of similar parts, as the front and hind legs of the rabbit or squirrel; also similar parts of different animals, as the hind legs of rabbit and cat.

In the lessons on earth-worms, a square foot of ground may be marked off and the

castings of one night carefully gathered. They make what part of a cubic inch? From how many square feet should we need to gather castings, if the worms work at the same rate, in order to get one cubic inch?

The problems that can be made while studying these wonderful workers are of great interest to the children, and may be simple or difficult, according to the power of the children.

The same is true of problems that come in the simple lessons in physics.

The number of colors in the spectrum. The number of colors found in objects studied.

In evaporation the same amount of water is put into each of two dishes having equal surfaces and placed under different conditions.

After a certain time has passed, it is found that more water has disappeared in one case than in the other. How much water was in the dish? How much remains? How much has gone away? The part gone away is what part of the quantity put into the dish?

The quantity remaining in the dish near the register is how much less than the quantity left in the dish on the shelf?

The quantity that disappeared from one is how much greater than that which disappeared from the other?

Dishes may be used with different sized openings, and these being placed under the same conditions give problems on the effect of extent of surface; on the rate of evaporation.

pose at almost any hardware dealer's, but the oblong tin boxes, in which mustard and spices are bought, will answer very well.

The water can be measured by weighing or by putting marks on the outside of the dish at regular distances. It may also be measured by putting into the dish a certain number of smaller measures.

It matters little what device is used. Each teacher must suit her work to her needs and to the material she can secure; but the child must realize the conditions and feel that the work is accurately done.

Profitable number lessons under solution and crystallization can be given by weighing the materials to be used, weighing the solution before and after boiling and making problems from the conditions which will be presented.

Packages of different materials weighing different numbers of ounces, as well as the half-pound and pound, should be placed where the children can handle them and become familiar with their weight.

It is well to guard, however, against the temptation to make problems for the sake of the problems. They should be made only when the solving will give a better idea of the subject studied.

The subjects of Geography, Geology and Astronomy demand good concepts of distances, areas, volume and time. Around these, cluster a multitude of opportunities for number work.

After simple lessons, such as have already been suggested to lead pupils to form correct ideas of periods of time, such as a minute or five minutes, questions similar to the following come naturally:

How many five minutes in the recess

How many five minutes in the writing period?

The number of fifteen minutes in the half-hour and in the hour may be noted.

The number of hours in the morning session.

The number of hours in other portions of the day, as between breakfast and school time.

The number of days we come to school in the week.

The number of days we do not come to school.

The number of days in the week.

As the weeks go by, the number of weeks in the months. The number of months we have been in school.

The children know the points of the compass and have done some work which helps them in thinking direction. They may picture on their desks with blocks and sticks the schoolhouse, the number of blocks they walk in different directions when they go home; the path they take to the store when mamma sends them on errands, and other journeys that will be suggested by the children.

Fred walks three blocks east and two blocks south when he goes home from school; how many blocks does he walk?

Fred has to go five blocks to visit his friend Tom. He goes three blocks east and the rest of the distance north; how many blocks does he go north?

By picturing these journeys on sheets of paper and pinning them against the wall a beginning is made in map drawing.

The foot, yard and rod may be permanently marked in the room, The children should judge the length of lines in objects studied and test their judgment by actual measurement.

Many problems are sure to come in this connection.

The inch, square inch and cubic inch become known to the children through handling and using the sticks, tablets and inch cubes. The foot is known through using the foot rule.

The square foot and square yard may be marked off on wall, blackboard or floor and the children become familiar with them as units of measure.

The number of square inches in surfaces of objects used will be found when there is need of such work.

The Kindergarten folding papers furnish excellent material for work in this direction.

Folded into inch-squares they can be imagined anything desired, and in them the children can see many forms of different dimensions. How many square

inches touch the front edge of this square? How many

such rows in the square?

How many squares of different dimensions can you see in the square? How many square inches in each square?

How many oblongs of different dimensions can you see? How many square inches in each?

The square tablets being given, four, nine or sixteen to each child, he is to find the dimensions of the square he can make with them.

Two cubic inches are placed side by side. What are the dimensions of a box that will just hold them?

Other numbers of cubes used and boxes imagined.

Cardboard boxes made or gotten from the dry-goods store and cut over to the right dimensions hold how many cubic inches?

In the two-inch cube how many prisms can you see, two inches by one inch by

The most important thing seems to be the need of clear ideas first, and when we are sure of these the expression may be given if needed.

The great danger that the child will take the expression for the thing must be carefully guarded against.

The fact that the child can write 3+2=5 does not prove his knowledge of the numbers indicated.

However, if the child really knows the number the expression may follow when needed for use.

Let us hold the number to its true use and we shall give the children the opportunity of gaining concepts of units of measure with the power to apply them to practical use. SARAH E. GRISWOLD, Cook County Normal School.

Chicago.

When even a slight appreciation of quiet is felt in each child, Kindergartners and mothers will find they have laid a most helpful foundation for every lesson, whether in play or work.

Attention is one of the most earnestly discussed subjects in education. There is no point where more help is needed or sought. For is not attention more than half the battle in education?

No one was ever known to be inattentive to the reading of something which told of material benefit to himself, because there there is only entire willingness to learn.

Can we not cultivate just such willingness to learn the best things in life? And is not quiet the first and greatest help we could have toward this ideal? Is it not the keynote to attention?

