Wisdom will not open her doors to those who are not willing to pay the price in self sacrifice, in hard work. Her jewels are too precious to be scattered before the idle, the ambitionless. Mean ideas besmirch the spirit like dust in a house. If the day looks kinder glooming An' the prospect awful grim, Till all hope is nearly gone, -H. L. Bland. NOBLENESS IN WORK. There is a perennial noblenes and even sacredness i work. Were he never so benighted, forgetful of his high enlling, "there is always hope" in a man that actually and earnestly works. In idleness alone there is perpetual ‹‹ spair. -Carlyle. Whatever is needed to prepare our boys and girls for their future duties must be incorporated into the school system. Nor children should not only be given that training which enable them to earn money but also that which will teach them "how to spend wisely and save prudently." -R. B. Dudgeon. Do not make "tug-boats" of yourserves to pull your pupils through the wave. Act as a rudder to guidethem. Every duty we omit obscures some truth we should have known. Plow deep while sluggards sleep and you will havecorn to sell and keep. If you would have bussiness done, go: if not send. Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other. Lost time is never found again. There are no gains without pains. A fool and his money is soon parted. When a will is dry we know the worth of water. The tendency of persevere, to persist in spite of hindrances, discouragements and imposibilites-it is this that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak. RECOMPENSE. Free heartedness, and graciousness, and undisturbed trust, and requited love, and the sight of the peace of others, and the ministry their pain-these and the blue sky above you, and the sweet waters ond flowers of the earth beneath, and mysteries and prescences, innumer able, of living things-these may yet be here your riches; untormenting and divine; serviceable, for the life that now is, or, it may be, without promise of that which is to come, -Ruskin. The woman that loves, adores and worships the beautiful, will in the course of time become charmingly pojgely beautiful herself.-A. K. O. WORDS FROM THE BIBLE/ My son, attend unto my wisdom, and bow thine ear to my uuderstanding: thy That thou mayest regard discretion, and that lips may keep knowledge. For the lips of a strange woman drop honey as a honeycomb, and her mouth is smother than oil. But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp asa two edged sword. . Lest thou shouldst ponder the path of life, her ways are movable, that thou canst not know them. Hear me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth. To do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice. Better is the poor that walketh in his uprightness, than he that is perverse in his ways, though he be rich. Boast not theyself of to-morrow; for thou knowest not what day may bring forth. A fool's lips enter into contention, and his mouth calleth for strokes. A fool's mouth is his destruction, and his lips are the snare of his soul. A foolish woman is clamorous: she is simple, and knoweth nothing. Love not sleep, lest thou come to proverty: open thine eyes, and thou shalt be satisfied with bread. -Matahimik. BE IN TIME Be in time for every call, If your teachers on finding Never linger ere you start, In the morning up and on, Those who aim of something great Be in time. THE CLASS RECITATION 11 (Conclusion) BY GEORGE HOWLAND, SUPT. CHICAGO SCHOOLS. (The Arst and second parts of this article is found in the November and December issues of this journal respectively.) A thorough knowledge of the subject to be considered-much beyond the limits of the lesson--a know ledge of what will be important in the future, and what forms a mere stepping stone to what lies farther on, its relations to other topics, will greatly aid the teacher in guiding the eager pupil to the speediest and best results; will save from many a fruitless disgression, wearisome repetition, and empty recital. For the older, as well as the younger pupils, the proper method of approaching a subject, the logic of the excercise, is often quite as important as the facts to be learned. In many cases the recitation may well be little more than a reading of the anstudied lesson, with a running commentary of the teacher, briefly showing the bearing of this or that fact, the reason of one statement and the meaning of another, suggesting certain lines of thought and ready references for their better comprehension. Here and there a question may be started, perhaps some incident related, to quicken and arouse the interest and thought, For this work the teacher needs, like the commander of an army, to have her well-trained powers and her mental resources well in hand, with perhaps a skirmish. line of fine instincts and keen perceptions, protected on either wing by a well-assured confidence and a wise discretion, secured against unforeseen emergencies by a large reserve force of general information, ready wit, and close logic. Of quite as much importance, too, she should have learned or discerned the character of those with whom she has to do their mental powers, their dispositions their habits and modes of thought, their likes and dislikes, a knowledge of their associates, their employment out of school, their home-life-all this should be as open and plain to her