face is shining like those of the angels in the priest's missal book.

King I am your king, old Peter, and these are real meats which I am setting out before a real fire. Stoop over it, and let me see you warm your hands before the blaze. And you, old Wife, come too and sit down before the pine logs that are burning their hearts out to warm you and your husband.

(Peter and his Wife sit on the settle, stooping over the fire. The little Page huddles close to them, shivering. The King stands back and watches them. Perhaps a carol can be sung outside, or some soft music for a minute.)

King Now the boy and I have built your fire and warmed ourselves by it, we must start back. Come, lad, it's a long way through the forest.

(The King and the Page go out, leaving the old people gazing at each other with a dazed expression. Presently they rise and follow.)

SCENE III - The Forest Path

Joy and hope our hearts shall fill, Peace and love and all good-will; For this babe of Bethlehem Children loves and blesses them,

On the Christmas morning.

young to have to feel the sorrows of the world. But you looked out the window and saw the woman struggling with her burden. (He comes back and sits by the Page.) You must know how my heart went out to her in sudden understanding of her cold and hunger. How could I have done anything but go straight after her with aid? Would you have missed seeing the glow of the fire on her cold wrinkled face, and Peter stretching out his thin hands to the blaze?

(The Page lays his head on the King's shoulder.)

Page I am sleepy. Let me rest awhile. I like the sound of the wind rushing in the pine tops and the plop, plop, of falling snow shaken from the branches. I feel warmer, too.

(The King, alarmed, rises, shakes the boy awake and moves away a few steps.)

King Come, boy, get up, shake off your drowsiness, or you will freeze to death. You must follow me. Come!

(The boy stumbles up, setting his feet in the King's footsteps, He seems to wake up suddenly, staring at the ground in

Page Sire, there is heat in the ground here. I can feel it through my boots. It's warm, too, to the hand. (Stooping to feel.) (He takes another step forward.) And here, too. Sire, sire, there is heat where you have trod. (He falls to his knees.)

King The Christ Child has come to your aid, boy. Mark my footsteps as you walk behind me, and you shall find the wind less bitter, the night less cold.

(The King goes off round the screen, by the window, and the boy follows him.)

(Outside the waits sing the last two verses of the carol, beginning "In his master's steps.")

A Living Christmas Tree

Elizabeth Williams Sudlow

An unusual Christmas celebration was observed at Audubon School, of Rock Island, Ill. It was held on the school lawn, the center of attraction being a fir tree planted during the early part of the year for that particular purpose. This was the first use of the living Christmas tree which the children had purchased, with the hope that it would develop into a community tree. Pupils from all the grades made the decorations, which were put in place by the older children. The tree looked very gay with its many colored streamers, and the children gathered around it and sang their Christmas carols. Under the tree were baskets of snowballs, made of pop corn, which the P. T. A. had supplied as a treat for the little folks.

old. These new toys, too, go to the makers, where believed necessary, otherwise they go to charity in their turn.

Endless the varieties of the playthings which are produced thus. In one school, the Oyler, in a fiscal year, they produced a hundred and twenty toy autos. At another, they made toy-wagons, at another, prairie schooners, at another, wheel-barrows, and the like. Of rag dolls the supply was endless.

It's a pretty sight to watch the little folk at their toymaking, and toy meading. Its a prettier sight, still, to see their faces beam with pleasure as they finish some toy to be given away.

Christmas Decorations

Faye Colby

Toy Saving and Helpfulness

Felix J. Koch

On the face of it - the judging the work by its products alone the project was most unqualifiedly successful. Over five thousand toys were assembled in the Music Hall at Cincinnati for free distribution by the Salvation Army; and easily over ninety per cent of these were toys not quite as good as new ones would be, yet toys which, but for this work of redemption by the young folk, would have been consigned to the family muck-heap.

Behind all that, though, there were other lessons, less altruistic, probably, but none the less important, pedagogically; the teaching of children that toys broken are not, necessarily, toys to be thrown away, and that wonders may be done by the application of time and a little ingenuity to the seemingly worthless old toy. Inventiveness, resourcefulness, creativeness, all these were brought squarely home. to the child who would make the old toy good as new, and when one viewed those same five thousand toys in this light, their value to the young toy-menders was beyond measuring, of course!

Putting old toys in shape has, as a result, become a definite part of the curriculum of not less than forty of the public schools of Cincinnati. Boys and girls, both, are assigned to the task. Children of all the grades are requested to bring in all the old and broken toys they may have; these are collected in the school "shop-room" and there the work assigned.

An hour a week, at least, is given to this work in the schools and in certain cases an hour and a half per week is granted. The girls in that time repair the dolls that come in, dress them, wash them, furbish them, in short, make them shipshape.

Meanwhile, the boys repair other toys; they whittle a new arm for the jumping-jack, they set a new wheel to the wee wooden cart, they put a new head to the hobby-horse, and then paint the new member.

Then, if it seems that the child giving is in need of toys, it doesn't stand by and stifle a bit of juvenile heart-break, while that toy on which it has labored is sent to some one unknown, but the young repairer receives it for its very own. Viewed in the light of inspiration to good labor, and of inculcating thought for others, this project has been, without doubt, the most successful innovation Cincinnati has witnessed in a very long time.

Growing out of it, too, has come a somewhat parallel movement, the making of new toys in the shop-work by these same wee folk, when not occupied with work on the

Orange

Slit to go Over Twig OF Tree

My first graders were so much interested in two of the decorationa that we made for our Christmas tree last year that I am going to pass the directions on to the readers of PRIMARY EDUCATION.

