Read Ebook: Reading: How to Teach It by Arnold Sarah Louise

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READING: HOW TO TEACH IT.

WHY DO WE READ?

The power to read is so ordinary a part of our mental equipment that we rarely question its meaning or its origin. All common things pass us unchallenged, however marvellous they may be. We take little note of our sunrises and sunsets, the hill range which we see every day from our window, the clear air which infuses new energies into our lives with every new morning. Common institutions, however precious--the home, the school, the church, the state--are received by us as a matter of course, just as children receive without surprise the most valuable gifts from the hands of their friends. We need not marvel, then, that this power, which has so long been a part of ourselves, should remain unquestioned, or that we learn to read without giving a thought to the motive which impels us to learn. It may be well for even the most thoughtful among us to pause for a moment to question why everybody learns to read; to ponder the returns from the effort, the time, and the pains spent in the mastery of the art.

It is evident that our estimate of the value of reading will depend upon our kind of reading; or, in other words, the kind of knowledge which we gain from reading. For example, you and I may turn to the daily newspaper for a certain knowledge to direct our everyday plans. We wish to go to the city on the morrow:--this evening's paper warns us of an approaching rain; we therefore provide ourselves with an umbrella before starting on our journey. Or we desire to hear Nansen's lecture:--the newspaper apprises us of the time, the place, the subject, the cost of tickets, the place where they are to be sold, the arrangement for extra trains. Or, again, we plan a trip to Florida:--the ways and means of going, the departure and arrival of trains, the choice of routes, the cost of the journey, the hotels which we may expect to find, together with a thousand other items,--all these are learned by means of time-tables, guide-books, and printed pamphlets, which we carefully read before going. Without this information which has been written down for us, and without this power on our part to read it, our journey would be to us like that of a traveller in an unexplored country, except as our friends give us the result of their experience. The business man consults the paper to learn of the quotations of stocks and bonds, the arrival or departure of ships, the scarcity or abundance of crops. The enthusiastic bicyclist learns of the proposed runs of the club through the obliging columns of the paper; his guide-book supplies the directions which take him safely to his journey's end, or the descriptions which interpret to him the places through which he rides. Can we imagine ourselves as bereft of this power of reading the printed directions which are every day consulted by us for our ordinary convenience? How limited, how hindered our lives would seem to us with this power withdrawn!

Through the various agencies to which we have referred, and similar sources equally familiar to us, we share the experience of others and add to our limited life that which they have learned for us. Our power is multiplied, our convenience is assured, our happiness is increased by means of the work which has been done by others. The fruit of others' thought and experience is stored ready for our use as soon as we have mastered the art of reading. Therefore, in order that we may add to our own power by sharing the experience and wisdom of others in the management of our everyday, practical affairs, we have learned to read.

And, furthermore, as members of a community we need to know what others are doing. We cannot live to ourselves alone. Ordinary intelligence demands a knowledge of contemporary events. A strike in the Fall River mills, a freshet in the Connecticut Valley, a cyclone in Iowa, a frost in Florida, a famine or a pestilence in India, a war in Cuba, the threatened partition of China, the accession of Hawaii, are matters which pertain to us also. In these days of rapid transmission of intelligence, the world has become one great family, and in proportion as one recognizes his responsibility to the brotherhood of which he is a member, he will be interested to know the deeds of other men, the happenings in other communities. These exert a direct influence upon our own environment. Therefore we read to obtain knowledge of the life about us, in countries near and remote; and in proportion as our interest is wide and intelligent does such reading become a necessity to us.

Moreover, an intelligent judgment of the events of the present involves a knowledge of the past, which to so large a degree determines the present. What men have done, what they have discovered, what they have thought, in the ages that are past, enables us to interpret the present. A complete knowledge of our own time is the possession only of the man who can read the past. The history of any nation, the development of any art or science, the growth of any religion can be known only to him who reads. The student of his own times must turn to the life of the yesterdays for answers to the problems which are confronting him. The experience of the past has been chronicled in books in order that we may share the blessings of that experience. How narrow seems the life of the person who is without the power to read even the outlines of that history! We have but to imagine the books of the past as closed to the entire world, and the power of reading as cut off from every one, to realize the individual loss when the power of thus reading is withheld. It is a recognized truth that the broader one's life, the greater his consciousness of the necessity for general knowledge such as is gained from books.

