Page images
PDF
EPUB

sonage whose ruling passion is supposed to be employing idle hands. Work should not only have an end, but an end which interests the children. This is why they abhor patchwork quilts, but are willing to dress dolls; and it is why, even to boys, if taken at the right age, the kitchen is a most attractive spot. They can see the result of their industry when their lop-sided biscuit comes triumphantly brown from the oven, or they can proudly announce at the table, "I pared those very potatoes we're eating!"

Nor will the mother who is loving, as well as wise in her generation, give long tasks. Not only children's interest, but their strength, flags quickly, and a very little work should be given at a time. Edward Everett Hale, who understands the sort of stuff we are made of, has declared the human mind to be incapable of giving sustained attention to one object for more than two hours. Reduce the dose for children, and you will realize why the little one, who a short while ago was all activity, is now actually exhausted over the long, white seam or the apparently bottomless wood-pile.

Besides, they will rush and hurry through a long piece of work, which is fatal to the idea of perfection that must ever be held up before them. Our object is not the completion of that especial task, but to teach good workmanship. Better only ten stitches, neat and straight and

small, and then a happy child skipping

out to play with a good conscience, than a whole seam, whose stitches resemble the traditional flock of sheep jumping over a gate, and which represent tears, sighs and slipshod work.

Insist on the work being done, not of course as well as it can be done, but as well as you know that particular child can do it. The constant temptation, glancing from a badly-performed task to the beloved little culprit, is to say: "Well, you can leave it now, but do better next time" He will not do better unless he knows nothing but his level best will be accepted.

Some careworn mother sighs that "it is easy enough to talk, but every one knows how discouraging an undertaking it is to break in a child to work." If every one knows it, it is because every one puts off the evil day of "breaking in" until too late. There is, as every parent and teacher has noticed, a "lazy age," beginning at ten or twelve years and con

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]
[ocr errors]

One rule-early adopted in the career of industry to which we reluctantly dedicate our children - will save much hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness: Don't, if you can possibly avoid it, call a child in to work from his play. We have an arrogant, grown-up notion that children's play is an inconsequent affair, in which an interruption more or less does not matter-an utterly unjust and mistaken view. Play is as necessary to them as work, and should not be unnecessarily interrupted for our selfish convenience. Indeed, the danger is ever present that we may lose sight of the fact that they work for their own ultimate good, and not for our present ends.-Louise Betts Edwards, in Phila. Press.

U

OVER-EXERCISE.

on now coming forward who are

NDOUBTEDLY we have a genera

tion larger, stronger, and in every way healthier than their predecessors were. The young boys are broad-shouldered, deep chested, long-limbed; they can swim and dive and row and leap and ride and carry themselves like Olympian wrestlers. The young girls are tall and well-rounded, with clear skins and courageous movement-creatures of wholesome life, fit mates for the young athletes. In spite of this, every now and again a paragraph goes the rounds of the papers asserting the decrease of the human stature at such a rate that a little calculation on its figures would show that men's heads must have been a long way above the ground some few thousands of years ago, and that a few thousands of years hence they will be no more than level with it. Without any calculation, however, the palpable refutation to this is the fact that the suits of armor in the Tower of London are in every way too small for the modern

man, and that in the greater number of instances, among those whose course of life has not been deteriorating, the sons and daughters improve upon the size and endurance and physical ability of the mothers and fathers. Much of this improvement is due to the greater care concerning the food of children in the present generation, the larger and better-prepared amount of nourishment that they have, owing to the perfection of the treatment of the various cereals, the refrigerating cars that bring meats from a distance in season and out of season, and the great cheapness and quantity of the fruit to be had. Much also is due to the more particular care exercised as to habits of personal cleanliness, of health, of warm under-clothing, of dry feet in thick boots, and of the attention paid to each function.

The day when the young woman went out in wintry weather with French kid slippers on, and wore a short-sleeved and low-necked white cambric frock under her red broadcloth cloak, has gone forever. The clumsy old India-rubber was a great missionary and life-preserver when it came; it has been refined to a thing of comparative elegance, and has gone on doing its beneficent work; and rubber boots and coats and overalls are not con fined to boys, but in them girls also can brave all weathers. With all this have come the athletic exercises in gymnasiums and elsewhere, which give both boy and girl full control of their bodies, and all the delight of conquering space and air and water too, in swimming and vaulting and riding and the rest. Undoubtedly the athletic sports pursued under competent teachers have done wonders for the children; they have strengthened their limbs, straightened their backs. opened their chests, set the blood to spinning swiftly, made good flesh and supple muscle. Athletic exercise has done all this for girl and boy alike, when pursued properly and not carried beyond bounds; but carried beyond bounds, it has produced just the contrary effect -weakened the heart, made the muscles useless, and broken down the constitution.

