lucated, incompetent nurse-girl or eak-willed governess to be a good nt to your boy while you give yourup to the social whirl or the affairs he Nation." But, if I were to give true answer frankly, the parent ld rise in offended dignity, withdraw boy from our school, and put him ewhere where the masters have more in dealing with the real problems boy's life-the parents.

a these more extreme cases the only g to do is to work indirectly through boy. Instead of saying, "You are easy-going with your boy," I say, our boy expects too much of the ld; he is too easy on himself; we t make him feel his responsibility e keenly." This the parent readily ees to generally, and the process of ting upon the children the sins of father begins. The boy is allowed o to the movies only once a week. is required to study an hour more day until he becomes such an effit student during school hours that does not need the extra hour. He is to bed at eight or half-past instead en, and is waked at half-past six or en instead of eight. His pocket His pocket ney is cut down from five dollars a k to fifty cents a week. A provision closer co-operation between parents teachers is arranged. Or something is done, aimed ostensibly at the but really at his parents.

But in the less extreme cases it is sible to be more frank. For instance, nother—a good mother has a boy is two years behind his class. Why? ply because of two things: he canread fluently enough to study his ks, and he cannot spell correctly ugh to write his exercises.

question the boy, and find that he es books but hates to read them. I him about his spelling, and he says he "never could spell."

ASE OF TOO MUCH AND TOO LITTLE

turn to his mother, and she admits she and he," being great pals," have erally read books together, which uns that she has read to him, books of own choosing, which she can make inating by her manner of reading, which are far beyond his own powers. tries repeatedly to have him take urn in the reading, but she finds he hates it and begins to lose inst in the masterpiece of literature ch they are reading. So she does work, and he loves it. His taste for ature is two years ahead of his his ability to read is two years behis age. The conclusion is obvious twofold: the mother must stop ling to the boy, and must give him e real boy books which have no er merit than that they are exciting harmless. When he has learned to these simple books fluently, let her ose some that have a content value, gradually draw him back into the

age,

range of books that she used to read to him. It can be done. It has been done more than once.

I ask the same lady about the boy's spelling, and I get the same reply that I had from the boy: "It has always been hopeless. He never could spell." But she adds something further: "His father was always a bad speller, and is a bad speller to this day." So is his grandfather or his great-uncle. It seems to run in the family. So the matter of spelling is looked upon as hopeless. Yet the actual truth is that most bad spellers are poor readers who do not read unless they have to. These things go together to such an extent that it is fair to say that the one is the cause of the other. The boy does not read; he has no word pictures in his mind's eye, and therefore he cannot spell the words that he wishes to use in his writing. I first explain this point of view, and get a dubious assent. Then I give the boy a lesson in spelling and prove to him under his mother's eye that he can learn at least the common words. We then arrange certain mechanical matters, such as the books for the boy to read and the special time for intensive work on spelling, and the boy's problem is in a fair way to be solved, because the mother sees her fault, acknowledges it, and co-operates in correcting it.

PERHAPS PAST TEACHING HAS FAILED

At other times—in almost every case it is the mother that finds the time to look after her boy-the parent herself begins to tell me the things that she has done which she ought not to have done, and the things which she has left undone that she ought to have done. She had a tutor, perhaps, to whom the boy was devoted, and she thought the boy was doing well; but she finds that the tutor, who was a young college boy, spent more of his time taking the boy to the zoo and playing with his fascinating mechanical toys than he spent in teaching him to read and write and cipher. She was deceived by the man's charming personality and the boy's love for him. Or perhaps she sent the boy to the same school that his sister went to, and took it for granted that it would be all right, when as a matter of fact the school was run by two dear old maiden ladies who had a way with girls and who could not understand a lively boy at all. The boy walked all over them, of course, and learned nothing but the habit of scattering his forces. In cases like these it is only necessary politely to admit the rightness of the parent's self-criticism, and work out certain definite plans for making the boy feel that he has come into another world, where real responsibilities are thrust upon him, and where he must subordinate his individual will to the necessities of the community in which he finds himself.

Sometimes the fault is hardly chargeable to negligence or oversight. It may be due to a purely mechanical thing, such as a change of schools due to a change in residence. Wherever such a change occurs the boy finds himself facing the difficulty of differences in the courses of study, both as to ground covered and methods of teaching. The school to which he goes is also faced with a dilemma. Shall it put him where his actual scholastic achievements naturally place him? Or shall it broadmindedly put him where his mental ability fits him to go on working? The more progressive schools do the latter in most cases.