A fourth type of reading is suggested by the ministrations of literature. If we imagine ourselves as seated by the study table reading our favorite poem, we shall recognize that it has been through the reading of literature that much of our highest inspiration has come to us. It is the poet who brings to us true insight into our own experience, who interprets for us the great problems of life. With what joy and exultation we recall our magnificent hymns! What waves of emotion sweep over us as we read the lines in which the master hand has recorded the deepest experiences! For enjoyment, for culture, for spiritual help we turn to the higher order of books. In the truest sense, this reading directs our lives, interprets our experiences, and determines our ideals. We cannot imagine ourselves as defrauded of this birthright. How meagre would our lives at once become if every vestige of the treasures of literature was removed from our experience:--the army without the battle hymn, the home without the poem, the struggle without the psalm of courage, the mortal defeat without the inspiring shout of spiritual triumph! In attempting thus to picture a life without the inspiration of literature, we realize our dependence upon its teachings. The higher our conception of living, the fuller our realization of the help which comes to us through literature.

Our motives in reading, then, may be recorded in an ascending series: To obtain practical guidance in everyday affairs; to enrich our lives with the experience of our neighbors; to share the wisdom resulting from the experience of the past; to gain pleasure, insight, and spiritual direction. Any one of these motives would be sufficient to warrant us in teaching reading; through any one of these results we are fitted to become better members of the community. But can we draw the line, giving to our children the lower results only, where so much might well be given?

We have asked why we read, and the question which naturally follows is: "What shall we read?" We must be able to read ordinary facts affecting our everyday life, expressed in the terms of that life. Such reading involves little growth. Its purposes are exceedingly practical in the ordinary sense of the term. There is little widening of our horizon, little deepening of our experience in consequence of such practice. Second, we should read such books and papers as will serve to inform us of contemporary events,--such events as really have a bearing upon our present environment or the life of the future. This reading gives us knowledge of other peoples and places, widening our horizon, and urging us back to study, with clearer eyes, the environment which has been constantly about us. Only thus can we truly see the life which is nearest to us. Third, the reading of the past leads us to the pages of history in which the best has been chronicled. As has been said, the knowledge of the present can be obtained only through the interpretation of the past. That life is narrow indeed which confines its range to the present alone. And fourth, we must be able to read and interpret literature, a reading which requires a fuller power than any which has been heretofore described, and involves a higher type of teaching.

In the thought of many parents and friends of the school, the immediately practical aim of reading is the only one considered. Because reading facilitates buying and selling, coming and going, and is ordinarily accepted as a mark of intelligence, it is considered as an essential in our school courses. But the higher our conception of life, the higher will be our conception of education; and with the higher conception of education comes the acceptance of the higher aim, even in our simplest teaching. We may learn to read in such a way that we never rise beyond the first result of our attainment. This will almost assuredly be the case if the so-called "practical" aim is the only one considered; but if, from the beginning, the teacher's hope and that of the parent are that the child may grow into fuller power, we shall find his life strengthened and inspired by the loftier aim, by the surer accomplishment of the greater result. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." The old saying is far from being interpreted in these days of hurrying to obtain the immediate and the practical,--but it is forever true that as our aim becomes higher, the type of our work becomes nobler, while the character of the results justifies our endeavors. The greater will include the less, but the lower aim may never lead to the higher. Can we dare to withhold from our children the comfort, the inspiration, the strength, the guidance that has come to us through the higher type of reading? Is it not a necessity that, from the beginning, they shall be taught to look forward to such power of acquisition as shall open to them the treasures of experience which have been written down for them in the best books?

LITERATURE IN THE SCHOOL-ROOM.