The president of one of our foremost universities lately declared that the young men who came to college with any great athletic record already won while at the preparatory schools very rarely achieved anything further; they had expended all their power while growing, and were good for nothing more, either in the boat

or at the bat or the ball. Such a statement from a person of experience and observation ought to bear great weight with those who have the health of the young in their hands, and cause them to see that this delight in overcoming obstacles does not go too far, since that course not only tends to defeat in their larger athletic ambition a little later, but evidently to the degeneration of the physique. If this is so, the ladies' days at what are called the sports, when mothers and sisters and sweethearts are invited, and the best is set before them in the running high jump, the somersault, the pole vault, and the like, witness efforts that may result only in harm. If any one doubts this, he has only to see boys fainting, breaking a limb, and spraining a back, to be sure of it.

But

Nothing, for instance, short of the riderless race of the horses decked with colored ribbons on the Corso, can be prettier than a team-race among the boys at any juvenile athletic exhibition, all as alert, as full of fire and spring, as the young horses are, relays of racers waiting ready to spring into the others' places, and flying forward to the goal. when one boy falls fainting before reaching the line, and another falls and is lifted across by his mates who rush to his assistance, every parent present trembles for his own boy, and feels that it should need no words to convince him that while normal exercise is a good thing, over-exercise is a deadly one.Harper's Bazar.

DISTRICT SCHOOLHOUSE.

WHAT CAN BE DONE IN IT, IF NEED be, FOR TEN DOLLARS.

WHEN

HEN I got my school I found it had been built seven or eight years, and nothing had been done to it since that time. The directors were busy farmers, and unless I went to work, no one was likely to improve matters. They were willing to pay for the place being cleaned up, but had no time to see about it.

On the first Saturday, with the help of one of my bigger boys, I kalsomined the ceiling and four walls; and at intervals during the next two weeks painted (two coats) the base-board. This was three feet high and we painted it a bright brown, with a black moulding at the top. The window frames, sashes and so on, we painted two coats of white.

The next thing was the blackboard, which was of paper, and hung like a sash; we took it off and with strong paste thickened with glue, fixed it solid to the wall. Between the windows we sandpapered the walls and made three small blackboards each four feet by three feet, and put a neat moulding around them. These were well coated with slating, and a good coating given to my old blackboard, which was eighteen feet long. I then made three neat shelves and painted them for my books, stencils and various apparatus. There was no window over the door, only a dirty piece of old board, which for seven years had let in the rain. I covered this with stout paper, painted it, and put around it the moulding that I had to spare from my blackboards.

In wet weather a ladder was always laid down to the door; I made a roadway, and a platform three feet wide, so that no one need walk through the mud; also I fixed a scraper outside the door.

The outhouse doors had neither proper hinges nor fastenings. I took them off the hinges and made them open and shut properly.

The yard had never been cleaned up. I collected five large heaps of chips, broken bottles, cups, spoons, covers of readers, and I do not know what besides, The wood was all neatly piled, and great heaps of odd pieces of wood gathered up, which was too good to burn with the rubbish.

No one would know my school now, and it has cost not quite $10, of which nearly $4 was in connection with the blackboards. To-day I laid out two large flower-beds, and have secured a lot of flower seeds and also a promise of enough trees to plant all around the school-yard.

It is quite a new idea to the people for a teacher to take all this trouble.

might have been done years ago.

It

There was neither globe nor dictionary in the school. Both have been bought for me since I came. What is the result of all this? Does it pay for the teacher to spend so much of his time over it? Yesterday I was told by the mother of one of my boys, "Last year I had a dreadful time getting my boy to school, as he used to cry every morning; but now he is always ready by half past seven."

I have boys who used to be from half an hour to an hour late every morning

last year; they have never been late once with me. In fact, I have only twice had a boy late, and each time he had more than two miles of mud to walk through.

[ocr errors]

I have boys who used to get the strap" nearly every day, not only last year, but before that; the strap has not been out of the desk since I have been in school.

