into the sophomore year, in which three periods could be devoted to the heavier part of commercial arithmetic. In the technical subjects, good penmanship should be secured. Three periods for the first half of the freshman year, the remainder given to business forms, including business knowledge and practice, during which the penmanship is given careful attention, and two periods of penmanship in the second year should meet the requirements. More or less time may be necessary to the quality of the writing of grammar schools. Four periods of bookkeeping during the second and the third years are required, with a like number optional in the senior year for those who want to specialize on this work, at which time elementary auditing and accounting may be given. I fail to see where shorthand is worth the learning by most boys. If not to be used as a distinct means of earning a livelihood, the time devoted to it is a waste. Its disciplinary value is problematical, and it is worthless except when thoroughly learned, and then a sudden call on it after a few months non-use will find it useless. I am not prepared to make a statement regarding its use by girls, whom I believe are more inclined to adopt its use as their vocation. When it is to be studied, shorthand should be begun in the second year. It should be continued through the course with four or five periods. When the pupil enters school he is hardly capable of knowing whether he has the making of a successful stenographer and if left to himself he is apt to select shorthand and perhaps regret it after he has wasted considerable time. By the middle of the first year he should decide, and if in its favor, then complete the year with three periods of typewriting. Should this then prove irksome, the change from stenography may be made and still the pupil will have made good use of the time in typewriting practice. Every one in a business concern has occasional use for the machine, and many who do not take dictation or who do not write letters are frequently called upon to do typing. For others than stenographers, one period per week during the third and fourth years suffices for learning billing, making statements and reports, and tabulating. I do not believe it advisable to undertake the touch method with these pupils, though I firmly advocate its use by those taking stenography. For those who do not study stenography, Spanish should be selected. During the first year, the elements of commercial law should be taught, and in one period per week of well planned work, sufficient can be done to lay a foundation for the many calls that come in the bookkeeping lessons for a knowledge of contracts, commercial paper, etc. During the fourth year, provision is made for an extended study of these topics. A course of study that will bring the best results is one in which a pupil cannot find enough soft spots where he may rest all through, and still graduate. Such a pupil receives an injury and works an injustice to the hard working and thorough fellow pupils, and the measure of his inefficiency is an imposition on the tax-payer. Up to the fourth year, I would provide no place for elections excepting between phonography and Spanish, but 1 would offer additional opportunities for the brightest and most industrious pupils. In this connection, to my mind, a course of study for the modern high school of commerce is not complete until ample provision is made for addresses and instruction by business men and specialists in particular lines. Part time employment for pupils during their attendance at school, seems to me a most important part of education, but this must be left for individual schools to work out according to the circumstances. I believe some scheme for a five year course would be good, in which half the day during the fourth and fifth years could be spent at school and the other half spent at work. It should not be a difficult matter to arrange a program so one group could work in the morning and the other group could work in the afternoon. For instance, two well selected boys could, by alternating, do one unit of full time work. This would be much more satisfactory to the employer than to have the boys spend the closing hours of the school days and all of the business days on which there was no school, and a variety of employment could be undertaken that would be impossible under other plans. There are many who do not choose to spend four years in high school. Some have a liking for the clerical studies and intend to use them as their vocation. Others are obliged to become earners as soon as possible, and if the public will not provide them the kind of education they want, they will attend a private school or quit school altogether. The latter is a serious economic loss to the community, while the former means bearing the burden of a double school tax. As an indication of the awakening of cities to the reasonable demands for this kind of education, Columbus, Ohio, has recently opened a high school of commerce offering three courses, one of which, a "Short Clerical Course-leading to a certificate," requires two years, and is devoted almost entirely to technical subjects. Boston has planned a Central Clerical high school course. The studies are to be mainly technical and, since the pupils have had opportunity to study these subjects in their two years at high school, the new school, for the most part, will serve as a finishing school. The hours of session are intended to serve as a preparation for the long day of the business office, and will continue till five o'clock. Pupils are to be allowed to make such advancement as they individually can, and a "certificate be granted at any time that the subject is satisfactorily completed." The following course of study is somewhat after the outline I have endeavored to present. College Stagecraft FRANK R. Arnold, professor of LANGUAGE, STATE W •÷HEN it was recently announced in one of our western state colleges that the college play for the year was to be Pygmalion and Galatea, and that the instructor was ready to make appointments with any students who desired to enter into a competition for a part, about ten to fifteen students presented themselves as candidates for each part. This indicated that there were nearly a hundred students in the college eager for training in dramatic work. Whether they wanted it for love of the art or because it would give them a chance to distinguish themselves before college circles, it would be hard to say, but the fact remains that so many were willing to devote much of their leisure to the drudgery of rehearsals in order to get the training, and that only eight got it. Of course they could all enter the elective courses in public speaking, but there they would never get the ease of manner, the spirit of dramatic solidarity and the varied experience that are the stock in trade of the actor and valuable qualities for anyone to possess. Since there is this widespread desire among college students to get practical work on the stage, why should not each English department give elective or required credit courses in what one might broadly term stagecraft, in which each student would be required to learn and play at least ten different parts in the course of the year. In this way the college would always have a dramatic stock company with an established repertory of plays at its service, ready at a moment's notice to put on a play to amuse or edify visiting trustees or benefactors or to raise funds for books and pictures, though of course the main work of the course would be done in weekly or semi-weekly free performances given purely as acting opportunities for the students who are working for credit in the course. These would have the same place in the course that musical recitals do in a college music department. In such a course rehearsals would take the place of recitations; in |