done she should quietly slip it away from the child and let him go to work on something else. His ideal is vague and uncertain, often he does not realize he has done a good thing, therefore the teacher should watch and tell him when to stop, by so doing she helps form an ideal for him.

In modeling your leaf have a definite shape for the tablet as a square or oblong and keep this picture in mind from the first, never losing the form. Work for square corners and vertical edges.

In clay we teach the child to build up a plane face. Working in wood the operation would be just the reverse, i.e., cutting or planing down, but the result or aim is the same in both cases. method employed is determined by the nature of the material.

The

Always begin at the highest point in studying your model, and build to that height in the right proportion to your enlarged work, drawing the clay well together and gradually building up the leaf.

Never mind the surface finish until the heights and depths are cared for, omiting detail, giving only enough to tell the general characteristics of the leaf.

You cannot make leaf texture as it is in nature. Remember what you accomplish will be but clay when it is finished, but your comprehension of proportion, law, and form, as embodied in the common thing before you, from which you are working, is your true object.

To imitate nature, setting yourself in competition with her is never the object of modeling in clay. That is sheer man

ufacture. We are working for the recognition of the universal, not the construction of leaves in clay.

Form is transient but the law behind form is eternal. Never give children the impression that form in matter is permanent. Prove to them that it is not by showing them its changes before their

eyes.

After working close to the leaf until it is all laid in, measure each part in its relation to the others and begin on the surfaces, smoothing and graduating. All this time be sure that the edge has been built up solidly from the base and is thoroughly rounded off that no "tin or paper edges" are left. Every notch and crease can not be indicated with any truth to the object in view. Neither can the veins of the leaf be worked out. Suggest only the midrib or largest viens. The modeling of the leaf should be sufficient of itself to tell the story.

Never use mathematical measurements; leave all to the eye and its sense of proportion. Size and proportion are relative, not exact and definite. If the eye is untrue it needs exercise; if true it is the best guide.

It is well to work in classes as some bring out this and others that point or difficulty. Let each have his individual model and handle it to some extent differently.

The object of this exercise is a form study of the leaf, learning the handling of the clay, the unfolding of ideas concerning relief, and the acquisition of confidence on the part of the child.

For the children to acquire a free and varied skill with their hands Froebel plans from the first. To some children this is a simple matter, so well developed are their muscles, but with others it is very difficult; and all have a tendency to useless activity of the hand, working off the slight mental anxiety caused by their desire for success; the feet wriggle, twirl and twist; or the face is distorted by a lip bitten in, or other wry expressions. To avoid all this waste (we can not readily calculate the amount of waste represented) only a few directions are required.

First, the Kindergartner must hold it in her mind that it is the process and not the result which is developing to the child's hand and mind. This is of great importance for it insures a right attitude toward the work and thus a right start. Let her idea be not to have a step taken in any occupation until all have some understanding and interest in the process. Let her whole presence be confident and free from anxiety. Such a presence acts like an antidote to children of a nervous organization.

Much question is aroused in regard to the cause of the flushed cheeks often found around the occupation table of even the most conscientious Kindergartner. We feel a lack of nerve quiet to be largely accountable for this, and would most earnestly direct the attention of coworkers to it as a cause.

*

If the process is made interesting, the child is content in it, and his pleasure in the result springs upon him as something

"Power Through Repose," by Annie Payson Call, would be a great help on this point. Price $1.00.-EDS.

fresh, stimulating him anew when again in the process. If he is not led to rest in the delight of the process, but is stimulated with an influence which concentrates upon the results, he loses his quiet and freedom of mind, the little hands become more nervous, and the mental, if not the physical, state more fevered.

So we would repeat that if the child is to grow as quietly as a plant in a garden this feverish stimulation must be omitted. This can only happen when the mind of the Kindergartner is free from it. Then all minds will be quiet and free, which will greatly assist the muscles to the same condition.

Let the children, as far as wise, consider what they are to do before they begin to do it, (not making the mistake of carrying it too far and thus tiring the would-be workers before work has fairly begun) thus working as Froebel tells us to work, from the inner to the the outer as well as from the outer to the inner. If the child knows at each lesson more clearly what and how his hands are to do, he can gain steadily in the way it is to be accomplished; that the needle or pencil must be held firmly without being gripped, etc. Nice handling wastes no more effort than does the humming bird when it flies direct to the branch to alight. With the mind the child must see the point and have muscles and nerves quiet enough to obey the mind's direction in making it.

If these directions seem too elaborate and unnecessary in application to baby. minds, please think of the many Kindergartens besides your own and know it to be a fact that disappointment is often

the result of many carefully planned occupations. In weaving, for instance, the child often has no adequate idea of the object in view, his mind does not contain the picture of the pattern and he does not hold his needle with firm, welldirected force, but shambles toward any opening instead of the right one, making many mistakes, even when the mat is not torn. All, or many of these difficulties are certainly caused by a lack of quiet in the mind of Kindergartner and children, which makes definite conception and skilled handling impossible.

To this as a general view of a trouble and its cure, let us add a few exercises for the hand itself.

All hands lie palms down on the table. How still can they keep? So still! Wait until each muscle is quiet, each face in repose, then give in a very quiet way a command to all to lift the hands (at the wrist joint) from the table, letting them drop down with a loose and heavy pat. Let the hands be raised higher at each succeeding command, until before the last pat, the hand is at right angles with the wrist. Besides the effects of freedom

and quiet, this exercise is strengthening to some weak and little-used muscles. To help to the quiet, the Kindergartner talks, while the hand lies still. She tells tiny children of so many pink babies lying in their beds, oh, so still; then the mamma calls, "Wake up!" and up they come. The exercise can be varied by lifting only left hands or only right hands, or first one and then the other; or made very interesting by having the hands fall in turn, upon the table.

