The educational record of the province of Quebec, 1 mai 1910, Mai

[" Educational Record of the Province of Quebec + + + May 1910 .Vel.XXX EDITORIAL NOTES AND COMMENTS.We publish in this issue a copy of a letter sent to all Inspectors of Protestant Schools in this Province by Dr.Sinclair, Dean of the School for Teachers, Macdonald College, in which he points out the advantage to be derived by School Boards in communicating with him in regard to securing the services of a competent teacher.SUMMER SCHOOLS.In view of the fact that at the present time much stress is being placed upon the importance of the proper teaching of the French language in our Superior Schools, all teachers who have a fair knowledge of the language and an aptitude for teaching it should avail themselves of the opportunity afforded by McGill University to perfect their.knowledge by attending the Summer School in Montreal, next July.In this issue will be found a copy of the curriculum \u2018and all necessary information for candidates.NOTE TO TEACHERS \u2014 To interest the senior pupils and provide them with profitable reading a few pages of interesting selections and original items will appear in each issue of the RECORD.Please call the pupils\u2019 attention to these pages and ask them to read such parts as they prefer.\u2014 EDITORS. 164 The Educational Record.HAND AND EYE TRAINING.At the present time there is a quickened interest in Hand and Eye Training over the whole civilized werld.Many new books appear on the subject every year, but none are more deserving of high praise than \u201cEducational Handiwork,\u201d by T.B.Kidner, Director of Manual Training for the Province of New Brunswick.(Educational Publishing Company, Toronto.) Mr.Kidner is an Englishman of sound common sense and thorough education.He came to Canada ten years ago at the request of Professor Robertson, to assist in establishing the Manual Arts in Canadian Schools.He is well known to most of the the teachers of this country through his illustrated articles.on Hand Work, which have appeared frequently in the leading Canadian and American educational journals.The work deals briefly with the general question of Handwork, and then describes courses of lessons to extend over the first eight or nine years of school.The first courses carry the pupils from exercises with Kindergarten paper, through modelling with stout paper into the construction, designing and decorating of cardboard models, book covers, etc.For the higher grades there is the Construction in Cardboard of the Common Geometrical Solids, and the application of cardboard work to the study of Descriptive Geometry.Finally, there is a well-illustrated chapter on raffia work, the wrapping, braiding, netting and weaving of this material into a hundred forms beautiful and useful.There are enough drawings in the book to make the work practical.In addition to the working drawings, a perspective view of many models is shown.The descriptions are perfectly clear.In fact, Mr.Kidner prepared the book for those who knew little about the subject, and he tells just what to do and how to do it.Any interested and intelligent teacher can take the book and give the course of lessons.That the work is jyst what thousands of teachers are looking for goes without saying, and it is not surprising that the book is being introduced into almost every Normal School in Canada. The Teacher\u2019s Mental Attitude.THE TEACHER'S MENTAL ATTITUDE.By F.H.SPINNEY, Principal William Lunn School Montreal.We read a great deal these days of the value of a correct mental attitude.On it are said to depend in a large measures Health, Happiness and Success.Whatever there is of truth in this doctrine applies with special emphasis to the teacher.To no class of workers is a correct mental attitude more essential.It will be well to consider the matter in four divisions\u2014their view of the profession, their breadth of mind, their attitude towards the child, and the attitude towards the school as a whole.I.As to their view of the profession.Ruskin says: \u201cTell me what you like, and I'll tell you what you are.\u201d If a teacher tells candidly her opinion of teaching, we can form a fairly correct estimate of her rank as a teacher.Miss A, with the untidy appearance and worn-out expression, answers that she \u2018\u2018detests teaching,\u2019 and that she longs for the hour of dismissal, and more especially for the approach of the holidays.To her the vital consideration is the monthly check, and she is loud in her denunciation of the À poor salaries paid to teachers.We all know Miss A's rank E as a teacher.Miss B, on the other hand, is enthusiastic over the wonders of the child mind, realizes, with a deep feeling of responsibility, the marvellous possibilities of her work, and goes to her daily task with joy in her heart.She welcomes the holidays as a period for a much-needed