established, it is possible to conceive of a progressive course of study that is practical and that will develop an adequate distribution of the cultural phases of industry. There is no letting down the bars of education when one assumes to appreciate its utilitarian aspects. Few adults study merely for the joy of studying. There is a practical end in the studies of those who have reached adult life. Similarly, the utilitarian aspects of elementary school education are urged upon parents that they may willingly adjust their views so as to permit their children to continue at school for the longest possible period of time. Books and bookishness do not represent education, nor do they necessarily result in culture. Practical living and the adaptation of the individual to his environment are of far greater moment in communal welfare.

The elementary school curriculum must be universal. It must not present the marks of a special class dispensation for that small group of children who for economic reasons may be able to secure secondary education. The mass must be leavened and every child must have an equal opportunity for securing a practical and an adequate education. Thus considered, the industrial phases of education are by no means antagonistic to the general functions of the old type of education. Experience is an excellent teacher and the experience gathered along the lines of future usefulness, which may be gained through the proper adaptation of the subjects of the modern school curriculum, will serve an excellent purpose in holding attention, stimulating ambition, and moulding character. The great difficulty with many modern school systems is the vast chasm that exists between the educational system and the sphere of industrial activity. In order to bridge this chasm, it is important to build pathways leading to commercial and industrial life as well as professional service. The building trades, the metal and machine trades, the machine operating trades, electrical work, printing, agriculture, and mining represent the main activities of this country. In what way do our schools prepare children for these pursuits? The answer is known to all and still many fail to recognize that the majority of our children enter into these pursuits without any further preparation than is afforded in the curriculum of the elementary schools.

It is time that the curricula of this country took cognizance of such facts and endeavored to secure the widest possible educational content from typical industries in order to give them place in the general scheme of elementary education. It is needless to remark that such trades need not be taught in their entirety nor indeed could all of them be utilized because of the stress of time, and the cost of installation of necessary laboratories and workshops. From the wide selection, however, it is possible to glean the essential principles in which boys and girls may be trained with a slight adaptation of many of the subjects now recognized as of primary importance.

While the play instinct characterizes infancy and early childhood, the development of the constructive instinct marks the evolution of the child mind, and interests correspondingly vary with age and inherent The powers. This normal phase of activity demands cultivation. evolution of constructive ideas and ideals should be fostered in relation to environment. Studies can be organized and systematized so as to afford a wide range of educational possibilities adapted to the varying instincts and potentialities of school children. The public school system should be adjusted to the child. It is difficult to conform all children to the system. In effect, the curriculum must be vitalized. Modern life must enter into the subjects to be taught in order to prepare children for their present and future environment. This may in part require the introduction of new branches, but it at least demands a differentiation of the present subject matter. Vital principles must be dwelt upon rather than disjointed facts. A correlated living message must be delivered rather than a mass of information uncorrelated with present living conditions. This in nowise means that the traditional subjects of the curriculum are to receive less attention than in the past. In fact, more attention will be required in order to analyze their educational content with a view to ascertaining their special interests and utility.

Selection will play a great part in curriculum development. Blind following in camera will no longer characterize educational progress. Literature, English, writing, and similar subjects will receive more attention than is at present given to them. Arithmetic, geography, history, civics, and natural science will be taught with a view to shedding light upon industrial life, the structure of society, and the organization of civilized communities.

Habit training along motor and sensory lines will continue while the development of imagination will progress with the addition of stronger and more vital interests. Individual evolution will have a deepened significance because of the gain in a sense of social values and civic responsibility.

The special alterations in the development of the curriculum will naturally arise in the upper grades, particularly at that period when the compulsory education law has no further hold upon the children. In the sixth, seventh, or eighth grades, the adjustments of the curriculum should be considered with a view to retaining the interest of children so that they will be anxious and willing to continue throughout the elementary school period and possibly enter upon secondary school education. Differentiated courses will afford opportunities for a larger proportion of children to secure more real education, leading up to commercial, professional, or industrial activity. A curriculum of this type would obviously appeal to parents and satisfy the public that the education supplied at public expense was aiming to meet the conditions of life for all children. As the public system of education is designed to meet the needs of all the children, the curriculum should specifically undertake to make adequate provision for their training, instead of specializing as in the past in favor of a special group. It is manifestly discriminatory to provide a rigid curriculum designed to meet the qualifications of the few for whom the college or university is the goal. The flexibility of the curriculum purposes to make it adaptable to all sorts and conditions of children, giving equal educational opportunities to all who are willing to receive it.