I gave each child a pattern, cut from stiff paper, of a candle in a holder, and let them trace and cut several of these from brown construction paper. Then they were given strips of paper of various bright colors, which they pasted over both sides of the candle part. A little orange paper at the top to represent the flame, a slit in the brown paper at the bottom to go over a twig of the tree, and our tree fairly shone with candles.

For the other problem, each child had a pattern of a fivepointed star, and they traced and cut their own from tops of tablets, and covered both sides with yellow paper. (I tried to get gilt paper, but could not find any.) We had done a good deal of letter cutting earlier in the fall, so that they were able to cut the letters LOVE without assistance, and paste them on the star. An extra star was made for our school tree, so that each child might take his own home and put it in the window if he had no tree. This was all done for seat work, without supervision.

The warp is made of No. 40 spool cotton and is strung across the loom. The thread is held in place at each end of the loom by brass tacks. The warp should be 1 to 2 yards long. A bead needle or very fine sewing needle is threaded with No 60 or 70 cotton.

After tying the end of the thread upon which the beads are strung to the outside of the warp, pick up the beads on the needle and pull the thread through the beads to the end of the thread, while keeping the thread under the warp, press the beads up through the warp, holding them there with the left hand, and return the needle through the beads on the upper side of the warp. This holds each row of beads firmly in place.

When the chain is worked the length of the loom, it may be removed from the loom by pulling out the tacks at the end and inserting tacks in the part of chain worked, and continuing the thread across the loom.

The looms can be bought or may be made from an old cigar box by sticking a row of pins in each end of the box and stretching the warp across between the pins.

Paper Bead Chain

Lovely bead chains are made from colored paper. Any colored picture from magazine or catalogue can be used. The paper should be cut one inch wide at one end, tapering to a point at the other end, and six inches long. The dimensions can vary proportionately if a smaller or larger bead is wished.

The beads are made by winding the paper around a steel knitting needle or hat pin. To make the bead, begin to wind the paper at the wide end of the strip and wind around the needle, over and over. To finish the bead, paste or glue the point down firmly and remove the needle. After all the beads are completed, go over them with shellac, to make them hard and waterproof.

These beads can be strung on a heavy double thread for a chain. These are pretty combined with small glass beads, as, a bead between two paper beads.

All the grades, even to the grammar, can make sheet chains. They make fine gifts.

Home Study

Edith L. Boyd

How many teachers, in assigning home study for pupils, take into consideration into consideration the probable conditions under which this study must be done? It is easy enough to say, "To-morrow morning, bring in the next ten problems," or, "Write out before to-morrow morning an outline of the next chapter in history," but it is not always so easy for the child to carry out.

To one mother who plans for play-time and household duties until, say 5.30, then a good supper, study from 6.30 to 7.30 and bed at 8 o'clock, there are fifty who think nothing about any such plan. Many wait for the school child to help about the house, look after babies, and snatch what play-time they can until after the late meal the unprepared lesson drives the child to study late, in the midst of the noise of the family living-room; or, the play-time is sometimes the whole period from the close of school until bedtime, with the study hastily done before school in the morning.

A certain teacher made a point of finding out the conditions under which her pupils did their home study. In one home only were they ideal; in four others they were fairly good; in three there was an attempt, more or less irregular, while in the other twenty-seven there was no

thought given beyond a typical, "Yes, I tell Willie he'd better get his lessons, but, land, he's so sleepy when bedtime comes he can't do any good at his books."

Sometimes the excuse is, "I know Nellie ought to have her help mornings and night," or, "Pa thinks the boys her lessons, but I'm so busy seems like I just got to have study enough at school and he needs their help on the place, times are so hard."

After these investigations, Miss Long decided against home study and revised her school program to include a short period of intensive study that covered the requirement for home work. After a week's trial, the method proved so successful that she found home study unnecessary. It is not necessary if the study periods in school are used for real study and not just in an indifferent filling up of time.

Spontaneous Classroom Games

Catherine A. Sexton

OW shall I teach the tables this term?

How

What would be the best or even a good way to "put across" the multiplication tables with this class? What third grade teacher has not questioned herself repeatedly on this single problem? Shall I say questioned or introspected herself with a sigh? The multiplication tables are the "bug bear" of the third grade.

For the teacher to know that her children, from the time they come to her room until they left it, had really learned from the 2's to the 9's, there is an infinite amount of satisfaction. Just that much of the "mechanics" of mathematics mastered is of untold value in the future work of that class or of that individual pupil. And just here the work should be mastered. Why leave this third grade work for the grammar grade teacher to straighten out or to perfect? Has not she her own demands to meet?

Just here I hear the objections: "But children come into my room from different schools - from different systems and different cities. Even if our children have mastered their 'tables' these 'newcomers' are a continual drawback in our work."

Here, my fellow-worker, is the solution. If these new people have not done their third grade work when they should have done it, let them now go back and find what they have lost in passing. To be a third grader in arithmetic, though a seventh grader in history or reading, is no disgrace. It is the getting after the bringing up of the things that are weak that counts for all and everything in this educational system of ours.

There is practically no subject that has not at times a certain monotony about it. The multiplication tables are as formal and abstract a topic as is to be found in the curriculum. Therefore, the game is, I believe, the very best medium in this problem. The game allows variation and insures voluntary attention.

In this busy age, the game that will appeal at all times to the teacher is the game or device that, on her part, requires little preparation and is easily explained. Nearly every day gives occasion for some new thought. The teacher who is "bubbling over" with new games is the delight of the class. Of course there are those favorites which are repeatedly called for, and there are the standard ones which we ourselves so frequently fall back on. But to use the same game too often kills it.

The anticipation of a game adds much to a faithful study period of ten or fifteen minutes. The more simple the game, usually, the better. In the fall a tree drawn on the board with numbers on leaves. The child who can say 3 X 39, for instance, and so on with all the leaves,