Leaped the squirrels from the branches

Merrily from birch to aspen;

Climbed the ermines on the fences,
O'er the plains the elk deer bounded,
And the lynxes purred with pleasure;
Wolves awoke in far-off swamp-lands,
Bounded o'er the marsh and heather,
And the bear his den deserted,
Left his lair within the pine-wood,
Settled by a fence to listen.

Pause here for the picture of the forest scene of listening birds. Read slowly, line by line, and wait for the mental picture to form.

All the birds that fly in mid-air

Fell like snow-flakes from the heavens,
Flew to hear the minstrel's playing,
Hear the harp of Wainamoinen.
Eagles in their lofty eyrie

Heard the songs of the enchanter;

Swift they left their unfledged young ones,
Flew and perched around the minstrel.
From the heights the hawks descended,
From the clouds down swooped the falcon,
Ducks arose from inland waters,

Swans came gliding from the marshes;
Tiny finches, green and golden,
Flew in flocks that darkened sunlight,
Came in myriads to listen,

Perched upon the head and shoulders
Of the charming Wainamoinen,
Sweetly singing to the playing
Of the ancient bard and minstrel.
And the daughters of the welkin,
Nature's well beloved daughters,
Listened all in rapt attention;
Some were seated on the rainbow,
Some upon the crimson cloudlets,
Some upon the dome of heaven.

The children will need a little help here in picture making. Choose your words and give aid slowly.

In their hands the Moon's fair daughters
Held their weaving-combs of silver;
In their hands the Sun's sweet maidens
Grasped the handles of their distaffs,
Weaving with their golden shuttles,
Spinning from their silver spindles,
On the red rims of the cloudlets,
On the bow of many colors.
As they hear the minstrel playing,
Hear the harp of Wainamoinen,
Quick they drop their combs of silver,
Drop the spindles from their fingers,
And the golden threads are broken,
Broken are the threads of silver.

Here follows another rare opportunity to train the imagination. One of these scenes is enough for one reading. There could be nothing more disastrous to this song than to hurry it.

All the fish in Suomi-waters
Heard the songs of the magician,
Came on flying fins to listen

To the harp of Wainamoinen.

Came the trout with graceful motions,
Water-dogs with awkward movements,
From the water-cliffs the salmon,
From the sea-caves came the whiting,
From the deeper caves the bill-fish;
Came the pikes from beds of sea-fern,
Little fish with eyes of scarlet,
Leaning on the reeds and rushes,
With their heads above the surface;
Came to hear the harp of joyance,
Hear the songs of the enchanter.

Ahto king of all the waters,
Ancient king with beard of sea-grass,
Raised his head above the billows,
In a boat of water-lilies,
Glided to the coast in silence,
Listened to the wondrous singing,
To the harp of Wainamoinen.
These the words the sea-king uttered:
"Never have I heard such playing,
Never heard such strains of music,
Never since the sea was fashioned,
As the songs of this enchanter,
This sweet singer, Wainamoinen."

Now follows a mermaid scene. The children will need help here also, but not too much. Don't explain too much. It is delicate work to touch such imagery as this. Trust to the rhythm and the children.

Satko's daughters from the blue-deep,
Sisters of the wave-washed ledges,

On the colored strands were sitting,
Smoothing out their sea-green tresses
With the combs of molten silver,
With their silver-handled brushes,
Brushes forged with golden bristles.
When they hear the magic playing,
Hear the harp of Wainamoinen,
Fall their brushes on the billows,
Fall their combs with silver handles
To the bottom of the waters,
Unadorned their heads remaining,
And uncombed their sea-green tresses.
Came the hostess of the waters,
Ancient hostess robed in flowers,
Rising from her deep sea-castle,
Swimming to the shore in wonder,
Listened to the minstrel's playing,
To the harp of Wainamoinen.
As the magic tones re-echoed,
As the singer's song outcircled,
Sank the hostess into slumber,
On the rocks of many colors,
On her watery couch of joyance,
Deep the sleep that settled o'er her.
Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
Played one day and then a second,
Played the third from morn to even.
There was neither man nor hero,
Neither ancient dame nor maiden,
Not in Metsola a daughter,
Whom he did not touch to weeping;
Wept the young and wept the aged,
Wept the mothers, wept the daughters,
At the music of his playing,

At the songs of the magician.

The Teaching of Direction.

