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4 THE ATLANTA SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL, ATLANTA, GA., TUESDAY, JULY 29, 1913. THE SEMI-WEEEY JOURNAL ATLANTA, GA., 5 NORTH rOBSYTH ST. Entered at the Atlanta Postofflce as Mall Matter of the Second Class. JAMES ». GRAY, President and Editor. SUBSCRIPTION PRICE Twelve months 75# Six months Three months • ^ 6o The Semi-Weekly Journal Is published on Tuesday and Friday, and is mailed by the shortest routes for early delivery. It contains news from all over the world, brought by special leased wires Into our office. It has a stafe 'of distinguished contributors, with strong department* of special value to the home and the farm. Agents war ted at every postoffice. Liberal com mission allowed. Outfit free. Write R. R* BRAD LEY, Circulation Manager. The only traveling representatives we have are J. A. Bryan, R. F. Bolton, C. C. Coyle, L. H. Kim brough and C. T. Yates. We will be responsible only for money paid to the above named traveling repre sentatives. NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS. v The label used for addressing your paper shows the time your subscription expires. By renewing at least two weeks before the date on this label, you Insure regular service. In ordering paper changed, be sure to mention your old, as well as your new address. If on a route please give the route number. We cannot enter subscriptions to begin with back numbers. Remittances should be sent by postal order or registered mail. Address all orders and notices for this de partment to THE SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL, Atlanta, Ga. Dr. Soule’s Service to Georgia. A ■wise Athenian was once drawn into an envious law suit over a petty farm. After showing the judges that his cause was just, he quietly said: "I will not entreat you, nor do I care -what sentence you pass. It is you who are on your trial, not I.” The same remark might aptly be made of those gossips who are seeking to belittle the usefulness of Dr. Andrew M. Soule, president of the State Col lege of Agriculture. It Is not Dr. Soule but these would-be trouble-makers who are on trial. It is they who are slandering the State through their vicious attacks on the work of a man who has done more perhaps thai. any other individual to promote the agricultural progress of Georgia. Dr. Soule needs no defense other than the clear record of his public service, nor could he- have higher praise than that which looms from every chapter of the institution he has upbuilt. Under his administration, the Agricultural Col lege and all its related departments have grown in attendance, in influence, in efficiency, in power for practical good. They have become a vital force in the daily life and welfare of Georgia farms; and every dollar appropriated for their maintenance has •■been returned a hundredfold in benefits to the people. .This great work, Dr. Soule has done with equal earnestness and modesty. He Of all men would be the last to claim undue credit for what is being accomplished and he, better perhaps than anyone •else, appreciate the value of his able co-workers ahd the responsiveness of the people themselves. But an intelligent public knows that it was his genius in organization and leadership that has counted most in making the Agricultural College what it is today. Why is it that such a man and such a work should incur the venom of political gossips? Simply for the reason, we suppose, that successful men are al ways the envy of unsuccessful and that useful lives are always a target for the useless. Dr. Soule needs no vindication before the people whose State he has made his own and whose interests he has sp faith fully served, even at financial sacrifice to himself. But those slanderers of his good name who, like Shakespeare’s “scurvy politician,” “seem to see the things they do not,” deserve a rebuke from every right-thinking Georgians. Interurban Trolley Lines. The Chamber o-* Commerce did well to create some months ago a special committee on interurban railways. Atlanta’s future growth depends largely on the development of her outlying territory and there are few surer means to that end than the es tablishment of well-considered trolley lines. The city’s present connections with Decatur, College Park, Marietta and other thriving towns are an In valuable asset not only to Atlanta and to each of these terminal points but also to the intervening country. The time is soon coming, if, Indeed, it is not at hand when additional lines and longer lines can be profitably operated. The city should be prepared to encourage such enterprise^ for, If they are under taken with foresight and are carried to "successful completion, they will prove vital factors in muni cipal progress. In this connection the Chamber of Commerce committee can render substantial service; in fact, it is already doing so. It is gathering sta tistics concerning interurban railways in Indiana and other middle-western States. The information thus secured will be very helpful as a basis of con siderations and plans for projects of the