atmosphere of petty gossip; you are trained in the art of expression. Learning quotations will also help you in remembering and in talking. Form the habit of reading thus, of taking an interest in what you read, and the ability to talk will surely follow.

"But," you say, "such reading, and such study require so much time and so much effort." True. But have you ever yet found anything worth doing or having that does not require a great deal of time and effort?

Fargo, N. D.

Very sincerely yours, CAROLINE C. Ross.

YOUTH'S READING CIRCLE OF INDIANA.

At a meeting of the Indiana Teachers' Association held at Indianapolis Dec. 30, 1887, a member of the Association urged the necessity of some organized effort to direct the general reading of the school children of the state. A committee appointed to consider the feasibility of such a movement, made the following report which was unanimously adopted: "Your committee to whom was referred the subject of organizing a Children's Reading Circle beg leave to report as follows:

We regard the subject of the highest importance. To place the general reading of the half-million children of the public schools under competent guidance and control, even to a limited extent, would, in our judgment be productive of most beneficial results. To substitute for the trashy and often vicious reading matter which finds its way into the hands of the children and youth, a grade of literature at once sound in its content, chaste in language and imagery, pure in its moral tone, is an end which may properly command the best and most earnest efforts of this Association and of the teachers of Indiana. To your committee the enterprise proposed seems a means of accomplishing, in a measure, this highly desirable end."

In this simple way the Indiana Young Peoples' Reading Circle was organized. Its management was placed in the hands of the Board of Directors of the Teachers Reading Circle.

Five grades of reading are provided; one suited to second year pupils, one suited to third and fourth grades, one suited to fifth and sixth grades, one suited to seventh and eighth grades, and one suited to high school grades. From one to three books are named for each grade representing as many different subjects as history or geography, natural history, science and pure literature. Much care is required in the selection of suitable books as the quality is of supreme That a book for children should be simple yet scientific in its treatment, with a pure diction

concern.

and a truly literary style goes without saying. The present is rich in the variety as well as in the literary character of its children's books.

In some counties school trustees place a complete set of the books named for the course of each year in each school where they are used as a circulating library. In other instances enterprising teachers raise funds by entertainments, subscriptions and in other ways buy the books for their schools. Thousands of children buy their own books and read them with the enhanced interest and profit which a sense of ownership gives. Different plans are operative in different localities, but earnest teachers find some means of assisting their pupils to come into possession of the best thoughts of the world's best thinkers. In many counties the introduction of these books has formed the nucleus of valuable and permanent school libraries, making necessary the purchase of library cases. In many Indiana counties uniform school libraries may be found in each school throughout the county. They range from forty to seventyfive volumes per school. The school district is thus becoming the literary center of the neighborhood and the influence of these books in supporting and aiding the regular school work is beyond computation. It exercises a wholesome influence on the method of the school and of the teacher and makes possible the employment of rational methods when otherwise the traditional school would exist in all its glory.

The Circle closed its fifth year with a membership of 125,000 school children. This means that onesixth of all the school children in the state have become interested in a movement which promises much for their future culture. It is confidently believed the present year will show an enrollment of 200,000 children. This phenomenal growth attests the loyalty of the teachers and school officers to the best interests of the children of the state. The thousands of school libraries established in the school districts throughout the state, place within easy reach of pupils of the public schools the best thoughts of the best writers, thereby fostering the habit and cultivating the taste for the choicest in literature.

The Board is constantly rejoiced at the gratification which children manifest in the reading of these excellent books, and is assured that so far-reaching a movement gives abundant promise in the influence on their future lives. No movement has ever been undertaken by Indiana teachers that is so rich in promise as is the Young People's Reading Circle. It is so fruitful of good to the young that it commands at once our earnest and energetic support.

One of the effects of a good education is that people are taught to be tolerant of diversities of opinion. -Supt. Thomas Vickers, Portsmouth, Ohio.

SCIENTIFIC PENMANSHIP.

principle. It will be seen to consist of two preceding elements modifed and joined at the top. The third

2

ington C. H., Ohio.

LESSON II.

CUT No. 2.

This cut presents on the left side the standard elements of the small letters and our method of teaching them, and on the right side some of the faults common to them when taught without the scale.

We furnish these scales to the pupils and have them make scores of these elements right from the very first, and if they do not make them entirely right they can see wherein they are wrong and rectify their errors. They see and know for themselves both what to do and how to do it.

The teacher, without being an expert, can direct, criticise and perfect the work. The child does not drift along after something vague and indefinite, but trains up to a finish after that which he knows for himself.

principle.

The third element is modified in length and curvature as shown in the cut. The first element is modified by being made three spaces long. It is the downward stroke and is straight. Notice carefully the loop part of this principle. It is two spaces long and half a space wide. By making a careful comparison of the two copies in this cut it will be seen that the scale side presents the true slant, height and width, while the other side has but one tangible feature, namely, height.

The errors of the false forms are easily detected and remedied by reference to the scale work. We close this lesson with some suggestions as to position.

POSITION OF BODY.

Either front or side position is correct. We prefer the front position when it can be had. In many schoolrooms the desks are too narrow to use it. A matter of vastly more importance is the position of the paper or copy book. In either position the pupil should sit with the body almost erect, slightly inclined forward, and about an inch from the desk or table on which the paper rests, feet flat on the floor.

POSITION OF PAPER.