as the book from which she prepared for her work. She must adapt herself to the bright, easy learner and the duller, but it may be, the deeper student; to the flippant reciter and the slower stam merer; to the pliant fawner and the sturdy Independent and device means to encourage, - chasten, and direct with an ever-hopeful trust and kindly charity; an unsuspecting watchfulness and an unfailing personal interest. Sometimes, too, the firm authority and timely severity find their true place. The mere hearing of lessons, the asking of questions, however scholarly, and couched in choicest language, with no apparent personal inte rest in the success, the individual welfare of the pupil, will not win in this mental conflict. How many a young, earnest heart has lost its fond ardor, wearied of its high, honest purpose, and fallen back. into the ranks of the careless and undeserving, from the real, or supposed, lack of the teacher's interest in his progress. The sharp censure, 80 that it come from the indignant heart of a friend at some delinquency will awaken and expand the young spirit and fill it with stronger purposes snd better hopes than the cold indiffe rence of the calm, uncaring critic. A great barrier to success, too, cutting her off from any sympathetic relations with her class, does she raise, who calls upon her pupils by the card, one of those self-imposed restraints that hold the hands, the hearts, the thoughts of the teacher, depriving her of much of her power for good. No teacher, I think, can well command the attention of her class who is shut into this practice; and no pupil, unless urged on by some superhuman impulse, can fit his thought upon the recitation whose fate is fixed by the run of a handful of cards. To be interested he must feel responsible for every topic presented, for every question asked. But when his name has once been drawn, what further personal interest can he have? And if, by some change-as I have sometimes seen-is he called upon a second time he has a ready and safe refuge in the reply, "I have recited once." and may he not be questioned a second, a third time, or any number of times, when needful? Two or three years since, after I had discouraged this use of the cards, one of our active, working teachers came to me with the inwiry, what she should do with them? I told her that the best use of them that occurred to me was, to open the drawer of her desk, quietly drop them in, and close the desk. Afew weeks later she told me that she had adopted my plan and for the first time felt herself free to conduct arecitation. The recitation a as we have said, is more than a rehearsal of memorized pages; it is a discussion of subjects that have been already carefully studied. It may be that very little attention need be given to the reading of the text, which will be already clearly understood, but may suggest relations and conditions well worthy the consideration of taecher and pupil. The mere fact may be nothing to the student, but indirectly bring about results of surpassing interest. An exercise in reading may suggest subjects in history, in biography, in botany, and astronomy. As an extreme example, take Macaulay's essay on "Warren Hastings," found in so many of our readers: "The place was worthy of such a trial. It was the great hall of William Rufus the hall which had witnessed the just sentence of Bacon and the just absolution of Somers; the hall where the eloquence of Stafford had for moment awed and melted a victorious party, inflamed with just resentment; the hall where Charles had confronted the high court of justice with the placid courage which has half redeemed his fame. There were seated the fair-haired daughters of the house of Brunswik. There the historian of the Roman Empire thought of the days when Cicero pleaded the cause of Sicily against Verrers, and where, before a senate that still preserved some show of freedom, Tacitus thundered against the oppressors of Africa." As mere words, one might as well recite the alphabet or the multiplication table. Who and what were Macaulay, Hastings, William Rufus, Bacon; Strafford, the historian of the Roman Empire, Brunswick, Cicero, Verres, and Tacitus? What j did they do, and why are their names introduced here, what has Cicero or William Rufus to do with Hastings's doing with the Begum? い All this is beyond the grammar grades, and yet, without some definite knowledge, some fair idea of these characters, wherein is it more valuable reading than the prognostics of last year's almanac? The recitation is a reading-lesson in which the pupils should give: If the pupil's attention is to be held, he must expression to intelligent thought and true sentiment. feel that he is at any time to be called upon for But the investigation of all this story and biography is i an explantation, a correction, an illustration; and beyond, them. The teacher must intervece, and, by ar every day, as a rule, should he have the opportunity few grapic touches, place before them these pictures BO to recite. Sitting silent and unnoticed day after day, he soon loses all interest, becomes listless, or restless, and ere long ceases to prepare the lesson for which he has no use, Though it be nothing more than a simple yes or no, he has had his say, has shown himself a living vividly that they shall remain as a part of their mental ·· constitution. Nor is it