ited censure, only to unite them the more firmly in his defense. And he who can not command this concurrence of good-will and unquestioning support of the better part of his teachers, will find his wisest art of little avail.

With the consciousness that the principal is with her in her efforts, feeble though they be, there can be no foundation, no suggestion, for the charge sometimes made that the teacher has no resource, no redress. She should feel that he is at hand, and but too willing to render any aid, ever ready with his counsel and full support to sustain her, or rather to enable her to sustain herself.

Not for every little difficulty and annoyance should she fall back upon his authority, with paltry complaints and petty questionings, thus stepping down from her true position, forfeiting the confidence of her pupils, and soon losing her own self-respect. Few things will sooner deprive a teacher of her power for usefulness before her class than this habit of sending pupils to the office for correction. In truth, her highest usefulness is already gone before the frequency has yet become a habit.

Quietly, calmly, and firmly, with faith in herself and in young humanity, unruffled by seeming failure and obvious reverses, hoping still, must she persevere, trustful where trust is found, kindly interest winning respectful love, and mutual regard finding expression in willing obedience, sympathetic effort, and unfailing gratitude.

Never in haste or in anger should a pupil be referred to the office, and, save in the rarest of cases, not till the principal has been seen by the teacher and fully informed of the nature of the fault or failure. Often this conference itself will render it unnecessary to send the pupil at all.

But when the need shall come, as sometimes come it will, the worthy teacher should find ready to her support the full authority of the principal, the board of education, and the entire moral force of the community. With each and every day should the principal be so well acquainted with the character of the teacher's work, and her manner of discipline and instruction, that no serious difficulty could come upon him by surprise, or find him unprepared for the crisis.

What greater folly than for a teacher, in a moment of irritation or weak despair induced by late hours, a hasty breakfast, or jangling nerves, or, it may be, by the weariness of too severe study, to send an offending pupil to the office! The principal is probably away hearing a recitation or visiting a room. The offender meets in the hall four or five companions on the same errand, all ready for a united raid upon the teacher's character, her weakness of temper and control, and listening with admiring glee to the recital of his shrewd devices, and their success in making the teacher mad.

And when, by and by, they subside into quiet at the principal's approaching footfall, what can he do? "Well, John, what do you want?" "The teacher sent me." "What for?" "I don't know." "What have you been doing?" "Nothing." "Did she send any word?"

"No; she just got mad. I didn't do nothing." The principal throws away a little good, but inappropriate advice upon him, and sends him back to his room to repeat his deviltries.

And she goes to bed in tears that the principal does not support her. No redress for the teacher! The considerate, fairly intelligent teacher can always rest in the assurance that there is no public or private interest to which the entire people will always give such full and hearty support as to any reasonable measures for adding to the efficiency and success and the good name of the public school, in which are centred their highest hopes and deepest affections.

Now and then is found an unreasonable parent, it is true, but his unreasonableness is not lessened by an unreasoning teacher.

My experience teaches me that there is no more fruitful source of the irritation and unreasoning complaint of parents than the frequent notes of teachers to them that, "the child whispers," "your son looks around, he laughs," "John makes a noise with his feet," "Charles whistled," "was tardy twice last week," "I caught Mary to-day writing notes," "I wish to have you call and see me to-morrow," "your son cannot return to school again unless you come with him," "I told Fannie to stay after school and write her spelling ten times, and she went away;" แ Harry pulled a girl's hair, and I wish you to punish him severely;" "Willie asked to go out, and I found he had been playing marbles."

How exasperating, how destructive to the order and scholarship of the school any one of these may seem to the sensitive, earnest teacher! What sleepless nights and sorrowing days are hers! Oh, that she could teach these young and erring natures to see as she sees! And yet, to the laboring, loving, doting father and mother, proud of the bright spirits and active minds of their children, how paltry, how frivolous, how petty it all seems!

"Our children are good children-playful, as they should be; they mean nothing bad; we wish them to do well, and we think they do. The school ma'am is a crank; that's what's the matter; and the principal isn't much better, or he would put a stop to all this nonsense."

Fortunately, with us no one can send a pupil from school for misconduct, for tardiness, or on an errand but the principal; and I have a growing belief that no note, no letter, should be sent to a parent which has not been submitted, at least, to the principal; that no parent come to the school in matters of misconduct without first of all meeting the principal. If he deems it desirable to call in the teacher, well and good; but the interview should be with the principal. Most of the parents of our pupils are workers, and the need of calling at the school means a half day's pay. Almost all of these troubles should never go to the parent; he can do little, or nothing. The teacher must guide the childish heart into prompt, orderly, obedient, and industrious ways; and she is poorly provided for her work who has often to call upon either parent or principal for the thousand little things which stand in the way of the erring incompetent's success.

The co-operation of the parent is indeed desirable, and no worthy effort should be omitted to secure it; but it can never be obtained by the repeated letter and the frequent complaint. These too often result in irritation and the unguarded remark in the presence of the child, which sadly detracts from the teacher's authority, and is the fruitful source of much of the discontent and disorder of the school-room. The truly incorrigibles are usually from families in which an appeal to the parent had better have been omitted.

And when one or two conferences prove unproductive of good, the principal had better fall back upon his own resources, nor farther disturb the parental mind.

With the perfect teacher, who understands the thought of the child, there are, in my judgment, no incorrigibles of sound mind; with the average teacher, there will be here and there one; with the poor teacher, the good pupil is the exception, and for the most part, is goodygoody and dull.

The bright boy or girl of ten or fourteen years, who is to make his way in this world, is full of strong but untrained activities, which, unless grasped and guided by the sympathetic teacher, will lead to infinite trouble in the school-room and in the home. From the homes of the rich, from the homes of the poor, they come to us, and the wise teacher must, at the fitting moment, seize upon these vital forces and kindly turn them into the channels of truth and duty.