Various modifications have been made in school curricula in order to make provision for the training of exceptional children, particularly the backward or feeble-minded. Equally careful study would undoubtedly result in a re-adaptation of the curriculum to meet the needs of the children of average mentality whose motor sense or muscular sense is a predominating characteristic. Interest and will are essentials in education. It is, therefore, important from an economic standpoint to construct a curriculum so that it will appeal to the interest and will of the bulk of school children. This is best secured through vitalizing the curriculum. It means the democratization of education, not the development of an intellectual oligarchy.

as

There are various opinions as to what constitutes the essentials of a course of study. Those who regard the elementary course designed to promote the acquisition of facts and figures through discipline and formal instruction, unrelated to the world we live in, possess a narrow conception of the essentials. If the subjective phase of elementary school education be regarded of equal importance, the term "essentials" assumes a far wider significance. The essentials may be deemed to consist of those subjects possessing the content value for developing high motives and sane judgments. This view is supported by the note struck by James H. Van Sickle in Bulletin 15, 1912, of the United States Bureau of Education: "In determining the essentials of a course of study and adopting measures of accomplishment, there is danger that too narrow a definition of 'essentials' will be adopted. Fixed knowledge of fundamental processes is no more and no less essential than mental attitude, habits of thought and emotion, and working ideals. Something more than drill is needed to get these ingrained. The selection of suitable subject matter for work and study in the grades; the organization of this material with reference to the periods when important instincts, interests, powers, and capacities become prominent; the development of desirable ideals, motives, and habits in the pupils-those things must be considered when we undertake to say what are the 'essentials.'"

Judging from a study of the curricula of nine representative American cities, namely, New York City, Rochester, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Newark, N. J., and Columbus, Ga. the total values of the subjects on the basis of medium time allotments per week would indicate the following order of importance of the subjects in the curricula: English, mathematics, geography, physical education, drawing, music, writing, domestic sciences and art, nature study, history, civics, industrial arts, physiology and hygiene. Omitting a discussion as to this arrangement in order of importance, it may suffice to state that this sequence is merely suggestive of the relative emphasis that these various cities place upon the different subjects. It does not indicate the content value as presented to the children.

In formulating a curriculum for the purpose of giving principals and teachers some educational initiative to permit intelligent expansion and contraction of subject matter according to the needs of differing localities, it seems of inestimable value to establish maximum and minimum requirements in time allotments. This plan will enable school districts with numerous children of foreign extraction to place the stress upon English without sacrificing values in other subjects. It makes it possible for American-born children to have their interests appealed to along the lines in which they show greater capabilities, without the sacrifice of any other important portion of the curriculum. The possession of a maximum time allotment precludes the possibility of principals following out their educational fads at the sacrifice of valuable sections of the subject matter in the curriculum. The general plan places responsibility upon principals and teachers and enables them to secure a logical and progressive development of the subject matter as outlined in the syllabus for their schools.

Considering the relative importance of the various studies in the curriculum, and grouping them on the basis of the intrinsic and pragmatic values of content material, the arrangement of studies in the order of importance might be considered to be as follows: (1) English, (2) History and Civics, (3) Geography and Nature Study, or Hygiene and Nature Study, (4) Mathematics, (5) Industrial and Fine Arts, (6) Music, (7) Writing, (8) Physical Education, Physiology and Hygiene. This classification is largely on the basis of educational content. On defining the educational content of the various subjects

TEACHING CHILDREN TO READ.

BY JOSEPH H. WADE,
District Superintendent of Schools.

No one questions the importance of reading in any scheme of elementary education. In fact it may be considered as the foundation of all our school work. If this foundation is not strong and lasting, the education that is built thereon is necessarily weak and shifting.

In these talks I will aim at the concrete and definite in method and device, but no discussion of methods in the teaching of any subject can be of real value to practical teachers unless some of the general principles underlying those methods are presented.