If a child has power to command muscles and nerves, has he not more to control the mind? Is not a quiet body at least a third part toward an open, attentive mind?

Educators explain attention as entirely of the will (willingness); this is why it is so immediately related to quiet, for quiet enables the best in us, or God's will, to be heard and seen.

One can not realize how true this is until it has been applied many times. Apply it to impatience and see how quickly the sting is taken out.

As was said before, only the love c quiet in ourselves will help us to make the children love it. Quiet of this kind might be well called attention to the inner life-to the voice of the noblest and best, which is crowded out by things

unquiet. To be able always, and under every emergency, to hear this voice is to live quietly. And this is possible in the midst of great vivacity and exertion, as we have before tried to show.

We say quiet will be a help to every other lesson. And how? Because nothing can be clearly seen without it, any more than the beautiful pebbles at the bottom of the stream can be seen, if the water is in a muddy turmoil. When we picture to the child some new relation in his own life with God, with man or with nature we will find the response sensitive in proportion to the stillness of other things in the mind at the time.

In the bodily training for quiet we have two points to follow. They appear opposed, but like all opposites are most nearly related. We must lead the children to a sense of their greatest weight, and we must lead them to a sense of their greatest lightness. This sounds paradoxical, but we feel sure the truth will very soon be made clear, if not on reading below, yet upon following the directions with care and patience.

In passive quiet the children must feel their weight to get the most benefit. In active quiet they must feel their light

ness.

When sitting, tell them to be heavy in their chairs.

[The Mother or Kindergartner will suit her directions to her cases; sometimes giving more imaginative directions than at other times.]

When the children stand to march let them feel their legs and feet heavy, firm on the floor-but never rigid. It is surprising to see the influence these exercises have against wasteful action, as wriggling, twisting or doing petty things which annoy.

In marching, running, flying, creep

ing, etc., the lead should be "Be light."

Let exercises for lightness of touch for feet and hands and fingers be given. Many of these make fine sport for recess.

Place a cube of the Second Gift upon a post and tell all the children to run in a course which will take them by it; as they pass the post they must touch the cube so lightly that it is not stirred from its position.

Many more exercises for lightness might be named, but once the principles are made clear each child-leader will find no difficulty in originating all the exercises she needs.

Next, in the correction of the unquiet of the present day, come exercises for freedom or looseness of body. These are equally valuable to the children, but must be used with even greater care, and never except in connection with mental or bodily activity.

Take a moment when life and animation, to be kept pure, must have a reprieve and say:

"How wonderfully our heads are placed! See? Can you move yours as I move mine ?" Then wave your head slowly from front to back and left to right. Let the children grow into free movement as they acquire muscular gain.

As they stand ready to march, lift the arms gently and feel for great weight and freedom. Let the children raise their arms slowly, and thinking "how heavy!" drop them loosely at their sides.

Let them play the arms were pendulums and swing to and fro, without rigidity.

There is a strong voice against letting children into this work because there is so much of the superficial in the Delsarte practice of to-day.

But ought we not to look plainly, and

separating chaff from wheat, gratefully to use that which is good?

To teach the children posing or graceful (?) action, could never be aught but poison to the growth of soul and body. To help them to the freedom which is their right and would be their possession, had fathers and mothers not traveled so far from nature, is certainly to do well.

The examination or scrutiny of any one hundred children will show the need of quieting exercises to be great. At an early age the muscles and nerves swerve from normal action. Watch children writing, drawing, weaving, spelling, or at work in gymnasiums and say if they do not need help to the direction of energy as much as exercises for its increase?

You think it will make them conscious? Then it is misapplied.

The plan of the exercises is no more toward a wrong bodily consciousness than the exercises for increase of muscle.

The thought is to make them use their bodies better, always, and not misuse them.

A mother can do much to help a child of great nervousness by laying him quietly on the floor or bed, keeping great quiet, the child passive, while she lifts each member up and down.

The object being that every part lifted shall be loose and heavy. The mother's touch must be gentle, the action slow. Children almost invariably love this treatment as they do everything which draws them back to nature. Boston.

GRACE C. KEMPTON.

Since my entrance upon Kindergarten work two years ago I have been particularly interested in the development of the musical element which forms so important a part of the Kindergarten, through the songs, games and marches, and in the quiet times when soft piano music is played.

The articles which have appeared in THE KINDERGARTEN MAGAZINE from time to time, upon the subject of music, have presented some of its various phases from different points of view so as to be very helpful and interesting to Kindergartners. They are true to the spirit of the Kindergarten and therefore agree with one another in the fundamental principle--that music in the Kindergarten should aid the children in the free and true expression of their thought in harmony with the subjects of

That

their Kindergarten experiences. the music shall thus truly express the children's experiences, requires on the part of the Kindergartner, much judgment, a discriminating ear, and an ability to interpret the language of music; for as we know, it has a language of its own, apart from the words which sometimes make it speak out of harmony with the sentiments of the music itself.

When first entering upon my duties as director of one of the public school Kindergartens in Lexington, Ky., I found I could not get a piano. To dispense with it seemed rather formidable to one accustomed to its constant use during two years as pupil-teacher in a large Kindergarten in Cincinnati. supposed it to be a necessary adjunct to all well-regulated Kindergartens, public

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