school-room, in respect alike to intellectual work and to conduct, may often be best corrected if the teacher will take a humorous rather than a tragical view of them. Then, in the stress and strain of modern life, children need the relief which really good humor always yields. Teachers ought to cultivate the habit of taking a cheerful view of many experiences which otherwise would be irritating. Conflict is often rendered more intense by solemn, sedate, angry attitudes in the teacher. Humor releases nervous tension, brings into action the better feelings, and causes one to take a more joyous view of things; whereas if he be utterly without humor, it may take him days to change the unhappy set of his nervous system. Nothing will restore equilibrium in the overtense nerves so quickly as humor.

Can the sense of humor be cultivated? Modern psychology has tackled this difficult problem, but it Cultivating an has not yet solved it to the satisfacappreciation of tion of the psychologists themthe humorous selves. But one can not go astray in saying that a teacher should have near at hand some book that in a thoroughly wholesome way presents the humorous side of life. Within the last decade, publishers have brought out a number of series of books containing the wit and humor of the world. Some of these books are probably not very good, and

others may be stale; nevertheless, taken as a whole, they present the sort of thing that has for centuries made men laugh, and it is doubtless based upon a real need of human nature. If a teacher could spend a few minutes every day over one of these books, it would release his own tensions bred by conflict with unruly things, and this would help him in meeting the tragedies of his profession. Goodness knows there are tragedies enough at best, and if there is any way to turn some of them into humor, we ought to do it. What is the use of taking a pessimistic view of everything? This only makes solemn things the more gloomy.

For several years the writer has been able to study the influence of a number of different teachers upon a certain group of children. One of these teachers is a thoroughly pessimistic individual, who never laughs with her pupils. She scolds on slight provocation. If a child makes a slip with his tongue, or his pen, it is made the occasion for faultfinding, -never for a smile. This teacher has a hard time herself in her work, and every pupil in her room is more or less unhappy. Fortunately, children are usually quite insensible to scolding; but still they can not ignore this teacher altogether.

Contrasted with her is another teacher who is exceedingly autocratic, and who drives her children

at a rapid rate much of the time; but she has one saving quality which offsets her failings in other respects. She sees the fun in much that happens in the school-room, and sometimes she and her children can be heard in laughter all over the school building. Her pupils are very fond of her, although she deprives some of them of peace of mind and sleep at night if they lag in their work. But she laughs with them, and they feel she is human. People who laugh together can not long bear harsh feelings toward one another. This last teacher is a very hard worker, but her ability to let go sometimes saves her from nervous breakdown. Alienists say that sanity and mental poise require frequent change in the set of the nervous system; and while there are other ways of producing this change, humor is one of the simplest, sanest, wholesomest, cheapest, and most effective ways of securing it.

CHAPTER X

THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS

FIFTEEN years ago very few people outside of Dunn County, Wisconsin, knew anything about Me

A new educational experiment station

section of the state.

nomonie, a little lumber town,

situated in a sparsely settled To-day every one interested in educational progress in any of the leading countries has at least heard of it. Most American teachers are keeping watch of it. And when one visits England, France, or Germany, and talks with school men, the chances are he will be asked to describe the educational reforms which are in process of being worked out in this place. Many leaders in educational and social progress from every part of the world have recently visited Menomonie for the purpose of observing for themselves whether the new theories of education being tried out there are a success. It is an exceptional day now when Menomonie does not entertain distinguished visitors bent on educational errands, and speaking various languages. The thing which attracts these people from afar is the report

that the Stout Institute is demonstrating the practicability and efficiency of new methods in education, and particularly in the training of girls.

The pilgrimages being made to Menomonie today, remind one of similar attractions a hundred years ago at Burgdorf and Yverdon, where Pestalozzi illustrated the principle that children should be made to deal with real objects in all their education, instead of simply to learn words. It suggests also the vital reforms initiated at Keilhau by Fröbel, where he gave a practical demonstration of his theory that the pupil ought to be self-active in all his work, instead of simply following the lead of his teacher. It suggests once more the epoch-making work in our own country by Sheldon in Oswego fifty years ago, and by Parker a little later in Quincy, Massachusetts. Each of these places was, in its day, the Mecca for educational reformers. Each has contributed in an important degree to educational development. Some of our most highly valued educational methods to-day were first given a practical test at one or another of these experimental stations.

The feature of the work in the Stout Institute which attracts most attention is the "home-maker's course". There are training courses in manual arts and domestic science

A home-mak

er's course