THE THERMOMETER IN THE SCHOOLROOM

One of the essential equipments of every schoolroom is a reliable thermometer. Measuring seems to be the new order of the day-measuring tests of intelligence that are puzzling many of us sorely while interesting us intensely-but the old temperature tester, Mercury, still abides with us, or should, an ever ready aid to morals and good manners.

How so, do you ask? Does not right temperature contribute to health and happiness? To be practical how many times a day is it wise to consult the school thermometer? Surely three, if not every hour. You are too busy? Appoint a monitor to keep the record on the blackboard if.temperature cards are not provided. Change the monitor weekly so that many children may learn to read the degrees and to know what schoolroom temperature should be. How high may temperature climb in the schoolroom? In winter we hope not above 70. Far better should we register one, two or three degrees lower.

English visitors to our schools in New York City, some years ago, wondered that we could teach when the record went above 64, speaking of course, during a winter month. Spring and Summer records must be watched too. Mercury now as in the past is a messenger of the gods bringing good tidings of health to those who regard his warnings.

Fairy in the tiny tube

What have you to say?

Open windows? Stir the fire?

How is it today?

Do the children ever ask you questions about the thermometer?

If not, why not ask a few yourself? If you are teaching in the first year use the numbers. Who can find 30, 20, 10, 0? Read up and read down and skip around.

Add a few words to the children's vocabulary, as tube and bulb, quicksilver and mercury. If not old enough for the word degrees, the children will at least be able to find "the steps" of the long ladder at the side of the glass tube. These lines that look like the steps of a ladder help us find whether it is time to open our windows!

"Whose eyes are bright enough to see the fairy on the glass tube clumb? What is his name? Quicksilver. For see he has the color of silver. Would you like to see Quicksilver climb more quickly up the tube? If only he could get out, you would soon tell why he is called Quicksilver. Call a child to hold his thumb on the tube and watch his eager face as he notes the result. Up to 90? Climbing higher? What does this mean? It means that Quicksilver is telling us a secret! Who knows what it is? silver is trying to tell us how warm Frank's thumb is! What makes the quicksilver go up the tube? Yes, heat. Let me tell you a story about another thermometer not nearly so large as this one. This tiny thermometer belonged to Dr. Barnes. The doctor kept it in a small leather case in his pocket. He always took it with him when he went to see sick peo

Quick

ple. One day George's mother telephoned to Dr. Barnes that her little son was sick. She said, "George's head and hands are hot and I think that he has a fever." When Dr. Barnes arrived what do you think he did? He put his hands in his pocket, took out that little leather case, and asked George to guess what was in it.

George was almost too sick to guess but he tried one, two three guesses. Then Dr. Barnes opened the case and there lay a little glass thermometer. "Why doctor, I thought surely there was medicine in the box, but it is a little thermometer. I can tell by the numbers and the little ladder. We have a big thermometer on the wall. Can you make me well with a thermometer?" "I mean to try, my boy! This little thermometer is going to tell me just how hot you are, and then I can tell what to do for you. But you must hold it very quietly under your tongue for a whole minute. Can you do that for me and not bite it? I am sure you can."

Such a useful and common object as a thermometer should be studied from grade to grade. In higher grades such terms as zero, freezing point at 32, blood heat at 98, the boiling point, 212, furnished starting points for most interesting lessons in elementary natural science. I shall never forget my first acquaintance with mercury as it fell out of a broken thermometer! It was a new experience in the study of liquids and study we children did that morning long ago, gathering up the drops from the floor, seeing them unite, dividing them again into globules only to reunite them, this unfamiliar substance was known never to lose its charm.

SEPTEMBER-- OCTOBER

By F. G. Sanders, Oakville, Ont.

1. Gather leaves and press them. 2. Color leaves drawn on paper. 3. Gather chestnuts and acorns.

4. String chestnuts for curtains.

5. Gather seed pods (empty ones.)

6. Draw seed pods, put them behind blind when sun is shining and stretch them.

7. Go out under an oak tree, look at trunk, branches, leaves and nuts.

8. Bring an empty bird's nest to school, see what it is made of.

9. Put a shelf out side the school window for birds feeding board; fill it daily. Watch the birds. 10. Cut and color pumpkins.

11. Cut black cats from paper; mount on natual shade.

12. Watch an ant-hill.

13. Bring a milk-weed caterpillar to the school-room, give it milk-weed each day 'till it forms its co coon. It will take about twenty-five days before it comes out of its co coon a grand "King Billy" butterfly. 14. How are seeds carried? Watch and see.

15. What is always green.

16. What is always blue.

17. What is always white.

Let Little Ones Help at Home.

