The multiplication table, for example, should be learned mechanically. Machines are made to multiply. The more machine-like a pupil in his multiplication, the better he has been taught. The same is true of spelling, penmanship, correct usage, reading, as far as it consists of recognizing words, and certain forms of drawing and manual training.

But the school has another duty: to build character, to stimulate and foster growth in life. Such growth is never mechanical and must always involve what seems like waste. The stimulation and direction and nourishing of the growth of the higher powers of the individual, his reason, and his emotion, must always be the most important duty of the school, even of the elementary school. Knowledge of the world today, of how people live and work and govern, and of what is going on that is of vital interest to those even remote from us; knowledge of the past, of how ideals and institutions and governments have developed, all knowledge that builds up in the individual mind and heart a world like the real human world of striving, suffering, rejoicing; that opens and enlarges the mind and broadens the sympathies, that makes him a better citizen; the teaching and experience that enables him to appreciate the beauty of God's handiwork in nature, and of man's ideals and aspirations in music and art-none of this must be neglected.

For more than a generation now, however, the work of the school has suffered because of a confusion of methods and because nature's "hit-andmiss method," as John Burroughs calls it, has been followed in teaching purely mechanical processes. To a certain extent the reverse is also true and the method of teaching mechanical processes has been followed in those subjects that are in no sense mechanical, but are nourishment for the growing feelings and reasons.

Some educators have declared that the chief reason for teaching a fact, such as 5X7 equals 35, was not the fact itself but the development of the pupil's character which would result from the proper teaching of the fact. Because her class studying multiplication knew the facts of that table, and could always give the product of any numbers less than twelve instantly and correctly, it did not necessarily follow in the teacher's mind that her work had been successful. So she lost, and her pupils lost, much valuable time over "the process." Alice Freeman Palmer used to tell of a little girl who was struggling one evening over a simple problem in arithmetic. Mrs. Palmer offered to help her and said, after looking the problem over, "Why, this is simple. Don't you see what the answer must be ?" "Yes, yes," the child replied, "I know what the answer is. It's the process that troubles me."

Now in elementary education, and by that I mean such education as is supposed to be imparted in the grades below the high school, the number of facts which the pupil completing the grades must know at once, without hesitation, almost if not quite automatically, is astonishingly small. These

facts-this body of knowledge-I call the minimum essentials. The sum of any two figures when the sum is not more than twenty, the difference between any two figures when the larger is twenty or less, multiplication thru the table of twelve, and the reversal of the same in terms of division, denominate numbers, and aliquot parts of one hundred-many would accept these as the minimum essentials.

Even to satisfy the most exacting we should be obliged to add but little to the list. In Leominster we have separated these facts from the larger body of arithmetic with its definitions, rules, and problems, and put them in simple systematic form on sheets of paper, a study and oral test sheet, and a written test sheet for each grade, and the arrangement is such that pupils attain 100 per cent in the essentials and do the work in one-fourth of the time usually given. For illustration, all the facts in subtraction thru the number twenty are printed on a single sheet of paper. The pupil has this for study and the teacher for the oral drill tests. The pupils study and the oral drill in no way prevents the teacher from making sure that the child has a clear and definite idea of numbers and that he is not reciting names and symbols that have no meaning to him. A similar paper, but with the facts differently arranged, is printed for a written test paper. All the answers to arithmetical questions in subtraction that a child is expected to know mechanically can be given orally in three minutes or less, in some cases in one minute, if the pupil knows them thoroly; this includes all facts thru twenty. The answers can be written in on the written test sheet in a very short time. The time element is very important and teachers keep records of the time taken. Knowledge and rapidity are almost invariably found together. In a similar manner, correct usage, including words commonly mispronounced and the principal parts of verbs like "lie" and "lay," the ignorance of which causes confusion and error in our speech, are arranged and printed both for study and for test. We are gradually extending the work, intending to cover all the facts that should be known, in this manner.

Because of the extensive additions of the past generation to the elementary-school curriculum, the teacher of today finds the amount of time and effort that she can give to teaching the child these essentials materially diminished. Altho the essentials in any given subject are comparatively few, yet because they have not been definitely and carefully separated from the large number of other facts of less importance, they are often, indeed usually, no better taught than are those that are of little importance.

When I studied arithmetic in the grades, aside from the number facts necessary to perform the four fundamental processes, there seemed to be no recognition of the relative importance of arithmetical facts. Tho I lived in Illinois, the Vermont rule for partial payments was taught to me with as much zeal and persistence as simple interest and mensuration. Alligation'

duodecimals, and compound proportion were as eagerly and enthusiastically imparted to me as were percentage and common fractions. The same is true today, only not true to such a degree. The facts about number are almost innumerable, but the facts of number known to and necessary to the average American citizen are limited, and can be acquired in a comparatively short time. The same is true of every subject in the school curriculum. The number of facts that one might find available for learning, and, I am very sorry to say, also for teaching, about North America, is truly unlimited, but the number of facts that the average educated American citizen knows about his own continent is not large.

The teacher, very often, in fact usually, a young woman with little experience with either life or knowledge, faces this great body of knowledge, this imposing array of facts, and usually feels that she must teach it all, or at least all that part of it dealing with the section her class is studying.

There is not today, in either textbook or course of study, the definiteness and limitation that we should ask for under minimum essentials. Both the textbook and the course of study include a great deal more, and very properly, for beyond the minimum essentials we should come in contact with many facts that we may not be required to master as we do the truth that two and two make four.

