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kinds on one stone even! You should have a tin box and fill it with different kinds of mosses. They come off easily almost always, and a knife helps take them off in good condition.

Some mosses will seem just little masses of tiny leaves. Others will have threadlike stems surmounted by very tiny capsules, which look like seeds perhaps.

Don't stop to look at them now. It is too cold to examine mosses outdoors. Take them home and put them into a plate, or a saucer, right side up of course, and then pour on water until it stands in the plate.

Give the mosses time to settle themselves a little, and then use your magnifier !

You cannot really know mosses without a compound microscope, and such work is not suited to little children. But you can get enough, and give them enough knowledge to make them interested.

Take a pin and separate one plant from the mass. It should be one with a capsule on it, something like one of these, but very small.

You are not likely to see what answers to the flowers unless you have a compound microscope, for these antheridia and archegonia are in the axils of the leaves and very, very small.

Children always - as far as my experience goes — like watching the mosses and seeing the capsules grow and change from week to week,- almost from day to day, and mosses are so easy to find! Even in cities I have found them on buildings and walls, and in towns they abound.

Moreover they ripen their fruit- many of them in winter, needing the melting snow to supply the water which is essential to their fertilization.

Watch the tree-trunks and show the children how they grow beautiful with green and orange mosses and lichens opened into beauty by rain and melting snow. In dry weather the mosses are all shut up and almost black, hardly to be noticed and certainly not to be admired.

If you can go to rocks which have patches of moss and the thick evergreen ferns, "Christmas fern," it is often called, peel off a big piece of the moss and carry it home. Put it in a plate, wet it thoroughly, and keep it in light but not sun, in a warm school-room, and see how many different things will come up in response to the heat.

They will probably not all be plants.

You may have snails, beetles, spiders, even a sleepy bee or wasp! for many creatures spend their winter in the warm depths of the mosses.

Certainly winter offers a variety of interests for the children, if you know where to look for them.

If it is, as is quite likely, a brown, last year's capsule it will probably be somewhat shrivelled, and may have lost the little lid at its tip. If it is a fresh green, or brown one, it may have a sort of husk on the tip of, or even almost covering, the capsule. This outer husk is called the calyptra. The whole plant will look somewhat like this, though all these outlines are roughly drawn, and meant only to give an idea of what you should look for.

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The capsule is full of spores when ripe. It is practically a seed-box with a cover.

Under

the cover or lid, there are usually teeth set in the rim of the capsule and all bent towards the tip of the lid. When the capsule

is ripe the lid falls and the teeth usually spring back, and are thought to help in scattering the spores. Some capsules have no lid, but split down the side, and some have no teeth.

If your magnifier is strong enough, to show the teeth clearly you have a very pretty sight to show the children.

It is hardly likely to be powerful enough to give the spores clearly, but may show them as little green balls.

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Shake a ripe capsule over a piece of white paper, and show the children how much - dust it looks like out. From this "dust" grow the many, many little plants. needed to make up one patch of moss as big as a silver dollar.

Keep the mosses in the sunny window and give them water every day, but not enough to stand in the plate all the time. In a few days you will probably find that the patches without capsules begin to show light green points. Watch them and you will see how the fruit comes up from the sheathing-leaves,

A Word for "Us-Teachers"

MARY C. GOODING

So much is being done these days in training the children in habits of concentration of mind, it would seem not untimely to suggest to the teacher to endeavor, herself, to acquire each day, some added force in the power of concentration.

There is such a tendency in the teacher to waste her force in minutiæ about the children, all of which might be included, perhaps, in the various forms of fault-finding or fretting.

My own experience and observation is this: the fault lies in one's self, principally. The remedy lies also in one's self. Not in fretting over the failure of our efforts, not in running hither or thither from this one to another, telling our seeming grievance, but in introspection. Make a close and continued study of one's own self. Watch yourself as closely as you watch the children. Concentrate your thoughts more on the way you do things. The way you present subjects and suggest thoughts to the children.

You will then find the improvement in them so manifest and so speedy you will never again be satisfied to do things impulsively or off-hand.

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How We Observed Mother's Day

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L. MABEL FREEZE, Bangor

HALL I ever forget that Mothers' Day? No, never, for it is the "red letter day" of my teaching experience.

This was the way it came about. I had been wishing for a long time that I might have a Mothers' Day and wondering how was best to go about it. One day 1 was at a stationers and saw some dainty note paper in colors buff, green, blue, white, cream and vlolet with tiny envelopes to match. A happy thought came,- just the thing! buy it for the children to write invitations upon to their mothers for Mothers' Day.

