business men about it. Find out the cost of articles sold, and how measured, etc., thus pouring present day life into the subject. You will find that shingling and plastering and carpeting and paper hanging is seldom done, in the homes of the pupils, as, Wentworth and Ray and Fish and Davis say they are done. O,r they are not, perhaps, done here as in a date far away. In my opinion it matters very materially whether or not we connect our work with life as we find it. To so connect it, is one of the factors that enter into the improvement of our profession. I cannot close this without calling attention to an article in the January, 1903, Forum on "Causes of Failure in Arithmetic." It is intended as a tonic for superintendents, primarily.

SPELLING.

It seems valueless, not to say foolish, to give out as lessons lists of words classified according to the number of syllables, according to a recurring vowel of a particular sound, etc. This is an easy way to teach it, easy on teacher and class; easily marked, and all that, but of what use? The teacher must be better than the book and more than the book. The object of orthography is to use, correctly spelled and syllabified, words within one's vocabulary. Phthisic and ogre are not as valuable orthographically as restaurant, seize, discipline, control, aying, judgment, changeable, etc. What words, let us ask, are necessary for the average pupil? All words used in daily speech and such. as are used in letters to friends, local names, words used in their daily work at school in different subjects. Lists should be culled from their physiology, their arithmetic, their history, their language work, their readers, their geography. And it would be well to make such lists a day or two before the lesson is taken up, thus opening the way and creating an interest in it. There is a text-book on this subjetc, compiled by George B. Aiton, state superintendent of high schools for Minnesota (Ginn & Company) that is very suggestive, indeed. Being well indexed, it is a time saver.

Of course, such a course requires work. But any one who is not willing to do anything in the world that he can do if he interests his class and gets the results which the taxed district expects, is not cut out for a teacher.

In conclusion, let me give a plan practiced at present in the Vinton High School. A list of unstudied words was at first given out to the entire school to be written. The next time, the list contained many of the most difficult and most frequently misspelled words from the first list plus new words. Each time several of the former words enter into the list. The new words to be added are hinted at beforehand; for instance, the new words in our next lesson will be from Iowa geography. It is managed as a semi-weekly contest between the four grades in the High school, and has created considerable interest in learning to spell words and in dictionary consultation.

HENRY L. ADAMS,

County Superintendent of Fayette County.

Henry L. Adams, County Superintendent of Fayette County, and candidate for Superintendent of Public Instruction, is a native of Iowa,

his parents having moved to this state in 1856. They were rugged pioneer farmers, which assured their son a strong physique, a clear head and an honest sympathetic heart, all of which he possesses in a marked degree. Henry attended the rural schools until he was twelve

years of age. living near a town, he took advantage of the schooling there afforded and graduated from the Maynard High School, working on the farm summer vacations.

Having acquired a taste for higher knowledge, he entered the Upper Iowa University, graduating with high honors at the age of twenty-two. During his college career, he taught two or three terms of school in the country.

After completeing his college course, Mr. Adams began teaching as principal of the Waucoma schools. In this capacity he proved his ability to inspire young people to their noblest efforts; his ability to work with men in bringing about needed improvements; his ability to exercise a s ng influence for good in the community.

In the fall of 1899, Mr. Adams was chosen by the board of supervisors of Fayette County as the most suitable person to fill the vacancy in the office of county superintendent caused by the resignation of Freeman H. Bloodgood, now superintendent at Waterloo.

Mr. Adams has proved his efficiency as an educator, organizer and supervisor to such a remarkable degree, that he has been repeatedly re-nominated by acclamation to his present position, and for the past two or three years he has been mentioned as a possible and a very suitable person for the office of State Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Mr. Adams chose a college graduate for his life companion, and he and Ina Holmes, a beautiful and accomplished woman, were united in marriage in 1898. Chief among their possessions is a library of choice books which they read diligently during their spare moments.

His studious habits, his capacitly for detail and research, his love for knowledge and advancement, ranked Mr. Adams among the first educators of the state early in his career. As a parliamentarian, he has few equals. His ability has been rewarded by his being chosen a member of the Educational Council; by his having been chosen president of the Northeastern Iowa Educational Association, and by having been chosen president of the county superintendents' department of the Iowa Educational Association. His address at Cedar Rapids was a scholarly production which elicited highly complimentary remarks from the leading educators of the state.