First I shall point out the commonest errors in teaching this subject in all grades of our course. You know that many teachers imagine that reading is the one subject that anyone can teach; that it is only necessary to know how to read in order to lead children to the same power. What a great mistake. How many hours of the time of teachers and pupils are wasted in this way. This is not only true of the untrained but also, occasionally, of the trained and experienced teacher.

I will illustrate how not to teach reading by some of the most common errors of teaching-some, probably, that you who supervise will readily recognize.

A few weeks ago, in an evening school class, the teacher stated he was about to teach a new reading lesson. The boys opened their books at page 141. The first boy began to read. One after the other, the pupils read, until the lesson was finished. The teacher occasionally corrected mispronunciations or helped pupils over difficult passages. I told him at the conclusion of the lesson that this was an excellent representation of how not to teach reading. He had utterly neglected to prepare the pupils for the instruction. At another time I asked a teacher to give the new reading lesson for the day. She explained and developed at the board the new, difficult and uncommon words. This work was good. Then the pupils started to read. The lesson was the second part of an abridged version of the story of the Battle of Lexington. The teacher had neglected to call on the pupils for a rapid oral reproduction of the first part of the lesson. The great principle of apperception was violated utterly-the learning of the new through the aid of old, or related knowledge. Such a lesson is to a great extent a failure. Pupils do not get half of the real value of the work from such a recitation. No new lesson should be taken up without refreshing the minds of the pupils with whatever is related to or a part of the story. In this, the first main division of the recitation, the preparation, was neglected-and without a real preparation, no lesson in any subject, reading, arithmetic, history or geography, can be considered satisfactory.

of the curriculum, Brinton's epigram may be recalled: "The measure of the value of work is the amount of play there is in it, and the measure of the value of play is the amount of work there is in it.” Increasing the educational content of the fundamental and essential branches of the elementary school curriculum decreases the number of formal subjects which needs to be taught. Thus, the time element in the curriculum is lessened. The tendency to overcrowd the curriculum is decreased while at the same time the cultural efficiency of the course is increased. With the curriculum expressed in terms of minimum requirements, the subjects may be expanded according to the needs of the school locality and the discretion of the principal. Maximum flexibility appears to be necessary in order to secure the greatest educational value of the curriculum for the varied types of schools existing in this country.

The entire progressive movement in education involves extricating the curriculum from educational ruts. The cultural values must be related to the mode of living of the children whose interests are to be encouraged, whose wills are to be trained, and whose habits of thought and action are to be formed.

The movement must progress along the lines of expansion of educational content and contraction of unrelated, barren, non-developmental facts. The curriculum must be socialized, democratized, and harmonized. The purpose of a curriculum must be viewed not merely as the intellectual and disciplinary training of individuals, but as the utilitarian, mental, and moral education of sound social units.

A third instance of faulty instruction is the following: A teacher prepares her pupils thoroughly for the new lesson. She touches on the story they are to read. If the lesson is illustrated, she asks pupils about the illustration. She explains and develops the new words and then the pupils begin to read the lesson. At every mistake she stops them to make corrections, until each weak pupil sits down discouraged and dismayed by the halting, broken recitation of the passage. This typifies a failure in presentation and unfortunately it is too frequent in our classroom. Thought and interest are sacrificed to clumsy methods of correction.

Again, the preparation of a lesson was good; the pupils were called upon to read one after the other; they were not interrupted in their recitation unless absolutely necessary until they had concluded their oral expression of the passage or paragraph. But the method of calling the pupils to recite weakened their recitation in this respect. Mary was called, stood up and read. Her paragraph completed, the teacher asked a question or two, made a correction or two, and called Annie, who stood up and immediately began to read. The same method was preserved throughout. That teacher was violating one of the most vital of all principles of a reading recitation-that for every new sentence or passage, pupils should be given time to read the sentence or passage rapidly and silently before any attempt is made at oral presentation. How much better when the preparation is completed if a teacher would only say to her class, "Read the first paragraph silently." Then all having read the passage, she calls upon one to recite, and so on throughout the lesson. See the advantages of this method of presentation. First, no child is asked to recite until he has prepared himself by a silent reading of the passage. Second, every pupil reads silently to himself the passage that one is called upon to read orally; and third, reflection precedes expression in every instance.

