CUI BONO? For what good? What's the use? Why bother our heads about making improvements? Why not take it easy? Why delve among the treasures of science, mathematics, history, literature? Cui bono? Why not sit in an easy chair, rock to and fro, and think of noththing? There are restless people who want to do all these things. Why not let them do them? Why not drink of the waters of Lethe? Why escape from the lands of the Lotos-Eaters? What's the use to be up and doing? What's the use to talk about progress? Cui bono? * ** A SUPERINTENDENT up in Maine says "I would shut, forever, from the school-room, the popular teacher who works for nothing but praise and show. She is the most dangerous enemy to the welfare of the children that I know." This is sledge-hammer philosophy, but it needs to be said over and over again. A teacher who will flim-flam children, giving them stones instead of bread, is unworthy the name and will discredit the profession. ALL praise to the teacher who has plans of her own; who knows what to do for the girl on the back seat and the boy on the front seat in order to get them to do their best; who reaches out into the realms of literature and history and the experience of others gathering material for her own school; who doesn't need to depend upon the plans that other people have made for imaginary children; who is glad to see the children each morning and makes them glad to see her; who grows every day and enjoys life while teaching school. It would be pleasant to assume that all school children know how to care for their bodies, that they are conversant with all the tenets of cleanliness, but such an assumption in some cases would be far wide of the truth. Eyes and teeth are often neglected until there is serious trouble. It is not a gracious task to preach the efficacy of soap and water, of bath-tubs, of tooth-brushes, and the like, but there are times when the teacher can do real missionary work on such lines. hitch has occurred in our scheme of cosmos, it is well for us to seek some secluded nook and have a quiet conversation with our own souls. We shall probably come from this tete-atete somewhat chastened in spirit, and, mayhap, with some feeling of exaltation. Certainly, our work tomorrow will be none the worse for it, and it may be vastly better. A little introspection, now and then, may not be amiss. * * * THE narrative goes on to tell how the man adopted the urchin as his own. In after years, the adopted son inquired of the man, his reasons for adopting him. To this the man replied, "Because you were ugly, dirty, ricketty, undersized, underfed, and wholly uninteresting. Also because your mother was the very worst washer-woman that ever breathed gin into a shirt-front." But, the real reason, not here stated, was the fact that the man discovered the boy engaged in reading "Paradise Lost" and felt that beneath his unpromising exterior there must be good stuff. ONE writer breaks forth into the exclamation "Thank heaven all have years of remembered life before we learn to reason!" There lurks herein a great fact for the consideration of every teacher. We are so anxious to mould the child into the form of a reasoning creature that we are willing to rob him of his childhood. While playing marbles the boy may be formulating a system of philosophy that will serve him well in after years, but he doesn't have to abandon the marbles to do it. "Begin where the boy is" tells a great principle. * * WEALTH may be hereditary and beauty, also, but brains, never. Within the skull of this unpromising lad whose home is a mean hovel in an alley, there may be a power which, in its full fruitage, will turn the course of a nation. Who can tell? tell? He doesn't look it, of course, but neither did those other lads in the past whose names are now written on the records of the great of the world. In twenty years this lad may be doing great things, and, if so, then this school and this teacher may, with good reason, come in for some share of the credit. * * * THE Ohio State Association of School Board Members is an organization that is doing much for the advancement advancement of school interests. The discussions in the annual meetings cover a wide range of subjects and all of them vital. Moreover, members of boards and teachers alike participate in these discussions and, hence, each catches the other's point of view. In time they come to see, eye to eye, and discover that in the matter of fundamentals they are at one. The meetings of this association have had a steady growth in attendance and interest until it has become one of the most important of our educational forces. * * * Ir may be a pleasant exercise to ride a hobby, but, really, we ought to dismount now and then just to see if there is not some noble service we can perform for those about us. Besides, this riding of hobbies would seem to be rather monotonous, if persisted in constantly. Walking about with our pupils' hands in ours while the hobby rests a little, would, at least, vary the program. The teacher who has no visible assets but a hobby is not over-rich in goods. Moreover this hobby may prove un equal to the task of bringing him into the gates of success. * * * A BLACK-LIST in a school is an ominous thing, and likewise, a prophecy of evil days to come. The boy whose name we incline to enroll on this list will not experience much uplift toward right conduct by this The chances are that he process. needs help and encouragement and black-listing is but a pushing him away from the light and into darkness. He may make a false step todav, but if he tries to avoid a repetition tomorrow, he should find, in the teacher, a friend to help him along on the rugged path. It would be interesting to know how many men have finally reached prison from being put on the black-list at home or at school. * * * If we simply persist, in a kindly way, in having the boy do things that are worth doing and doing them accurately day after day, why, then, in due time, he will do these things from habit and they become to him second nature if not first. The gentleman tips his hat to the lady, and does it unconsciously. Time was when this form of politeness had to be suggested to him. A thousand other things were learned in the same way and there is really no good reason why the boy should not learn his arithmetic and grammar, and honesty so that they will become a part of himself. * * * IF our feet could only follow our eyes! The eyes see the thing to be done, but feet are sluggish, leaden things and so hold us back. Moreover, they are timid things and incline to shrink from the slightest obstacles. The eyes look down upon them in pity and wish that they OUR high school friends need to