rest, as well as for her own personal growth and development.She does not scorn the pay envelope; but knows in her heart that the salary is not the god that she worships.Her dress and her countenance betoken her spirit.She had no \u201cbad\u201d pupils.She realizes that mischief is but a form of misdirected energy; and seeks to prevent mischief by directing the energy in proper channels.Work should ever be judged by the worker.When princes dig ditches, ditch digging becomes royal labor; when a tyrant ascends the throne, kingship becomes a dishonor.2.As to the teacher\u2019s breadth of mind.Next in importance to the nature of our thought is its area.Have we been wearing mental blinders so long that we can think a A a mn inh Tn 2 a MDE ae AC em es Re + SARS SAI > Bite 166 The Educational Record.x only in one direction?Has all our knowledge been obtained from prescribed texts, and is our conversation confined to petty gossip and a repetition of commonplaces?Does education to us mean the mere memorizing of a stock list of cut and dried facts and figures?Or have we reached a plain where we get a wider view, where education means evolution, development, growth?Physical life implies eliminating dead matter and evolving new tissue: so mental life must imply eliminating false, lifeless thinking and refurnishing our mental storehouse with material, bright, attractive and up-to-date.Who are our mental companions?The passing writers, or the mighty dead who yet live?How often do we seek the society of Tennyson, Carlyle, Emerson, Ruskin\u2014those inspiring souls who are glad to talk to us, without affectation or conceit?Are we exercising our own thinking machine to its fullest capacity, or, to express a sad plight in one expressive word, are we in a rut?Is it not time that we took account of mental stock, cleared away the rubbish, and got out into the busy market place, to take note of the mental merchandise that is moving there?.As to the teacher\u2019s attitude towards the individual pupil.Is this boy in the front seat, with the rosy cheeks and blue eyes, but a spoke in the wheel or routine that we turn?Does \u201ctalkative\u201d Tommy disturb our mental serenity?Do we often cherish bitter feelings towards a \u201ctroublesome boy\u2019 because he does not render a passive compliance to all our time-honored rules and regulations?Do we become impatient and angry because \u2018\u201cstupid\u201d\u2019 Willie is a \u201chopeless case,\u201d even after the most thorough treatment with our prescription of facts and figures?| Do we realize that each boy who comes to us for guidance and instruction is a wonderful, untried possibility?Here are muscles, nerves, brain, whose future experiences .are unknown to the wisest philosopher.Residing in his physical, mental and moral structure are latent faculties, awaiting the skillful guidance of the educator for their best development.Are we fitting our system of work to the child, or are we attempting to adapt the child to an unyielding system?Unless the former is our aim, even under the most difficult conditions, we are not fulfilling the highest functions of the noblest calling. i 0! al * The Teacher's Mental Attitude.167 4.As to the teacher\u2019s attitude towards the school.Here before me are 35 boys and girls.They have assembled here, not knowing any well-defined reason; but in conformity with an evolved custom.That they may learn to read, write, spell, etc., does not involve a small percentage of what is essential to make them industrious, honest, successful, happy men and women.Their health, their manners, their tone of voice, their physical appearance will all have a marked influence in shaping the course of their lives.Is our discipline of such a nature as to guide them in that self-discipline so essential in the keen struggle they are about to enter?Are we cultivating in them a love of what is noble, true and good?Do we make it plain to them that in the great battle of life he is the coward who yields to temptation without a struggle, or runs away from difficulties without a brave attempt to conquer them?In a word, we have under our control a miniature community of budding citizens.Are we using our best efforts to make them good citizens of the larger community that they are so soon to enter?We, as teachers, are moulding the characters of the coming mayors, aldermen, judges, cabinet ministers, etc.That is, we are shaping the destiny of the nation.Nor are these exaggerated statements.Is our work then something to be treated with disdain?Should a teacher be guilty of admitting that the teacher\u2019s status in the social world ranks below that of any other calling?Has any intelligent man ever given a reascn why it should be so?\u201cThe teacher\u2019s time is spent with children.