This has been done in two months, but of course I have had the help of the children all through. I had one or two rough boys, but now that they have a horizontal bar, baseball, quoits, and other gymnastic exercises, their high spirits are directed into proper channels.

The children all say, "it is twice as nice coming to school now, everything is so clean and nice." I found that a washstand, basin and towel were highly appreciated by the youngsters. If it had taken twice as much time as it did, I would have willingly sacrificed my leisure. I can do twice as good work, as everything is in good shape now.-The School Journal.

THE

TH

THE LAZY BOY.

task of the teacher is a trying one.

It tries his patience in a hundred different ways. He has so many different characters with which to deal, that it requires his study to know just how to develop each in his mind and character. One of the vexing characters with which the teacher has to deal is the lazy boy. But when we consider that many of our most successful men while in school were lazy, but by aid of faithful parent and teacher, or other means, it was overcome, it is the more encouraging to the teacher to be faithful to his trust. We give the following, which may lend hope to many a weary and oft-tried teacher:

So great a man as Sir Isaac Newton was lazy when he was a boy. He was entirely satisfied to remain at the foot of his class at school, until in a quarrel with another boy above him, he received a kick which so angered him that he not only gave the fellow a severe chastising, but actually set about learning his lessons, so that he might get above him and thus force him to the foot of the class. that time on Newton was a great student. His fame is world-wide.

From

Sometimes a mother's love and tears seem to be the only thing that will rouse

a heedless, sleepy boy. The lad who afterwards became Lord Chief Justice Marshall, was utterly lazy and do-less in school. He would not learn his lessons. Do what his teachers would, he remained the drone of the school. His mother coaxed him, pleaded with him, bribed him, but all to no purpose. On one occasion, after vainly striving for a long time to have him commit a few lines to memory, she gave up in despair, and, overwhelmed with grief, cried, “My son is an idiot, as I have long feared; he cannot learn. O my son! my poor, unfortunate son!"

FORESTRY IN UNITED STATES. The recog

[ocr errors]

BRADSTREET's' says:

nition of the need of a more definite and comprehensive policy looking to forest preservation does not date back farther than two decades or so." Mr. B. E. Fernow, Chief of the Forestry Division of the Department of Agriculture, puts the acreage of groves originated under the Timber Culture law of March 3, 1873 (repealed in 1891), at about 2,000,000 acres. He thinks that the establishment of Arbor Days throughout the States has been as stimulating as any other measure, as calling general attention to the sub

His mother's suffering aroused him. "I can learn the lesson, mother, and Iject, although not perhaps productive of will-see if I don't." Now that he was awake the lesson was quickly learned, and from that day forth he ranked well up with the best, and finally attained to great eminence.

The famous Dr. Johnson was noted for his habit, when a youngster, of putting off all disagreeable things to the very last moment, and then putting them upon others, if possible. He would do the most ridiculous things. He made it his business, for instance, to touch with his hand every post and corner of the fence as he passed along the streets, and often had a troop of boys at his heels. He would not study, but his memory was so excellent that he managed to pull through." His chief delight in winter, at one time, was to have a rope tied around his body and then be whisked around on the ice and in the snow by his rollicking schoolfellows. He awoke in due time and conquered a most enviable reputation.

Arthur Wellesley, afterward the Duke of Wellington, was a lazy, lounging lad at school, who spent much of his time in watching and criticising the games of others, but seldom taking part himself. He was goaded one day into a game of marbles, but was soon detected in stealing his playmate's "alleys." The boy's big sister chastised him for it, and compelled him to give up his plunder. Soon after this he got into a fight with a big brother of Sydney Smith, and whipped him unmercifully. In after years this same Robus Smith claimed that he was the Duke of Wellington's first victory.-Southland.

Hark! how the rolling surge of sound
Arches and spirals circling round,
Wakes the hushed spirit through thine ear
With music it is Heaven to hear.--Holmes.