I

"Now that you have given them all of Nature that you can within the four walls of the school-room that is to say, literature and art do not fail to crown your work by taking them to the source of this inspiration, out into Apollo's meadows, into the presence of the gods themselves. "In the secondary grades, particularly in schools where the Greek myths are taught in the primary grades, it is better to begin this work by teaching the points of the compass. This may be done in a dozen different ways, of course. have found that suspending with a silken thread, a bar magnet or a magnetized knitting needle from any support from which it can swing freely, is an effective and suggestive way of teaching the North. When it is quite certain that all children know which way is North, South, East, West, Northeast, Southeast, Northwest and Southwest, take them out to notice from which direction the wind comes. It must, of course, be made perfectly clear that the leaves, smoke, flags, the clouds, etc., will be blown in a direction exactly opposite to that from which the wind comes. If, for example, the smoke is going toward the Southeast, the wind is from the Northwest and is called a Northwest wind. - Mrs. L. L. W. Wilson.

A Queen's Idea.

There has been held in Roumania a doll show that was one of the most remarkable, if not the most remarkable, ever seen. Queen Elizabeth, of Roumania, decided that it would interest not only her own subjects, but the people everywhere who could get to it, to have an exhibition of dolls from all the royalties of Europe, as well as from noted people whom she knew. Letters were sent to the great people of Europe, and immediately the dolls began to appear: Russian dolls in native costumes, dolls from Queen Marguerita, of Italy, representing native costumes; Dutch dolls in all the glory of caps from Queen Wilhelmina, who also sent the model of a Netherlands peasant's home. Some one sent groups of dolls, twelve hundred, representing the styles of dress worn in all time from the days of Moses until now. Dolls were dressed and grouped to represent great historical events. A wagon-load of dolls were sent from Paris. There were fairies, Undines, elves, brownies- all the people who live in. the world of fairy-books that only the children recognize and enjoy. Naturally, Queen Elizabeth, of Roumania, was made very happy by the success of her idea, and she guided the people about and explained the groups to those who did not know them.- Sel.

R

Picture Studies II

EDITH GOODYEAR ALGER Bennington Vt. EFERENCE is frequently made to the child's vocabulary, his spoken, written and reading vocabulary. If there were such a term as idea vocabulary it would serve a good purpose in expressing that mental possession of children which must be given special consideration in all picture study. Precisely as we recognize in preparing reading lessons that certain words are or are not a part of the child's vocabulary, so in picture study his knowledge or ignorance of particular ideas must be taken into account.

Teachers, and there are very, very many, whose classes are composed largely of the poorer foreign element, cannot fail to be impressed by the marked influence of material environment in determining the child's range of ideas. Little children whose homes are destitute of what are usually considered essentials of life, whose mode of living is so entirely different from our own, that the use of many most common household belongings is unknown, bring, it must be remembered, a strange "idea vocabulary" to interpret pictures and stories, based on even most familiar phases of American life. In view of this it is a most interesting study to discover just what images certain expressions arouse in the minds of these children, as the following instances show :

1. One happy, bright, little primary girl upon hearing for the first time the story of the "Three Bears," regarded the pictures thoughtfully, and pointing to Goldilocks on the bed, remarked, "She'll fall." "No, I think not, Tina," said the teacher, "you don't fall out of bed, do you?" "But mine isn't on the table," was Tina's immediate reply. This little daughter of a most respectable and honest rag vender had actually never seen a bedstead, and to her the four-legged object was a table with a bed on it a strange sight indeed for a child whose family were accustomed to repose, after the manner of their ancestors on mattresses laid upon the floor! 2. A teacher after reading a story in which a fireplace was mentioned, asked the children to illustrate it. A five-year-old boy promptly made a graphic sketch of a burning building and showed it proudly to the teacher a fireplace surely!

3. A little girl on the same occasion called the teacher's attention to her own dingy apron, where the marks of fire could be seen. "I have a fireplace in me dress," she announced with considerable satisfaction. A fireplace was a good thing evidently—she was glad she had one!

Children are quick to ascribe a meaning to unfamiliar terms, and usually it is, from their point of view, a most reasonable and natural one; they are equally adept in translating the ideas of a picture into the language of their own experiences. A child who had never been introduced to lions called a colored picture of lions in a cage, "A big trap full of yellow cats; "an elephant is the "big cow with a long nose." In picture study most grotesque misconceptions are sure to be formed if the child's range of ideas is not taken into consideration first in the choice of the picture to be studied, and then in preparing and conducting the lesson.

