ELEMENTARY SCIENCE.

[What to Teach in the Lower Grades, with a Few Suggestions as Regards the Method.]

THE CAT.

How many have a cat at home? Why do you keep a cat? Where does your cat stay? Does it like a warm place? Does it like a clean place? Does the cat like to get mud on its feet? What does she do when she gets them wet? How are cats protected from the cold? Of what is its coat made? Does your cat like to have you rub her? Does it make any difference which way you rub the fur? Rub it in the dark. What happens? Does the cat need to eat? Why? What does she eat? How many ever saw a cat catch a mouse? How does she do it? Look at your cat's claws. Are they sharp? Are they like the dog's claws? Why do they not get dull as she walks about? Notice how they can be drawn in and extended. Has the cat the same number of toes on each foot? Does she make much noise in walking about? Why should the cat not make much noise with her feet? Look at your cat's teeth. What kind of teeth has she? Are they good teeth for her kind of food? Why? How many ever saw a cat drink milk? How does she do it? When does your cat hunt for mice? Can she see well? Can she see in the dark? What makes you think that she can? Look at her eyes. Are they like ours? How different? Take a cat into a dark room and examine her eyes there. Then examine them in the bright sunlight. What difference do you see? Why do you suppose the eyes change in this way? What does the cat say when she is hungry? What does she say when she is happy? When she is angry? Notice the cat's whiskers. Of what use do you suppose they are? Can the cat hear well? How do you know that she can? pupils do most of this work in observing at home. be no trouble in getting this done if the teacher takes a lively interest in the work and gets the children started--in the right way. A cat might be brought to school.

THE ROBIN.

Have your

There will

The spring is probably the best time to begin the study of the robin. Watch for its return. When are the first robins seen? Where do you suppose they have been? Why do you

think they left us last autumn? Do they return in pairs? What do they eat during the early spring? Where do they find their food? How do they get it? Try to have your pupils discover a pair of robins that are just beginning to build a nest. Where is it building? Did you see the robins around there before they began to build? Did it seem to take them long to decide where to build their nest? Of what is it building? Where do the birds get the material for the nest? How is the material carried? Do both birds work in building the nest? What use is made of the mud? Do people ever use anything in building a house as the robin uses mud? How is the nest lined? How long are the robins in building their nest? Why do they build a nest? How many eggs does the robin lay? What is their color? How long must the robin sit on the eggs before they hatch? Try to have your pupils look into a nest full of young robins. Do they look hungry? Do both robins get food for them? How are they fed? How do you know the mother robin from the father? How many know the song of the robin? How many ever saw a robin while it was singing? Where was it? Do both robins sing? Why do you suppose birds sing? If possible, secure a live robin and make a study of its structure for the purpose of better understanding the function of the parts. Notice especially the shape of the bill-the position of the eyes-the way that the feathers are arranged on its body-the way that the wing feathers overlap-the place of attachment of the wings-the tail and its uses the slender legs-the toes and their arrangement. Ask the question "Why?" often.

-Public School Journal.

PRIMARY DEPARTMENT.

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

ADVANCED READING.

The term, advanced reading, as here employed, has a somewhat extended meaning; it does not signify merely the work in reading that belongs to the higher grades and to the high school; it is used to include all reading work in which the effort is to work out the meaning of selections. Any reading work that deals with connected sentences may be included under the term, advanced reading, as here used.

The general aim of preliminary reading work is to bring it about that the child shall be substantially at home with regard to the meaning and pronunciation of the words that are to be found in any selections that he undertakes to read. It is the effort in the early primary work to make the child so familiar with the meaning of words and with the means of working out their pronunciations that his mind may be brought into immediate contact with the thought of the writer.

It is evident that every selection which is employed as subject matter in a reading lesson has two sides-the expression side and the meaning side. The expression side is made up of certain sentences, and paragraphs or stanzas; these are composed of separate words. To make the child familiar with these separate words as to meaning and pronunciation is the aim of the primary reading work. On the meaning side of a selection in reading there are two factors. One of these is the purpose or aim that the writer had in mind, and the other is the thought or idea that he used as a means to accomplish his aim.

It is evident, therefore, that the study of a lesson in advanced reading involves attention to three elements:

1. The purpose of the writer.

2. The central thought or idea of the selection.

3. The language employed to set forth the thought.

In order to be prepared to present to a class the work upon a reading lesson the teacher should therefore make a careful study of these three elements. The extent of this study is not always adequately indicated by the text-book in reading. The preparation should usually be much more ample than that therein hinted. Consider, for example, the selection entitled "Children," on page 23 of the Indiana Third Reader:

1. "Come to me, O ye children!

And whisper in my ear

What the birds and the winds are singing

In your sunny atmosphere.

2. For what are all our contrivings
And the wisdom of our books
When compared with your caresses
And the gladness of your looks?

3. Ye are better than all the ballads
That ever were sung or said,
For ye are the living poems
And all the rest are dead."

-Henry W. Longfellow.

In connection with these stanzas the book indicates that there is to be given a "Concert Phonic Drill." It is noted that in giving the sound of Italian a the mouth is to be kept wide open. In addition to this, a list of words to be spelled by sound is given.

While these points are not given as bearing directly upon a lesson, they indicate the bent as to reading work. Following the stanzas two directions are given: "Memory exercises. Require pupils to learn these stanzas and to recite them in the class. Slate work. Write from memory the first stanza. Exchange slates and correct errors. Notice the indentation of the second and fourth lines."

The remark to be made concerning these directions that precede and follow the three stanzas is that they do not in any way hint the purpose of the writer and they do not suggest the true spirt in reading work.

These three stanzas are the concluding part of Longfellow's little poem entitled "Children." Of the stanzas that precede these there are six. The teacher should study the poem as a whole, and in teaching it to the class he should have the first six stanzas before the children upon the blackboard. Under these conditions he should lead the pupils to study in order the following points:

1. What seems to be the writer's aim?

What thought or conception does he use in order to accomplish his aim?

3. In what respects are the images and the language adapted to the thought and the purpose?

The first stanza of the poem is:

"Come to me, O ye children!

For I hear you at your play,

And the questions that perplexed me

Have vanished quite away."

Is it the aim of the author, as indicated by this stanza, to

increase the reader's appreciation of children? To make him value them more highly? To awaken a greater degree of kindness toward them?

The second and third stanzas are as follows:

"Ye open the eastern windows,

That look towards the sun,

Where thoughts are singing swallows
And the brooks of morning run.

In your hearts are the birds and the sunshine,

In your thoughts the brooklet's flow,

But in mine is the wind of autumn

And the first fall of the snow."

If the pupils had concluded from the study of the first stanza that the purpose of the writer was to lead the readers to value more highly the children with whom they come in contact, these two stanzas are to be studied in order to see whether they seem to show the same purpose. The three following stanzas would be examined with the same thought in mind:

"Ah! what would the world be to us

If the children were no more?
We should dread the desert behind us
Worse than the dark before.
What the leaves are to the forest,
With light and air for food,
Ere their sweet and tender juices
Have been hardened into wood,-
That to the world are children;
Through them it feels the glow
Of a brighter and sunrier climate

Than reaches the trunks below."

After studying carefully these three stanzas in order to see what purpose they hint, attention should then be turned to the three that are given in the reading book. With the whole poem before them, the children should be encouraged to use the utmost freedom in trying to think out, in their own way, the aim that the author had in writing it. They should, however, be led to test all their ideas upon this point by the language of the poem itself. If their conclusion is that the aim of the author in writing the poem was to increase the reader's