dozen eggs-two dozen Plymouth Rock, two dozen Black Minorca, and three dozen Brahma eggs. Before we put the eggs into the incubator we tested them with an egg-tester to separate the bad from the good. Each egg was held before the flame of a lamp, and if it were dark it was bad. Then we placed the good eggs in the incubator on the thirteenth of March. After the third day the eggs were turned and aired daily. About a week or ten days after they were placed in the incubator they were tested again to see if they were good for hatching. When the chickens began to hatch on the third of April, we moved the incubator and brooder into the main room, because the shop was so small we did not have room in there. There were thirty-seven chickens hatched; seven of them died, but the remainder were healthy chicks. When they were about a day old, they were transferred to the brooder, which was heated by hot water and kept at a temperature of about 80 or 85 degrees. A hover which was made of felt was hung in the brooder, and the floor was covered with chaff for the chickens to scratch in. The chickens were left in the brooder a day or so without being fed. Then we fed them baked corn which we crumbled up for them, and sometimes we gave them bread which we had soaked in water. By this time the chicks became so noisy that they interfered with our studying, so we made a run for them in the basement. They were finally bought by a lady who wanted to have some early chickens. As the incubator and brooder proved to be a success, we sold them to a friend who was interested in raising chickens. ARCHIE BRUGGER. TYPES OF SCHOOL FESTIVALS FRANK A. MANNY Ethical Culture School, New York City As one travels north from Naples through Italy and Germany, he is impressed, on the one hand, by the change in conditions of life and, on the other, by the continuity of the festival spirit under the changed conditions. The life at the south is so strikingly open, simple, direct. Farther north much of this aspect is lost, while there is more evidence of elements that make for cleanliness and progress. Yet throughout there is a greater reality to the festival side of life, whether it be of church or state, than one finds in America, where we have broken with the older tradition and as yet have not found a new life. This festival spirit is so fully in accord with various phases of social and industrial activities in the best American schools that we may look to them for help even more than we can expect it from other social institutions. Our hope for a deeper enjoyment of the meaning of activities on the part of adults lies in making use of the fact that some value is attached by the adults to this phase for children in the plastic period. If we work out what we can for the children, the grown-ups may find that their own period of growth, and consequent enjoyment, are longer than they had thought. We need careful studies of the significant motives of what has been done. Dr. Dopp's The Place of Industries in Elementary Education has many illuminating suggestions. Someone of equal energy and experience ought to devote himself to "The Place of the Festival in Education." Even a hasty view of the kinds of festivals now in use would be helpful, showing, as it would, the lines of least resistance or of chief interest in elementary, secondary, and higher schools. I wish that the Elementary School Teacher or some other leading journal would open a department in which reports of current endeavors could be recorded and evaluated. The difficulty in many schools is that a type of festival is learned or worked upon, and then, whatever is done, is made to conform to this type. Thus, in some places, the pageant is found to present less of subjective requirements than do other forms, and the entire supply of energy is spent upon certain spectacular effects. A study of the Venetian pageant and its influence upon art would help to prevent this one-sidedness which often results in nothing but display, or else leads either to the abandonment of the festival as an “extra," a "vanity," a "folly," or to a revolt in favor of plays with bare stage settings and no effort at costume effects, etc. I believe that both the pageant and the bare stage have their place, and each will be the better because of the use of the other. In both these forms there is a high degree of participation and of product execution on the part of the performers. I have been giving some attention to the possibilities of more use of the process and of agents through which the performer works. This appears in the little pantomime plays in which objects cut out of paper or other material are used to make the shadows. The highest development we have of this method is seen in the marionette theater. After a performance in an Italian theater and an inspection of old models of the eighteenth century, now in a museum, I could better understand what these puppets meant to Goethe in his childhood. (I know of no book worth more to the student of the festival in aiding him to get the spirit of this phase of life than Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship.) There seems to be a utilizing in the puppets of one's tendencies to work through means, and a consequent objectification which is closely related to the socializing for which the school exists. This tendency is seen in normal boys and girls in playing with dolls, soldiers, paper animals, as well as with boats, engines, etc. "that will go." When there is added the element of improvisation, the value is even more evident, for by this means there is an avenue for that tendency to communicate oneself through a social situation so often seen in children and so often repressed. When there is this repression, the tendency feeds itself, in many cases, on day-dreams, poor love-stories. and cheap adventure tales. There is, of course, a danger in too great absorption in one's dolls or in pantomime or puppets or machines, yet an advance is made upon mere subjective fancies. Another interest met is that which oppressed finds its main feeding in the serial pictures of the Sunday newspaper-Buster Brown, Happy Hooligan, the Katzenjammers, et al. One may well regret the devotion of many children to these unworthies, yet the need they depend upon for their vogue is natural. They are live characters, and week after week in new situations appear these old friends. It is often said that following them does no harm because the children are not led to act upon the suggestions they offer. While we certainly do not wish to have the tricks of the newspaper pictures become the acts of our children, yet there is some danger in cultivating the attitude of appreciation and enjoyment without participation and consequent relating of reader or seer to the material. The festival work in most schools is still unrelated to other work, and is dependent largely upon chance opportunities and influences. It offers one of the most valuable tools available for the reconstruction now sought for. It deserves (1) careful study as a factor in social life past and present; (2) recognition as a definite factor in the curriculum and not as an "extra;" (3) division of labor so that all members of a school have experience both as doers and observers; (4) development of a variety of types; (5) relation to larger wholes of action, thus taking account of social and ethical possibilities (compare 1, 2, and 3). VOLUNTEER SUMMER WORK OF THE FRANCIS W. PARKER SCHOOL RUTH L. BRIBACH An interesting phase of the activities of the Francis W. Parker School is the volunteer summer work. Some account of it is here given in the hope that it may prove suggestive to readers of the Elementary School Teacher. Just before the school closes in June a type-written outline of suggestions for voluntary summer work and reading is given to the children of all grades who desire it. Paper of uniform size, and of quality suitable for composition and for sketches in pencil and water-color, also is furnished. The outline, while serving somewhat to direct the interest of the children, permits of great freedom, and the idea of the work has been taken hold of enthusiastically. When the school opens in the autumn, the contributions are collected, and all are bound together, just as they are, according to grade. The best ones are used as material for the morning exercises of the school.1 A programme frequently consists of a single topic-a summer spent in the mountains, for example-treated of by children in different grades. The description of various places; the handling of the topic from many points of view; the display of collected illustrative matter-photographs, pencil-drawings, and water-color sketches both instruct and entertain the assembled pupils, faculty, and visitors. An examination of the records of voluntary summer work for the year 1904 reveals interests of various sorts. Many children wrote of local industries. Several sent in creditable botanical collections, one of which consisted of blue prints of specimens gathered by an enthusiastic little girl who spent her vacation in 1 Described by Jennie Hall, "Morning Exercises in the Francis W. Parker School," Elementary School Teacher, February, 1906. |