point, 3, 0, 8, 5, etc. Those that have it as Lucy read may go to the board and write 10 decimal fractions for the others to read. Don't put in any ands except at the decimal point when reading a whole number and a decimal fraction combined. 4. Addition problems of your regular book. 5. Addition problems of some other book. 6. Addition problems given by some pupil. 7. Subtraction examples of the regular book. 8. Subtraction examples of some other book. 9. Subtraction examples of an original nature. 10. Multiplication problems in your text-book.

In addition and subtraction it is only necessary to place tenths under tenths, hundredths under hundredths. In multiplication show why we point off in the products as many figures

are in both multiplicand and multiplier. 1x=186; then 1.1 must be equal to .01, or as many decimal places as are in both multiplicand and multiplier.

11. Multiplication problems of some other book on the teacher's desk. These examples may be put on the board by some fast pupils; some that get through with their work too soon and then get into mischief. No doubt every teacher has more than one arithmetic. If he has not, he is not anxious that his pupils should learn decimals very thoroughly.

12. Let some genius of the class (there is one in every class) place, say, ten problems on the board for the pupils to solve. The teacher may suggest the nature of some examples in multiplication of decimals.

13. Division of decimals as given in your text. To point off in division is already known from multiplication of decimals, since division is the reverse of multiplication. Product corresponds to the dividend and the quotient to multiplicand or multiplier.

14. Division problems of some other book.

15. Original examples by some members of the class, to be placed on the board, in which division is required.

16. Original problems in multiplication and division mixed, in order to make the child think, or, better, reason. Example: If 1 pound of butter costs 30 cents, what will 5.5 pounds cost? If 5 pounds cost $1.50, how many pounds can be bought for 75 cents? If 25 pounds of butter cost 50 cents, what will 8.03 pounds cost?

17. Devote one lesson to decimals as applied to money. Let no one, in a class of 20, write 5 cents without the cipher and decimal point. Show the connections: 5c. or .05, or rou, or 26, 20 five cent pieces in a dollar; lc. or 180, 100 cents in a dollar; $1.164 1.165; $2.16 2.1625; $3.874=$3.8775.

18. Reduce common fractions to decimal fractions: 43.00÷

Put as many decimal places to the right of the numerator as are necessary. Only point off correctly, and no law is violated. 19. Reduce decimal fractions to common fractions: .25% =1; .2=1%=}; .40=18%=3.

20. To reduce a decimal of one denomination to an equivalent decimal of another denominator, is identical with the reduction of compound numbers. It requires no special illustration if the foregoing is properly performed.

To find the value of a decimal in integers of a lower denomination .25 bu. to pks.- of 4 pks. equals 188 pks., or 1 pk.,

etc.

Next day give your pupils ten miscellaneous examples about decimals, and if your pupils make an average of 80 p. c., consider yourself a very fair teacher. If pupils learn all this in one month, and know it thoroughly, they have done enough, and they, as well as you, feel that you did not work for money only.

-THE first and most important thing is to teach the children to observe, compare, and contrast; the second is to impart formation; and the third is to re-inforce the other two by making the results of them the basis for instruction in language, drawing, number, modelling, and other handiwork. There are, however, other important uses of good object-teaching. It makes the lives of children more happy and interesting by opening up an easily accessible and attractive field for the exercise of the brain, hand and eye; it gives the children an opportunity of learning the simplest natural facts; and directs their attention to external objects, making them less bookish. It further develops a love of nature and an interest in living things, and corrects the tendency which exists in many children to destructiveness and thoughtless unkindness to animals, and shows the ignorance and cruelty of such conduct. The value of the services which many animals render to man should be dwelt upon, and the importance of kindly treating them should be pointed out. By these means, and in other ways, good objectteaching may lay the foundation for the right direction of the activity and intelligence of the children throughout the whole school-Educational Review.

-AN EXCHANGE gives a description of a very simple and interesting electrical experiment which may be made with a sheet of brown paper, illustrating in a remarkable manner how the most astonishing effects may be produced by the simplest means. Take a sheet of coarse brown paper, and, after holding it before the fire until it is perfectly dry, fold it up into a long strip of about two inches wide. The magnet is now complete. To exhibit its attractive power, cut some strips of writing paper about three inches long and about as wide as one of these lines, then place them upon the table three or four together. Now take the

magnet and draw it briskly under the arm two or three times; its electromagnetism is instantly developed, and becomes apparent when held over the small strips of writing paper, for they fly up from the table toward the paper magnet veritably "by the wings of lightning."

-MANY teachers of the word method have overlooked the necessity of causing the child to learn the names of the letters, to recognize them at sight, just as they have learned to recognize words, and to name these letters in their established order. I think it has been assumed by some teachers that all the words of the language are to be learned just as the first two or three hundred are learned-on simple authority, Chinese fashion. It should be clear to the most inexperienced teacher that in the art of reading, as in that of walking, the child must be helped, but all to the end that he must finally learn the art of self-help.

The easiest and most direct means of teaching the letters of the alphabet is by causing the pupil to print words; for to print a word is to break it up into the elements (letters) and from the formation of these elements to the learning of their name, the step is direct and easy. It is often said, and no doubt with much truth, that by means of printing the child will learn the names of the letters almost unconsciously, but here, as in the learning of words, the teacher should furnish systematic help. As these names are purely arbitrary, they must be learned on mere authority.

