he attempts, single-handed, to right them by virtue of being a teacher.

The teacher, in common with the preacher, is prone to magnify his own importance as a factor in the well-being of others. Quite frequently he seems to think the responsibilty for the outcome of those under his care rests solely with himself. teacher should rise high enough to see beyond himself to see himself, the child's will, the home influence, the community, to see all these as mutually acting and reacting in working out the evolution of the child-soul.

The

That the teacher has a responsibility, and a great one, no one wishes to deny. And let him by all means magnify his office but let it be done in sober sense and just judgment-not in the shallowness of sentimentality. A strong true sentiment for the good of every one of his pupils is the motive power needed by every teacher, but this sentiment must be controlled by the will and regulated by the balance-wheel of intelligence. In common with all, the zealous, honest, intelligent performance of his duties is incumbent upon the teacher. The results may

be left to care for themselves.

So many duties fall to the teacher's lot that he should husband well his energies. It is his duty not to waste his energies in lamenting and worrying over what he has failed to accomplish. The boys' loafing about the drugstores, pool-rooms and railway stations; the assertion of bad ancestral and home influences; the failure of the child to respond to his best efforts these may cause true sorrow and deep regret, but for them the teacher is not responsible. He is rather responsible for the direction of his energies to the helping of those who wish help. Yet I would not be understood as saying the teacher is ever justified in ceasing his struggle to arouse the indifferent, but he should not lose sleep over his failure to arouse them.

Here, as elsewhere, we find our model in the great

Teacher. After his ministry of three years in which he had with infinite love gone out to the Jewish people, he was compelled, on the last approach to Jerusalem, to cry out with the agony of Gethsemane, "O, Jerusalem, Jeru- . salem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wing, and ye would not." Infinite power and love have not broken the will of the stiffnecked. Why should the teacher expect to?

W. D. HAMER.

AFTER ALL, WHAT IS EDUCATION?

"I remember the sneer of the first campaign, that Lincoln had only got 'six months' education.' It was wrong; it should have been 'six months' schooling;" he had only that but he was the best educated man of his time.". McIntyre.

Shakespeare's lack of education has often been referred to. It is said that he knew a "little Latin and less Greek: that he did not know the classic writers. And some one replies that, what was of greater moment, the classic writers did not know Shakespeare.

It is a current remark about a class of people who stand out from their fellows because of great power of thought, skill in using faculties and depth of experience but who have had little schooling, that they lack education.

We often hear it said of men in important positions in school wor, who "by force have made their merit. known" but have not gone through he formal college curriculum, that they lack education. The superintendent of a school who brings all his energies to bear on the problem before him may be therein deprived of pursuing Latin, Greek and mathematics in a college, but in these days when one subject is thought to have as much educational virtue as another, if properly pursued, who will

admit that such a man lacks education because he lacks schooling? Does education consist in knowing certain definite things or in power and versatility of thought and emotion, which elevate the life into truth and virtue and which may come from any form of true and deep experience a person has with the world about him? Shall we revise such a man's education, or our own notion of education?

PRIMARY DEPARTMENT.

This Department is Edited by MRS. SARAH E. TARNEY-CAMPBELL, late of the State Normal School.

PRIMARY MEANING OF HARD WORDS.

A few days ago I looked over a lesson in the Indiana Fifth Reader, Ichabod Crane, which the pupils of that grade were studying. There are eighteen paragraphs in the lesson and in the first nine I counted one hundred and sixty words under which the pupil had put lines. I asked her what those lines were for and she said the y had to get the dictionary definition of the words. Of course, they had not ta en this all in one lesson, only two or three paragraphs each day.

Some of the words marked were quite difficult, and others were so simple that a six-year old child would have understood their meaning if used in conversation or if they occurred in a story read or told to him. To be sure, he could not give an accur te definition, as indeed very few of us can do of the greater part of the words we use. Some of these words marked for getting the dictionary definition, as the little girl said, were riding, quietly, midnight, cheerily, giant, watch-dog, whistling, lonely, across, above, center (of the road), and shadow. These pupils, reading in the Fifth Reader, must hunt up definitions for these words of which they have known sufficient meaning for years!

I said, "But you already knew the meaning of whist

ling?" "Yes, ma'am, but I could not give the dictionary definition." Then I asked, "What is whistling?" "Whistling is a sound made with the mouth." "Are all sounds made with the mouth whistling?" "Oh, I don't know; that is what the dictionary says whistling is and that is the definition the teacher had us give." "Would not a definition of your own answer as well if you gave the correct idea?" "No, ma'am, we must give what the dictionary says.' "Have you a better idea of the thought in the lesson with the dictionary definition of whistle than you had before?" "I don't know; I had not thought of that helping to give me a better idea of the lesson."

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These teachers say the lessons are so difficult or the pupils such poor readers they cannot take an entire lesson at a time and work upon the meaning as a whole. In either case the children should not be attempting to read these selections. But the real difficulty lies in what the teacher thinks reading is. She thinks it is a correct pronunciation, ability to give definitions of particular words, holding the book in the left hand, standing erect, etc., etc., while the essential reading act is not in these things at all

Reading is an act of the mind and not an act of the feet, the left hand or the mouth; and a pupil may really read, get the thought the author had and not stand up at all, have his book in his right hand and his mouth shut He may get the main thought of the whole selection, experience the feelings the author hopes to arouse, determine in his own mind to be a better boy and not be able to give the exact meaning of many of the words, or to pronounce them all correctly.

The first thing is to assign the whole lesson the first time it is to be considered-don't give it out piecemeal. If the children are normal human beings they will read the whole even if it is not assigned.

Put some definite questions to the class on the meaning

of the lesson and give a half hour for study. The questions may be: What are the pictures you get from the lesson? What is the central thought in the lesson and how does the author show this truth? What was the author's purpose in writing the lessons and reasons? Any one of these questions worked out fully is sufficient for a recitation.

But some one who has always had visions of hard words, insists that the pupil cannot get the meaning of the lesson unless he can define each word. This teacher forgets that the context helps in the meaning of nearly all the words used, and if the pupil finds he must have the exact meaning of some word before he can give some phase of the meaning, then and there the exact meaning should be given. It is then the pupil feels the necessity for it.

In speaking of getting the meaning of the lesson as a whole, it is not the thought that the work is to be so general that any sort of a guess answer will do. But if the assignment had been, show the distinct pictures, the pupil would have to make a close study of the lesson to include everything the lesson would warrant and no more and he would need to recite with his book open. The recitation should be partly a test of what the pupils had been able to prepare alone and then it should go farther and lead them to see more and feel more (outgrowths of reading itself) than they were able to do alone.

In constructing these pictures (if this were the lesson) the pupils must use the ideas expressed by most of the words and they will get these meanings from what they already know of the word or from the context or from both. But if these sources do not give it, then they should go to the dictionary.

The same is true if the pupils were trying to find the central idea in a lesson or the author's purpose.

If several days are spent upon different phases of the meaning of the lesson there will not be many words left