And now we come to another serious error in teaching reading. Suppose the preparation is all that might be desired, that the presentation is smooth, that time for reflection has been given to each pupil before oral reading. The last passage has been read, the pupils close their books and the lesson is completed and another lesson on the program is taken up. The teacher neglected what is probably the most valuable part of a complete recitation, the generalization or elaboration of the lesson. No reading lesson is complete without its oral reproduction, brief or ample as the time allows, in the language of the pupils. Thus are the pupils trained for oral expression and the instruction is clinched. And the clinching of a lesson in any subject is vital to successful instruction. Its neglect is the cause of more failure in teaching than we dream of in our work. To this neglect more than to any other reason may be traced the cause for failure in tests and reviews of classes that we have worked with hard and faithfully. Never lay aside the reading lesson until you have had it reproduced

by your pupils, and the moral of the story developed and impressed in their minds through their answers to your skillful questioning.

Perhaps many of you have thought as I went along, that you never make these mistakes. Few of us can truthfully say, however, that we never neglect one or the other of these fundamentals of all three methods of recitation in reading—the preparation, the presentation and the reproduction and elaboration.

If these simple truths were always observed and faithfully followed, the reading of our pupils could not fail to reflect the work of the successful teacher in each and every particular. Thus far I have talked on what might be called the common sense essentials of the work of instruction, and common sense is often more necessary to successful teaching than what is frequently palmed off as psychology and pedagogy.

Occasionally we hear reading described as a getting of thought from the printed page, and everything is labeled reading that involves the sounding of words without much reference to the comprehension of the content, or the amount of mental activity involved. The fact is, however, that reading is not getting thought from the printed page, for the very good reason that there is no thought thereon. There are symbols, words which may or may not arouse mental activity or interest in the pupil, as his mind possesses, or does not possess the ideas represented by such words and symbols. This essential truth must be fully appreciated by the teacher of reading who would make her work successful with children of the first school years.

Teachers realize that primary reading presents one of the most difficult problems for solution in the whole range of teaching. More time and thought have been devoted to this feature of school work by practical and theoretical educators than to any other subject in the curriculum, and as a natural result, we have methods and devices ad nauseam. With almost every new series of readers, some novel plan of teaching children to read is advertised and heralded as the best and only way, though a close examination of the content and method of many of these readers often discloses little of real novelty in the series beyond its name.

Occasionally golden promises are made by the advocate of a new series to teach children to read fluently in two or three years, and this marvel is seemingly accomplished when half of the entire school time is given to the work. The same marvellous result might be accomplished in teaching children to read a foregn language, if an equally large proportion of the time was devoted to the subject, to the practical exclusion of other important subjects of the course. Unfortunately, the real aim of the reading work is frequently neglected in the effort to cover a great amount of material. This real aim is the training of children to think and to express their thoughts in language clear and appropriate. The most successful methods, those that have lived and will continue to live because of real intrinsic merit, recognize the great truth that it is preferable to make haste slowly in the first years, than to attempt to cover an extensive field by artificial methods.

It is not the quantity of reading in the first years that counts; rather it is the assimilation and mind training that should ever be kept in view. The successful teacher recognizes this fact and aims to keep the "word study" an interesting and profitable exercise, instead of hurrying through the pages of a book. With such teachers the ability to read is acquired by their pupils as a natural result of a real interest in the contents of the reading material.

The teacher's task is mainly to lead her pupils to recognize the symbols of the ideas they already possess. She is gradually converting many of the words of their speaking vocabulary into a reading vocabulary. When the children come from homes where a foreign language is spoken and from street associations where an Englishforeign slang is commonly used, the teacher's task is very difficult. With such pupils she must build up both a speaking and a reading vocabulary, but, though more difficult, the work with such pupils is along the same general lines followed in teaching children of English speaking parents to read. There must be a greater stress on the phonic drills and exercises with the foreign pupils, but the word method and the sentence method are equally essential in developing an understanding of the content and in training to correct forms of expression.