In the line of systematic teaching, words may be selected. that contain special letters; certain words may be printed on the board, and then the letters named by the class; the letters may be arranged in their established order and then told by the class; and lastly, the pupils being provided with boxes of letters, they may reproduce words which have been assigned by the teacher. The last exercise is the characteristic employment of the pupil during this period. It should have been stated in an earlier place that capital letters should be employed wherever proper usage requires them, so that in the printing work here recommended, the pupil will learn the capital forms along with the ordinary forms.-W. H. Payne.

-HERE is a story for the children, taken from the Kindergarten News. It is about "The Little Cotton Plant," and how it became a sheet of pink paper.

Once upon a time, there was a Little Cotton Plant which lived in a great field in the far South. There were a great many other cotton plants, both large and small, growing in this same field, but I am going to tell you about this one, and how it became a sheet of pink paper for a sweet little girl named Dot.

The skies were very blue and the winds gentle over the field where the Little Cotton Plant lived-and it grew, and grew

until one day a cotton-picker came along and pulled off the beautiful white bolls, and hurried them away in his basket. The Cotton Plant cried a little when it saw its pretty white bolls taken away, but the little bolls were not afraid. They just lay very still in the bottom of the basket, and by and by they found themselves in a great big factory, where they were put through machines and made into yards and yards of lovely blue cloth which after a time was put for sale on the shelf of a shop. Then the mamma of a little girl named Dot, bought this blue cloth and made it into a beautiful new dress for her. And little Dot wore it and wore it until it was worn out and thrown into the rag-bag. Little Dot thought no more about it until one day a man (whom I suspect you all know!) came through the streets calling: "Rags! rags! rags!" and little Dot ran and gave him what was left of her little blue dress. And what do you suppose became of it? The old ragman took it down to a paper mill where it was torn into tiny pieces and ground into a soft pulp-and then made into little pink sheets and envelopes-beautiful pink like a seashell! and by and by Dot's papa bought it all tied up in a nice little box, and gave it to Dot for a Christmas present. But she didn't know it was made from her old blue dress which had first come from the dear Little Cotton Plant! Did you?

-AT A recent meeting of the Colorado State Teachers' Association, Prof. W.J. Wise read a paper on "The Personal Culture of the Teacher," in which he said:

"The personal character of the teacher is the most important factor of the school. Text-books, apparatus, and proper methods are desirable aids, but it is the stamp of the individuality of the teacher upon the pupil which makes or unmakes the future man or woman. What he is in temper, in morals, in will, in habits, in personal bearing, in general culture, cannot but make a lasting impression on the minds and hearts of his pupils, largely directing and influencing their future lives. It is not enough that the teacher be a thorough scholar, and apt to impart instruction. This, of course, if he is to be a teacher at all. But back of this and embracing these qualifications of mere machine work, there must be feeling and an earnestness of purpose and a sense of moral responsibility. With all that constitutes true manliness and womanliness, trained and cultivated for the constant demands of the vitally important work of the teacher. Two things I shall take for granted. First, that the teacher has a commanding acquaintance with the branches he undertakes to teach; second, that he has entered upon teaching as his profession, as his life work. I am compelled to do this; for nowhere in the realm of school economy am I able to discover any code which applies to an individual who is teaching for a term or two simply as a convenience while he prepares for the bar or she prepares for the wedding bells.

Being then a scholar competent to teach and a teacher devoted to his work, the question is: What shall be the teacher's further personal culture? What shall he do and how shall he train himself to become still more thoroughly qualified for his work and for bearing his proper part as a citizen of the republic, an active member in society, a felt factor in the world's progress. Personal culture-manly, womanly culture is my subject. The training of one who has so much to do both in laying the foundation and building that noble and stately structure we call society-this is my theme. The teacher should be a person of high moral principle and of blameless life. The teacher should be a Christian and a gentleman, an active man, one who has common sense and understands boys.' The teacher should also be a patriotic citizen, be a politician, not in the common meaning of the term. But every intelligent man or woman, and especially every one who undertakes to teach those who in a few years will be citizens and rulers in this vast and free country, ought to be thoroughly acquainted with the history, mode of government, and general policy of this nation. The history of men in government, literature, and religion, their wars, their arts, their material and intellectual progress, and the comparison of these with our own times and civilization ought to hold a distinguished place in our studies and readings, and will prove to the thoughtful teacher a means of culture, and will tell positively and directly upon his professional efficiency. There is to the teacher a wide range for self-culture in the history of civilized nations, ancient and modern, in enriching his mind with the vast treasures of their best literature. Here is a great source of intellectual culture if only his readings are with method and to a purpose. A few choice books, thoroughly read and re-read, often accomplish more for mental culture and even for fulness of thought and information than a thousand books, however good, run through with the rapid dispatch of a single reading. Great cultivation, large information, much experience we ought to have, but it must be such as will make us valiant and ready and skilful for the work in which we are engaged, that we may be furnished and schooled as those who must lead an army in battle or pilot a ship in a storm. We need, then, a vivid sense of our relations to our pupils and of our responsibility, both for success in their studies. and for their future character as men and women."

-A LESSON ON WATER.-Select a lump of ice and bring it into the school-room. What is this? Describe it. Clear, cold, brittle. Give each child a piece. What does it do when brought into the house? Why does it melt in the hand? Let us hold the thermometer bulb on the ice. What does the quicksilver do in the thermometer? How far does it go down? We will melt this piece of ice. What does the heat change it into? Is ice lighter or heavier than water? Will it float on water? Why does ice stay on the top of the pond instead of sinking?