The accompanying sketch shows a phase of life which is doubtless quite outside the realm of actual experiences of the children, and includes a variety of objects which are wholly unfamiliar to the class, but if studied carefully step by step, always using the child's previous impressions to

interpret the newer thoughts, it presents no unintelligible features. It is evident that this sketch, presenting more entirely new objects of thought than the one given in the last number of PRIMARY EDUCATION, will afford a series of interesting and profitable lessons which should be closely linked to the history stories of February, and although more definite information may be derived from studying this picture, the opportunities for the play of imagination and poetic fancy are no less great than those outlined last month. The sketch should be treated as a continuation of the one previously studied. Draw first the bare outlines of the room, the fireplace, and one door, adding the other objects as they are proposed by the children, letting it be a progressive picture story. In this way the class really helps create the picture, while seeing it grow at their suggestion is a powerful stimulus to imagination.

The teacher, thoroughly alive to all the possibilities of thought which the sketch possesses, can by tactful questions and comments guide the children's observations and imaginings along definite lines, avoiding that tendency to irrelevant digression which is the ruin of lessons not carefully conducted in this respect.

If the children do not know what fireplaces, fireirons, and other objects are, the teacher, knowing that they do not know, should make such points clear before using these objects as elements in the sketch. Prepare the children's idea vocabulary for picture study exactly as you would prepare his word vocabulary for a reading lesson, every teacher knows best what preparation is necessary for her particular class.

Some of the thoughts the children will read from this picture as the lesson or lessons proceed are: We can play that we live here, or we have come to visit. We can think it was a long time ago, when nearly all boys and girls lived in rooms like this. It is cold out of doors, cold and windy and snowy. We can hear the March winds if we listen. What do the March winds say? The fire makes it warm. The logs of wood are blazing. The fire sings and snaps and crackles and smokes. There are pictures in the fire. The boys who live here bring in the wood, The logs come from the woods on the hills. Boys who help about the farm and slide down hill get very hungry. Food is being cooked in the kettles over the fire and in the great brick oven; perhaps it is time for supper. The little girl and the mother prepare the table, the candles are lit and the family sit down. Then let the children picture the family group at the table and tell what the father and mother and children would talk about. After supper, what happens? The grandfather sits in the settle near the fire and tells stories to the children. It was suggested by one child that Grandpa was in the war with General Washington - for this all happened so very long ago!

By and by bedtime comes for the little girls, who say goodnight and take a candle to light them upstairs. From their soft warm beds they can see the moon and the stars keeping watch; the trees wave good-night to them and the wind says good-night as it rushes by; the mother comes and kisses them good-night and off they go to "Hushaby Street," says one little lover of Eugene Field's "Rockaby Lady."

And so, little by little, the children enter into this bit of quaint, homely, homey, beautiful living almost as truly as if they were there in reality.

No, it is all the sun's fault! The sun warms the earth but does not warm it all equally, and this is the cause of winds. If there were equal temperature all over the earth the air would lie quiet around it. As it is, some parts of the earth's surface grow very warm, and warm the air above them. This warm air expands and pushes upwards with force enough to overcome the power of gravity, which is all the time pulling it downwards, and not only does it push itself upwards, but it pushes before it the upper air. Then the air nearby creeps into the place left by the ascending warm air, and the same radiation from the warm earth warms this air also, and it rises in its turn, thus making a continuous current of ascending air, whose action on the surrounding air starts other currents in different directions. When these currents of air are near the surface of the earth, and almost horizontal in their motion, they are called winds. These are the principal winds.

There are light breezes, called "tidal breezes," which are thought to be caused by the rise and fall of the tides, where the tides are strong. The rising tide pushes up the air whose place the water fills, and when this water ebbs again the air creeps back to fill its place. You can see that these tidal breezes amount to little.

There are also occasional winds caused by the hot air rising from a volcano, or from such a conflagration as the Chicago fire." Sometimes an avalanche or a landslide may cause a wind by violently pushing the air before it, as does. a railway train. But these are very local and accidental winds, and of slight value compared with the regular windsystems,- so regular that our Weather Bureau can classify them, and, by observing and studying them, can predict their direction and force.

"Of what possible use is the wind? Of course I know we could not have had America discovered if there had not been winds for the ships, but we have steamers now, and don't need the wind for them."

