Children trained to use judgment. — I try as far as possible to teach my pupils to judge for themselves when they have finished their work and are ready for extra work. For example, the children had been assigned a lesson in their regular textbooks for study. They were given several different questions to find out the answers and were told that when they had finished that work they might go to the shelf and get a new book; a set having been received that morning.

The children hastily read the material given them, and one or two immediately went for the new books before they could answer the questions asked.

At recitation time, these children were questioned about their reading lesson and the rest of the children were asked to decide whether it was fair for the children to go after the new books before they had their lesson. Of course the class said no, and the children were more or less in disgrace with their classmates for some time.

If the privilege is too much abused, I take it away from the entire class for one day, and public sentiment is strong enough to force the unconscientious pupil to do what he should.

Similar technique in middle grades. — Obviously, if firstgrade children can be trained to use supplementary materials for spare moments as has been described, it is, a relatively simple matter to organize a similar technique with older children. Consequently, one further example will suffice to illustrate the practice of a teacher in the middle grades as she describes it in the following paragraphs:

I have, in one corner of the room, two kindergarten tables placed together so as to form one fairly large table. On this table I have placed several books of good short stories. There are also short stories cut from newspapers or magazines and pasted on cardboard. On another similar table I have railroad folders, books of travel, and short stories of children of other countries. Where a pupil has satisfactorily completed his study lesson in arithmetic or geography or any subject, he goes to the table which we are using for that week, gets a book, and takes his seat. (We alternate the material, some weeks using stories for mere drill in rapid silent reading and some weeks the travels for facts about the world.)

When the recitation is called, if it is an oral recitation, I watch closely those pupils who have done supplementary work, and if their other work has suffered, they are deprived of the privilege of going to the table until their own work improves. If the work is written, each pupil who did supplementary work during the study hour places "S" on the top of his paper, and grades which are not satisfactory are dealt with in a like manner. I have found by making clear these results early in the year that after a few examples I seldom have to resort to the enforcement of the rule.

When the pupils report on their supplementary reading is the most interesting time of all. During the week, usually on Friday, we will find a time for "discussions" or "Supplementary Table Talks." Then, if it is story week, we hear reports of the stories read; not stories retold, as that would be a useless waste of time, but each pupil is asked to tell some point in a story which appealed to him. We discuss different stories together, which ones we like best and why, certain characters we liked and why. I find it an excellent help for silent reading. If it is a week for travels, we do the same thing, except that we discuss various countries or parts of our own, or take imaginary journeys.

The supplementary work is often varied at the children's own suggestion. For example, we decide next week we will all bring in all the stories we can find about a certain country, a certain man, by a certain author, on a certain subject, etc. Then for the week we will study them.

These discussions are excellent language drill. They give the ideas to the slower pupils who have not had the chance to read, and, as no one child likes to be left out of the discussion, they are an excellent stimulus for good class work.

Among the stories we often find one which, at the pupil's own suggestion, we can dramatize. Then comes interesting work.

Enriched education from use of spare moments.— Finally, we may notice the general educational results which follow in rooms where the teachers have carefully organized supplementary work for the spare moments of rapid learners. Quite a liberal education may frequently be acquired by such pupils just from the supplementary work which they do. A principal of a building described such results in the case of a sixth-grade teacher who arranged in her room a supply of books on history, geography, and science selected from the school library. The principal wrote as follows concerning the teacher:

Her pupils have the most extensive reading habits of any room in the building, and are the best-informed grade in school on the outside world.

Administrative provisions for the fast and slow. Individual promotions. Adequate practical provision for the slow and the fast pupils calls not only for varied assignments and teaching but also for the promotion of each pupil according to his individual needs. The necessity and value of special promotions for very bright pupils are suggested by the following typical example:

Robert was twelve years old, beginning the second half of the eighth grade. His teachers reported him indifferent, doing only ordinary work and inclined to be the center of schoolroom disorder and organized insurrection. Parents noted that, though previously much interested in school, the boy now disliked to attend; he disliked the teachers and wanted to drop out. Robert insisted that the studies were not interesting, that he knew all he wanted to know about them already. Mental [tests showed that he had attained] a mental age probably greater than that of some of his teachers, who bored him to death by treating him as an ordinary twelve-year-old. He was recommended to high school, entered three weeks late, led his class at the end of six weeks and at every subsequent interval when marks were given. More important, his whole attitude toward school was changed, because the advanced work was a real challenge to his mental ability. (29: 29)

Even the failures may be helped by promotion. — The careful organization and administration of such individual promotions on a large scale in actual practice is well described by Superintendent C. S. Meek in an article in the Elementary School Journal for April, 1915, Vol. XV, pp. 421-431. Principals and superintendents should read this article carefully. One of its most striking features is the description of the individual promotions of dull pupils who have really failed according to ordinary standards. Concerning these cases, Meek says:

The standard for promoting the dull pupil is entirely individual. He is not compelled to do all the work of his present grade before he is permitted to pass to the next. He is even allowed to pass

on without manifesting enough ability to justify the hope that he may be able to do the work of the advanced grade. The question is reduced to the one consideration, Would he do better if advanced than he would as a repeater?

In every grade of twenty which is promoted in Boise, there is an average of two who have not satisfactorily completed the work of the lower grade. These are accepted by the teacher as special cases to which she is expected to give individual attention both in and out of school hours. She is not held responsible for the work of the special pupil, but is given credit for all progress that she can stimulate. She gets the enthusiastic coöperation of the home, for the parents know that their unfortunate offspring has been treated generously and leniently. They thus aid in every possible way to bring their child up to the standard. This policy of dealing with laggards has the indorsement of the great majority of teachers. The consensus of opinion is that those who are permitted thus to advance more nearly approach the standard of the advanced grade than they would of the lower grade had they been compelled to repeat. This is not surprising when one considers how little there is in the curriculum that is so connected and consecutive that one year's work depends upon the completion of the subjects of the previous year. (8: 423)

Encouragement and confidence stimulate promoted laggards to better efforts. The success of the practice of promoting retarded pupils finds further explanation in the greater confidence and interest which it inspires in the promoted laggards. In speaking of the stimulating effect of feelings of confidence and success and the opposite depression resulting from failure, Freeman says:

Confidence in one's ability results in the stimulation of one's mental and physical power and in the release of energy for the task. The consciousness of failure and the expectation of failure, on the other hand, result in the drying up of the sources of one's energy. . . . Confidence [is greatly affected by] previous success. However one may endeavor to work up artificially a feeling of confidence, one is always influenced to some degree by previous