already closed and to restore them to healthful action.. 4. When pupils become weary, a live song is a very good substitute for a recess without the disorder that a recess often brings.

Morally, the result of instruction in vocal music is of the highest importance. 1. The great fountain of all human emotion is opened by music. A noble sentiment clothed in poetry and given to the world in song strikes deep into the human heart. 2. It produces cheerfulness and good humor, thus enabling the teacher to preserve better discipline. Anger, hatred, malice, and indeed all of the evil passions give way to pure and noble sentiments through its influence. 3. It aids the teacher in managing his school, because it tends to unite discordant elements. The military commander well knows the influence of martial music upon his soldiers, but the experienced teacher knows that it is no greater than that exerted upon his pupils by vocal music. 4. It fits one better for social enjoyment, as well as religious worship. 5. The young and tender heart is thus made susceptible of good impressions, and the earnest and conscientious teacher can easily sow the seeds of truth. The hardened and sinful heart is as frequently led to a reformed life through the influence of song as through that of eloquence.

Friends of song, let us plead the cause of vocal music until every child in our land has an opportunity to learn something of it in our public schools.

PRACTICAL ETHICS OF THE SCHOOL-ROOM.

ELENORA STACKHOUSE.

IT is a theory of the "New Education" that every branch of knowledge is capable of expansion so as to include a moral element: That this embraces the True, that the Good, and another the Beautiful. It is conceded that every direction in which the mind expands tends to the elevation of the soul, and this very admission, by being so general, renders careless the casual observer of the workings of an educational system and blinds even those actively associated with it as to just how much and the kind of good taken in with a given amount of culture in a given direc

tion. At present we accept the fact that a boy is better in school than out, but we fail to define the specific good he is to receive when there. We admit that an educated rogue is more dangerous than an ignorant one. It therefore behooves us to inquire whether in giving our future citizens the knowledge which is to constitute the power of the land, we are not also furnishing him the material and desire to work his fellow-man a more consummate injury, and to accomplish for himself a more skillful ruin. We understand that these evil tendencies are supposed to be neutralized and a counteracting moral influence infused into the mind of the pupil by the mere act of his breathing the air of the school-room-how else? It is certain that this is one of the things left to take care of itself, aimed at indefinitely and reached, if at all, incidentally. We shall endeavor to prove that it can be aimed at incidentally and reached indirectly, which is quite a different thing. We have specific means within our reach and grasp at generalities not capable of application.

The nation demands of the common schools a race of practi cal men and women, ready for emergencies; the man himself is a part of no race and is building for eternity. God places in our hands a child, the country a text-book. How are we to deduce from the three R's a code of morals that will not clash with actual experience? How are we to teach that "Honesty is the best policy"? Is the purpose of the soul accomplished in dis cussing honesty as a policy? Is it not merely an expedient? And then the first business transaction of the boy after leaving school seems to belie it. What is there to fall back on when honesty fails in the light of policy?-dishonesty.

A moral principle should be as positive as the law of gravitation and not capable of convenient construction. The True is absolute and does not furnish material for argument. The soul takes cognizance of axioms and has the courage of its convictions to condemn. Then it must suffer deterioration in asserting black to be white. So in developing integrity, the factor of most value is the absolute.

Every branch of knowledge has its peculiar applicabilities and for the purpose under discussion no subject is so well fitted as

mathematics. In the first place it is an absolute science,every statement is capable of proof, from the assertion that twice two are four to the minimum line. Every number bears a certain set of relations to every other existing number. Hence knowledge is accurate and inaccuracy is a falsehood on the face of it, and capable of demonstration.

Let us see what difficulties the child encounters and what he has to learn. He is taught first to count to ten with objects, talks of ten and all preceding numbers and verifies his knowledge with objects, learns the signs of representation, combines the numbers within the limits and puts the result into written expression. He knows that 2 stands for that number of objects, that +means to put into one group and to separate into two. For the learning of these arbitrary signs only sufficient time must be given to impress them on the memory, or you find yourself in difficulty in some other place. That done, extension of knowl edge for a few years means repetition of the same principles under different conditions. Memory is strengthened but not depended on, for the child is to be required to prove every statement with objects. Reason is not yet developed,-let the eyes see, the ears hear, and the fingers enumerate every given requireThen the visible sign. Call on memory for nothing but the arbitrary sign to represent the verified statement. Do not permit a child to say two and two are four unless he can prove it. Then clinch the fact with numberless illustrations which the child himself is to make. Assume the character of doubting Thomas and he will be anxious to convince you, himself and his companions that there is no doubt about the matter.

ment.