To present the right standard or pattern is one of the functions of the teacher. This is equally true whether the lesson be the form of a Latin verb, the shape of a vase, the polite fashion of address, or the choice of books. To set the copy was of old the teacher's part, and it must still occupy a prominent place in our work. For the sake of giving the children right ideals, we must place before them the best in literature, such literature as will supply not only standards in language, but ideals in character. Their experience, like ours, must be re?nforced by the teachings of others--the lessons which have been treasured in books--and these lessons must begin in childhood. It is a mistake to postpone good literature until the child has mastered word forms and the technique of reading. His love for the good must exist before he begins to read at all, and must be stimulated and strengthened by means of his reading. At the same time that he becomes master of the mechanics of reading, he should be endowed with the desire to choose that which is good to read. The work of the teacher, therefore, is to establish ideals, to quicken desire, to strengthen right tendencies, to lead to wise choices. These belong to the teaching of reading, and should assume quite as important a place as does the mastery of words, or fluency in expression.

As has been said, good literature should not be postponed until the children can read it for themselves. A study of our own experience will assure us that the teachings of our childhood have made the most lasting impression upon us. It is the childhood association which moves us most strongly to-day. As the twig is bent the tree is inclined. There comes a time in the tree's history when its inclination is fixed. It is the young tree which is shaped by the skill of the nurseryman. The best of poems should be read and recited to little children. "Tell me a story," or "Read to me," is the oft-repeated plea in the home. It indicates the child's desire, and his need as well. Let us be taught by the children. Here is our opportunity to present to them the story that is worth telling, the poem that is worth reading. "Tell it again," we hear, after every recital, and again and again and again the loved story is repeated. Should we not be assured that the oft-heard word is worthy of this frequent repetition? If the child asks for bread, shall we give him a stone?

In the home, long before the child enters school, he should become familiar with true stories, fairy stories, exquisite songs, beautiful poems, adapted to his intelligence, suited to his interest. If this good work has been done at home it should be continued by the teacher. If it has been neglected by the home friends, it necessarily becomes a part of the teacher's work. The child's mind should be furnished with the best stories and poems before he begins his primer. So shall he long to master the art which shall open books to him for his own reading, and every step which his baby feet take in the path to his desire shall bring him consciously nearer to the longed-for treasure.

Through the first years of the school life, telling stories, reciting poems, or reading to the children should be a frequent exercise. This may occur in the time of the reading lesson, in the language lesson, or the morning talk. The benefits derived from this practice are two-fold. The stories and the poems give to the children new material for thought; they also help them to acquire a taste for good things which will cause them to choose instinctively that which is good when they are left free to choose. Children who have been accustomed to the stories of the Iliad, will read and re-read this treasure in later life with an advantage which could not have been theirs had not the heroes of the old story been the companions of their childhood's thought. We can hardly imagine that boys accustomed to such associations will be satisfied with the cheap and pernicious pages of the dime novel. A mind well furnished with good things will appropriate good to itself. It is the empty head which becomes filled with that which is cheap and mean. The children of a certain city were once asked without previous notice to write down something which they had memorized. Those who had not been taught in school to memorize choice selections, wrote pages of curious and uncouth rhymes, which they had learned in various ways. The exercise proved conclusively that they must be helped to choose wisely. The choice will never be between the good and nothing, fulness and emptiness: it will always be a choice between the good and the bad.

Let us read to the children, then. Let their own desires guide our selection in the beginning. The true story, the fairy story, the poem, may be read or recited in turn. The children's plea for repetition will teach us what their present choice is. If we are wise we shall be instructed by their comments and questions.

Three rules should guide our choice of literature: First, give the children what is good. Second, give them what we like. Third, give them what they like.

The first rule needs no interpretation. With so much that is precious waiting to be taught, we cannot be satisfied with any lesson material worthless in itself. Life is too short and its time too sacred to admit of such harmful dallying.

The second rule is always a safe one. We must teach that which belongs to us. We cannot give to the children what is not ours to give. The poem or story which we enjoy because it answers to something in our nature, we shall be able to teach to them. We may repeat, but we cannot teach, that which has not entered into our own lives. Therefore, if we do not love and appreciate what is good in literature, our first duty is to teach ourselves, in order that we may be prepared to teach the children.