In the

much economic planting except in the treeless States. The American Forestry Congress, at Cincinnati, in 1882, was convened as the result of certain statements made by Baron Von Steuben, a Prussian forest official. Under its influence State Forestry associations have been formed in several States, foremost of which is the Pennsylvania association. Horticultural Societies and Agricultural Colleges have of late years done much in the same direction. He regards the act of March 3, 1891, establishing forest reservations in the public timber lands, as a most important step and likely to commit the government to a sound forest policy. Under that act no less than fifteen large timber reservations have been created. The Sierra, in California, includes over 4,000,ooo acres; the San Bernardino, 737,000; the San Gabriel, over 550,000 acres, and the Trabuct, nearly 50,000 acres. State of Washington is the Pacific reservation, over 967,000 acres; in Oregon, the Bull Run, 142,000; in Colorado, the White river, 1,198,000 acres; the South Platte, over 683,000; the Battlement Mesa, over 858,000; the Pike's Peak, 184,320, and the Plum Creek, 177,700. joining Yellowstone Park is the Yellowstone reservation, 1,239,040 acres. New Mexico is the Pecos river, 311,049. In Arizona is the Grand Canon of the Colorado, 1,850,000. In Alaska is Afognak Island. Temporary forestry commissions for specific purposes have been appointed in several States, of which he thinks the Maine commission, whose report on forest fires resulted in the adoption of the Maine forest-fire law of 1891, represents the best work. On this subject, Feiix L. Oswald has an article in Lippincott's Magazine (September):

Ad

In

"In Western Europe, where forest-culture has been carried to the perfection of a systematic science, wood fires have for years been prevented by safety clearings -broad lanes, cut through the park-like forests in every direction. The curious fact that in East America forest fires have become more destructive since the total area of woodlands has been reduced, may be attributed to the increasing frequency of droughts which a hundred years ago were almost unknown. The chief proximate cause of forest-conflagrations, however, is the preposterous practice for burning the underbrush to 'keep up the range,' as the squatters of the Southern Alleghanies call it-i. e., to promote the growth of a few dimes' worth of pasturegrass, at the risk of sacrificing millions of dollars' worth of fuel and timber.

"That danger, at least, will be greatly diminished by the progressive appreciation of the long-underrated indirect value of forest-trees. 'No forest without culture; no culture without forests,' is the motto of a Pennsylvania Arbor Day association, and the farmers of the East American mountain States would do well to imitate the example of the California ranchers who have organized special vigilance committees to save the woodland of the southern Sierras by the prevention of pastures-fires."

"INASMUCH."*

A HIGH SCHOOL "HELPING HAND."

THE

HE teacher's life is an exacting one. Even when well prepared for the profession, it takes the greater part of the time to do his work in the schoolroom creditably. None of us care to be merely teachers; we wish to be wellrounded men and women; we need the culture of good society, and to be interested and engaged in the active duties of life. Most of us are interested in benevolent work. To give a stated amount for charitable purposes is a good thing, but does not cover one's full duty, which includes personal contact, the giving of the better part of ourselves. If, in addition to the work laid down in our courses of study,

*This remarkable paper from a "Teacher," which will be read by some through the mist of tears, makes no mention of locality, but we know that the school referred to is the High School of Titusville, Crawford County, Pa.-Ed.

[ocr errors]

we could give our pupils some training in social affairs, in refining amusements, and in those duties arising from their relations to others, there might be more of an all-round" development for the pupils, and the teacher could feel, not that he belongs to a profession whose arduous duties forbid active citizenship, but rather that he is a sharer in good work in society. We have had so much pleasure in the application of this theory to benevolent work that I venture to give a brief description of it.

For several years we have had a Helping Hand Society in our High School. The object of this organization is to interest teachers and pupils in those less favored than themselves, and to render such aid as the circumstances warrant. The city has a long-established and efficient society, whose officers have had experience and to whom we apply for advice. Our plan is very simple. At the beginning of the fall term we promise to give a certain amount for the ten months of the school year. These amounts vary from five to twenty-five cents a month. Pupils are asked to make their contributions from their spending money, to let them represent self-denial, and to economize that they may be able to give more. The officers are elected from the different classes, and consist of a president, vicepresidents, secretary, and treasurer. These, with the collectors, form the executive committee. The treasurer pays out the money, keeps the accounts, and at stated intervals gives an account of the financial condition of the society.

In addition to the money contributions, it is easy among so many to provide clothing in good condition, which may be distributed as it is needed. Cases requiring assistance are reported to the Society by pupils, parents, or the City Helping Hand. These are investigated, and action is taken by the Executive Committee. As much as possible we encourage visiting the families that we assist. One visit to a family in real distress is a powerful object lesson. It is surprising how much we have been able to do, how little time it takes to manage the Society, and how gratifying the results are. At first only the High School engaged in this work, but two years ago some of the other grades organized Auxiliaries, elected officers, and raised contributions, which were sent to our treasurer. These have become a permanent

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »