WENTWORTH'S MENTAL ARITHMETIC looks like the simplest text-book in the world. That is because it has had the author's best thought for a dozen years. Mental Arithmetic is distinctly a means to an end, and a simple, direct method is, of course, the great object. Like all of Professor Wentworth's books, the Mental Arithmetic is the product of mature thought, and is admirably fitted for its purpose. The opinions which we have received from all parts of the country are most favorable. It is a trim little book of 190 pages, neatly and substantially bound in cloth. The introduction price is 30 cents. We cordially invite correspondence. GINN & COMPANY, Publishers, Boston, New York, Chicago, Atlanta. Keep in Touch with the Kindergarten World is an excellent motto for every primary teacher, We hear it advocated from every educational platform and it commends itself to our best judgment. One way to accomplish such a desirable result is to take The Kindergarten News. The cost of this magazine is fifty cents a year, and you can well afford that sum for the sake of keeping in touch with the kindergarten world. A New Front Porch or an additional back piazza, so to speak, on an old advertisement helps it very decidedly. The only thing we can do is to make our old announcements over a little from time to time. We are the same concern that we have been for thirty-five years, and we do the same old business at the old stand. That means ALL KINDS OF KINDERGARTEN MATERIAL AND THE BEST SCHOOL DEVICES AND BOOKS FOR TEACHERS. We need not remind you that the fall term will soon open, and that then you will surely want some of our goods, and probably a great many of them. By that time we shall be very busy, and you may have to wait a long time before your order is filled. Consequently you cannot do better than to get the latest catalogue and make out the order now, so that our clerks can be at work on it before the week is over. Woodwork in the Common School for primary and grammar grades, by Frederick A. Hinckley, is our latest book. It is a manual for teachers, bridging the chasm between the kindergarten and the advanced manual training schools. It contains dictations, suggestions, and plates for the whole The work is adapted to the regular school-room, and can be conducted, if necessary, by the regular teacher. WOODWORK IN THE COMMON SCHOOL is a book that all progressive principals and school boards will want to examine. Price, $1.00. course. We have just opened a branch office at Kansas City, in the Y. M. C. A. building. 211 Wabash Avenue, are our Chicago agents. Our New York office is 13 Astor Place. THOMAS CHARLES COMPANY, MILTON BRADLEY CO., SPRINGFIELD, MASS. I. Have the pupil arrange the cards upon his desk, placing the small cards upon which are the names only, under the large cards upon which are both the pictures and their respective names, See Fig. I. II. Or, let the pupil make a duplicate of the large card by putting together the three parts, as shown in Fig. II., having the large card with the picture and name upon it as a guide. III. Or, have the pupil put the names under the respective pictures without a guide. 5 Each number is represented in five different ways. The pupil arranges them, following a model, and thus learns to recognize the numbers, however they may be represented. five five TEACHERS' AGENCIES. Eastern Teachers' Agency, Miss E. F. FOSTER, Manager. Opposite rooms of "Popular Educator." Send for circulars. LAWTON & CO., 20 Vesey St., New York. REWARD & GIFT CARDS Thousands New Pretty Artistic Designs of Florals, Flowers, Fruits, Scenes, Views, Crescents, Shields, Scrolls, Easels, Panels, Vases, Ships, Birds, Animals, Juveniles, Landscape, Marine and Water Scenes, etc. Prices for 12 cards; size 3x4 inches 8c: 3x5 12c: 4x6 20c; 5x7% 30c; 7x9 50c; 9x11 75c. All are Pretty Chromo Reward Cards no two designs alike. Samples Sent Free to Teachers. Price List of School Supplies, Embossed, Frosted, Mounted, Silk-Fringed Chromo Reward Gift Cards, Reward, Gift, and Teachers' Books, Plays, Speakers, Recitations, Dialogues, Drills, Marches, Entertainments, Tableaux, Alphabet, Number, Drawing, Prize, Reading, Merit, Credit, Perfect, On Time and Honor Cards, School Aids, Reports, Diplomas, Etc., Free. All postpaid by mail. Postage stamps taken. Address, 50 Bromfield Street, Boston. A. J. FOUCH & CO., WARREN, PA. F. B. SPAULDING, Manager, 36 Bromfield St., Boston. For One New Subscription BEACON TEACHERS' AGENCY. of the positions filled by us last year were direct applications from Superin- 95%** P. I. MERRILL, Manager, 120 Tremont Street, Boston. THE ALBERT & CLARK TEACHERS' ACENCY. 