No sham, no cant, can impose upon the American youth; straight, honest, honorable conduct alone can prevail. The youth has his rights as well as the man of mature years, and he understands fair treatment and kindly interest. And with no corporal punishment in our schools, shall we ask a parent to beat his child?

Shall we thus admit our own incompetence, and request the parent to supply our deficiencies? Too often the severity of the parent is the thing to be deplored, and the kind consideration of the teacher the one element of humanity that can arrest and save the young heart from destruction.

But the true work of the principal is yet to begin. The teachers and their pupils are in their rooms; the morning song is sung, and the hum of busy life is heard. And no more trying time for the young teacher can be imagined. Sixty young minds and hearts to be interested and secured; sixty active bodies fresh from the home or the street to be brought into harmonious action, calmed, quieted, and controlled. And where shall she begin? Much of this first day's work must be helped out by the principal, in seeing that this temporary initial work is sys tematic and pleasing.

The older teachers need little aid; they start off without a jar, free from friction or idleness. With the closing bell they have their classes well in hand, their work wisely laid out and lessons assigned, and with a few friendly words of wise counsel their classes, with high purpose,

confidence aroused, and quiet demeanor, bid a cheerful good night and depart.

But with the inexperienced, who shall depict the slowly passing hours? With no definite aim, ignorant even of her pupils' names, with no assigned exercises, and with longing thoughts of the high school from which she has just come, and no developed interest in the little, loving, helpless, dependent beings, hanging upon her every word, to which she fears to give utterance; here is a field for the principal, if wise, to do his best work, and lay the foundation for the success of his school, and for the most trustful reliance and surest support of his teachers. Happy the principal who knows his opportunities!

The first temporary programme should early receive his careful attention. No unimportant item is this programme of work, and should not be left to the hap-hazard guess of a young girl, who cannot as yet, have given any special thought to the machinery of the school or to the development of the mind and character of the child.

The different subjects should follow each other so that each may be a change, a relief from the preceding. Some should command the freshest, brightest thought of the pupil, while others may require less mental effort, and yet serve as an incitement, an inspiration to better work. No principal, zealous of the highest success, can neglect the programme of exercises for the several rooms of his school. Upon their prompt preparation and wise arrangement depends, very largely, the success of the school and his fitness for his position as a school principal.

The weary assistant teacher will be pleased to observe that I make no weak apologies for the shortcomings of the principal.

He has accepted his position for the performance of certain, and several uncertain duties, and is to be held to a strict account for the proper performance of such duties.

Now, apart from his manifold duties of receiving and classifying pupils, must he see that the daily programme is faithfully carried out; that the teachers have gained a hold upon their children, and aroused them to the real purposes of the school and are directing their thought and action into the ways of growth and progress.

There are certain methods in numbers and language which they should follow; certain clearly defined ways in geography, in history, which every teacher should know and accept; and the principal, in these early days, should, by kindly counsel and timely suggestion, see that the approved methods and systems are observed, not disdaining, now and then, to take a class himself. Unfortunate indeed the school which has reached a point beyond which is no improvement.

The excellences of every teacher and her deficiencies should be well understood by him, and with a hearty commendation of the good and a ready discerning of the better elements of the less successful, and the fitting suggestion to remedy the defects, should the principal be ever alert, ever courteous, and always reliable.

To one the word of encouragement is needed to strengthen her weak spirit; to another must he suggest some method or device to enliven her work; and yet again endeavor to impart the true ideal of education and its purpose to one who knows and thinks of school only as the avenue to the regular salary; guiding and directing all, yet leaving always freedom enough for the teacher to test her own strength and ingenuity. In a recent teachers' examination, in answer to a question as to the advantages of having a pupil complete the grade under a single teacher, I was not a little surprised at the almost uniform statement, in effect, that when a class is promoted to a new teacher, much time is lost in a complete and thorough review of the previous work to ascertain what the class knows.

It is a fact well recognized by every principal of a dozen years' experience, that no class in primary, grammar, or high school ever passes to a higher grade more than partially prepared for the work, in the opinion of the receiving teacher. This can be safely assumed with no loss of time in extensive reviews to learn it.

Not a day, not an hour, should be thus employed. The class has been promoted by the principal, upon what he deems a sufficient test, and it does seem a pretty severe reflection upon his judgment and discrimination for his assistant to institute a lengthened investigation into the fitness of the pupils for their work. The principal should make it sure that the new class enters at once upon the new work.

Lookout Mountain would never have been climbed if, after the first successful assault, the surviving officers had gone back to see how far they had got. It was the impulse of that success that carried the brave boys up and over, with little for the officers to do but try to keep up with them.

And so should the teacher, receiving a new class, avail herself of that advance of the pupils to go onward and surmount the difficulties before them. What though some expressions other than her own are used; some definitions given in a different form from hers? These can be easily righted, if need be, as the weeks go by, without disconcerting and discouraging these young, ambitious souls, by sharp criticism of their carelessness and negligence, or even their previous instruction. She may profitably recall that at the next remove her own forms of expression and statements are likely to undergo the same ordeal from her superior teacher.

By the very act of promotion, the principal has decided that the class. has satisfactorily completed the earlier grade, and should allow no fancied insufficiency to stand in the way of an immediate, unconditional advance upon the new subject; and no teacher should, for an instant, stop to question the qualifications of the class. Every new topic involves more or less of the preceding, and any real defects can readily be remedied with no discouraging halt or demoralizing withdrawal. Little interest do the hopeful boys and girls find in beating over the old straw