No sooner thought than done and I went home to plan for the day full of enthusiasm. When my plans were perfected I said, " Children, I want you to work better than ever before for a few days and if you do you shall hear a secret." I did not think that the word secret would stimulate them as much as it did. They were ready for the secret long before it was time to tell it, and eager with delight listened to the plans which I unfolded, lttle by little.

As a part of the secret we had a morning talk on the home followed by the finger plays relating to the family. All work for that day was to be done just as if mother were to see it.

The next day quotations were given out appropriate to the season, one to each member of the class to be taken home and learned as another part of the secret.

Then I taught them some words I had written about Mothers' Day to be sung to the tune of "Sweet Marie." By this time they were guessing the secret, so it seemed best to disclose it all.

Words cannot describe their delight when they found they were to write and invite their mothers to spend a part of an afternoon with us. So I passed the dainty paper, not without many misgivings, I own, for fear of blots or mistakes, and for the writing lesson we wrote:

POND ST. SCH., ROOM I. Dear Mother:We would like to have you come to our Exercises next Mon. P. M. from 3.30 to 4.30. Your loving daughter (or son).

and on the envelopes we wrote "Mothers' Day."

Not one blotted or soiled invitation was written, and the little individualities that crept into that writing must have touched many a parent's heart. A word perhaps begun on one line, strangely divided and finished on another line, a much too tall or a comma upside down. For the drawing lesson that day the colored crayons were passed and they were told to draw some little forget-me-nots on the invitations.

Then giving a few directions as to arrangement, I watched them as they carefully drew, doing far better than I expected. The gifts were finished but not to be taken home quite yet and the mothers were not to know until they received them. Their efforts to keep the secret that so possessed them were ludicrous in the extreme, and served to arouse the parents' interest more than any other way I could have devised.

As the day drew near a few recitations such as: "Trust Your Mother,"

"A Message to Mother."

Nobody Knows but Mother."

"Mother's Helpers," were given out to the best speakers and we learned that pretty memory gem:

"Hundreds of stars in the pretty sky;

Hundreds of shells on the shore together;

Hundreds of birds that go singing by,

Hundreds of bees in the sunny weather; Hundreds of dew drops to greet the morn, Hundreds of lambs in the crimson clover; Hundreds of butterflies on the lawn;

But only one mother the wide world over."

This was accompanied with motions, and the last line. said more emphatically while they pointed to their mothers. They gladly stayed after school to learn another song, "Hark! My Mother's Voice I Hear."

During our preparations the regular work had gone on, but better than ever before. I was surprised that we could make it a success with so little time spent upon it; if ever odd moments counted they did that week.

The Friday before the exercises were to occur Monday, they delivered the invitations, and I told them if they wished to bring flowers on Monday they might do so.

Saturday I decorated the boards with reference to the coming event and put the words "Mothers' Day" in colored letters amid clusters of apple blossoms, and an "Honor List" just below.

Although it rained Monday, the children were on hand in good season, with an abundance of beautiful flowers. At noon the room was decorated, aided by the children, who begged so hard to help that to deny them would have seemed almost cruel.

The chief feature of the decoration was the children's work arranged on tables. The drawing sheets, the number papers, the mounted specimens of flowers, and best of all, the nature books looked so pretty among the flowers. The nature books were simply their nature and language stories tied with pretty ribbons into pale green covers. But it seemed no picture book ever pleased them as did this arrangement of their own work. We went right on with our preparations as though it didn't rain, and were well rewarded, for half an hour before time for the exercises to commence the sun came out beautifully and the mothers began to come and continued until the room seemed full and the children's faces seemed like little suns.

We had our little program. Then came an unexpected part to the children and visitors; I had asked some soloists to sing for us and their selections were much enjoyed.

After this I told the parents why we had asked them to come, that each might see her child's work and compare with others, that they might know how much help they had been in the past and how they could still be more in the future and that the children might realize the close connection between home and school.

Then came the part which was most enjoyable to the children, serving their parents with refreshments. It was truly a pretty sight as the little ones moved to and fro.

But the most touching part of all was when some one said, "Look at those children!" I turned and looked; they had served their parents and taken their seats and were sitting there with folded hands and faces radiantly happy, utterly unconscious of themselves or that they were to have any refreshment. I thought of the anxious misgivings I had as to their behavior, and a faith in childhood came then that has never left me since.