But sometimes both school and parent fail in a duty just here. The boy ought to be provided with a tutor who really knows his business, who will delve intelligently into the boy's mind, observe his mental processes, and find out how much of a breach the change of schools has made in the boy's scholastic life, and how much needs to be made up. Even the best school cannot do this adequately if the breach is of any account. The teachers have a great many boys to watch over all the time, and it is only too natural to take the past for granted. Therefore a tutor should be hired to overhaul the boy's intellectual machinery. He should be a man of sympathy and experience, and for such a man the parent must pay a good price. But only such a man can do the right thing by the boy.

This overhauling of the boy's mental machinery is a very illuminating process; and every teacher should try to do some of it each year, for it will help him with other boys to anticipate difficulties. I remember being immensely surprised to discover that a boy whom I was tutoring for sixth-grade work in fractions could not do long division and had never heard of short division. But still greater was my surprise to find that there were some twenty or thirty addition combinations that he could not remember; 8+6 meant nothing to him until he had counted on his fingers; and, having counted on his fingers once, he was no better off for the next time, but had to do it over again. It was the same with his tables of multiplication. This meant that he could not subtract or divide either, because the same tables are involved. After the boy had learned his tables he became a good mathematician. Another boy could not read 3.56.2. The sign of division indicated division to him, but did not tell him which number should be put into the other number. He followed the principle of dividing the larger by the smaller, which worked with whole numbers practically all the time, but which was hopeless with decimals. Cases like this could be multiplied endlessly.

We teachers are constantly discovering too late by chance the things that

ought to have been discovered on time by some one who really had the time and the opportunity to put the X-ray on the boy's mental processes.

IT'S THE PARENTS THAT NEED TO OVERHAUL THEMSELVES

I

Underwood & Underwood

WAS a farmer's wife for twenty years, and I know Uncle Sam's survey of farm homes is true, but it does not tell the truth. The truth about the farm wife's life cannot be given in an outline of the day's work.

The Government can't make a representative survey of the work and life of the farm wife, because the Government sees only the dry bones. The Government gets up a meal of statistics, but it hasn't the human interest to digest and assimilate them, and with them nourish the life stream.

Yes, the survey is true. What is the Government going to do about it? Is it going to make provision for hardworking farmers with hard-working wives to borrow money, at a low rate of

interest, for the purpose of equipping farm homes with wanted modern conveniences?

Is the Government going to keep the farmer's freight moving and plenty of cars at shipping points, so the farmer will have a fair profit on his labor of feeding?

Since farmers have no cold-storage plants for holding steers and hogs on the hoof, without feed or loss, till freight cars are at hand for loading in time to reach a good market, the Government help re freight cars would be greatly appreciated.

Is the Government going to see to it that the present practice of thrusting at the high cost of living only through the farmer is stopped?

If the Government would stop wor ing about the lack of running w and electric lights for the farm vi and do some constructive worrying o the fact that in recent years the fa wife's husband has had to feed an to $11 hogs, and has worked sixte hours out of twenty-four to keep consumers of milk supplied at less in cost, I have a hunch that the fan would see to it that his wife got d labor-savers she needs. The farmer takes the same pleasure all good huslands take in looking after his own folks.

"I do my work and think nothing about it," says one farm woman.

The Government is anxious to k life in the farm woman. Does the Go ernment forget the story in the of physiology of the man who was mad to think he was bleeding to death by the dropping of warm water from t hands of another man, and of how breath came fainter and fainter as t hushed tones uttered the tragic work "He is getting weaker, weaker?"

Is there any surer way to take th "pep" out of life than by feeling sor for one's self?

The average farm woman is not ge ting weaker, but spunkier.

Most farm women are expectant working for better homes and mom labor-saving devices. If farm equipmen comes first, it is because the new wa chinery is a lever which will lift a big ger load than new household equipmen and these must temporarily wait.

of

The good farm wife would rath have man-saving machinery in the fil (which is also woman-saving), and the and waiting on "hand," than to equip the house wit modern conveniences at the cost d needed farm tools. If her husband a sell his crops to advantage, in ti these will come.

Some women would rather have a automobile for all the family to en than running water in the kitch Some women grow chickens as play golf-for diversion and the wh some recreation of getting out of do for a purpose.

The farmer's wife is her husba

siness partner. In town or country e heads of the firm don't count their ours at the business.

The farm wife is investing her serce where it is most needed-in proction. The crops grown through the forts of the farm family are plus ops-the family have fed themselves us the three families the farmer is id to carry on his back.

They have worked with the forces of eir Creator.

In spite of hard work, farm life is orth while. The family are interested gether in common things and new e: the day-old calf butting the full lder, the litter of cunning pigs digng their noses into their mother, the nky colt, the baby chicks, the birds, e wild flowers, the testing of the seed rn, and the sprouting of first grains 'e full of interest.

The Government has written figures the farm wife, but it has not read he mind of the farm woman. Life

will be drab anywhere if the wife and mother does not know how to put color into it, but the work the farm woman does not have strength to do because of lack of modern conveniences is not the greatest waste to the community. The big waste comes from the smoldering resentment of the injustice of having prices fixed in town for the farmerprices which often will not pay the cost of production. She does not like it when others run the farmer's business for him in their own way.