\u201d Is not a large portion of the parent\u2019s time spent with children?If not, it should be.Of course, there are men and women who consider the grand rush for the almighty dollar of far more concern than the physical, mental or moral welfare of children.Whatever others may think of the profession of teaching, let the teachers maintain that it is the most important and the noblest calling in the world.Tf we do not really think so now, we can make ourselves think so by holding that thought firmly in the mind, and by giving it emphatic expression on every appropriate occasion. 168 The Educational Record.THE GRAPHIC METHOD IN HISTORY.By W.CLARK SANDERSON.I recently picked up a chance copy of Garlick\u2019s New Manual of School Method, and in glancing through the section dealing with method in history, I found no less than seven methods enumerated and explained in outline.These were as follows: 1.The chronological method which tells the story in the strict order of time.2.The Parliamentary method by which \u201ca reign is taught through the medium of its Parliament.3.The Classification method which classifies the details - of a period under a series of well-known heads as growths of liberty, colonization, education, church, trade, navy, etc.4.The Biographical method in which the events of the reign are considered as the work of the great men of the reign, example, Lord\u2019s \u201cBeacon Lights of History.\u201d 5.The Progressive method which begins with present times and works back step by step to the earliest times.6.The Concentric method which presents a point of interest in a simple form and expands it by more comprehensive study.7.The Comparative method which sets side by side two men or two events that are similar and brings out their similarities or contrasts.To these I would add another method, and it is this I wish to discuss in the present article.I refer to what I call the Graphic method.There is no teaching device quite so useful as the graph.Its simplicity, its adaptability, the ease with which it may be constructed, the perfect conviction it carries\u2014these give it advantages not possessed by summaries or analyses, pictures or supplementary texts.There is no subject which it will not illuminate.When it is required to summarize the functional relations of the several digestive organs, to correlate the nutritive processes of a plant, to exhibit the proportions of English, French, native, etc., in the population of Canada, to show barometric variations, to illustrate the maximum value of a function of x, to find the resultant of The Graphic Method in History.169 two forces acting at a point, to compare Canada\u2019s drink bill with her expenditure on schools, to teach the musical scale, to set forth our direct line descent from the Mayflower Pilgrims,\u2014we can find no method of representation or elucidation so direct and thoroughly self-explanatory as the graph.A magnitude of one kind is used to represent a magnitude of another kind.A magnitude of three dimensions is represented by a magnitude of two dimensions or even one dimension on a page.A purely intellectual magnitude possessing no spacial dimensions is symbolized by a material magnitude which makes a direct appeal to the senses.Returning through the senses to the intellect it clarifies the conception of itself and increases its own value, 1500 1608 ; 1760 .1900 ï Indian Tribes French Colonies British Rule K i i no [I EE Cabot Cartier Champlain Frontenac Wolfe Pontiac Durham Macdouald The value of the graph as an aid in the teaching of history is, I believe, very little regarded, even by those who if asked are ready to admit its usefulness.The teachers of Manitoba have now for several years been afflicted by the presence on the programme of studies of a dismally dry and unteachable text in Canadian history.Both teacher and pupil dread to open the subject, and even if they possess the requisite courage they are compelled to expend an unnecessary amount of energy in organizing the jumble of facts the book contains.For this reason I shall use Canadian material to illustrate the graphic method of teaching history.The student about to enter on a course in Canadian history has already had a course in English history.He knows what a \u201cperiod of history\u201d is.So his first lesson will not wisely be the first four or five pages of a continuous narrative of Canadian events.He can grasp broad relations.He can seize the whole period in his mind.If it is set before him in bare and complete outline he can see it as a scheme which he can more and more completely fill with facts and persons and events always in the true relations.When this has been securely grasped he can leave the general consideration of the whole scheme and study the story in order, in detail and in entirety. 