Wind may help or hinder even the steamers, and the world does not yet lack sailing-vessels, yachts, or windmills, to which wind is necessary, though it has other and more important uses. Without wind - that is air in motion

our breathing would soon be a difficult matter. Think how close it would be if the air we have breathed stayed around us all the time, and was never blown away! Even the trees and plants could not give out oxygen enough to balance our use of air in cities and towns. Moreover many of our trees and plants would die out after a time because

there was no wind to carry their pollen to the waiting stigmas, or their seeds to fresh growing-places.

Without currents of air we should lack rain, and certainly we should suffer from heat even more than we did last summer if we had no cool breezes. On the whole we should be badly off without winds.

"Will you tell me how people in a city can rear tadpoles successfully? The eggs I had last spring all failed, and yet we tried different ways of caring for them. One teacher put hers in a south window, and I had mine in an east window."

Probably your water was too warm. Out of doors the eggs are laid in water that is cold, and they get no heat except that of the sun. In the school-room the air is heated more or less, and if you add to the temperature of the room the heat of the sun in an east or south window, the water would probably be altogether too warm. In rearing tadpoles from the eggs I have used a four-sided tank, with an iron frame and glass sides, and this holds quite a body of water, four or five gallons. But this is not necessary. A fish-globe or a large candy-jar will serve instead if it is not over-crowded. There should be sand in the bottom, an inch deep perhaps, and a few water-weeds to aërate the water. The sand and weeds can be bought at any of the aquarium stores in a city, and are easily arranged. Tadpoles will nibble at a bit of raw meat, bread, and the decaying vegetable matter in the aquarium. In PRIMARY EDUCATION for October, 1898, "E. B. G." has an article on "The School Aquarium," which will tell you just how to start yours and how to manage it. The disadvantage of a globe or a cylindrical jar is the distortion of the water-creatures seen through the rounding glass. Small four-sided aquaria can be had at very reasonable prices, and will be more satisfactory for watching the creatures, although they will thrive as well in globe or jar.

"What special beauty is there to look for in March? It seems mostly wind and dust as I think of it in years past, and I should be grateful for anything I could really enjoy in it."

Try the tree-tops. See how the swelling buds and the bare twigs make delicate traceries against the bright blue sky. Notice how different is the "lace-work" of the elm from that of the maple, beech, oak or ash. Learn how the buds are set on a twig of each tree you can find, and which buds swell first. But more than all, see the beauty of the tree-tops as they are now. It is only in early spring that you will see them in just this beauty, this promise of other beauty to come, this soft mistiness, which is so beautiful in itself. You are far enough south to get this in March, while more northern observers will have to wait longer for this starting of spring life,

"Like the first faint streak of the dawning
Which tells that day is nigh,"

and when you have looked and seen, and made yourself know each tree in this stage of its life I think you will be ready to say

"I can feel the delicate pulses That stir in each restless fold"

"What could a red squirrel be doing flat against the trunk of a maple tree as if he were trying to embrace it but couldn't reach all the way round ?"

He might be trying to conceal himself by flattening his body out against the tree, but on a maple, and after the sap has started, he was probably having a feast. I have seen red squirrels on sugar maples licking the sap as it trickled down from a little cut in the bark, and so absorbed in their enjoy ment of the sweet drink that they would not start unless I put my hand on them. I have never been able to find out whether they gnawed the bark to make the sap flow out, or whether it was accidental. Perhaps some of you have been more fortunate and can tell me.

ceiling and up smooth window-panes ?” "How can flies, spiders, and other insects walk on the

I will tell you in a moment, but first let me say that spiders are not classed as insects by the latest writers, who call only the Hexapoda insects. Spiders are Arthropoda. Flies have little pads on the bottoms of their feet, and from these pads grow hollow hairs, through which the fly

Where you are, in New Jersey, I think chipmunks may be out. Dr. C. C. Abbott reports watching chipmunks from March to November. In Massachusetts I have never seen them before April, I believe. Dr. Abbott's books would be useful to you because they give the times and kinds of animals you are likely to come upon in your part of the country.

Woodchucks I have never seen as early as March, for they must wait until clover, or some other plant on which they feed, has grown large enough to eat. They like cabbages, carrots, and many of the garden vegetables, but eat the wild plants when they cannot get these. Last October there was a woodchuck in the yard, over near the stable, and the stable kitten used to go with it into its hole in the stone wall, and sit by the opening watching while the woodchuck ate clover. At any sound which startled the woodchuck and made it start for the hole, the kitten would dart in out of the way, to leave the hole clear for the woodchuck.