Then laying the hands flat on the table, the children stretch hand and fingers, relaxing them slowly. Holding the arms out in front, they stretch again, and above the heads again.

These exercises must be thoroughly and quietly taken and given, to be of service, when we feel sure they will recommend themselves.

Could our Kindergarten occupations all be given in this way, the standard would be most beneficially changed. How the work was done would then take a place equal in importance with the appearance when completed. Boston.

GRACE CALL KEMPTON.

The golden-rod is yellow,
The corn is turning brown,
The trees in apple orchards
With fruit are bending down.

The gentian's bluest fringes
Are curling in the sun,
In dusky pods the milkweed
Its hidden silk has spun.

The sedges flaunt their harvest
In every meadow-nook,
And asters by the brookside
Make asters in the brook.

By all these lovely tokens

September days are here,

With Summer's best of weather And Autumn's best of cheer.

H. H.

WHY DON'T MOTHERS ORGANIZE?

In this day of organization and this century of woman's supremacy we hear continually of new clubs, circles and orders formed by women for some determined purpose or aim. Laboring women and their supposed betters, the professional sisters, all have their special reform or protective idea to forward, and in hundreds of ways is the thought of organization taking hold of the unrepresented portion of our populace.

Now mothers rank, if one is willing to allow it, both as laboring and as professional women. In work, "a woman's never done;" and it needs quite as much careful thought and culture to make a thoroughly good mother as, perhaps, it takes to make a school mistress, a lawyer, or fit one for any profession.

Of course there are quacks in every line of work, and inquiring from almost any standpoint we are obliged to confess that the field of motherhood is more than overrun with a species of claimants to this worthiest of spheres, who have not taken the first degree of excellence either in head or heart culture.

In some parts of the old country one must have papers and certificates from the authorities giving the right to practice a trade or profession of even the humblest order, that there may not be turned upon a long-suffering market, work that would tend to degrade the different lines of product. Even a license to marry is made out only after a long

and wearisome process of paper signing and certifying to fitness; the whole contract is witnessed over and over again by such citizens as are considered in good standing. But here in America trades and professions, and marriage as well, are all on the same unfirm basis. In the latter, illiteracy, deformity, even disease, are no drawbacks to entering the sacred relation. Motherhood, the best, highest and holiest calling of women in all ages, is the one thing generally regarded as not needing special preparation or cultivation.

Those who have responded most truly to the demand for home-makers, in no way have better consideration from authority, higher protection under the laws nor fuller rights in society than the woman who is careless of her trust, either through disposition or education. When legislation fails to protect a guild or class, the members of such organize for self-protection, and that they may the more forcibly demand rights. Woman has organized in perhaps every capacity save that which is her highest excuse for being, the bringing to the world, again and again, that "perpetual messiah," the divine reminder of man's original purity, and its preservation through life.

A mother's life work is regarded neither as a profession or a calling and it is in no way elevated above a mere necessity. Only as she wins standing as a mover in society is she recognized. It

is a sad comment that those hours of service which have been set aside for the highest achievement,-home-making and race-building, should be considered be considered without weight in the vast record of the world's doings.

Only through a self-recognition of her work as a specialty or a profession, (if you please) will there ever come to woman her due recognition from others. Until she demands that motherhood be dignified, that her labor about the foundation of the edifice of life be inspected, its worth or worthlessness testified to by humanity, will she have her rights as citizen, governor or servant. This demand, this recognition can be obtained but through organization, and that upon the specific basis of child-culture.

What would be the result of an organization of mothers for the benefit of self and the young race? The answer lies in another question. What has been the result every time women have seen fit to clasp hands in sisterly union and demand or work for anything? Look at the suffragists, the temperance workers, the woman's clubs and the many other bodies that are sending out their great branches and roots into future reform !

Of what might such an organization, based on motherhood, consist, and what would it effect, you ask? In the first place it would call together the strongest and most intelligent woman-element we have, in the interest of the greatest cause it knows. It would elevate the mother to a recognition of her true duties, and awake in many an unconscious mind the necessity for action in some definite direction for bettering the condition of the child-right in the family nest. It would open to the uninformed woman a field of inquiry of which she heretofore has not been aware and give her tools to

work with such as no one can weld for her.

If there is one idea above another upon which women ought to unite it is the question of child-culture. It is quite as essential that a mother give her child its full rights to the highest, as that she demand their bestowal upon herself, and a child's highest right is to be nobly reared. Should the womanhood of our land, with one hand on the heart and the other within the warm hand of a sister, take a stand for the perfecting of the child life that gathers so closely about its skirts, a generation would leave few battles to be fought or victories to be won.

CHILD-CULTURE STUDY-CIRCLE.

The deepest longing of Froebel's heart was that the mothers of the race might awake to a full comprehension of their high trust-the destiny of their children and work for the preservation of the purity of humanity and its true development.

Froebel's call to the mother-heart was strong and tender and he laid the plan of his whole system that it might appeal to woman in her maternal capacity, making it practical for even the simplest mother to grasp and use.

The number of parents seeking this truth is ever increasing and it has long been our desire to meet the need through these columns. With the present issue we open this department, the "ChildCulture Study-Circle," its distinct object being to help home students to find the meaning of the Kindergarten and to suggest its application in the nursery and on the play-ground.

Questions will be received gladly and answered by workers of experience; programs of study will be given and reports of reading circles published.