piece of literature as a unit. That unit should be small with the young children, and larger and more complex as the child grows in thinking and reasoning powers.

The first step is to get the general idea of the piece of literature -it may be a paragraph, a chapter, or an entire book; then the parts upon which the general idea is based. If descriptive, the things which go to make up the picture; if narrative, the events which form the narration; if argumentative, the points on which the author has based his arguments; etc., etc. In seeing the relation of these parts to each other and to the general idea― discriminating, comparing, judging —the pupil is thinking with the author. The pupil has been using the knowledge he already has to interpret the new knowledge, but he ought consciously to bring up what he already knows on the subject, gained thru experience or previous reading. For instance, he has just read Carlyle's idea of a great man; he compares with Emerson's idea as gained in previous reading; also with Lowell's idea. These ideas, together with his own knowledge of great men, constitute his body of knowledge of great men, which he will use in gaining new knowledge on the subject, which new knowledge will in turn be compared with the old.

Much of this reading will be cursory. Cursory reading does not mean skimming thru a book and throwing it aside with no future thought. It means rapid reading to get the pith and point, which implies skill in the right way of reading and in the use of books.

As the pupil reads under our direction, selecting that which he enjoys, that which uplifts him, that which gives him new ideas of truth and beauty, comparing, judging, his taste is being cultivated.

More and more writings may be grouped about an author till the pupils learn to know him as an individual thru his work as the poet who looks at and paints nature so and so; as the man who sees men and women and understands human motives this way; as the man who loves that and hates this; as the man they love because he touches their lives and has a sympathy and a message for them.

The recitations should consist of reports on what has been read, and these reports should be mainly oral. It is not necessary that all read and report on the same piece of literature or on different books in the same subject. The recitation ought to be an exchange of impressions and feelings, a talking over of what has been found enjoyable, good, beautiful, and helpful. The pupil makes his report as a contribution to the whole, and stands ready to answer questions by his classmates and teachers; to discuss with them what he has found; and to compare his judgments with theirs.

Thus all take part in the recitation, and attention is secured. Do not ask the pupils to report on everything they read. Many times the best report has been given with never a word spoken. The kindling eye, the tear, the laughter, the tense absorption, have told the teacher more than words ever could.

This work cannot be done except by a living teacher; one who reads life into literature, and literature into life.

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Many a teacher is afraid of cursory reading. 'Tis something new in school. The 'good old way" is so easy to examine and mark; the lesson can be exact. She feels more sure of herself, for that is the way she was taught. But how about the busy men and women, in their rush for a living? What are they reading? Those children with whom she spent ten weeks on Snow Bound? Do they read in the "good old way"? They never imagined even then that it was reading - it was "literature." And when the last poem was analyzed and the last examination passed, they were thru with "literature." And the pity of it is, because it was so thoroly done, they have never opened their book since, and have a distaste for what they imagine is literature.

But all men and women and children, no matter how busy, are interested in lifethey are living it; and with literature taught as an interpretation of life, skill gained in getting life out of books quickly and readily, a habit formed of reading, men, women, and children will turn to books for knowledge, recreation, and uplift.

ROUND TABLE OF STATE AND COUNTY SUPERINTENDENTS

LEADER

STATE SUPERINTENDENT L. D. BONEBRAKE, OHIO

General topic: The Consolidation of Schools and the Transportation of Pupils.

STATE SUPERINTENDENT ALFRED BAYLISS of Illinois gave an account of the growth of the graded schools, and the decrease in number and attendance of ungraded schools. There are three hundred schools in Illinois reported as having fewer than ten pupils enrolled, and many of these have fewer than five pupils. He then reported on his visit to the centralized schools of northeastern Ohio. In Gustavus township, Trumbull county, O., nine districts are consolidated. The actual cost for a year is $265 more than under the old plan. But the increase in attendance is so great that the per capita cost, $1.29, is less than the per capita cost of the separate schools. The increase in attendance was mostly of the older boys and girls, who usually leave the rural school for want of companionship. Green township had been in doubt in regard to the consolidation plan, so she watched and criticised her neighbor, Gustavus township, for two years, then changed her mind, and eight districts were united and a substantial six-room brick building was erected. There are now in Ohio twenty-three whole townships centralized, and many more partly centralized.

COUNTY SUPERINTENDENT O. J. KERN, Rockford, Ill., was the second speaker. He had accompanied Superintendent Bayliss on his Ohio trip. He gave additional information concerning those schools. Mr. Kern also gave the meeting the following list for further study of the subject: Bulletin 71, entitled "The Consolidation of Rural Schools and Transportation of Pupils," issued by the Department of Agriculture of Pennsylvania — address John Hamilton, Harrisburg, Pa.; report of County Superintendent O. J. Kern, Rockford, Ill., on his visit to the centralized schools of northeastern Ohio; report of Superintendent O. T. Bright of Cook county; report of the Committee of Twelve of the National Educational Association; Bulletin of Information No. 5, sent out by State Superintendent L. D. Harvey of Wisconsin.

