ly and to hold it longer on a subject, than most men." Herein lies the secret of success. A giddy, inattentive pupil accomplishes little. A teacher may work miracles, but if he can not secure and hold the attention of his pupils, he can not teach.

III. STUDY SYSTEMATICALLY BOTH AS TO TIME AND METHOD.—A program sufficiently elastic to meet the various circumstances is needed. A well-arranged program enables the student to accomplish double as much as he ordinarily will do without one. "In education," said Everett, "method is everything." The pupil who knows how to study, and wisely uses his time, can prepare his lesson better and in much less time than one who does not know how to study, or who lacks system. A teacher who is not systematic, or who can not train his pupils to system, has no business in the school-room. IV. MASTER EACH STEP AS YOU GO.-The child asks, "What is it?" the boy or girl, "How is it ?" the youth, "Why is it?" The child masters the objective phase of the subject, the boy the analytic, the youth the scientific, and the man the philosophic phase. While in hand, is the time to master the lesson. To go through a book once is sufficient. Let each lesson be a review of previous lessons. "Leave nothing unconquered behind." Teachers who hurry their pupils through the book, who crowd them through many and long lessons, do much to injure them. Study few subjects. Short lessons and long study will produce strong men and thorough scholars.

V. THINK VIGOROUSLY, CLEARLY, AND INDEPENDENTLY.-"Thinking makes the great man." The ninny dreams, leaving others to solve the problems and think out the lesson. In most classes may be found those putty-faced, soft-brained, indolent creatures, who do their best to prove Darwinism. Ability to think rapidly and effectively is the objective point in intellectual culture. Each lesson is studied and taught with this end in view. The honest, independent, and able thinker is the grandest man that walks this earth.

VI. STUDY TO KNow, not to RecitE.-Studying to recite is one of the greatest evils connected with school life. In many schools the pupils who study to know are the exceptions. The lesson is recited glibly to-day, but forgotten to-morrow. Good marks are secured, but the child is not educated. Right methods of teaching render such reciting impossible. The true teacher inspires the pupil with a love for knowledge. The subject is studied, and the book is used as an instrument. Instead of reciting the facts, theories, etc., given in a book, the pupil tells what he thinks about what the book says. The teacher and the pupil together work out wider, deeper, more accurate

views of the subject than can be obtained from the text-books. Pupils thus taught never finish their education.

VII.-USE WHAT YOU LEARN.-Knowledge increases mental power. It is valuable for its own sake. Use keeps knowledge fresh. Think, write, talk. Connect books with nature. Connect past and present acquisitions. In whatever you engage, command and use your entire resources. The true teacher trains his pupils to use what they learn, by continually leading them to tell what they know.

VIII. DULY MIX STUDY, RECREATION, AND REST.-Recreation and rest are essential to physical vigor, and hence to effective study. Winship practiced gymnastics and lifting for an hour or two each day, until the weak boy became the strongest man in the world. Daniel Webster would concentrate his mighty powers for a time, then take recreation, and he became the intellectual giant of the age in which he lived. "Work while you work; play while you play." Hard study hurts no one. The greatest thinkers are usually healthy.

made to think.

Man was

TO TEACHERS.-How can you benefit your pupils more than by teaching them one of these rules each week? In eight weeks they will all be learned, and your pupils will be able to do more and vastly better work. You can illustrate the rules and train the learners to apply them. In all my school course I do not remember receiving any instruction in the art of study. Half my energies were wasted. From the heart I urge you to assiduously train your pupils how to study; you have no duty more important.

COMPOUND NUMBERS.

BY O. W. WEYER, PRINCIPAL WELLS SCHOOL, KEOKUK, IOWA.

In presenting this paper on Compound, or Denominate Numbers, I propose to discuss first, how much of the subject should be taught; secondly, how it should be taught.

Compound numbers may be classified into measures of extension, capacity, weight, time, angles and value. In extension we have long or linear measure, square or cubic measure. In linear measure I

would use the following table :

12 in. I ft.

3 ft. = 1 yd.

161⁄2 ft. = I rod.

320 rods I mile.

The old denomination, furlong, not now in use, should be ignored.

I am inclined to think that the rod will be better understood as 161⁄2 feet, than as 52 yds., for the reason that the foot is a more familiar unit to most young people than the yard is. In square measure teach

that

144 sq. in. = 1 sq. ft.

9 sq. ft. 1 sq. yd.

As the square rod is used only in measuring land, let it be taken as a unit, and teach 160 sq. rods = 1 acre, without introducing into the table, 304 sq. yds. I sq. rod.

=

In cubic measure teach the cu. in., cu. ft. and cu. yd., and that 128 cu. ft. of wood = 1 cord; and 2434 cu. ft. of stone = 1 perch.

In dropping part of the tables in measures of extension, I have followed my own judgment, trying to retain all that is necessary for ordinary business purposes. In treating of measures of weight and capacity, I shall be guided by the result of my inquiries among a few of the business men of this city,-men who would be considered good representatives of their respective businesses.

In measures of capacity we have liquid and dry measure. I found, in liquid measure, nothing less than a pint, nor more than a gallon. The only table necessary is 2 pts. = 1 qt. ; 4 qts. = 1 gal.