170 The Educational Record.Canadian history is somewhat over four hundred years old.Its whole duration may be represented by a line of : convenient length, say 12 inches, on paper, or 6 feet on the A blackboard.When the dates 1500 and 1900 are marked 3 at the ends of this line with a fraction of an inch extension at each end for the dates 1497 and 1910, the student has compassed the limits of his subject.Within these limits we will now proceed to set up land marks dividing the whole into periods.Indian, French, English, marking each with its conventional date.At two or three points in each period we will write the names of most prominent actors, and as a means of impressing their personalities we will give a few interesting personal incidents relating to them.Then, as the student would be required to draw and redraw a map of a province, so he must now copy and repeat his graph 4 until he can produce it with freedom.It is the elementary scheme of his term\u2019s work to which he will return continually as he fills it with detail.The scheme of division into Indian, French and British periods is adopted as one of the most definite that can first be presented.But as the chief actors in the story are intro- 1 duced, the nature of their work and the changing conditions A under which they worked will lead to a new division or sub- B division of the whole time, on the basis of more abstract i conceptions.Cabot and Cartier inaugurate the period of discovery which indeed has not realized its sunset yet, but which shone with noonday splendor by the achievements of Champlain, Marquette, La Verendyre, Mackenzie and Fraser.To Cartier belongs the glory.of the first European colony in the land.The story of the vicissitudes of colonization will require a new set of landmarks corresponding to the times of war or peace in the colony or at home.Under each regime various administrative experiments were made.Each type of government was introduced by an act or decree which had the advantage of a definite date.It endured a definite time and gave place to another.Each of these phases of the history will form the subject of a graph, which may be used by the students as an exercise or furnished by the teacher.In either case it will be made the subject of a class discussion and will be related in graphic form to the first fundamental graph\u2019 of the national Delta The Graphic Method in History.171 periods.This last point is most important.There will be no method that will give in so concise, clear form the general relations of any period.E Another valuable form of the graph as a history teacher EB is the map.For an example we need go no farther in search É than to Duncan\u2019s \u201cStory of the Canadian People,\u201d in use in 1 all our schools.The extent and boundaries of the territory possessed by Britain in successive eras is easy to remember.If arranged in sequence on a page their positions there will soon give them permanent positions in the memory, and their comparison will always raise the question of why the changes took place.Marking on a map the places concerned in a series of events 1s a valuable exercise, but it lacks one feature of importance, it does not give their chronological order.This may be overcome, however, as follows: Let the outline of the region be drawn.Then at the bottom of the sheet let a linear graph of the period be made with the required dates marked.Now draw a light line from each date to the point on the map where the event occurred.1f more convenient the date line may be drawn as a circle or semi-circle surrounding the map.This will allow shorter leading lines.The difficulty of remembering dates has been the subject of many worn-out jokes.All kinds of menemonic aids have been suggested.Garlick\u2019s book above mentioned describes a method of pigeon-holing them which may be of some assistance.I shall describe it by quoting direct: \u2014 18310 1811 1812 1813 Queenston Heights Lord Selkirk Moravian Town 1814 1815 1816 Lundy\u2019s Lane Seven Oaks 1817 1819 Victoria Born ROSE 172 The Educational Record.\u201cEach decade is divided into nine squares in three rows.of three each.These squares are surrounded by a top border which always begins the decade.It will then be observed that the ones and the nines are at opposite corners, as are the sevens and the threes, and that the five is always in the middle.It is claimed for this method that after a little practice the difficulty is not to remember, but to forget.The event desired to be remembered should be entered under its proper date in the square.Professor Meiklejohn has paid it the great compliment of adopting it in his history.It has this to recommend it, that it is based on space relations, and so presents a picture to the eye.\u201d This last characteristic is in fact the one feature of special value in all graphic representation.