MR. GROSS, of De Kalb county, Ill., presented some figures which showed the estimates that farmers were making of the cost of this plan. The cost, in general, is greatly overestimated, for in no case where it has been tried has the cost been materially increased.

STATE SUPERINTENDENT FRANK L. JONES of Indiana gave an account of the results in his state, where centralization has been tried for eleven years. He gave as an illustration Webster township, where two wagons are used for transportation, and a highschool course of three years is maintained. The actual cost is one-third less than that of the separate schools. There are now in Indiana forty-four counties where pupils are transported. There are in that state 115 schools of five pupils or less.

PROFESSOR A. J. HUTTON, of the Whitewater Normal School, said that it is only a question of time until this plan will supersede our present system for rural schools. Educators can help by agitating the question and leading people to consider it. In Wisconsin the state superintendent of public instruction sent seven men thru the state to conduct institutes, and particular effort was made to bring this subject to the favorable attention of the farmers. The schools were visited, and many were found with only five to ten pupils present. Such schools were deadening to the teacher as well as to the pupil.

SUPERINTENDENT A. B. GRAHAM, of Ohio, who has had several years' experience in the practical working of his plan, showed how the sentiment of a board of thirteen who opposed the plan, gradually changed until all were united in its support.

men,

STATE SUPERINTENDENT J. W. OLSEN of Minnesota wished to know the effect of this plan upon the character of the men chosen to act as boards of education. The common testimony from the states where the plan has been in operation for some time is that better-qualified officers are chosen.

STATE SUPERINtendent BarrETT of Iowa reported that in his state there were forty-seven districts in twenty-five counties where the children were transported at public

expense.

STATE SUPERINtendent SkinNER of New York said that the rural-school problem is the greatest educational problem of the time. In New York there are 3,500 districts with an attendance of ten or less. In that state one district may contract with another for the education of its children. Last year 250 districts contracted in this way, and had better school facilities in many cases. The uselessness of the school of five or ten pupils was again emphasized.

COUNTY SUPERINtendent NattrASS of Lafayette county, Wis., told of a visit of an institute conductor to his county. He found sixty-four schools, each with less than twenty-one pupils. Superintendent Nattrass thought the people would generally favor the centralization plan if they thoroly understood it, and that the county superintendent should take the lead in presenting it to the people.

COUNTY SUPERintendent FANNY G. GIES of Mower county, Minn., thought that the small village schools could often be used as a nucleus around which several rural districts might centralize. Other states are trying this plan.

COUNTY SUPERINTENDENT BRIGHT of Cook county, Ill., suggested that the county superintendent might give talks illustrated by stereopticon views, showing conditions of various schoolhouses, good and bad, and introducing pictures of the centralized schools. STATE SUPERINTENDENT W. T. CARRINGTON of Missouri said that in his state the rural districts were centralizing around the village and city schools.

STATE SUPERINTENDENT T. T. TYNAN of Wyoming showed that his state was still too sparsely settled to make centralization a practical plan.

DIVISION SUPERINTENDENT M. S. STONE, of the Philippine Islands, was then introduced by the chairman. He, in a few words, interested his hearers in his work, and made a request for help in obtaining for the Philippines teachers who represent what is purest and best here. The following are the requirements necessary for those desiring to teach there they must be normal or college graduates; they must now be engaged in educational work; they must be physically sound and able to withstand the tropical climate; they must be willing to take whatever position is given them; they must expect to teach three years in that country.

ROUND TABLE OF TRAINING TEACHERS

LEADER MISS ISABEL LAWRENCE, ST. CLOUD, MINN.

General topic: Observation of Experts as a Means of Training - Its Value and Limitations.

MISS SARAH C. BROOKS, St. Paul, Minn., opened the discussion by saying that a young, undirected teacher is apt to observe merely the superficial aspects of a lesson chiefly discipline and success or non-success.

PROFESSOR J. S. GAYLORD, State Normal School, Winona, Minn., argued that under certain circumstances observation may be very helpful, and gave his plan for conducting This led to a discussion of the various plans for conducting observation. The general opinion seemed to prevail that observation without careful direction by

the same.

the training teacher is in the main wasteful of time. Observation by outlines was criticised as being somewhat too mechanical. On the other hand, it was argued that definite directions are necessary, but that these outlines should be varied in character to suit the needs of the student observing.