so difficult a task for him who is fitted for his place. With an almost inappreciable inroad upon the reading exercise, these illustrations can be placed within the pupil's grasp as no stolid study of cyclopaedia HER can de, and enliven the work with an interest: which no profesional technics can impartitus mati to fiar d In the reading of a class are the possibilities of a liberal education, of an art and a culture beyond what the graduates of high-school and college so carefully infold in their diplomas. If we but know our opportunities, the professor of elamtion and the countless examplars of what Delsarte never dreamed of would soon find their occupation gone and o'r boys and girls, instead of tho ghtless mouthers, would sometimes become intelligent learners and thinkers. The reading-lesson is not to be turned into a study of biography or history, nor are all these nor are all these allusions to be learned at once. Enough can be done to give the character of the essay and inspire the olass with the spirit of the matchless essayist-one suggestion here and another there, without serious hindrance or interruption. Some of the characters can be more fully studied at home or in the school library, not indeed in any exaustive way, but surely enough for an intelligent reading, enough to awaken the desire to delve deeper into the exhaustless mines of literature and to enlarge the pupil's mental horizon and prepare him for the more thorough work of his school life and furnish some food for thought during the leisure hours of an active or laborious life. One of the most accurate and scholarly of my college friends told me that he never sought thoroughly to prepare the whole of a lesson, in Latin, for instance, but having done enough for the purpose of fair recitation, he then studied one or two lines exhaustively. This habit, long before his college course was completed, had made him a model for nice, discriminating scholarship. It is not often in lumps, in masses, that wisdom or learning is to be acquired. The nuggests of knowledge in the school-room are as rare as those of gold in the hearts of the hills. The love of learning of knowing, fortunately, is a common inheritance from which few are shut out. To keep alive this love-to turn this curiousity, inquire nature into the right paths, where the search shall be more sure of the reward in the speedy gratification of desire and show something of the relative worth of the different objects of desire and how to distinguish these, are the tearcher's work; and to lead the pupil to see that small but continuous accretions, from worthy effort, hour by hour and day by day, make up the sum total of our work. If we only could known that they are learned after the recitation! The subject is indeed to be unde tood, comprehended, made a part of the pupil's self to be converted into something that shall avail him in his future work. But whether it is to be learned in the style of this, or that author is of little importance. Our school histories and geographies are generally but enumerations of a few bare facts, some important events, but even in these rarely show, by the relatious of facts and events, why those mentioned are of more importance than than a thousand of which no mention is made. Other authors have expressed their views in different verbal signs; and the pupil, if indeed a student, should give his views in a still different form of words more consonant with his own mental condition and delicate shading of thoughts, opinions, and judgements. others. A lesson is learned when the student has a clear, will-founded opinion of the subject matter, but not necessarily when the page can be declaimed. The restriction of the pupil to a single book after he is old and strong enough to think, to study misfortune if the teacher is equal to the place. From the reading of one text-book the pupil is liable to receive a very limited, a narrow idea of the subject; and when, after school-days are over, he falls upon a difflreent version of some event he begins to doubt of the wisdom of the schools, and of authors, and, perchance, to question whether there be any truth in the world. He should be taught in schools, in the recitation, to compare different authorities, different mathematical definitions, to weigh carefully the evidences, and to form his own judgements as to their worth ang correct ness. The Aritmetic lays down certain principles, with examples enough for the pupil to ascertain whether he comprehends them. It is for the teachers to see, by the use of the same examples, or by others involving same principles, if he truly understands them aright. We adopt the topical method, and place upon the blackboard a column of a dozen or fifteen topics for each State or country-a very paltry and belittling device, as it seems to me, if carried too far. The pupil should learn, should have a method, it is true, but let him determine what are the important points to be presented. These points do not always come up before the mind in the same order or in the same numbers. Sometimes the water-ways, sometimes the railroads, now the productions, and again the scenery, stand out in distinctness, and should enlist the interest and control the thought of the pupil. To one the civil derek The dictionary, the cyclopaedia, the map, all and a useful place, and even the novel, their romance