The third rule necessitates a study of the children as well as a study of literature. Songs and stories which are entirely suited to one class may fail to interest another. Those which we like may not attract the children. Hence, we must watch them through our story-telling or our reading, and judge, by their attention, their comments, their silence, their indifference, where their interest lies. We must begin with that which appeals to their child life, their present interest; but we shall not end there. We must lead them to a fuller enjoyment and to a wider interest, by giving them always a little more than that for which they ask.

There is much in the pages of the best literature which is already suited to children's understanding. Let us choose that first. But we shall dare to add much which they do not fully understand as yet, knowing that the future will interpret to them that which is now hidden. It is a mistake to cut literature to the children's comprehension. Let us trust that they will feel in some measure the beauty which they cannot understand, and that their future experience will unlock the door which is now shut to them.

The writer remembers a class of children--children who came from rude homes, whose lives were narrow and hindered, who, nevertheless, listened with intense interest to the poems which their teacher read to them. It happened that she once selected for the morning reading the first stanzas of Longfellow's poem, "My Lost Youth." They listened eagerly until the book was closed, giving evidence of appreciation with every return of the rhythmic refrain. "Is that all?" they asked. "No," was the reply, "but you would not understand the rest." "Oh, read it to us, even if we don't," they urged. "We love the sound of it."

The writer has often heard primary classes reciting Wordsworth's "Daffodils" with great delight. Without doubt the child's interpretation differs from that of the man,--understanding is the fruit of experience,--but even thus early the children enter into the spirit of the poem, rejoice in the beauty of the daffodils, and are happy in the rhythmic recitation. The beautiful words are treasured in their memories, to return again and again to gladden their hearts, just as the bright vision was repeated in the experience of the poet.

Give to the children, then, not only the child thought which fits the childish experience, but also the treasure which grows in beauty as they grow, and becomes rich as they become wise.

It is well for the teacher to cultivate the art of telling stories to children. The story that is told has an element of life which is not found in the story that is read. There is no barrier between the story-teller and his audience; the book often makes a gulf between the reader and his hearers. Practise story-telling. Let the children's indifference teach you wherein you fail; your unconscious tutors will show you what to omit and what to magnify. Their training will help you in other directions. If you yield yourself to the teaching of the children, you will be repaid by a new readiness in story-telling before less kindly and less candid critics. Do not forego this privilege.

A poem or story may be presented to a child as a message from the author to him. Whittier's "Barefoot Boy," for example, serves not only to describe the barefoot boy, but to tell the children something about the poet himself. If they read it with this thought in mind, they will be desirous of learning something about the poet. This study of the author should not precede the study of the poem. They will care to learn about Whittier because he has written this charming poem for them; now, facts about his life will be filled with meaning; they will rejoice in the story of his boyhood experience, and will return to "The Barefoot Boy" with a keener interest, because it has become real to them through their study of the poet's life. For little children this is the natural order of teaching. We care to know about Scott because we delight in "Marmion" and "Ivanhoe"; we do not first learn about the author, and then decide to read his works.

Other things being equal, our selections for reading and for memorizing should be from the world's best writers. We should at least be sure that the children's course of reading gives them some sense of companionship with a few men and women who have blessed the world through their books. Hans Christian Andersen, Alice and Phoebe Cary, Mary Howitt, Longfellow, Whittier, Lowell, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Eugene Field have written some of their best thoughts for children as well as for men and women. Some of these names should stand for real personalities, nay, for friends, to the children, before they leave school.