"What kind of bugs can we find now? I suppose my school must be taught about caterpillars and beetles · - but how I do hate crawling things!"

Oh dear! Will the time ever come when teachers, and other non-entomological persons, will speak accurately about "crawling things?" If you mean " caterpillars and beetles," you do not mean "bugs." Bugs are hemipterous insects like the squash-bug, the chinch-bug, the bed-bug, the flower and leaf bugs, plant-lice, and the various "water-boatmen." Their mouths are formed for sucking the juices of plants, to do which they must be able to pierce the tissues of the plant also. Some of the bugs have become parasites of man or beasts or birds, and disgust us very much. Others have unpleasant odors, like the "stink-bugs" which are often found among the wild raspberry bushes.

Among the bugs the "leaf-hoppers" and "tree-hoppers" are the most amusing from their grotesque shapes and queer expressions. Comstock's "Manual for the Study of Insects," page 154, gives a picture of four of these tree-hoppers, whose appearance might well have suggested the " Brownies."

You see you do not mean "bugs," you mean "beetles and caterpillars," and it is quite as important to call insects. by their true names as to be accurate in other ways. You may find caterpillars which hibernated and now come out for a sunning before becoming pupæ, and you may find beetles under stones, logs, bark, and leaves, but you will not find many of either until the leaves begin to be large enough to serve as food for them, though you may find some butterfly larvæ or caterpillars, on violet leaves, or among the new grass blades. Butterflies you will doubtless see, though not many yet. Lady-bugs," which are not " bugs," but beetles, will begin to crawl out of their hiding-places in the house, and appear on the windows. So will the "Buffalo-beetles," if you are so unfortunate as to have any in your house. The "lady-bugs" are very useful, for they eat plant-lice and "cottony-cushion-scale insects" which would otherwise do much harm to plants. In California these scale-insects were ruining the orchards, and an entomologist advised importing from Austrialia some "lady-bugs" of a special kind, as these were known to feed on the cottony-cushion-scale insects. The little beetles were sent for and put on the trees,

the ceiling or window-pane firmly enough to prevent its falling, but so slightly that it can lift the foot for another step without any difficulty. The pads are called empodia, and the hairs tenent hairs, or holding-hairs.

Some of the bugs, Hemiptera, have no pads but have pores in their feet, and from these pores the fluid exudes. Some beetles have the holding hairs, as have the larvæ of some of the two-winged flies, but the long-horned beetles have sucking-disks, or lobes, and no fluid.

The presence of this adhesive fluid and the use of the holding hairs have been discovered only recently.

The honey-bee has very curious feet. They have claws which catch in rough surfaces and enable them to walk up these vertically, or to cling to them, and they also have a sort of flap, called the pulvillus, which is used in climbing smooth surfaces to which it adheres when pressed down flat. When the pulvillus is used the claws are bent back out of the way, and when the claws are in use the pulvillus is held up and back.

"How much do those big green woodbine caterpillars see? They seem to fumble about so blindly that it does not seem as if they saw anything.

They see very little more than light and darkness, and their range of vision is very short. They have only ocelli, very simple eyes, not like the complex eyes, with many facets, of the butterflies which see more. It is thought that the use of the ocelli is "the perception of the intensity and the direction of light, rather than vision in the ordinary acceptation of the term."

Almost all night-flying moths have ocelli, as well as compound eyes, while of the butterflies, which fly by day, only one kind has them. The others have complex eyes. Many insects have both kinds of eyes, and these usually have three ocelli set in a triangle above and between the facetted eyes, which are more or less protuberant like those of a dragonfly. Most larvæ of insects have ocelli only.

"Do grasshoppers and crickets make their noises in the same way?"

Not in quite the same way. Some grasshoppers rub the inner surface of the hind legs against the outer surface of the wing-covers, and as there is a row of very small spines on that part of the leg, a shrill sound is produced. Other grasshoppers rub the front edge of the upper surface of the hind wings against the under surface of the wing-covers, but this is done when flying, and makes the queer crackling noise we hear so often.

Crickets have a file-like vein across the base of each wingcover, and, on the inner margin of each cover, a hard spot. In making "their noises" crickets raise their wing-covers in such a position that the hard spot of one wing-cover touches the file-like vein of the other wing-cover. Then by moving the wing-covers so that the hard spot rubs on the vein, they make the sound which we call "chirping."