to think straight in respect to the problems of modLack of effective ern social life. Not long since, the thinking in civil writer was a guest in a class-room government where first-year high-school students were studying civil government. They had memorized verbatim the constitution of the United States; and at this particular time they were learning the composition of the national congress and its functions. The teacher stated that it was the plan to have classes learn how the state legislature was organized, how its members were chosen, and what part the legislature played in government. Finally, they were to learn the organization of city and town government, following the plan of the study of national and state government. The work was almost wholly a memory exercise on the part of the pupils. In a formal, remote way they analyzed the thing they called government, much as they would dissect a plant or an animal in the biological laboratory. They classified the parts of the governmental organism and described the function of each, but they were not led to appreciate the living whole as it manifests itself in life, and as they are related to it. One sometimes sees a student dissecting a plant who has little knowledge of the conditions under which the plant lives, its provisions for maintaining life, its struggle for existence, and

the relations which exist between the plant and the animal life about it. The plant is to such a student a rather lifeless thing, without relations, and largely without function. He simply follows a formal rule in separating it into parts, which he describes mechanically according to his formula. If he should see the plant in nature he might be unable to identify it. It is practically certain he could not give its life-history, or tell any significant fact about its contest for survival, and how it serves or injures man or other creatures.

Now, the students in this particular class were studying civil government in some such remote and ineffective way as plants are often studied in laboratories. They learned the names of offices and their incumbents at the time then pending, and they described their duties according to the formal method of the text-book. But just what part the congressman from their district played in determining the welfare of people in their community, as a society and as individuals, they could not tell. The pupils will leave that class without any adequate idea of government as a living, vital, dynamic thing. So far as their study is concerned, they will be quite unable to think clearly concerning the problems of contemporary interest in government; and it is reasonable to say that very little has been done for them

which will help them to be better citizens, when it comes to deciding any complex question of social action.

Here is the way a group of boys about eleven years of age were taught to think effectively in reDeveloping clear spect to problems in civics. The thinking by a lessons started with observations different method of a voting booth. The boys were of teaching interested in watching the men come to the booth, get their tickets, retire into a private room, emerge therefrom in due course, have their names called out, and their tickets received by the inspectors. The question arose why the men had to go into a private room, and this gave opportunity for a twenty-minute discussion on the question of corruption in voting, and how people have had to devise some way to prevent bribing voters, or coercing them into voting a certain way. The Australian method of voting was considered; and the chances of any one stuffing the ballot-box aroused unusual interest. The boys were led to see why it was necessary for every man to have his name on the voting list, and why it should be called out when he deposited his ticket.

The following day the tickets left over from the previous day were distributed among the boys, and a discussion was held upon the different offices

which had to be filled. It was a town election; and the officers elected were a mayor, several aldermen, several justices of the peace, a clerk, and a treasurer. The boys were greatly interested in determining why each of these officers was needed in the town. Why could not one man attend to all the business? What would be the result if there were no clerk or treasurer or justice of the peace in the town? How is each resident of the town benefited by contributing to the support of these different officers? What would happen if the offices were all abolished? Who is the most important officer in the corporation?

For the next day's lesson the boys were asked to mention one or more respects in which their own comfort or safety in their homes or on the streets was dependent upon faithfulness on the part of the various officers of the town. Every boy came to the class with several suggestions of ways in which all citizens were helped through the activities of these officers. Most of the boys agreed that without water, for instance, furnished by the town and under the charge of a supervisor of waterworks, life would be very different from what it now is in most places. The same is true in respect to light for the streets, homes, and stores, and so on.

Next, the boys were led to inquire how these various officers were supported, who determined what

Thinking straight on the subject of taxation

work should be done, how the various officers received their pay, and so on. This led finally to the subject of taxation-usually a most difficult topic for children. But when it is approached from this standpoint, the necessity and the method of raising funds to defray public expense can be made reasonably intelligible even to pupils eleven years of age. In this manner, basing everything that was discussed in the class upon actual situations which children could observe, the government of the town was worked out in detail. At every point questions were raised respecting the danger of officers neglecting their duty; the desires of some men to get more than belonged to them; the necessity for every one to take a hand in seeing that money was not wasted in doing all these things that must be done in every community in order to protect the people and provide for their comfort. All manner of suggestions came up in the class regarding ways in which money could be wasted and officers could be unfaithful; and as a matter of fact every suggestion made related to forms of corruption which are apt to appear at one time or another in the development of any community.

After the organization and government of the city had been gone over in a very concrete way, the