Enough has been said of the teacher's duty in the direction of developing taste. It is self-evident that no teacher can help a child to appreciate that which is beautiful, unless she herself appreciates it. The fountain cannot rise higher than its source. We must be that which we would help the children to become. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance that the teacher's reading be carefully directed. I know of no way in which a teacher can better serve her children than by reading the best books. This reading will be, of course, in the line of her own tastes and interests. Every year, at the least, a new book should become a teacher's possession. She should not only buy it to keep, but she should read and re-read it, until its contents become a part of herself. Every year should widen her horizon, and enable her to see more truly than she has seen before. Every book thus read and re-read becomes a definite force in her life, and unconsciously directs her teaching. The teacher who would guide her pupils in the fields of literature, must herself frequent the paths in which she desires their feet to tread.

LEARNING TO READ.

The problem of teaching would be solved could the teacher know how her well-devised plan of action really affects her pupil. Patiently and persistently she follows her foreordained method, but who can know the critical moment when the mind opens to take in the new idea, and to delight in the consciousness of growth? Who can name or describe the Open Sesame that unlocks the world of books to the child?

A clear light is thrown upon our common problem by the charming description of one child's experience. Hugh Miller, in his "Schools and Schoolmasters," tells us how he learned to read, or, rather, learned to love reading. We quote at length:--

Those intolerable nuisances, the useful-knowledge books, had not yet arisen, like tenebrious stars, on the educational horizon, to darken the world, and shed their blighting influence on the opening intellect of the "youthhood"; and so, from my rudimental books--books that made themselves truly such by their thorough assimilation with the rudimental mind--I passed on, without being conscious of break or line of division, to books on which the learned are content to write commentaries and dissertations, but which I found to be quite as nice children's books as any of the others. Old Homer wrote admirably for little folk, especially in the "Odyssey"; a copy of which, in the only true translation extant,--for, judging from its surpassing interest and the wrath of critics, such I hold that of Pope to be,--I found in the house of a neighbor. Next came the "Iliad"; not, however, in a complete copy, but represented by four of the six volumes of Bernard Lintot. With what power, and at how early an age, true genius impresses! I saw, even at this immature period, that no writer could cast a javelin with half the force of Homer. The missiles went whizzing athwart his pages; and I could see the momentary gleam of the steel, ere it buried itself deep in brass and bull-hide. I next succeeded in discovering for myself a child's book, of not less interest than even the "Iliad," which might, I was told, be read on Sabbaths, in a magnificent old edition of "Pilgrim's Progress," printed on coarse, whity-brown paper, and charged with numerous woodcuts, each of which occupied an entire page, that, on principles of economy, bore letterpress on the other side. And such delightful prints as these were! It must have been some such volume that sat for its portrait to Wordsworth, and which he so exquisitely describes as

"Profuse in garniture of wooden cuts, Strange and uncouth; dire faces, figures dire, Sharp-kneed, sharp-elbowed, and lean-ankled, too, With long and ghastly shanks,--forms which, once seen, Could never be forgotten."

In process of time I had devoured, besides these genial works, "Robinson Crusoe," "Gulliver's Travels," "Ambrose on Angels," the judgment chapter in Howie's "Scotch Worthies," Byron's "Narrative," and the "Adventures of Philip Quarll," with a good many other adventures and voyages, real and fictitious, part of a very miscellaneous collection of books made by my father. It was a melancholy little library to which I had fallen heir. Most of the missing volumes had been with the master aboard the vessel when he perished. Of an early edition of Cook's "Voyages," all the volumes were now absent save the first; and a very tantalizing romance in four volumes, Mrs. Ratcliff's "Mysteries of Udolpho," was represented by only the earlier two. Small as the collection was, it contained some rare books,--among the rest, a curious little volume entitled, "The Miracles of Nature and Art," to which we find Dr. Johnson referring, in one of the dialogues chronicled by Boswell, as scarce even in his day, and which had been published, he said, some time in the seventeenth century by a bookseller whose shop hung perched on Old London Bridge, between sky and water. It contained, too, the only copy I ever saw of the "Memoirs of a Protestant condemned to the Galleys of France for his Religion,"--a work interesting from the circumstance that, though it bore another name on its title-page, it had been translated from the French for a few guineas by poor Goldsmith in his days of obscure literary drudgery, and exhibited the peculiar excellences of his style. The collection boasted, beside, of a very curious old book, illustrated by very uncouth plates, that detailed the perils and sufferings of an English sailor who had spent his best years of life as a slave in Morocco. It had its volumes of sound theology, too, and of stiff controversy,--Flavel's "Works," and Henry's "Commentary," and Hutchinson on the "Lesser Prophets," and a very old treatise on the "Revelation," with the title-page away, and blind Jameson's volume on the "Hierarchy," with first editions of "Naphthali," "The Cloud of Witnesses," and "The Hind let Loose." But with these solid authors I did not venture to grapple until long after this time. Of the works of fact and incident which it contained, those of the voyagers were my especial favorites. I perused with avidity the voyages of Anson, Drake, Raleigh, Dampier, and Captain Woods Rogers, and my mind became so filled with conceptions of what was to be seen and done in foreign parts, that I wished myself big enough to be a sailor, that I might go and see coral islands and burning mountains, and hunt wild beasts and fight battles.