211 WABASH AVENUE, CHICAGO. Many Primary and Grammar grade vacancies paying from $600 - $800. Correspondence with suitable candidates for such places is especially invited. C. J. ALBERT & B. F. CLARK, Managers. AGENT FOR NORTHWEST, C. P. Rogers, Marshalltown, Iowa. Your choice of the following 1. PORTFOLIO OF AUTHORS. 2. STORIES FROM ANIMAL LAND. 3. PORTRAITS OF GEORGE AND MARTHA WASHINGTON. 18x24. 4. PORTRAITS OF LONGFELLOW AND HOLMES. 5. PRIMARY MANUAL TRAINING. 6. LESSONS IN INDUSTRIAL DRAW. ING. 7. PAYNE'S SCIENCE AND ART OF EDUCATION. 8. MILTON'S PARADISE LOST. EDUCATIONAL PUBLISHING CO.. 50 Bromfield St, Boston. PRIMARY Volume III EDUCATION A Monthly Journal for Primary Teachers PRIMARY EDUCATION PUBLISHED BY THE November 1895 "Must be "- does some new teacher say who does not find the school-room all her fancy and normal school ideals painted for her. "But supposing it is n't?" she asks again, "What then?" My dear young teacher, if the school-room is irksome to you; if the voices of the children and all their little, clinging ways "make you nervous"; if day after day brings no improvement and the year ahead looks like an eternity to you, go to your best school friend, —some earnest, experienced teacher, perhaps — and tell it out frankly and ask for help you need it. No cause for discouragement if you have a teacher's heart in you and only mourn your inability and want of skill; closer study of, and sympathy with, the children will bring you out all right, in time. It is possible you are needing more individual discipline than the children are and that true progress will not begin for either of you till you are fitted for your work " so as by fire." True teaching is a consecration, and no aspirant for success in the work can ever hope to reach the Number 9 highest mark, till she has entered into the holy of holies where singleness of purpose, high ideals and self-consecration unite in one grand, strong, determining influence that surrounds her like an atmosphere. All this cannot be attained at once. Growth in the teacher is as necessary as growth in the children, and that teacher who is not conscious of the steady increase of the highest and best in her nature as well as skill in the art of teaching, and is satisfied with her present attainment has stopped at a point where she presents one of the most formidable obstacles in the way of the progress of younger teachers who look up to her for guide and counsel. Perhaps there is no sadder sight in the educational world or one more hopeless of reformation than a community of complacent, self-satisfied teachers. Why is it that a large proportion of the primary teachers are possessed with the belief and act under the conviction that their work is so "peculiar " that it is not affected by any of the important questions of the day; or, if it may be, that they must wait for all the interrogation points to be changed to periods and placed at the end of statements, giving the substance of the whole matter, before it is ready for their consideration? Even then it is expected that the superintendents, principals and training teachers shall vigorously sift it for their use giving them at the last the little they can understand and kindly assisting them to apply it to their daily practice. Every town and city have a few able thinkers in the primary grades, who are searching for truth in the ore, to whom the foregoing does not apply. But of whom is it true? For all those teachers, who can hear such current terms as " Herbartianism," "correlation," "co-ordination" and "concentration," of which the air is full in these days, without any true idea of what they mean, or any pricking of the conscience because they do not know nor What meanings have these mystical terms for them? Have they not their Course of study? What else is needed? care. It has come to be accepted that primary teachers must have a peculiar "faculty for getting along with the children," must have pleasant" ways" to attract the little ones and make them "like her." Amen to all this, but is there any reason why "faculty" and adaptability should not go hand and hand with an truth, and the possession of sufficient mental grasp ambition to keep abreast with newly discovered to comprehend and assimilate it? Our primary schools will surely degenerate into pretty school-room nurseries if the teachers who hold a thousand vital beginnings in their lax fingers are to be gauged alone by their ability to "get along with the children." |