The terms barrel and hogshead, meaning a certain number of gallons, are not used.

In dry measure the merchants sell by the quart, peck or bushel ; the pint being recognized as one-half of a quart; hence pints might be dropped from dry measure.

In measures of weight, our books usually give three tables, troy, apothecaries, and avoirdupois weight. What we in our books call apothecaries' weight, the apothecaries themselves call troy weight. It is used only to proportion parts in the compounding of medicines, and is not used at all in buying or selling: all drugs being bought and sold by avoirdupois weight. I would favor the omitting of apothecaries and troy weight in our teaching, as weights of no use to our pupils; unless, indeed, they should enter the special lines of business in which the weights are used, and even then, they would have them—if not to learn, at least to relearn.

In avoirdupois weight there is, as a matter of fact, no such a weight as drams, the ounce being the smallest unit used by grocers. Druggists divide the avoirdupois ounce into halves, quarters and eighths. The term quarter, meaning twenty-five pounds, is not used; and a hundred weight is usually called a hundred pounds. The avoirdupois table in actual use is, 16 ozs. = 1 lb; 2,000 lbs. = 1 ton.

In connection with avoirdupois weight the conversion of pounds into bushels should be taught.

The table of time measure cannot well be shortened.

Circular or angular measure should be omitted in the ward schools, and left for the high school; where, in connection with higher mathematics, it may be understood.

halves

In measures of value we are interested only in United States money. It seems to me that a table like this: 5 cts. = 1 nickel; 5 nickels = I quarter; 2 quarters1 half; 2 1 dollar,-would be equally as useful as 10 mills = 1 ct.; 10 cts. = 1 dime; 10 dimes = I dollar; and 10 dollars All the table necessary is 100 cts. I dollar.

I eagle.

In connection with square measure, I would teach the carpeting of floors with carpets of different widths, allowing for waste in matching figures; the plastering of walls and ceilings, following the custom of plasterers in making no allowance for doors and windows; finding the number of acres in a piece of land of any given dimensions, and, in higher classes at least, locating and describing half and quarter sections; and the measuring of lumber.

The measuring of wood should be well taught in cubic measure; as should also the digging of excavations. In wood measure, that part of the table which reads,-"16 cu. ft. = 1 cord ft. ; 8 cd. ft. = 1 cord," -may be omitted as not being in practical use. Liquid and dry measure should be combined with cubic measure in finding the number of gallons in rectangular cisterns, and the number of bushels in bins.

I would shorten the work in reduction, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of compound numbers at least one-half. This can be done by dispensing with such problems as, reducing tons to drams, or bushels to gills, and substituting problems such as occur in daily life, and in which more than two denominations are seldom used. As a practical business matter, I am inclined to think that the addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of compound numbers, as set forth in our books, are well nigh worthless to a business man. In my own limited experience, I believe I have had no use for them outside of the school-room.

The many denominations and long reductions tend to confuse the child, burden him with useless units, and prevent his gaining the very knowledge which is designed to be imparted.

The only argument in favor of extended compound numbers is, that the teaching of them imparts discipline. If the discipline cannot be otherwise acquired, if there are no other subjects so well suited to that purpose, then by all means retain the subject as it is; but there certainly are other subjects having discipline equal in quantity, and superior

in quality. To summarize, I would reject fictitious and obsolete measures, and teach numbers as they are used in actual business, and make up the loss in discipline in other subjects.

In teaching compound numbers, the school should be furnished with weights and measures adapted to the various divisions of the subject, and the pupils required to use them until familiar with them. In extension, we would need the inch, foot and yard measure; in capacity, the pint, quart, and gallon for liquids, and the quart, peck and half bushel for measuring dry articles; in weight, scales weighing from one ounce to several pounds; in value, toy money of one, five, ten, twenty-five, fifty cent pieces, and dollars.

By measuring distances on the blackboard, and about the schoolroom, the pupil should be made familiar with the inch, foot, yard, and rod, and, knowing these units well, he should, from the table for linear measure, build the tables for square and cubic measure. He should not be taught that feet multiplied by feet give square feet, but that the square foot is the unit, the multiplicand is square feet, and the multiplier an abstract number. The same line of reasoning should prevail in cubic measure.

In liquid measure, the pupil should measure water by pints, quarts and gallons; in dry measure, a quantity of sand or wheat bran would be suitable for learning quarts, pecks and bushels. The sand and bran would also answer for practice in weighing ounces and pounds on the avoirdupois scales.

In general, both reduction ascending and descending should be confined to two denominations; and all through reduction, addition subtraction, multiplication and division, constant use shonld be made of the ruler, the yard-stick, the measures, and the scales, and pupils should be taught to solve a question with the quart and gallon measure as well as with the slate and pencil.

By some such plan as the one outlined in this article, the subject may be taught in much less time and with much better results than by the method usually followed.-Central School Journal.

A POINT IN MORAL TRAINING.

BY JOHN M. DAVIS.

That moral training is not only an appropriate but also an indispensable part of school work, none will deny. That it is as badly done as is asserted by a class of critics who have of late been assailing the methods and questioning the value of school training, teachers will not admit, for they know many of the criticisms to be either unfound