These reminiscences are most suggestive. Do they not find a parallel in our memory of our childhood conquest of the art of reading?

Before planning her lessons in reading, the teacher will do well to review her own experience in reading, or to scan the difficulties which she has encountered in teaching other classes. A brief analysis of her experiences, both as a pupil and as a teacher, will reveal distinct lines of achievement in learning to read. These are illustrated in any act of reading.

"The old familiar sights of ours Took marvellous shapes. Strange domes and towers Rose up where sty and corncrib stood, Or garden wall, or belt of wood. The bridle post an old man sat, With loose-flung coat and high-cocked hat. The wellcurb had a Chinese roof, And even the tall sweep, high aloof, In its slant splendor seemed to tell Of Pisa's leaning miracle."

Manifestly this involves much. On the surface, and first attracting the attention of the teacher, appears the obvious necessity of knowing the words at sight. Familiarity with the forms of the words used is indispensable to reading. This involves knowing the sounds of the words, while the power to pronounce new words readily calls for knowledge of the laws of English pronunciation.

In the minds of too many teachers of little children, such mastery of word pronunciation is held as reading. But this is a grievous error, which leads to narrow and mechanical work, and obscures the high purpose of real reading. Reference to the definition of reading, and a study of the selection from "Snow-Bound," will show us the proper value of this achievement and its relation to true reading. The words are the vehicle of thought, a means to an end. Their mastery is indispensable to reading, but the reader must compass, not the single word-speaking, but the meaning of the related words which express the author's thought. Knowledge of the meaning of the words used, and especially the meaning of the words as Whittier uses them, is necessary to a clear understanding of the poem. The reader who would understand the poem must know something of farm life--the sty and the corncrib, the garden wall, the wellcurb, the sweep, and the other accessories of the farm which Whittier names or describes. Plainly, too, his knowledge must extend further--to a Chinese roof, and Pisa's leaning miracle. To such knowledge, observation of common life must minister, coupled with the study of books and pictures. In other words, the reader interprets Whittier's "Snow-Bound" by virtue of his own experience, re?nforced by the experience of others as written down in books, or pictured with brush or pen. To the formal word-mastery, then, must be added study of the meaning of new words, or recalling such experience as explains the old. The content, as well as the form, of the word must be studied.

Added to such study, is the general training which gives us power to picture the unknown, interpreting a new scene through its relation to our old experience. The ready and trained imagination easily pictures the scene which the words conjure before the mind--makes real the homestead, snowbound and comfortfilled. Reading may be so taught as to develop this power, which takes hold on things unseen. No careful teacher omits such training.

Here, then, are different phases of teaching reading: mastery of the words as to form and sound; explanation of the meaning of new words, through observation or reading; lessons which tend to develop power of imagination.