This is determined by the scale. If using the front position of body, shift the paper so that the dotted slant lines will point toward the center of the body. If the side position, shift the paper so that the slant lines will point to the center of the body and the upper left corner of the desk.

To make the position of the paper more clear, lay a pencil or penholder on the paper-the sharp end pointing from the body-in trend with the slant lines, then shift the paper till one end of the pencil or pen points to the corner, or middle of the desk, according to the position of the body. This will give correct position and one that can be determined by the eye.

As to position of hand and pen, about all that is necessary is to require the pupil to hold the hand in such a position as to keep the penholder pointing in the direction of the slant lines. This will turn the hand up and keep the side of it off the paper. When the right position is taken they can look over and along the penholder to see the point.

Hitch your wagon to a star if you will, but look to the strength of the harness.-Puck.

Teacher-John returned the book. In what case is book? Dull Boy (after long thought)-Bookcase.

PRACTICE IN THINKING.

GEORGE HYDE, M. A.

While memory is a convenient objective-point in education for both teacher and scholar and should by no means be neglected, there is a more imperative demand to-day for insight-the ability to think. Modern life is one long discrimination between the true and the false and requires not so much the accumulation of facts as the wit and eye to scrutinize them. How shall children be armed against delusive sophisms and specious rhetoric if they do not early learn to think? We may well heed the words

of President Eliot, when he says that practice in thinking-adapted to the varying aptitudes and tastes of the student should be the persistent aim of every teacher, from primary school to university. It is not necessary to determine the relative importance of memory and reason, to be convinced of the necessity of giving full play and encouragment to the latter. Instruction which is merely a task of the memory is its own refutation, benumbing drudgery to the pupil and a harrowing ordeal to the teacher. It does not arouse intelligence; and so far from implanting a love of knowledge, creates a repugnance for it and a self-complacency fatal to its acquisition.

It is little wonder that so much energy has been misdirected in the cultivation of the memory-it is so difficult to inspire thought. It is well nigh impossible to set some minds a-thinking ; minds a-thinking; many teachers, indeed, find they require for home consumption all the motive-power they can accumulate. It is easier to have pupils commit to memory dry facts, lists of dates and out-of-the-way information. "One of the greatest pains to human nature," says Mr. Bagehot, "is the pain of a new idea." Teachers as well as other men make haste to have done with this racking torture. There is a "dead line" in the profession of teaching, it is to be feared, as truly as in the ministry. We stop thinking before we are half through. We arrive at a mental stopping place before we begin. We "work ourselves out of a job," as the printer would say, and sit with folded hands, in shirt-sleeved (or gauze-aproned) ease, waiting for thought to come to us and be externally applied. No wonder that in our instruction proper emphasis is not placed on the development of the logical faculty and reasoning powers. Nor should a teacher blush to confess his own failings, for "he proves by his avowal," says Rousseau, "that he is wiser to-day than yesterday."

Without discussing now the means of relieving this mental insolvency (en passant we would suggest Reading's Ready Relief), the object of this article is merely to say, that, whatever is our own attitude towards knowledge-whether of humble striving or

dawdling supineness- the "young idea" will "shoot." The following incidents, for whose age and essential truth I can vouch (if not for their occurrence,) will perhaps remind us that "practice in thinking” has a basis in nature; and that the youthful curiosity needs only to be gently encouraged and skillfully and rightly guided to achieve great results, from very babyhood.

"What was Helen crying about, Polly ?" asked Polly's mamma, as the little one came in from the playground. "She dug a great hole in the garden and her mamma wouldn't let her take it into the house with her," said Polly.

Was the little Minnesota girl thinking that our university was in a good state when she closed her prayer one night thus: "And now, God, good-bye; I'm going to Chicago for two weeks"?

A philanthropic and very modest gentleman recently visited a mission Sunday-school and was prevailed upon to make an address. "Children," he began, and then paused. "My dear boys and girls," he said, making a second start. Another awkward stop, when he essayed for a third time: "My young friends." Just then a lad in one of the classes, thinking that he was waiting for some greeting in return, cried out: "Hello, yourself!"

"Say ma," remarked a small boy, "isn't it funny that everybody calls my little brother a bouncing baby?" "Why?" asked the mother. "Because when I dropped him on the floor this morning he didn't bounce a bit."

"Riches take unto themselves wings and fly away," said the teacher. "What kind of riches is meant ?" And the smart, bad boy at the foot of the class said he "reckoned they must be ostriches."

Lady: "And what does your father do?" Little Girl: "O, papa is a doctor." Lady: "Indeed! I suppose he practices a great deal, does he not ?" Little Girl: "Oh, no. He doesn't practice any more; he knows how, now.”

Ethel (shuddering): "How the trees moan and sigh to-night!" Bobby (speaking whereof he knows): "Well, I guess you'd moan and sigh if you were as full of green apples as they be."

"Who is that lady dressed in black," mamma, asked Willie, as he sat with his mother in the street car. "That is a sister of charity, my boy," replied his mother. Willie pondered deeply for a moment and then said: "Which is she, mamma, Faith or Hope ?"

Each of these juvenile performances owes its humorous aspect to the unexpected discovery of a contradiction; and this is the strongest mental stimulus towards finding out the true state of things. If the world is full of contradictions it is because Truth is limitless. No man will be content with meagre results except at his own peril. Each truth arrived at is a station (but only a station, like some western towns, "a