The parents carefully examined and expressed appreciation of the work, and so ended a day that had not even "the little rift" to mar its success.

Ended, oh, no, for I am reaping some of the results

even now.

"Winter day! frosty day!

God a cloak on all doth lay;

On the earth the snow he sheddeth,
O'er the lamb a fleece he spreadeth,
Gives the bird a coat of feather
To protect it from the weather."

DRA

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Distributing the materials, the teacher begins, keeping in mind the aim of the exercise; namely, to teach exactness in following directions, and to show with what wonderful symmetry each crystal is constructed on the plan of six equal sides and angles.

Insist on the child doing his best, and do not hurry in giving directions.

Give directions but once, and see that all follow.

If scissors are not provided for the school, they can be. brought from home for the time, cautioning the children to guard the points by placing them in a stopper from a bottle.

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The teacher may prepare from thin white paper, hexagonal shaped patterns of about an inch, or an inch and a half on a side, one for each child. If preferred, these papers may be bought by the quantity, at a reasonable rate.*

Before commencing the exercise there may be a little review of the causes of snow, and the fact of a snowflake being made up of several crystals noted. Then "Who would like to make a snow crystal to-day?"

There will be a ready response to this, no doubt.

J. L. Hammett Co., 352 Washington St., Boston, Mass.

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How Do You Teach Spelling?

Is it any wonder that her heart sank within her as she looked over the first set of written papers from her new class of third grade children. She had read a short story to them and asked them to write it from memory, and this is a sample of the papers handed her :

A Gredy Dog

A dog wonce stole a piece of meet as he was wocking across a streem he saw, he saw his shadow in the clear water he snaped at it and lost his own pice it was never saw again.

The Greede Dod

Once a greede dog had a peice of meat in his mouth, and he cross: a stream and, his shadow shown in the water.

And he snaped at it and droped his meat and it sank to the botton, and he never got it again.

"But there," she said to herself, "those children have been running wild all summer long-chasing the birds and butterflies, and reading from the wonderful book of nature, and they have just forgotten how to spell-that's all. It will come back to them soon. I must be patient."

Next day she gave them a list of common words to study and this is one of the best papers she found :

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board.

"They have not settled down to study yet," she said "I must have patience — but, oh, dear!"

A few days after she asked them to write a letter telling how they spent Saturday and she read :

Saturday I play that we were ploice-man there wear robers to. Sunday we went to the lake and went fishing. We came home eat are supper. Yours truly,

Days lengthened into weeks and there was not much improvement. She could not tell what was the matter. The class was a bright one- well taught before they came to her-ready and willing to study, but alas! only a few of the brightest improved at all.

At last, one evening, after looking over a very poor set of papers, she wrote the following letter:

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They had had fifteen minutes to study the words from the

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Tommy Stringer, the Blind, Deaf and Dumb Boy

(This little boy, with only two senses, touch and smell, is accomplishing marvellous things in the Jamaica Plain (Mass.) Kindergarten for the Blind. Tommy has been learning Sloyd, and we copy the result from the Boston Globe. He is eleven years of age.-ED.)

Professor Larsson required that his little pupil should attend two lessons a week, cach lesson to be of two hours' duration. His progress has been remarkable. It has been very interesting and instructive to watch the great possibilities he has demonstrated with touch and smell, the only two senses he possesses. He uses the ordinary wood-working hand tools and is taught practically in the same manner as a seeing pupil. The only tools he uses which differ from the other pupils are the rule with raised numbers, and instead of a lead pencil, he uses, in marking, an awl.

Tommy's sense of touch is so keen that he is not satisfied until his work matches with the rule and square. If there should be a variation of an eighth of an inch aside from the measure, he is made more unhappy by the slip than the ordinary boy is by a mistake of more than a quarter of an inch.

In the art of nail driving Tommy has been a veritable conqueror. The accuracy with which he gauges his strokes and the skill he displays in the handling of the wood might put to shame many a more advanced pupil. This little deaf and dumb lad is not dismayed by the task of driving a nail through a piece of wood scarcely thicker than a piece of So skilfully does he manipulate his tools that the entering stroke is effected without severing the wood. He never allows his nail to sling to one side or the other, as many seeing pupils do. His sensitive fingers at once detect the imperfection.

veneer.

The wonderful results which can be developed from an acute sense of touch and smell have had wide demonstration in the case of this unusual child. During his year's instruction at the sloyd school Tommy has learned to recognize eight different kinds of woods by his sense of smell. This is very rare in the case of an ordinary boy.