The young child who leaves his home and his play to enter upon the life of the school-room finds a new world awaiting him, with manifold new experiences. Hitherto he has romped and rambled to his heart's content. All his friends and playmates have in turn been his teachers, albeit theirs has been an unconscious tuition. His lessons have been in the line of his desires, or suggested by his natural environment. Longfellow pictures the little Hiawatha in the arms of his first teacher, the loving old Nokomis:

"At the door on summer evenings Sat the little Hiawatha, Heard the whispering of the pine-trees, Heard the lapping of the water-- Sounds of music, words of wonder;-- Saw the moon rise from the water, Rippling, rounding from the water, Saw the flecks and shadows on it, Whispered, 'What is that, Nokomis?' And the good Nokomis answered--" ...

The moon, the rainbow in the heaven, the Milky Way, the firefly, the owl and owlet, the beaver, the rabbit, the squirrel--these saluted the baby boy, and awakened his interest. "What is that?" he cried, with eager question. "And the good Nokomis answered." The little Hiawatha "learned of every bird its language." He was taught, not by old Nokomis alone, but by bird and beast, flower and field.

So with every child who enters the school-room upon that fateful first Monday in September. He brings with him, not an empty head, but a mind stored with the memories of varied experiences. Just as the little Hiawatha gazed, pondered, questioned, learned--so this child has seen, has heard, has questioned, has thought, has acted. What he brings to school, who can tell? What has he seen and heard? What has he liked and desired? What has he questioned and learned? How little we know of this unwritten history! And yet it determines the net result of all our teaching. For nothing which we attempt to teach finds lodgment in the child mind unless it is linked with some past experience and awakens actual interest. Much of our reiterated instruction falls upon deaf ears, fails utterly to awaken the dormant interest, because it is ill chosen. We must know something about the life of the children before we can wisely teach them.

The thoughtful teacher remembers this truth and directs her work accordingly. Instead of rushing with headlong zeal into the routine of reading, writing, and number--under the impulsion of the Course of Study, and the memory of classes which failed to "pass"--she makes haste slowly, and devotes the first days of the term to lessons which help to reveal the experience of the children. Observation of and talks about common things; conversations which lead the children to tell what they can do, or like to do; story telling; picture drawing;--these afford opportunity for expression, and serve to show the teacher something of her pupils' attainments, and the line of their interests as well. Meanwhile, they are becoming accustomed to the school-room routine, and so emerge from the period in which they gazed, dumb and dazed, at the many marvels with which this new school world is crowded. They come to know the teacher as their friend, and they become free and confident in her presence. Thus the true atmosphere of the school-room is created--the only atmosphere in which wholesome and natural teaching and learning can thrive.

This is not a prodigal misuse of time. It is the part of thrift to so spend in the beginning, for the returns are evident in the ease and readiness with which pupils and teacher afterward work together--the value of every lesson being enhanced by the mutual good will and understanding.

The school differs from the home and the kindergarten in that its allotted tasks are evidently determined by a motive and plan outside the child's comprehension. In many cases this must be so. The lessons which involve the mastery of the symbols used in reading, writing, and number, or the drill and practice necessary to attain skill in music or drawing or writing, have no self-evident goal for the child. So many lines, so many letters, so many problems, he attempts, because the teacher says so, and in his new universe the teacher is supreme. At home he has always chosen more or less; so, too, in the kindergarten his interest and choice determined the story or the game or the topic of conversation. He has delighted in building houses, modelling balls, weaving mats, playing games--and all, so far as he knew, for his own immediate pleasure and accomplishment. Other results, to him unknown, were of course secured. He builded better than he knew. But in every case he rejoiced in some immediate accomplishment which he desired.

In too many cases the decreed exercises of the school are meaningless and purposeless to the beginner. Such exercises easily degenerate into dull and fruitless routine, indifferent and profitless to teacher and pupil alike. To arouse desire and awaken conscious motive is the teacher's most important work, and in teaching reading it should receive first consideration. She, therefore, after securing such freedom and co?peration as promise a fertile soil for her seed-planting, calls the children about her to explain the purpose of the lessons which will fill their days.

Perhaps she reads to them a story which they like, a new story which they have never heard. When she reaches the interesting climax she pauses to say, "I haven't time to read the rest of the story now. How I wish you could read! Then you might take the book and read the story yourselves. Would you not like to learn to read, so that you could read stories like these?"

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