present valued pictures of life and manners, and sometimes aid in the solution of social and political problems beyond the scope, the possibility of the text-book. The lesson, as I have indicated, is not something to be merely recited, but a subject, or subjects, to be studied and investigated to which the pupil is to give his best thought and best powers, that when the hour of recitation comes he may be preared to take on inteiligent part in the discussion. First of all, he must learn to think, and to express himself in a clear, systematic, and logical way; to adduce facts to sustain his opinions; to be ready with crayon, metaphor, or incident to illustrate his argument. His mental powers must be aroused, quickened, diciplined, and strenghtened for future use, and for those ends the oral recitation presents their best if not the only, efficient means. The written recitation, in such favor with many teachers, is in true sense a recitation. It is simply an examination, useful, way, in a limited way, indispensable, but not a recitation. The real uses of a recitation have no play in the written exercise. The power, the personal magnetism of the teacher and the fruitful suggestion find no place here. She sits idle and useless. The pupil might familiarize himself with the mechanical parts of a written performance, might improve his penmanship, his spelling and accuracy of expression, but these are the very points that the written exercise commonly ignores. Shall a pupil in geography receive a deduction from his credit merely because his spelling is abominable? Spelling is not geography. Because he can not paragraph correctly, is his knowledge of history diminished? His punctuation and his capitals are problematical. but what has that to do with his knowledge of number, of personal character, of climate and productions? The recitation should be oral, instinct with life, and full of interest, with an occasional examination, written briefly, carefully. and correctly, with all the elements of a written exercise carefully noted and corrected So important a part does the recitation, under the skillful teacher, play in the school economy, that in comparison, as it seems to me, the written examination is nowhere; and I am coming more and more to the opinion that a pupil who has acquitted himself with credit in the daily recitations should pass on to the next grade unquestioned, despite any failure in the stated written examination of his class; that a class which has shown itself qualified for the work of the grade should on its completion be passed to the next grade without the test examination. to The written examination, without any intent or fault of the examiner, may be, and often is, "autside the qualifications of pupil. The teacher may have erred in her instructions, but should the pupils suffer? The principal should be so well a quainted with the quality of the instruction and the application of the possible for it to come to the end of its grade work without some fitness for advancement. Rarely, I think, should the pupil be put down or kept back by a formal examination when the daily recitations have been satisfactory. The examination is valuable chiefly in relieving the teacher from the charge of partiality or prejudice. I have often wished that pupils, might be promo ted, not on the result of any formal examination but on the promise of their daily work for futɑre su ccess, No one, in preparing a set of questions, cɩn say much of their worth in determining the scholarship, the power of the pupil. He may strike points, important, indeed, but which had been partially neglected by the teacher an her zeal in other directions, and the pupils will fail, while exhibiting a power of thought, a skill in analysis of character, a discrimination and judgement of more worth than an accurate statement of the facts involved. I recall an instance in which the pupil showed an utter ignorance of the subject required, but at the same time, in admitting the disqualification, gave such an evidence of elegant diction, of clear, distinct thought, so much originality, that my better judgement would not permit me to pass any other than a meritorious judgement upon her ability. I have not dwelt much upon the methods, the details of the recitation; these must depend largely upon the individual teacher and the subject. There are eertain underlaying principles that should always direct and control, certain things to be forever avoided. Nor should the same method be followed at all times. Now should come the topical recitation, in which the pupil can present his views in some fullness and elegance of language; now the quick, short question and answer; the pupil now feeling his way along thoughtfully and carefully, and now prompt with the ready rejoinder; now with the crayon in hand illustrating his descriptions, and again essaying the abstract argu ment in concise, discriminating terms; at one time promptly and accurately performing a prepared example, and again applying the principles to a problem with different, but similar conditions; taking our pupils out of the ruts of routine, and leading them into the ways of thought and intelligence-not machines, but coming men and women. But there should always be in all these exercises tendency, a nearer approach to a distinct enunciation, correct language, pleasing tones, and plain reason. |