Mrs. Mana Clark Jackson

Let the children take hold and help about the house a little. At 41⁄2 years old they can wash dishes, and they love to do so. An oilcloth apron will keep them dry. They can also help make beds, brush up crumbs, and do many other things. But we must not nag the children at their tasks, remembering that interest in useful work may be most successfully developed by keeping it in the realm of the play spirit.

We have churches and schools to help in our work with our children, but it comes back every time to the parents and the home to develop in the children the simple practices which lead to right and happy living.

We must be patient in answering questions; and if we do not always know the answer, let us try to find out with the children. Fun is as natural as breathing to most children. Try to laugh with them at their simple jokes.

Let us take a little time at the end of the day, if we can, to tell a short story. The quiet will do us all good. Perhaps we may have seen a bird, squirrel, or a child do some amusing thing as we glanced out of the window while at work. The wind may have been chasing the pretty leaves, or the sun playing hide and seek among the clouds. Stories are not all to be found in books. It is a big accomplishment to learn to do things in the child's way-things they

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like to do but which we have often denied them because we felt we didn't have time to be bothered.

If the little ones see that mother and father are trying to find something to love in all their trying tasks, before we know it the home will always be full of sunshine. If we have a fretful child to deal with, find out first if he is being properly nourished; then try telling him stories which will take his mind off himself.

Many children are often disagreeable because they haven't enough of the right things to do, such as games and songs, that provide activity and stimulate the mind and occupations that answer the child's need to be doing and making something.

A most important point for the mother to realize is the necessity of sticking to the lessons she needs

There should be a Kindergarten in every community. If there are none, write to the National Kindergarten Association, 8 W. 40th Street, New York City, for advice, information and assistance.

LOVE WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO

By Mrs. Mana Clark Jackson.

If I were a fairy godmother I would wave my wand and say to all mothers, "Love what you have to do." Children's wants are so numerous and a mother has such constant demands made upon her that she needs to retire within herself often and, no matter how tired she may feel, repeat again and again, "I love what I have to do." Then suddenly she will feel better, and it becomes easier to go on with the task dollars and cents, as well as in peace of mind and of caring for and training the children. It pays in satisfaction of spirit, to devote much thought toward starting the children right.

What are some of the simple ways in which we can help our little ones? Let us begin the day happily, no matter how we feel; and never be discouraged nor allow the children to become SO. Together mothers and children can learn to be honest, obedient, and faithful.

It should not be forgotten that all virtues thrive best in a healthy body. Therefore, give the child plenty of fresh air, have him sleep in a well-ventilated room, wear clean, whole clothes, and eat simple food.

JACK IN THE BOX

By Sara A. Sandt

Away off in a far country on the other side of the earth is Australia, that is where the mama kangaroo lives. She feeds on grass, small plants and roots and she can jump as high, almost as high as the "Cow who jumped over the moon."

Sometimes when she is out hunting her dinner and her babies are jumping about in the grasses, she be comes frightened by some little sound and goes jumpjumping away so fast. Then where do you suppose her babies go, for they cannot jump like their mamas?

If you could see mother kangaroo when she stops to rest, you would see a little head, then another pop out from her breast, just like a. "Jack in the box," for she has a little pocket in which to carry her tiny babies. A soft, warm place it is where they can take their naps and dinners too.

November-December, 1923.

CHILD TRAINING

By Jenny B. Merrill, Ph. D.

Dear Mothers and Kindergartners:

"My little girl is chattering away transporting lima beans from one town to another in two toy autos, reviewing in amazing detail all the trifling events of our summer trip. It seems to me that we know very little as to the education of the small child." So wrote a good mother to me yesterday, a mother who has had wide experience as a kindergartner. Why did this incident in child play make this mother think of the education of a child? Was it because she realized that her little girl had been actually educat ing herself all summer as the family auto-ed from place to place? Now the child of her own accord was reviewing, tho unconsciously all her summer experience in play (tho apparently only amusing herself.)

Do all mothers realize, do even all kindergartners realize fully that "play is the electric force of modern education." What was little five year old B. doing in this transporting play? It seems almost cruel to translate this happy childish activity into scientific language.

Happy was she, active, remembering, recalling, imagining, all mental and emotional activities alert. Independent, able to amuse herself, to create a new situation, vastly different from what she had really seen and heard, yet containing the very essentials. Talking, chattering as she worked, bringing language vigorously into use, not keeping still," the bane of so much school and even home life.

A dear little boy who was naturally a very quiet, rather uncommunicative child, was very unhappy in his early school days. "Why don't you like school, Wallace?" Because you mustn't speak!'

But let us be thankful that the day is passing when it is a sin to speak, yes, even to whisper in school! Indeed no temptation to whisper if you are free to talk. The day is passing when you may see staring at you from the top of any blackboard "No talking in this room!"