be on their guard all the while or they will yield to the temptation to introduce into their work the methods of the College Research work, original investigation. These things sound well but the high school boys and girls are not ready for these things as yet. They need guidance for they don't know how to study. They are learners not students, and teachers make a great mistake if they fail to recognize the difference. The teacher who uses college methods ought to get out of the high school and into some college. His kind of teaching is out of place with these boys and girls. * * * THE difference between hearing recitations and teaching is so great that it would seem almost impertinent to mention it. Nor would it be mentioned here but for the fact that there still lingers, on the edge now and then, a teacher who clings to the antiquated notion that these two things are identical. It would be easy to construct a machine that could conduct a recitation, but no one would think of calling the process teaching. Teaching has in it the breath of life, that thrills the soul of the learner and makes him yearn for the invisible, the intangible, the eternal. * THE President of a prominent business college gives out the infor mation that in the past five years he has graduated from his school, twelve young men from the country whose combined annual salaries now aggregate about nineteen thousand dollars. One of these was teaching school five years ago in Licking Co. at thirty-seven and a half dollars a month. Now his salary is $2,500 a year. This President is a philosopher and uses these facts to show that the boy who has been reared in the country and has learned to work at something is the very one who knows how to work at something else when the time comes and to work with a purpose that leads to success. * * * THE teacher who is trying to figure out all through the recitation just what mark or grade should be given to each pupil, isn't much of a teacher. Pupils do not attend school to win marks and grades, however much the teacher's course may try to show that they do. This whole stress and strain in the matter of grading has a marked tendency to degrade the work of the schools, and, incidently, puts something of a premium upon cheating. There must be some ranking, of course, but that is a mere incident in the process and should be made far less of in many of our schools. and hopes of happy Yuletide days. I would rather have one glimpse at Santa Claus than to gaze an hour upon a titled King. I would rather have the love, and win the smile of a little child than to court the grace of aristocracy. I would rather take one flower to the room of a sick friend, than to cast a dozen upon his coffin, when he is dead. I like to give the best I have, and to look for the best there is in others. I love to think of the humble cabin home, under whose roof I used to sleep so well when the day was done". * * * THE trouble is that too many of us do not take ourselves into our own confidence. We do not sit down and talk it out with ourselves fully and squarely. We incline to play hideand-seek with ourselves. When we seek to go forth into the light the guard Self is there to thrust us back into the darkness, and this arrogant, bullying, tyrannical Self prevents our realizing the best that is in us. Then, years afterward, when the gate of opportunity is closed, we spend our time in trying to explain our failure to achieve, talking glibly about force of circumstances and all those other cant phrases which mean nothing but proof of our own inability to cope successfully with Self, break through the barrier and come forth into the light. * * * WE are working out one of the greatest educational reforms that has ever dazzled a benighted world. One feature of this new regime will be the establishing of lists of itinerant teachers. The plan will work in this wise. Superintendents Dyer, Elson, Shawan, Eberth, Carr, Hotchkiss and Boggess will arrange among themselves for exchanges of groups of teachers for from two to four Ir is none too soon to begin sending our dollars to Pricipal Ira C. Painter. Zanesville, who is Treasurer of the Ohio Teachers' Association. It may be in the mind of some teacher to reply that he does not know yet whether he will attend the meeting at Put-in-Bay. Surely, we will not discontinue our contribution to the church because we happen to be absent. The State Association is a part of our professional work and every teacher in Ohio is the beneficiary of the good offices of this association. We certainly do not want others to have all the burdens of this work that contributes so largely to our professional well-being. We all want to help even though we may be denied the pleasure of attending the meeting. Our sense of justice and fair dealing will certainly lead us to send our dollars. * * * It seems a work of supererogation to urge the importance of the Put-inBay meeting but every teacher who wants Ohio to loom large must earnestly desire our State Association to be altogether successful. This is but reasonable loyalty. We ought to have at least a thousand paid year and the memberships this teacher who reads this will certainly feel that some of this responsibility rests with him. We have 26,000 teachers in Ohio and to set the membership mark at only one thousand is certainly within reason. Possibly there is some teacher in Ohio who has never paid a membership fee. If so, this year is a good time to turn over a new leaf. * * * Now there is the one-story teacher, the two-story teacher, and so on up to the "sky-scraper" teacher. What the MONTHLY would like to see is so much verve and go among all teachers that each one would be eager to add a story now and then. The teacher who was a one-story teacher ten years ago and is still but a one-story teacher has certainly missed a great many opportunities and a deal of fun, for there is great fun in adding a story. This perperpetual one-story teacher has probably not cared for our excellent summer schools, our helpful educational meetings, educational journals, our Reading Circle work. He has been studying only one branch and that is economy. But he has been starving his soul all this time, trying to pinch out another certificate each year, ignoring the good things about him, and letting the noble procession rush past. our IMPORTANT OPINION BY COMMIS SIONER JONES RELATIVE TO ELEC- By the change made in the constitution of the state, the election of city and county officers will be held in the even numbered years and the election for all other elective officers will be held in the odd numbered years. The first election for members of the boards of education which occurred after this change in the con |