Now the time will surely come when he can conceive the numbers abstractly, but never carry him to the point of not feeling the obligation of proof. Teach him to be as careful of representation as of thought; that the signs used, though arbitrary, are absolute and almost universal in their significance. He knows that if he means 3, 7 will not convey the idea of three to others; that he would as well tell you he had eight cents when he had but five as to represent it in figures. The child will say he "forgot," "made a mistake," or "didn't think." He would

never think of offering such an excuse for a verbal, and ought he to be allowed to make such a one for a written falsehood? We are presuming that the child has been carefully and accu rately taught. He knows what the result of the calculation should be and the written expression of it. Here is the point, he is morally responsible for every statement within his knowledge. Hold him to it. Culpable carelessness degenerates into a tendency to plausible explanations of false accounts. The old adage, "Figgers never lie," may be read to mean that the makers of 'figgers' are responsible. Inaccuracy ought not to be permitted. The child ought not to feel that an incorrect answer is possible, that he is held for results within his knowledge, that "I didn't think" can no more be accepted for a wrong calcula tion than for asserting that it was night at mid-day.

In this place we must be careful how far the child's knowledge extends; a requirement beyond that is a positive injury, for it induces the expedient of 'guessing,' that can not be too strongly reprehended. Numbers are truthful, and in our dealings with them is involved the integrity of the character.

In some processes of reasoning the mind may fail to see true relations, but, given the right process the answer follows as a certain result. In taking up new work with advanced classes the question must be carefully reasoned, process accurately taught, results never considered. To teach them an incorrect answer is impossible from correct reasoning.

Aside from a moral standpoint the world calls false accounts dishonest, in school it may have been a "mistake." Calculations in a class on a promissory note may vary according to the accuracy of its individual members and seemingly no great harm done except to strengthen the feeling of indifference, but if in business the maker of the note differs from the holder he might justly be accused of wishing to turn it to his own advantage. The pupil who contends for the merit of making but one mistake while his class mate makes two, stands not on his own intrinsic value, but views himself relatively and is satisfied with. being a point better than his neighbor instead of aiming at perfection. He resorts to expedient, nothing is absolutely pure bnt

He spends at least enough

only less adulterated than the next. energy to cover up and make appear accurate to have made it so twice over from the beginning. The world has not time to investigate, unless he owes it money, and what matters the disapproval of his own soul?

These are the capabilities of numbers in developing the integrity of the character, some of the causes of unintentional falsification, and some of the methods by which a truer sense of their importance may be reached.

We have a two-fold purpose in all our teaching,-fitting for eternity and for practical life, where, though the fine surface may be soiled the grain is uninjured and what a man is he remains then if knowing the evil he remains unsullied, the Beautiful is his relaxation, the Good his consolation, and the True the active principle of an undaunted soul.

AN OLD SONG ANALYZED.

You all know the old familiar song:

"Sing a song of sixpence,
A pocket full of rye,
Four-and-twenty blackbirds
Baked in a pie," etc.-

but have you ever read what it is meant for?

The four-and-twenty blackbirds represent the twenty-four hours. The bottom of the pie is the world, while the top crust is the sky that overarches it. The opening of the pie is the daydawn, when the birds begin to sing, and surely such a sight is fit for a king.

The king, who is represented as sitting in his parlor counting out his money, is the sun, while the gold pieces that slip through his fingers, as he counts them, are the golden sunshine.

The queen, who sits in the dark kitchen, is the moon, and the honey with which she regales herself is the moonlight.

The industrious maid, who is in the garden at work before the king (the sun) has risen, is day-dawn, and the clothes she hangs out are the clouds, while the bird, which so tragically ends the song by "nipping off her nose," is the hour of sunset So we have the whole day, if not in a nut-shell, in a pie.-Illinois School Journal.