Before taking up in detail the essential principles in teaching reading to the pupils of the first years, it is well to recognize the following self evident truths:

1. The idea or object should precede the word and its symbol. 2. The verb, as the soul of a sentence, is of first importance. 3. Talking and reading by the child are generally more useful than talking and reading by the teacher.

4. That, as the pupil is trained in his first reading by imitation, it is imperative that the teacher should speak clearly and distinctly so as to present a uniformly correct model to her class.

Methods for developing the child's reading vocabulary may be grouped under three main headings:

1. The Alphabetic Method.

2. The Look and Say, or Sight Method.

3. The Phonic Method.

With the third class is included the Phonetic Method which, personally, I consider the more valuable of the two. By the phonic we mean the analytic process of dividing words into their phonic elements. By phonetic we lay stress on the synthetic process of building up words from the phonic elements that are prevously taught and drilled on. In successful practice it is difficult to use the Phonic Method without employing the Phonetic also.

Of the first method mentioned-the Alphabetic-we have now what might justly be called only a memory. The first awful task given to the little children just entering school was to learn their a, b, c's, symbols new, without meaning or interest and taught only by an eternal pounding on the youthful intellects assembled. Some of the drills and exercises of those first lessons were probably the saddest experiences of school life. Nowhere that I actually know of is this method now used. No one now mentions it save in sorrow. Yet many of us here learned to read through the instrumentality of this method. Another proof that knowledge finds the way-that it is the teacher and the pupil-not the method and the pupil, that produces results. But before I leave the question of the Alphabetic Method, let me say that the alphabet must be taught. Daily lessons in the first year should be given on the sounds of single letters so that when the child has finished his first year's work he should know all the letters of the alphabet and be able to recite them in order. If this drill has not been given, the result may surprise you. On any day in any grade through 8B you may find pupils who cannot say their letters.

The introduction of the Look and Say or Sight Method marked a revolution in methods of teaching children to read. Instead of first learning the letters by rote and then slowly building up the words that form his reading vocabulary, the child is trained to recognize the word as a whole. But these words must represent ideas that the children already possess or the words are empty symbols, and the mere repetition of them does not constitute reading. Therefore, the teacher in the first year must always bear in mind that the character or quality of the reading material that is presented to children is probably more important than the amount covered in a given time.

We hear occasionally of the amount of reading accomplished by the seven and eight year old child, as if that were the summum bonum, but such statements give no idea of the amount of content the children have assimilated or made practical use of in their growing vocabulary. In this connection it is well for the teacher to appreciate the fact that a child's reading vocabulary cannot be increased by thirty or forty new words every week. If, as Professor Palmer states in his "Self Cultivation in English," the educated adult should aim to add two new words a week to his working vocabulary, how important is it that we should not over-reach ourselves in training children to read by adding an excessive number of new words within the first two years of the course.

There is one criterion of the quality as well as of the quantity of reading to be taught in the first years which has stood the test of ages, and this, in the words of Professor McMurray, is "to adapt the printed words and sentences, the reading material, to the child's experiences and activities. The closer this relationship, the more rapidly will the child master a substantial knowledge of word form." This is one reason why classics for children's reading should be real children's classics; otherwise a true appreciation of the content never will be acquired. Many pupils seemingly progress rapidly in reading such classics who in reality remain ignorant of the story content. A remarkable instance of this too prevalent mistake is given by Dr. Shiels in his "Making and Unmaking of the Dullard." He describes how, in attempting to force upon him reading beyond his powers of comprehension, the teacher merely succeeded in creating a hopeless confusion

in his child mind, in humiliating him before his classmates and finally in driving him from the school labelled an impossible dullard. It was not until he was approaching young manhood that Dr. Shiels ever acquired confidence in his ability to understand and assimilate the content of the school reader. This mistake may be expected whenever we confront the child with selections which, though classic, are foreign to his experiences, his powers of constructive imagination, and far beyond the limitation of his reading vocabulary. Especially is this the case, even with the simplest children's classics whenever teachers attempt to present the reading without bringing to their pupils in an interesting manner a realization of the content of the literature to be read.