In Fayette County, Mr. Adams has awakened an enthusiasm such as is rarely observed. In the wake of his energetic and sympathetic impulse have followed better buildings, better equipment, more regular attendance, increased salaries for teachers and higher ideals of citizenship. He has held twenty-six rural patrons' meetings during all of the past year which were enthusiastically attended in large numbers. There have been raised $2,000 voluntary contributions for library and general improvement.

Mr. Adams is ranked as a successful leader by the prominent educators of the state. His ability is unquestioned. His loyalty to prin

ciple, his large heart reaching out to all classes and conditions of people, his Lincoln-like honesty, his broad scholarship, his hunger for the great books, his ability as a public speaker, his ability to work with men and in getting things done-these are the characteristics which have led the people of his county to insist on his becoming a candidate for the office of state superintendent. Mr. Adams is a product of the Iowa school system from the rural school up through the city school and the collefe, and having the endorsement of leading educational men of the state, it is reasonable to suppose that if chosen to this state office he would meet with that same success which always characterized his efforts hitherto.

TRUANT LAW NEEDS AMENDMENT.

By Supt. McConnell, Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

At the recent meeting of the Southeastern Iowa Teachers' Association in Burlington, Supt. J. J. McConnell spoke on the Iowa compulsory education law. A synopsis of his address follows:

The enactment by the last legislature of our present compulsory law was a response to the generally entertained sentiment that some way ought to be found to secure the benefits of our free school system to all the children of proper age. It would seem that if a public school system is to be maintained at all;that if people who own property are to give up a part of that property to maintain such a school systemthe intended beneficiaries should all of them become the actual beneficiaries of this system.

The same kind of argument that will support taxation for public school purposes will also support the movement to require attendance. There would be little if any dissent from the proposition just stated.

The law is the outcome of a tolerably definitely ascertained public sentiment on the subject. It is a step in the evolution of our society and is to be accepted as a perfectly valid movement of the forces operating in our society and is to be interpreted and applied in a spirit that is in harmony with this idea.

The statute finds its main strength in the fact it aims to secure to the child that which he needs in order to make the most of himself. Supt. Geo. Howland in speaking of the purpose of the pubile school system once said: "It is usually contended that the child should be educated in order that he may be a better citizen, but I maintain that the real purpose is a nobler andhigher one than this, viz: that it is the purpose of the public school system to educate the child for his own sake, that he may be sent out into life with that training and that education which will best qualify him to succeed in the struggle of life." The point is that we wish every child to have the best possible chance for his own happiness in life, and in that wish lies the chief strength of a movement of this kind.

The appeal of helpless childhood, to be placed by society in the way of the best promise and the best hope for success is an appeal that cannot easily be disregarded.

The popular strength of this law as a piece of legislation, paradoxical as the statement may seem, lies in its mildness. The lawmakers profiting by the experience of law makers in other states have avoided the features that have made trouble in other states. The law so far as its positive requirements are concerned takes ground which will practically be undisputed.

SOME UNDISPUTED POINTS.

I. No one will question the validity of the position taken,that all children of the ages named in the statute, viz: all between seven and fourteen years of age, should be kept in school for a reasonable time each year.

2. In very few cases will private schools object to giving the information called for from these schools. It would be difficult to devise a more moderate requirement for enabling the public authorities to inform themselves concerning the attendance of those who came within the number of those affected by the provision of this act, but who instead of attending the public schools, are attending private schools.

3. It fully recognizes these private schools as institutions which can be trusted to meet reasonable requirements in the way of educating those who attend them.

The time required cannot be held to be excessive.

5. The manner of securing exemption in cases in which such exemption may be necessary is simple and reasonable.

6. The provision for the establishment of truant schools furnishes the administrators of the school system a way of avoiding the danger which might arise from bringing together the well disposed pupils who attended school regularly, and the habitual truants. This provision further places the incorrigible child on the way to the schools which are supported by the state for the purpose of doing what can be done for children of this class.

7. The granting to boards of the power to employ a truant officer, and the power conferred by this statute upon the truant officer when employed will be regarded by the people in any community as reasonable and will in most cases be sufficient to enable him to deal effectually with those who are proper subjects for his intervention.

8. The provisions for enforcement are perhaps as strong as need ed at this stage of our experience under the law, but it may be found that as the law shall be amended in certain respects, as it doubtless will be, it may be necessary to strengthen this particular provision of the statute.

The law as it came from the hands of the legislature furnishes a most excellent basis for constructive law making on this subject in the future, by which I mean to say that taking the law as we find it