Mr. Gaylord suggested a plan of sending a student to observe a lesson with the purpose in view of telling or dramatizing in the psychology class what takes place on the part of both child and teacher. This report is to induce careful, concrete observation and a sympathetic attitude on the part of the observer. Objections were made to his plan on the ground that the teacher observed may be displeased with such a method.

MISS HUGHES, London, England, spoke of the necessity of observation of children as well as of teaching. Speaking of her training school in England, she said that the student teacher was required to give a party to her class before beginning to teach it. "Unless she is fit to play with her class, she is not fit to teach it."

The relative amount and time of observation and practice was thought to depend upon conditions. A teacher may observe so poorly that she needs to teach in order to know what to look for in a lesson, and a student may teach so poorly that her class must be taken from her and observation required.

DEAN JAMES E. RUSSELL of Teachers College, Columbia University, said that he had no use for a perfect model school; that student teachers learn to teach in a practice school; and that experienced teachers are incapable of getting good from the observation of perfect teaching.

PROFESSOR DIMON ROBERTS, of the Normal School at Ypsilanti, Mich., suggested that at least half of the teaching in a normal training school should be done by the regular critic.

THE NEED OF INDIVIDUAL INSTRUCTION

SUPERINTENDENT JOHN KENNEDY, BATAVIA, N. Y.

In our little town of ten thousand inhabitants we have been for two years and a half carrying on an experiment in individual instruction which has interested us very much, and which I hope may interest you. The value of the experiment is minimized much by the shortness of the time and the narrowness of the scope. Possibly your wider experience and trained discernment will detect at once weak spots that have hitherto escaped our observation, and destroy the illusion under which we have been laboring. But we shall part with the illusion with some regret, for I assure you that it has been a very pleasant one. The pathway of experiment is not usually thru flowery meadows and vocal groves and by purling crystal streams. It is more likely to be suggestive of burning deserts and flinty heights and polar snows.

We have been experimenting with individual instruction, not as a substitute for class recitation, but as a supplement to it. No one can appreciate more fully than we do the value and benefit of recitations. The fundamental and vital defect of mere tutoring is that it fails to give the many-sided stimulus supplied by a class. The very existence of schools argues that that mode of education has failed. The salient weakness of the district school is its inability to form and maintain classes. But we are beginning to recognize in the district school a very favorable

feature in the opportunity which it affords for getting directly at the individual child and teaching him from the standpoint of his immediate personal needs. The tribute which we are all constantly paying to this feature of the district school is a virtual concession on our part that some teaching needs to be done at close range. Our experiment seems to be driving us to the conclusion that these are not necessarily distinct and contrasted forms of education, that they are not two kinds of education, but that they are two necessary phases of one sound, productive form of education. We have not been led to regard any part of our educational machinery as obsolete. On the contrary, we are more grateful than ever for the entire framework of education made ready to our hands.

We drifted into our experiment. We began it because we could not well help ourselves. We continue it on the ground that when a good thing comes to us it is folly to throw it away. We will drop it when we are convinced that it is wrong; when we find that it is a delusion and a snare. We will drop it when we cease to feel that it is bringing health and happiness to our children, our teachers, and our homes. We will drop it when we cease to feel that it is doubling the most desirable results, and at the same time taking all the killing pinch and strain out of education. But you doubtless wish to know what it is that I am talking about, and I will hasten to tell you. Prior to two and a half years ago we always divided an overcrowded room. We then had a room that we could not conveniently divide. We were compelled to handle all those children in that one room. It is perhaps needless to say that no compulsion would have induced us to commit the crime of keeping the children together if the room had been a small one. We made our experiment because our rooms were large enough to justify it. But for the spaciousness of the rooms, I doubt whether the experiment would ever have occurred to our minds. If any general or permanent good is to come from the experiment, the credit will be due to the broad-gauge men who planned our central school building nearly thirty years ago.

We put into our overflowing room an extra teacher, and then, with clear consciences, bade it flow on. We wanted neither a Babel nor a silence produced by two conflicting sound-waves, so we directed the second teacher to do only a silent work, and to do it with individuals in accordance with their needs. Her instructions were quite as laconic as those which sent Dewey to Manila Bay. Her instructions were to find the weak spots in the room and make them the strong spots, and to do this in such a way as not to disturb the established work of the room. We were vaguely conscious of doing a good thing. But it was largely an arrow shot at a venture; it was a mode of escape from a cul-de-sac.

We passed thru much perplexity before we saw how to use two teachers in one room. Plan after plan was brought forward and successively demolished by the strong practical judgment of the board of education.