On two features of the work rests the success of the reading lesson. First: Reading lessons with a vocabulary suitable to the child's mind, expressing a content that can be readily appreciated, and second, the teacher's explanation, interesting and clear to the children, with the fullest opportunity afforded for silent reading and appreciation. If these two essentials were observed by authors of school readers and by teachers, we would have no such experiences as come to all who carefully examine into the reading results in the first years of school. It is on these features of the work that City Superintendent Maxwell, in a recent conference, laid the greatest stress. Speaking of the intellectual habits that should be developed through the teaching of reading, he grouped them as follows:

1. The habit of taking in as much of a line or sentence in a single glance as possible, and then speaking it aloud with proper expression.

2. The habit of making out the pronunciation of unfamiliar words from the sounds of single letters and phonograms.

3. The habit of getting the meaning of what is read.

4. Expressing that meaning so that it would be understood and appreciated by others.

5. Getting the meaning of words.

6. Analyzing the matter read into its different topics, and grouping details around them.

If teachers would only build their work on such simple, but strong foundations, many of the failures in reading, not only of the first few years, but of the entire school course, would be eliminated.

On the contrary we frequently find mistakes in method which a little real knowledge of the processes of development of the child mind would eliminate. Thus, we find a teacher assuming that her pupils understand and assimilate the content of lessons that deal with experiences utterly foreign to the child's life and environment. Sometimes children will read such lessons with fluency, but a few wellchosen questions at the conclusion of the lesson, especially if the questions are asked by a casual visitor instead of by the regular class teacher, will disclose the fact that the pupids had read only words without meaning to them.

Such a reading lesson is a failure, no matter how fluently the words and sentences are recited by the pupils. Such a lesson is sometimes a mere memory exercise on a story repeated or read in varying form by teacher or pupils until the interest is deadened. A teacher should be quick to notice when the interest begins to lag. If the story is a good one, if the content is rich in that which interests the child mind, the first reading will hold the attention of the class; but when the same story is repeated in slightly varying form, sometimes for days, the teacher is only feeding her pupils with dead sea fruit. They are not being quickened to thought, and the words lose their life and vividness.

If teachers wish to assure themselves that the pupils of the first or second years really recognize the words of the lesson, let these words be written on the board in a transposed order; then by means of the pointer, the teacher can form new sentences from the words. If the children read the sentences thus formed, the teacher may feel assured that the words of the lesson are really known. I recall listening to a lesson which was read so fluently, that I was amazed that first-year children could master the varied and rather difficult vocabulary of the story. When the lesson was half read, however, I asked the children to close their books and then called for volunteers to continue the lesson from memory. A majority of the pupils raised

their hands, and the several children called upon repeated, word for word, the story to the end, and yet the teacher had stated the lesson was new. I discovered that the method of teaching this lesson had been for the teacher to read the story over and over until the children knew the words, phrases and sentences by heart.

I recall another experience with first-year children. The reading lesson was a story continuing for several pages. Many of the images and ideas expressed were beyond the power of the children to assimilate or appreciate, and each page averaged probably half a dozen new words. Pupils read on with seeming fluency, but the absence of a close study of the lesson seemed to indicate that the exercise was more a memory recitation than a reading lesson. At my request the teacher wrote the first thirty words of the lesson on the board in an order different from that observed in the story. The pupils were then asked to volunteer to read the words from the board, and of the first five selected by the teacher, every one read the words, not as they were written on the board, but as they appeared in the story in the book. Then, when certain words from the board were combined into short sentences not found in the reading lesson, scarcely a pupil in the class could read the sentences. This showed conclusively that there was very little word recognition, that the teacher was mistaking memorization for reading, and that the recitation was the result of a cumulative repetition of the story, with little or no understanding of the content. Yet the teacher of the class had given more time and labor to the work than nine out of ten teachers of reading give in the ordinary program. I speak of these instances because, with the interesting content usually found in good classic stories for children, the teacher who uses good method will succeed in obtaining real and effective word recognition at the same time that she arouses the right kind of interest in the lessons. The failures are due, as Superintendent Hughes says in his admirable little book, "Teaching to Read," to the mistaken idea held by some teachers and some educators that the aim should be to train pupils to read aloud instead of teaching them to read, and this mistake is also pointed out by Sarah Louise Arnold and Professor Huey. Such teaching either utterly neglects or at least minimizes, in the first year, silent reading as an effective aid to good oral reading. As a result of this neglect the child in the latter years of the course is unable to grasp the content, not only of the literature placed before him, but of the supplementary reading in history and geography.

