JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL SPELLER. By Ruth M. Slauffer, A. B., Instructor in English in the McKinley Manual Training School, Washington, D. C. Benjamin Sanborn & Co. Price 40 cents.

THE HOME AND COUNTRY READERS. Books II and III. By Mary A. Laselle and Dr. Frank E. Spaulding. Little, Brown and Company.. Price 65 cents each. See review of this series in Education for December, 1918.

SPANISH FABLES IN VERSE. Edited with Introduction and Vocabulary by Elizabeth C. Ford, A. B., and J. D. M. Ford. D. C. Heath & Co. Price 60 cents.

We have examined with some care and great interest the books and pamphlets put out by Mr. Charles T. Luthy, of Peoria, Ill., relating to his discoveries and conclusions upon the coming and final handwriting for We have a good deal of faith in his schools, business houses, and every one. theories, and we certainly admire the results in the specimens which he He seems to have gone into the matter more funshows of correct writing. damentally than any one else, and his system squares, apparently, with "the processes of nature, in conformity with the principles of movement, vision and geometry." There have been so many changes of system in handwriting during the past fifty years that to the “lay" mind it has seemed as though there were no right and wrong about this matter, and as though it was intended that each person should be a law unto himself in the important concern of how he should shape the symbols of thought by which to communicate his personal messages to his fellow-men. Every Editor has many times "fallen from grace as a result. Railroad accidents have happened. People have married the wrong mate; and innocent victims have been hung, probably, because of faulty and unintelligible chirography. If a genius has at last arisen to set the world straight on the matter of handwriting, he certainly should be hailed as great among the greatest. We wait to crown Mr. Luthy.

some.

Periodical Notes.

We call attention to the November 12 issue of The Outlook. For one thing it includes a fine editorial on "Calvin Coolidge, American," showing the national and world signifi-Boys' Life for November offers a cance of his election as Governor of Massachusetts.— long list of interesting stories for boys, and we suspect many a father will covertly read "Troop One of Labrador" is the title of one, by Dillon Wallace, with pictures by Clide Forsythe.It is a little late to call attention to September issues, but we have just noticed three articles of special interest to teachers, as follows: In the September number of the Review of Reviews, "Two Historic Colleges," by Plummer F. Jones,-referring to William and Mary and Hampden-Sidney Colleges in Virginia: an article by Clifford E. Lowell in The American School Board Journal, on "The Diminishing Value of the Dollar and Teachers' Salaries:" and one in the Century Magazine by Glenn Frank, on "Humanzing Education."

MISS BANCROFT'S SECOND BOOK OF GAMES

HANDBOOK OF ATHLETIC GAMES

FOR PLAYERS, INSTRUCTORS, AND SPECTATORS Comprising Fifteen Major Ball Games, Track and Field Athletics and Rowing Races

-BY

JESSIE H. BANCROFT, Assistant Director of Physical Training, Public Schools New York City; author of GAMES FOR THE PLAYGROUND, HOME, SCHOOL, AND GYMNASIUM

-AND

WILLIAM DEAN PULVERMACHER, Flushing High School, New York City

$1.80

This book does for organized athletics what Miss Bancroft's famous GAMES FOR THE PLAYGROUND, HOME, SCHOOL, AND GYMNASIUM does for miscellaneous games; it is a veritable guide-book in its field. Negative rules are supplemented, and in many cases replaced, by concrete positive instructions.

Among the games which are fully described are

EDUCATION

Devoted to the Science, Art, Philosophy and Literature

VOL. XL.

T

of Education

JANUARY, 1919

Teaching for the Future

E. W. DOLCH, JR., UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS,

CHAMPAIGN, ILL.

No. 5

¤ EN years after the boy has left school behind him, what remains as a result of his twelve years' work there? For the ten years he has been working in a wholesale dry goods house. He has acquired accurate information of the working of his particular department and a very good knowledge of the dry goods business in general. Very seldom has he thought of school or anything connected with it; his "downtown" life and his social life evenings and Sundays have completely occupied his mind. He has run across one or two of his friends who said they were attending some college or university and he has vaguely wondered what sense there was in going to school any longer than one had to. In other words, he is the typical young man engaged in business and destined to fill some more or less responsible position in the great economic machine that keeps us all fed, clothed and amused.

But during those twelve years within school walls, many earnest teachers and principals were striving to "do something" for that boy. If he was indifferent to the process through which he was going, they were not. They did what they thought was best for his individual future and for the future of society, and they did it with all their might. Many grew prematurely old and jaded in the process. But the sense of the importance of their work, both to the boy and to his fellows, carried them on over a sea of difficulties. Now that the boy is really in the midst of the

world for which they prepared him, would it not be well for them to consider and see if their labor was well spent?

The English teacher, his most constant shepherd, considers the question. For four years she hauled him through "classics." He did not know what it was all about; she knew, at least, that it was "the thing to do." Her own teachers had told her at the university that literature would elevate the boy's taste in books. She had therefore done her duty untiringly. The course had also included Composition. The boy had written many "themes," and the English teacher had painstakingly put many blue marks and comments on them. She had also held many earnest conferences with him about them. All this labor was gone through that he might acquire "correct English." That was ten years ago. Now the boy's English is about as correct as it was when he left high school, and a little bit more correct than it was when he entered there. The English teacher never did get the boy to talk differ- · ently from his companions and he does not speak differently from them now. But what of the literature that took up most of the time? Well, he doesn't read the sort of books he studied in school or anything like them. In fact, he hasn't read a book in the whole ten years. Books are too long and too slow; they're for girls and old folks. The only reading he has done has been in the odd moments now and then when he has been without work to do and without a companion to talk to. On these occasions he has picked up some "good" magazine that gives you a story without taking all day about it. He selects his stories by the pictures. You can tell a lot about them that way.

The Mathematics teacher sizes up the boy to discover what the ten years have left of her labor with him. Of his algebraic knowledge but one detail remains. When you say "X" you mean some unknown thing or other. He knew all about quadratics once, but if you mentioned the word now he could not place it. Though he did an excellent examination at the end of the course, an examination paper given to him now would be meaningless, though strangely familiar. Of his geometry book he remembers many of the figures as pictures or illustrations. Some of the