Some time she is going to get relief by joining hands with other farm women and going after it herself. She knows that successful farming means that the farmer must know more than the road to town, to the freight yards, and the elevator and back.

To live the simple life is to let some one else run your business for you. The farmer's one aim, especially these past few years, has not been to learn the easiest road to a dollar, and so he

years

hasn't many dollars to spend on his wife.

Nevertheless, the farm wife has approached her problems vigorously, patiently, and hopefully. As many women in the country as in town are eager to try to apply scientific methods of work and management. The farm woman accepts her streak of lean, looking hopefully forward to a coming streak of fat. She calls her methods common "but what is scientific managesense, ment but common sense boiled down, tabulated, recorded, referred to, corrected, approved, put into daily prac tice; to dispense with some drudgery, substitute some poetry, and help in the fulfillment of all our heart's desire ?"

Now that Uncle Sam has discovered us, what is he going to do about us? How about a survey of the great men and women born and reared in the country?

Des Moines, Iowa.

are often robbed by dogs or Ots.

isn't fair. Each of the skillful ers of the arena would receive his

of the applause and interest the ence much more if he was for hile the center of the show. But it in be done in the present chaotic

rmance.

hat the American circus lacks his unity. Its performances are so stematized! The artists are pred separately, like samples in a nan's suit-case. Here is a piece of nderful equilibristic skill," and to it "the wildest cowboy scene, fairy on the cobweb," "miraculous patic cycle-riding" and "the Ausin axman." Your mind must just from one amazing thing to anthe ever-changing and ever-interg impressions neutralize one anand leave your brain blank. The gers of the circus think that one cle following another, with an interof a minute, will give you lots of 1. They are quite ignorant of psygy. They forget that while a few chosen dishes make a good dinner, zen of them produce acute indiges

ae circus diet is the most indigestiof all. This is the reason that after leave the circus you don't visit it in until the next year. Only people very low intelligence or those who in love with some one in the cast go be this stupefying show frequently. might not be so. The circus might

the same audience night after it, as the best plays do. There! be such a prospect would attract Cattention of some circus manager to dareformer's complaint.

have heard that half of the whole ense is to bill the circus. Then the ense troupe of actors and animals

have to travel from State to State, because the circus would not be filled day after day in the same city. The managers admit that the circus exhausts the interest of the audience in a few weeks. Now, if the circus performance was a shadow more intelligent, more organized, it would enable the circus to stay in a city for the whole year. Here are practical suggestions: why not stage in the circus a specially written circus play in which all the skill of the gymnasts, tight-rope walkers, clowns, and bareback riders would take an essential part I mean essential to the plot? Just think how much more interesting would be the skillful rope climbers if they used their skill for rescuing a heroine in danger, instead of sliding aimlessly up and down the rope. The animals also should have their definite place in the plot. Here is an illustration: I have seen in Russia a circus play for children in which a princess receives a wedding-cake. Her courtier

cuts it and a couple of dwarfs walk out of it. Their appearance is interwoven into the plot of the play, and it produces a strong climax.

Circus plays will be successful not only for juvenile audiences. I believe that with historical dramas staged in it the circus may become the school of history and life-a national institution, a temple of great art, as it was in ancient times, instead of being just a casual entertainment. It may thrill not only our senses but our souls.

66

Even under present conditions of 'art for profit" the circus might be changed for the better if it adopted plays. A similar thing was done at the Hippodrome. Just a slight resemblance of a play, with a tiny plot superficially uniting the flock of pretty chorus girls, and the Hippodrome has been full for months. The circus might do the same thing, instead of giving to the audience the fragments of art, the so-called "circus numbers." It would certainly cost much less to order now and then a good circus play than to wander over the country exploiting the same pack of old tricks under the present "five-ring system."

I think many a good dramatist would gladly write a play unifying the circus forces. Such an unusual work, such a rare opportunity! To quench the individual envies, to make each artist work for the success of the whole performance instead of worrying that a dancing dog may overshadow him. Every circus artist would get his important part in the play, every gymnast and every horse-rider would be the center of attention at least once in a while. They would have parts, as in a real theater, not numbers like the freaks of nature in a museum.

These would be the immediate results of the reform: greater profit for

"THE VERY SMELL OF THE MENAGERIE EXCITES US. DOGS, HORSES, ELEPHANTS -EVERY FORM OF ENERGY IN FLESH THAT ENLIVENS OUR LITTLE EARTH-THIS

SEEMS MORE INTERESTING THAN THE DISPLAY OF THE MECHANICAL ENERGY OF THE MOST POWERFUL AND COMPLICATED

MOTORS"