\u2014 The Hestern School Journal.ENTHUSIASM IN TEACHING ARITHMETIC.Many a teacher is made unhappy on account of the response of her classes in arithmetic.The children seem dull and uninterested.They have to be forced to do their work.They forget what they have learned and their progress is slow.We sometimes lay the blame on the natural dullness of the children or to their previous training, but often it lies somewhere else.A class that is dull for one teacher is bright for another; one that seems to have no background of information for one is teeming with knowledge for another.The difference lies not so much in the classes as in the teacher's ability to arouse and sustain interest and enthusiasm.A teacher unable to do this has a dull class.The one who can has a bright, lively class.What, then, are some of the things which arouse enthusiasm?What things, on the other hand, dampen it?A long list of answers might be made to either of these questions.Some things, such as enthusiasm, thorough preparation on the part of the teacher, organization of work, and regularity and definiteness of lessons, must be taken for granted as necessary to sustaining interest; the habit of scolding, keeping delinquent children after school, and lack of enthusiasm in the teacher must be considered Enthusiasm in Teaching Arithmetic.173 as some of the final causes for the lack of interest.There are other things equally important which we are likely to overlook.In discussing what will arouse enthusiasm we are apt to overlook the psychological law that the mind likes to do what it feels confident that it can do.This is the truth in the saying, \u201cNothing succeeds like success.\u201d A class that has found out that it can compute with some degree of skill takes pride in the fact and works with enthusiasm to perfect itself.Such a class will work hard.On the other hand, a class that is discouraged has the air, \u201cWhat 1s the use anyhow?We never can do it.\u201d It makes but little effort.One of the first rules for arousing enthusiasm, therefore, pertains to encouraging a class.Wise praise, a contended face, a smile of approval, together with work developed by easy steps, go far toward obtaining the interest ° of a class.Work that is too difficult, the habit some teachers have of informing their classes that their work is poor, are the next way of killing enthusiasm and making the work unsatisfactory.A sound means of kindling enthusiasm is the develop- - ment of independence on the part of the children.The teacher who does the work for a class, interrupting an explanation, prompting a child or otherwise offering him a crutch, will have in the course of a few weeks a dull, powerless, dependent and unenthusiastic class.A child called upon to recite, instead of expressing his ideas with avidity and quickness, will stand and wait for his teacher\u2019s impatient questions.The attention of the class as a whole will be lost and everything will go wrong.How different it is when the children are made to depend on themselves and the class rather than the teacher.If a mistake is made it is the business of another child to discover it and offer aid to the pupil who has made the error.If a child does not understand, the other children question him in a most co-operative, lively manner.Everyone is attentive, everyone is eager to help; everyone feels alive and enthusiastic.One of the best means for obtaining the desired independence on the part of the pupil are the game work and original problems.A game by nature is a scheme of co- 174 The Educational Record.operation and stimulation.Each child is put on the alert, watching for his turn or waiting to catch some one else.The work with original problems is similar.Data are put on the board and the imaginations of the children are stimulated.The child acts on his own responsibility.His problem and work are his own.In order to establish a third rule for securing enthusiasm in a class there must be a recognition of the fact that the brain has its periods of effort and fatigue.T'o continue one kind of work after the mind is tired is to more than waste time.It kills enthusiasm and interest.The wise teacher, therefore, sees that within each recitation there is enough variety planned to avoid fatigue and consequent loss of time.It 1s well to divide a recitation into short periods with the little children, one for quick work, another for the development of a new idea and the application of the same, and another for original statements and problems connected with the thought or process developed.Such a plan gives variety and at the same time allows for unity and thoroughness.A fourth phase of the work to be eniphasised concerns the seat-work of the children.It helps the pupils to respect their work and fee! enthusiasm for it if they are taught to do this neatly, to illustrate it occasionally with pictures cut out of magazines or with diagrams drawn with a ruler.If the teacher further takes enough interest occasionally to exhibit the work of all the children, good and bad, by hanging it about the room, the children feel that \u201csomeone cares,\u201d and have