The school reflects today, as it always has, its environment. We are commanded upon all sides to submit to tests for efficiency and to show efficient work as teachers or explain the reason why. Only weakness seeks cover under the cry that educational results cannot be tested. Doubtless the highest, the noblest, the most important work of the teacher can be tested only by the life that his pupils live, and the complete answer be given only by the next generation. Let us recognize, however, that the common tools of book-learning are of great importance, can be easily separated from those of less or of no importance, and welcome the testing of our teaching of them.

THE SCHOOLHOUSE EVENING CENTER-WHAT IT IS, WHAT IT COSTS, AND WHAT IT PAYS

LEE F. HANMER, DIRECTOR, DEPARTMENT OF RECREATION, RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION, NEW YORK, N.Y.

The three questions that the topic presents for consideration are practical ones: What is a schoolhouse evening center, what does it cost, and what does it pay? I shall endeavor to be as brief and concrete as possible. In order to get clearly in mind the thing itself about which we are talking, I shall ask you to come with me, in imagination, to a city out in Massachusetts and see a schoolhouse evening center in actual operation.

The early twilight of a New England winter evening has already deepened into night; the shops and markets have pulled down their shutters

and barred their doors, the hum and bustle of the day's business has subsided, and an air of relaxation pervades the neighborhood.

But the schoolhouse windows are aglow, and the doors, swinging outward, are admitting an intermittent stream of neighborhood folk, chatting in groups and couples or hurrying along singly as tho some pressing engagement were at hand.

Inside the entryway the stream breaks up as the people distribute themselves among classrooms, assembly hall, gymnasium, laboratory, and kindergarten, manual-training, and domestic-science rooms. In the kindergarten room, a dramatic club is assembled to rehearse The Snow Queen, which is to be given in the assembly hall the following Saturday night as a neighborhood affair. The secretary of the club has just announced that the committee having in charge the sale of tickets desires six more volunteers to help in canvassing the neighborhood, as the sales thus far have not been sufficient to cover the expense of the new stage decorations for William Tell, which they are planning to give at the end of the next quarter.

Up in the science-room on the third floor the orchestra is putting the finishing touches on its part of next Saturday night's program, and later, at a business session, the members grapple with the problem of securing two more violins, a cello, and a cornet, which all agree are greatly needed to give the proper balance to the combination.

A class in mechanical drawing is hard at work in the room just off the manual-training shop, and the shop itself, by this time a hive of industry, is filled with a medley of whistled tunes mingled with the music of hammers, saws, and planes. In the eighth-grade room a class in bookkeeping is in session, and across the hall the members of the stenography class are trying to adjust themselves to the seats and desks of the seventh-grade room. The instructor has just announced, however, that the school board assures him that the new movable furniture will be in place next month and that the new desks are possible of such adjustment as will accommodate the typewriters, which thus far they have been unable to use to good advantage.

Down in the gymnasium the members of the Monday, Wednesday, and Friday study classes are having an evening of social dancing, the music for which, in addition to the piano, they themselves provide by weekly dues of fifteen cents. On Tuesday evenings the young men of this group have athletics in the basement, next to the shower baths and the swimming-pool, and the young women have an equally good time with games and folk dances in the upper hall.

The men's civic club, meeting in joint session with the women's civic club, is using the assembly room for a special meeting on street lighting, a matter that has been the source of indignant protests from individual residents of that section for long time. Now the civic club has been formed, largely for the purpose of seeing what can be done to secure the proper lighting of the streets, and tonight the commissioner of public works

is to address them. After the chairman of the special committee has placed the situation clearly before the meeting, the commissioner is called upon. He explains the difficulties that have been in the way of this improvement, which he frankly admits is much needed, and points out the steps necessary to bring it about. If the civic club would organize the neighborhood sentiment on this subject and present to the city authorities a united demand in the form of a well-supported petition, together with a specific statement of existing conditions, he feels confident that the needed improvements would be made. He promises, at any rate, to use his good offices toward that end. Down in the domestic-science room that has been created out of a formerly little-used corner of the sub-basement, a cooking class for young women is in session. The click of spoons in stirring dishes blends harmoniously with the orderly hum of conversation that pervades the room. The daily grind of shop, store, office, and factory, for the moment is forgotten and the delightful task of homemaking absorbs and refreshes them.

In the day-school teachers' restroom, another group of girls is gathered discussing with the director's assistant ways and means of establishing a class in sewing and millinery. The school furniture in the only rooms available is not at all suitable for this purpose, and there seems to be a question whether or not the school committee will find it possible to provide a teacher. Someone proposes that the boys in the manual-training classes be asked to build tables for them and that permission to use the room in which they are now meeting be requested. A committee of three is appointed to wait upon the boys, and the assistant director promises to see what can be done about using the room and securing a teacher.

This is a glimpse of a schoolhouse evening center. There were four such centers in Boston last winter, as reported by Miss Mary Follett at the National Recreation Congress in Richmond a few weeks ago. In those four centers there were twenty-nine musical clubs which included orchestras, bands, glee clubs, mandolin clubs, and mixed choruses; also fourteen dramatic clubs; eleven plain sewing, novelty sewing, and Irish lace clubs; one millinery; eight folk dancing; one social dancing; four young men's civic clubs; one young women's civic club; one men's civic club; eight athletic clubs; one printing; nine art clubs; four boys' games clubs; four girls' games clubs (not only for the playing of games, but to prepare girls from seventeen to twenty to tell stories to children and to teach them games and songs); and four mothers' clubs: in all 100 groups meeting in these four evening centers.

Her report says:

The young people of each neighborhood have been steadily encouraged to do something. If someone had a wish to play the violin, that was discovered, and he was shown some way of learning how, so that he could join the neighborhood orchestra. If a young man wished to learn to debate or to know something of civic affairs, every opportunity was given him. Dancing was favored as being as valuable in its way as civic training.