It is very interesting to examine different specimen's of Tommy's handicraft. In the making of these different articles the child exhibits the keenest delight. It is a study in psychology to watch the play of emotions that will light up his little face as his sensitive touch reveals to the alert brain the progress that he is making in the creation of a new object.

Not satisfied with the making of an article, Tommy has kept an account of the process of its manufacture and the Impression it has given him. Thus, by means of the square iting which the blind employ, the child has made a record, in abstract form, of the work he has accomplished through the year. These brief compositions are a delightful contrast to some of the literary work that comes from the hands of many a pupil who enjoys sight. In the course of a dozen large sheets of paper which form Tommy's sloyd diary, there does not appear an error or a blurred letter to mar the cleanliness or correctness of the copy.

This comprehensive little diary narrates that its youthful compiler has completed ten useful articles during the year. The articles have been chosen with reference to Tommy's apparent advance in overcoming difficulties in the

exercises.

The first article which he finished was a little stool made by saw, hammer and nails. But the masterpiece of workmanship that has given the young carpenter his greatest delight is a bird house, in the construction of which he used twelve different tools.

"The mind impressible and soft, with ease Imbibes and copies whate're it sees

And through the labyrinth of life holds fast the clue That education gave it false or true."

D

Sunshine Scheme

K. New York City

OWN among the tenements and fussy, fuming factories of the East Side they built a new kindergarten home, as broad, as generous as their own philanthropy, all filled and flooded with sunshine. Those who lovingly work among the poor of great cities know well the blessed lesson of such a room. For in the homes where poverty and privation are heirlooms — aye ! and pain it might well sadden, if no longer surprise us, to find how darkly the mental and spiritual light is filtered through the age-encrusted windows of the soul.

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But the material sunshine — to hide from it behind blind brick walls in tottering rookeries, to screen it with ragged remnants of curtains, to mutilate it with smoke and the stains of time hopeless and helpless the poor who live thus. In very love of heaven's light, then, we had struggled in our old kindergarten room to make sunshine in shady places"— walled in and warded by brick battlements though we were.

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Still in certain seasons, for a part of each day the sunshine came to visit us, and the first golden arrow that shot athwart the restless heads burst the bonds of childish joy. Quick would come the response of delight - the smiling salute, and then the ripple of some "good-morning" song swelling blithely from table to table until the remotest and darkest corner gave answer. Small wonder, then, that soon we materialized our happiness; that sunshines blazed from blackboards and brightened the room in mimic semblance; cut and pasted, sewn and woven, drawn and painted and twisted until finally it gleamed steadily from the wall, a great pictured word - and we had "found ourselves."

Out of the darkness and gloom came a tiny voice calling
"Up, sisters, wake and be doing, the sunshine is falling;
Warm is his breath as the clinging embrace of our mother;
Up and still up, till the meaning of life we discover."

But at last we stood upon the threshold of our new home, having struggled through the darkness and found our sweet reward.

Three bright and bonny rooms in what spirit shall we answer their cheer and make them homes? We had evolved after patient months this axiom from childish lips :

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"To be a sunshine child is to be happy and good to others." Lo, behold! one of our rooms soon smiling in heaven's own blue frames and borders for helpful pictures growing under eager little fingers the tiniest feeling the thrill of love and sympathy for "our beauty room." Then from the wall came the answering motto, "Love" in true blue — the essence of love. And beneath a dainty conceit a bas-relief of a tiny Love scattering flowers as benedictions; and for further joy eame one day and perched upon a shelf a fat little Cupid with one dimpled leg crossed upon his knee, as he played a mandolin. So each and all gave of their best, in love, and made in other lives a little joy.

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Then we discovered our second name in glorious robes of red it spoke to us - "Joy!" For who would take joy into his life must first know the love of his brother-man then maybe feel the flame, the fire, the enthusiasm, of noble living.

This leads to our own Sunshine room - is it too fanciful a thought? The fiery blood of very life-the physical joy of being-soothed and sustained by the spiritual calm of love giving out of its bounty true blessing of light and sunshine to all men. It is not too fanciful for us to try to live.

Our Sunshine room shall then be all glowing in yellow. A great room it is forty-five feet square-two stiff and stern square pillars running up to support the center beam. Parallel lines from every point of view, save where, through four great double windows, the gracious sunbeams entered and danced all day!

So we set the helpful little fingers to work "making paper chains" (I can hear some proper kindergartner say, "Paper chains impossible!") and soon had broken up the lines into eight converging arches a golden semi-canopy, from

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