her physical strength, and some days that is nil. Those are the days that the teacher's tact is evinced; the child is busy all day, but only with play, and is not conscious that all work has ceased for the time being.

As stated, first the object and then the word is taught, different readers being used for different children. Individual number work is necessary. Sticks, fingers, shells, beads are used to tell the number story. Some children have no conception of number; can hardly grasp one number a day, and with great difficulty learn them in rotation. Later, playing storekeeper is the subterfuge used to teach the use of the scale, the value of weights and the worth of money. The children take turns buying and selling and making change—a capital, practical lesson in arithmetic.

In the afternoons the children do manual work, as they are tired after their morning's exertion. An exaggeration of kindergarten methods is used. The materials for the occupations are all very much enlarged. The children begin with manual work of the simplest kind. It took one child seven months to learn to weave an oil-cloth mat with five colored sticks for strips. Here the patient effort on the part of teacher and child was rewarded by a gleam of awakened intelligence. The paper weaving can be ultimately used in teaching girls to darn stockings; sewing cards can be the precursors of seams. children use raffia to make boxes, baskets and picture frames; they also learn woodworking and sewing. Their interest is greatly enhanced when there is a prospect of keeping work and taking it home at the end of the month. Then again, other children show results when praised for every attempt at well-doing.

The

The teachers keep a history of every case; the card catalogue system is used by some, and copies of the work of the child are made. This aids the teacher in noting progress, and is of use throughout the school life of the child.

(2.) The ungraded class for backward children next claims our attention. How great should be the effort made to help these children, many of whom are backward from lack of nourishment, neglect and poverty. Some of those who fall

behind are dull, or lack schooling. In one school all the backward children in the first four years of school life were grouped together in one class. Some of these children were lazy, needed to have their interest aroused; many were poorly nourished; some boys, fourteen and fifteen years old, had attended school only two years and were naturally below the average. Often the parents are to blame; they do not require the children to do their home work, and in one case the teacher had to send innumerable messages home before the parents would take the child to the dispensary to get the necessary eyeglasses, though they knew the child could not do any school work until this necessity had been supplied.

The teachers of these classes have the work well systematized; one teacher has a complete set of examples of every possible kind for each of the four lower grades, so that each pupil of each grade gets a very thorough training in arithmetic. The reading and writing are similarly treated. The general lessons are given to the whole class. Some boys have difficulty only in arithmetic, to others reading and spelling are the stumbling blocks, and it is here that the beneficent results of special individual instruction are shown. The children are put into the regular classes just as soon as they are able to keep in touch with the class work, regardless of time in the term. Many of the boys work with a will in order to obtain discharge papers, which are furnished to all students in the public schools who can pass an examination in the fifth year work. These certificates are of use to the boys when they apply for employment.

(3.) The ungraded disciplinary class is for the boy capable of doing right, though inclined to do wrong; the "I won't" type of boy who shows a sullen spirit. Perhaps a man's strength is needed to cope with the exigencies of this class, which under these circumstances may contain thirty boys. Most of these boys have no home training. Truth and honesty are characteristics to be acquired. Rigid discipline is enforced, prompt obedience is exacted from all pupils, and they all recognize the fact that they must obey. Through a system of monitors, the teachers keep in touch with the doings of the boys after school

hours. The instruction consists of ungraded work in reading, writing and arithmetic, interspersed with plenty of manual work, principally carpentry and printing. Printing is to be especially recommended, as it enables the boys to leave the class with a practical knowledge of some occupation, and incidentally English, spelling and composition are taught in a very attractive form. Boys are promoted at any time they are found amenable to ordinary class-room discipline.

(4.) The great influx of foreigners to the city brings an everincreasing number of children to the public schools who do not understand the English language. For these children, chiefly Italians, Russians and Roumanians, special classes have been formed. The teacher aims to teach these children to express themselves; they learn the names of objects, occupations and allied words and how to apply them properly. The language work includes a little practice in reading, the writing of sentences and the description of simple pictures. The children show great eagerness, but are hampered in expression by lack of vocabulary. Most of these children can read and write their native tongue, and these of course advance more rapidly than the rest. Usually about six weeks are required to prepare these children for the regular work of the school, and they are at once transferred to the highest grade commensurate with their intelligence. Where there are no special classes these children are placed in the regular classes, but seated next to compatriots, who act as interpreters for them. The children are gradually transformed from mere listeners to interested pupils.

The school problem in New York City differs in each section of the city. Social conditions are influenced by the nationality and mode of life of the little colonies transplanted from OldWorld countries to the New. The means at their command are always meagre. Sometimes the mother is the breadwinner, and earns a few dollars weekly by scrubbing offices, which compels her to be away from home from 4 A. M. to 9 A. M. The children have to wash and dress themselves and get their own breakfast; generally there is no clock in the home. Small wonder that these little ones come to school dirty, wretchedly

clad, poorly fed and late. Some of the parents make flowers and get all the help possible from the children before and after school hours. Naturally these tired little workers must relax sometimes, and school is their haven of rest. Then there is the drunken parent, who not alone abuses the courages attendance at school.

child, but dis

In the face of these odds, we try to make the young Italian, Greek, Russian, Roumanian, German, Irish and Negro into future American citizens who will be patriotic and intelligent members of the community-surely an Herculean task.

The Changing Leaf

G. P. GUERRIER

The elm is turning yellow,

The woodbine shows a stain,
The crimson of the maple,

Foreshadows frost again.

I hear the crisp maize rustle that's gathered into sheaves,
And my heart stands still a moment to think of what it leaves.

I pick the honied clover

That blossoms at my feet;
Ah, me! long years are over
Since first I found it sweet.

I hear the crisp maize rustle that's gathered into sheaves,
And my heart stands still a moment to think of what it leaves.

The sadness and the sweetness

I ponder o'er and o'er;

Nor sighing nor the gladness

Is as it was before.

I hear the crisp maize rustle that's gathered into sheaves,
And my heart is held in bondage to think of all it leaves.

T

College English

CLARA F. STEVENS, MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE

HE college study of English literature and the college courses in writing should go far toward making our college graduates men and women of abounding and at the same time controlled life, and men and women of power. To this end literature must be studied as life and as art, and writing must have back of it and with it thinking so vigorous, and conviction and feeling so strong, that the student will steadfastly and courageously grapple with the problems of expression for the sake of voicing and reinforcing his thought and feeling. Overcoming difficulties, and giving at last clear and adequate expression to his experience, the student has a degree of mastery, of power. This power will be increased in a series of actions and reactions; for the very process of conveying his ideas to others will impel him to more active reading and more purposeful thinking.

The intent reading of Beowulf, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Carlyle, Browning, quickens the pulse, invigorates, tones up the whole man. Reading Shelley, Rossetti, Tennyson, Arnold, is to question and protest, to arouse passion or to allay it. Reading Wordsworth is to live out of doors and to mingle with simple folk, till mountains, lakes and clouds and faith and hope tranquilize the soul. Again, giving one's self up to Spenser, Milton, Keats, Shelley, Tennyson, is to see visions and dream dreams in which color and form and music lay hold upon the senses. To read Fielding, Thackeray, Meredith, George Eliot, Jane Austen, is to enter into many lives, to pity, to condemn, to admire and reverence, to smile and laugh. Thus to read is to take literature as life, and it is this for which college courses aim; so to put the reader face to face with human experience, with the beauty and the glory of nature, with the other beauty of art, with the eternal truths, that after college men and women shall not only find in books a refuge,