From the very inception of the child's schooling through the entire course, the essential features of the work in reading fall under the following headings:

1. Teaching the pupils to master the mechanics of reading as rapidly and as naturally as possible.

2. Leading them to an appreciation of what is meant by real reading instead of the mere calling off of words.

3. Training them so that reading becomes a source of intellectual profit and pleasure.

4. As the highest aim, the development of a love for good literature by inspiring an interest in the literature that is best adapted to their years.

Though we may all agree that the above undoubtedly mark the essential aims in the work, the young teacher often is dismayed by the diverse and numerous methods of teaching primary reading, each one of which is proclaimed as the only correct, way. The fact is, as Stanley Hall states, "there is no one and only orthodox way of teaching and learning this greatest and hardest of all arts. Above all it should be borne in mind that the stated use of any one method does not preclude the incidental use of any, and perhaps of all others." Such words must come as a benediction to those practical teachers who are weary of the claims of advocates of this or that so-called system of reading advertised as the latest method. The teacher of successful experience who is looking for real and permanent results knows that many so-called new methods are not new at all. Occasionally we have some new application of an old method, but to the class teacher it is indifferent whether this or that method is advertised as the latest, but it is important that the results obtained be real and permanent.

The rest of this article will appear in a subsequent issue.-Editors.

ENGLISH FOR THE FIRST THREE YEARS.

INTRODUCTION.

English language is the supreme power in the active life of every American citizen. Through language he may appropriate his heritage from the past, by language he may enrich his experience from communication with his fellowmen and through language he may bequeath his own achievements to posterity.

While it is acknowledged that one of the most important missions of our elementary school is to train pupils to use good English correctly and as it should be used, purely, clearly and pleasantly and forcefully, yet the consensus of opinion seems to be that the present results are far from satisfactory.

Some of the faults of poor teaching of the subject are:

(1) The absence of enthusiasm on the teacher's part. The work in English should be conducted in a bright, sprightly manner, so affecting the children that they are eager to take part in it. Obviously this will not happen if the teacher sits the greater time at her desk and nonchalantly asks questions in a perfunctory manner. I can best describe the attitude of the children during a good lesson in language in the first two years by liking it to the spirit that enlivens a child's play: all want to be it. The teacher is only a director to the extent that she steers the conversation in the right channels; has full control of her class. But if she is an artiste in her profession each child will wish to tell something.

Such work in English will tend to dispel listlessness, fatigue. I do not underrate the task of imparting the fundamentals of reading and arithmetic. But I believe that their ready acquirement will be aided if the work in language will have more of the play element in it; if the teacher takes PAINS, uses ingenuity in thinking out ways and means to have the children participate. Workers in any line, no matter how conscientiously they think they are doing their work, fall into ruts; get to do things mechanically.

The following suggestions are to serve as reminders or joggers of memory as to what the course in English requires :

The hours of work in a class room may be put in with very little real mental development affecting the children. In English, for instance, while it is important for them to get the mechanics of reading, still just as important is it for them to learn to TALK correctly about everyday things; to

HEAR the teacher tell or read a story; to REPRODUCE what has been told or read; and to RECITE from memory, SLOWLY, CLEARLY and with CORRECT EXPRESSION choice bits of the poetry and prose of childhood. Language work of the first three years must devote much time to thought getting by the children and their thought giving, or expression oral or written.

In the case of young children, the teacher must supply much of the food for thought and aid them in the expression of the thought, or its reproduction.

The teacher must put herself on a plane of absolute equality with very young children. Good results often come from beginning with pupils' own experiences at home, on the street or in school. Utilize the self-activity of the children by giving them something to talk about and letting them talk to the teacher and among themselves.