corresponding pride in their papers.Slovenly seat-work is a sure test that a class is losing, rather than gaining, ground.A fifth means of securing one end is keeping the motive for the work pure.The work should be done for the sake of the work.Rewards, stars at the blackboard, lists of names, destroy the right motive and make the work a means to self-aggrandizement and selfish egotism.Threats of punishment, punishment itself, such as keeping children after school or failure of promotion, are of the same nature as rewards and should be used with special care.The arithmetic work should be lively enough and interesting 175 Enthusiasm in Teaching Arithmetic.enough to be done for the mere pleasure of the activity.The mind likes to use its power of logic and its mechanical task of computing just as the body likes to take food.To substitute an artificial motive for a natural one is to kill the natural one and deaden the work.A sixth and final rule for making the children enthusiastic over their arithmetic has reference to the slower children in a class.If the bright ones are encouraged and the slow ones discouraged, the breach between them grows wider and wider until the class gets to a point where it 1s almost impossible to do anyone in it justice.The bright pupil has his rights as well as the dull pupil.He should not be kept back, but every subject has its intensiveness as well as its extensiveness.The bright pupil should be expected to go deeper into things and acquire more skill, while the ground covered is adapted to the slower pupils.More problems should be given the bright ones to do; more original work should be required of them By this means justice can be done to both classes of pupils.Power to kindle enthusiasm might be summed up in the following rules: Give the pupils confidence in themselves by keeping the work within their power and by encouraging them.Make the pupils independent by throwing the responsibility of their work upon them.Give sufficient variety in a recitation to prevent fatigue.Lead the children to take pride in their seat-work.Teach arithmetic for the sake of arithmetic without rewards or punishment.Give the bright children extra work; adapt the program to the duller pupils.The same rules might be expressed negatively: Do not scold or otherwise discourage pupils.Do not interrupt a pupil's exercise or otherwise do his work for him.Do not lose time by keeping upon an exercise after the minds of the children are fatigued.Do not encourage habits of carelessness by accepting untidy seat-work.Do not offer rewards or inflict punishments.Do not neglect the dull pupils, or leave the bright pupils without sufficient work to do.\u2014Teachers\u2019 Magazine. 176 The Educational Record.SCHOOL MANAGEMENT.There are two kinds of school management, the autocratic and the democratic.Both are results of two beliefs or theories of education.In one case school management is a means of education, in the other it is the fundamental principle of the education.In the first it is in the hands of the educator; in the second, it is in the hands of the educated.The first method maintains itself in the belief that education is knowledge; the second maintains itself in the conviction that education 1s power to do, to think, and to react in the best possible way to world stimuli.These two methods are so innately distinct that it becomes an easy matter to trace each with its corresponding theories of education and all the involved factors.The autocratic method vests most of the power and executive work in the teacher.The success of a room is- assured or denied inasmuch as the teacher 1s inspiring and forceful on one hand or uninteresting and weak on the other.By the word success note that we do not imply cooperation, thinking or doing, but refer only to an external order, or rather a negative freedom from disorder and mischief.Now, since all teachers have not the same degree of power it follows that the real success of our schools is a matter of chance.The classes will range from A to Z, and lack letters to express differences.There is a need for a constant force, and that force must be a basal principle which leaves out the teacher\u2019s personality and power of discipline and makes paramount the tendencies common to every child, to every class, to every school.However, if those who apparently succeed in this autocratic method show desirable results along truly educational lines there may yet remain some defense for it.Let us ask, why do we educate?The most practical and truest answer is, to fit children for life and its problems.This premise at once gives us the definition of education.Education must be power\u2014power to think, to plan and to execute.The means to the attainment of this power is the 'mportant question, and one which never can be solved until mere facts are ignored and the individual respected.Many realize the aim