A busy, bustling, active and at times even noisy

VOL. XXXVI-No. 2

kindergarten and school are here to stay. And yet the raising of the teacher's hand, or a note on the piano, and instant attention is given. Col. Parker, who knew well how to use military discipline, used to tell his normal students that the only good guide against talking is "not to disturb others." That is a good rule, indeed, but it needs a corollary, namely, "Don't you, dear teacher, be disturbed too easily (nor all the time!")

Is not some of the best help given in schools, given by pupil to pupil? What a fund of helpfulness is shut off, if children must not speak to each other all day! No, not even about their lessons. What a mean, selfish spirit must be developed, what an unsocial atmosphere in an over quiet school room? "Do you not believe in learning to inhibit?"

Yes, I do, but not at the expense of natural, joyous, communication with the human beings about us whether adults or children, whether at home or in school.

What a gift is speech? How can we secure correct speech if children do not talk freely? About the same time that my friend wrote me of this interesting morning "transportation play" with a whole summer's Geography in review, and much more too, I read an article with the strange title "Melancholy results of educating the Young!" It was a review of Edmond Holmes new book, "Freedom and Growth." Dr. Holmes is a retired English Inspector of Schools what we know as a School Superintendent. Great men like Matthews Arnold, like Sir Jushua Fitch, are made Inspectors of Schools in England.

The reviewer of this book writes, Mr. Holmes, after twenty-six years of common school inspection, comes forward with a new gospel of education.

Mr. Holmes complains that "standardized" education arrests growth and imprisons the children in his lower self-that it tends to kill imagination, to repress mental and all other growth, to weaken the will He complains that too much "Do what I tell you" is devitalizing to the manhood of a nation. (Have we learned this from the Great War?)

Rousseau, Froebel, Montessori and many other noble teachers have been telling us to guide rather than

command, but let us listen once more to this new voice as he writes the same truth!

"Let the teacher abandon his dogmatic attitude toward the child with the formal mechanical methods which necessitates. Let him be content to stand aside and efface himself, allowing the child nature to unfold itself, merely giving him some measure of guidance and stimulus, and such materials as he may happen to need. Above all let him cease to appeal to motives which are unworthy of the child's better nature the fear of external punishment, the hope of external reward, the desire to surpass others."

Mr. Holmes, is surely in accord with Froebel's "Follow the child," when he closes by saying, "We must begin by recognizing that the ultimate source of authority is not the will of the teacher, but the unfolding spirit of the child."

Shall we all work together, this year, on these principles? I hope so.

WORK

By F. G. Sanders, Oakville, Ont.

A long time ago, in a country in Europe there lived a little boy whose father was very wealthy. The little boy lived in a large house called a castle and had a great many servants to work for him and everything to make him happy.

But the little boy was not happy for he was lonely He had no brothers and sisters and no children to play with.

The castle was on a high hill with large gardens and parks around it, and at the foot of the hill was a tiny village that could be seen from the hill top. The little boy would often wander down to the village and he made one great friend with a workman who had a little shop of his own and who made nails.

The little fellow loved to watch the sparks fly from the anvil as the work man hammered away. One day the workman said to the little boy "Would you like to make some nails?"

The little boy came day after day to the work-shop; he was so glad to have something to do that he liked doing. He worked so hard and so well that after some time he was able to make a very good shoe nail.

Years passed, and the little boy who had been so rich found after the death of his father that he was rich no more but very poor.

The boy who was now a man came across to America and looked for work.

One day he found himself in a small village where all the people were shoe-makers.

He got some work, and as he worked he heard the people say that the cost of buying the nails to make the shoes was very great, and that often their work I was kept back because they could not get all the nails they wanted.

The young man told the people that he could make shoe-nails and that if they would help him to start a work-shop he could make all the nails they wanted. So the work that he had learned to do as a boy,

served him well, and he was able to make a good living for himself, and to help the people in the village.

NOVEMBER

By F. G. Sanders, Oakville, Ont. November's chill, and dark, and drear, It's not the best time of the year; And yet its Indian Summer haze, Gives us at least a few warm days. And then the sky's a lovely sight, It's filled with lots of snow-flakes white. November brings Thanksgiving Day And we should go to the church and pray, And thank the Lord, for harvest good, That earth provides us all with food. Thanksgiving is the time you know, That off to Grandma's house you go, What lovely smells there fill our nose Of cooking goose, and pies in rows, And tarts, and cookies, by the score And ginger cakes, and food galore. As round the fire we sit and glow We don't care how the winds may blow, We pop some corn, as white as snow, And apples we put in a row Along the fire place to bake. Then taffy filled with nuts we make November may be chill and drear But say! I'm glad November's here.