Use the fund of information which the children have at handtheir knowledge of the usual occupations at home, of the habits of their pets and of their own games. Children all know something of the city's officials as they have seen them in the person of their favorite postman, fireman, policeman, street cleaner, etc. They have some knowledge of means of transportation, as they have experienced it in riding on cars or boats. They can all tell little tales about errands they have performed. The aim is: to arouse interest, clarify vague ideas, and thus create thought and lead pupils to express themselves correctly.

There is not sufficient opportunity afforded children in the first year to tell and question. There should be more language work of an interesting nature, frequently during the session. Get all the children to tell "stories" in the arithmetic work. Get them to give commands in the physical training. Let the brightest children, the best readers, call on other pupils to read. Let them "act" the stories. Let one child stand and give an example in arithmetic. Then, after a moment, call for the answer from another, who stands and gives it. Then let him (the

There are

latter, if the answer is correct) call on another and so on. other opportunities for oral expression on the pupil's part. Have "captains" (selected each time) take charge of aisles during physical exercises. Let them tell who does not execute the movement correctly and why it is not correct.

The atmosphere of the class room should be such that the most diffident child will feel that the lesson would be incomplete without his contribution. However, the voluble child must be tactfully repressed so as not to monopolize the conversation.

Conversation lessons should not be too long drawn out. Fatigue, wandering attention, and flagging interest should indicate that it is time to discontinue or to stimulate new enthusiasm. The teacher must tactfully direct wandering thoughts back to original topics to avoid an utterly aimless and unprofitable lesson.

Each reading lesson which is preceded by silent reading affords opportunity, before or after, for the pupils to tell about it. Get rid of the death-like, mummy-like appearance of children, sitting in exact rows like the dried up specimens of departed Egyptians.

Now and then, for purposes of practise of the vocal organs, I believe in the QUIET, ORDERLY, SUBDUED (whispered) reading of a lesson by a class as a whole.

If a child were taught at home he would become acquainted with a wealth of fairy tales, folk stories, rhymes, and other literature of childhood. The cultural effect of such a procedure cannot be overestimated. The teacher with imagination, who is above being a Gradgrind, a mere grubber of facts, facts, facts, will make use of the literature for children mentioned in the syllabus, and will make this literature serve her purposes in instruction, i. e., oral reproduction, memorizing, spelling, composition, good manners and the development of personality generally.

The development of personality (the greatest factor of success in life) is fostered through the individual's power of expression as evidenced in manners, bearing and language-oral and written. The work in English may be made the greatest means of developing personality. ORAL REPRODUCTION.

Have a story which has been read (by the teacher or by the pupil) told from a different viewpoint.

Take Humpty Dumpty, for instance. The story is told as written. Then it is reproduced by the pupils by their using the first person, as though Humpty Dumpty himself were relating his adventures, or from the viewpoint of a bystander who saw that

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall, etc., etc.

Illustration (Told by the pupil as though he were Humpty Dumpty): I am Humpty Dumpty. I sat on a very high wall. I was careless, so what do you think happened? Ah! I had a great fall. There I was on the ground. Up above me was the high wall. I tried to climb up again. I could not. Then they sent for all the king's horses and all the king's men, but the wall was so high above me, that they couldn't get me up again.

I am sure there will be lots of fun and profit for the children in "making up" the story. It won't be told as perfectly as this in one lesson, but children like repetition-the right kind of repetition in which novelty and mystery are awakeners of curiosity. If you approach the H. D. rhyme a second time with the right air about you, they will eagerly add to and improve on their first version.

In the upper grades Barbara Frietchie may be retold from the viewpoint of:

(a) Barbara Frietchie. (b) Stonewall Jackson. (c) A soldier in the ranks. (d) A non-combatant bystander. (e) A descendant of anyone of these to whom the story has been told.

Get the children to imagine the scene and then have each pupil start the telling of the story differently. You will find a wonderful awakening in composition if you follow the course outlined above which gives pupils the opportunity to re-enact the events of that day.

Have them start with the description of the day on which the incident occurred. You will get from some pupils descriptions of the dawn that will reveal to you a depth of poetic feeling of which you were unaware they possessed.

Each pupil will take pride in embellishing his version if the teacher is sympathetic, alert, enthusiastic with regard to the "fine touches" her pupils give to the story and calls for expression of opinion about it.