of education theoretically, but are lost in a sea di wean 177 School Management.of doubts when practice enters into consideration.In the average schoolroom the teacher directs, questions, answers, sets her standard, and judges and acts accordingly.At best, what dwarfed conditions! Think of fifty living intelligences under the czardom of one mind.These chii- dren ape and imitate; a development is forced upon them when they are not ready.Devotees of this method claim that the age and experience of the teacher makes her naturally the source of all knowledge and power.Yet, just because she is so far beyond in age and intellect the child must despair.He has no force with which to compete.Is it not true that all humans like to match strength with adversaries when emulation is possible?We all like work with people of our own or nearly our own capacity.Then again, the teacher must at times grow irksome.Her questions grow wearisome, for they are products of one individualism.She does not understand, when perhaps maintaining a passive order by mere indomitable will.why some heads droop, few hands respond and a heavy lethargy results.She has order, but the order of torpor and restraint.Fellenberg says: \u2018Experience has taught me that indolence in young persons is so directly opposite to their natural disposition to activity that unless it is the consequence of bad education it is almost invariably connected with some constitutional defect.\u201d Spencer says, too: \u201cFven when, as considered theoretically, the proposed course sems best, if it produces no interest, or less interest than another course, we should relinquish it; for a child\u2019s intellectual instincts are more trustworthy than our rea- sonings.\u201d If, then, we follow where the \u201cchild's intellectual instincts\u201d lead we shall never err by dogmatic teach- ng, but shall gladly accept that method which awakens interest and makes the child a spontaneous, living, thinking and moral living.The self-governing method vests most power in the child, and by creating conditions similar to future ones, and teaching the child now to react fulfills the truest ideal of \u201c education.The simplest \u2018and most practical form of this method is that of self-questioning.The teacher gives her lesson and receives concentrated attention, because her words, few and fraught with significance, have become precious; her questions are few and pointed, and given, not fg.à { 3 i H 178 The Educational Record.so much to test as to give a model and to lead the mind by gradual degrees to the end in view.Having acted as guide she throws the subject like a ball into the field.The children wrestle and grapple with a vim.No longer contending with an enormous superior force, but with power averaging their own they grow confident and pass rapidly from one conclusion to another.Eyes brighten, cheeks glow with the mental gymnastics\u2014every child is alert, ready to question an inaccurate statement, glad to add additional knowledge, ready to give and take wholesome criticism.During all this each is learning to give way, the first steps in the lesson of unselfishness and consideration of others.The wholesome criticism of classmates is a rare tonic for braggadocio and domineering, and, strange to say, a far more effective one than the teacher\u2019s reproval.At the same time the child is getting facts, assimilating and reacting; he is becoming quick-witted and observant, for he feels responsible not only for his own but his neighbor\u2019s words.Polite and deferential, unselfishly interested in his fellow-being, he assumes his right position in society.He learns to adapt himself to circumstances quickly, and acquires an assurance and confidence born of self-judgment and not of conceit.In short, he becomes an active member of a democracy.For the child the benefits of the latter method are obvious; for the teacher, interest and pleasure.School work is no longer a routine, but gives opportunity to watch and study the most interesting growth, that of human nature, a miniature panorama of evolution.Spencer believes that \u201cthe genesis of knowledge in the individual must follow the same course as the genesis of knowledge in the race.\u201d Thus we can see that this method of conservative self- government with the teacher as guide, is the straightest road to power.It is based upon natural and undisputable principles, and is only a continuation of outlet to the God- bestowed curiosity of mortals.The autocratic method at best creates a submissive frame of mind, but the submission of force degenerating into cowardice, whereas the restraint of the self-governed is self-control evolving morality and vigor.The world cries for emancipation.Why should it not begin in the minds of our future citizens and statesmen, the nation builders >\u2014FEducation. 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