same kind in this part of Georgia. The committee is particularly interested just now in the proposed construction of an interurban elec tric line from Anderson, S. C., to Atlanta. This en terprise is said to have the support of large and sub stantial interests. If it can be consummated, it will he a distinctive advantage to Atlanta and to all the territory traversed. Certainly, it merits the investi gation the committee is giving it. Such lines, besides quickening and extending the commerce of the towns and cities they connect, add greatly to the value of farm lands. They promote agricultural progress, that basic element in the up building of Southern communities. They open new lines of trade and afford new outlets for the products of the soil. Within the next few decades, we shall hear much of interurban lines in the South. Atlanta does well to .take the lead in this fruitful field of de velopment. Mr. Bryan is more lectured against than lectur ing. Speed the Vital Statistics Bill to Prompt Passage. The bill providing an appropriation of five thou sand dollars for the establishment of a State bureau of vital statistics Is now before the House committee on hygiene and sanitation. If promptly and favor ably reported, It will doubtless become a law at the present session of the Legislature, thus solving one of the most urgent and far-reaching problems with which the people of Gegrgia are confronted. It is especially important, therefore, that the committee do Its part in speeding this useful measure on the way to passage. It is scarcely necessary to remind any thoughtful group of men, either in the Legislature or among citizens at large, of the sifpreme need and value of a system of vital statistics in conserving the interests of public health. All informed persons, whether phy sicians or laymen, know that without an adequate and dependable record of births, deaths and the causes of deaths, little or no progress can be made in campaigns against disease. If the funds now ap propriated to the State Board of Health and those appropriated to kindred agencies by individual cities aqd counties are to yield a due return, there must be a system of vital statistics in the light of which they may be intelligently and efficiently spent. It is thus to the interest of every citizen and every home, of every county and town, especially those of rural districts, that the vital statistics bill be passed. There is still another consideration which de mands the prompt enactment of this measure. It Is this: Georgia now has virtually no place or mention in the health reports compiled and issued by the fed eral census bureau. The census bureau collects such statistics from only those States in which there is a satisfactory system for the registration of vital statistics; and necessarily so. The only available records of this kind In Georgia are from the cities of Savannah and A tlanta. Thus it is that in those reports of the United States which deal with health records and conditions and which are read as author itative throughout the nation and throughout the world -Georgia is now conspicuous by her utter absence. The result of this Is inevitably damaging to the State’s reputation and to its material progress, for, among the first questions asked by a prospective home seeker or investor is a question of health and sanitation. No man wants to live in a community whose health conditions are doubtful or unknown and few men will risk an investment there. How then can Georgia expect to get her due share of the thrifty settlers and the millions of capital that are trending Southward, when she has no official stand ing whatsoever in the government health records to which people everywhere turn for guidance and in formation? Georgians know that they have a natur ally healthful State hut the important thing is that the world shall know this. Hence from the standpoint of economic interests as well as health interests, it is imperative that a State bureau of vital statistics be established with the least possible delay. A bill to this end has been introduced in the Senate by Senator Elkins and in the House by Representative Allen, of Jack- son. It is a model bill, meeting the requirements of the census bureau and the government health author ities. It calls for an appropriation of only five thou sand dollars, an amount really trivial compared with the far-reaching service and value it will render. This bill will place Georgia on the health map of the nation. It will lead eventually to the saving of thousands of thousands of lives and incalculable stores of potential wealth. R Is a bill in the interest of economy, of progress, of humanity—one of the most important bills, indeed, that has ever been be fore the Legislature. The committee on hygiene and sanitation should do everything within its power to expedite the pas sage of this vital measure. Parcel Post Rates. Postmaster General Burleson seems fully to have sustained the wisdom as well as the authority of his order reducing parcel post rates for rural routes and short distances. Challenged by certain Congressmen as to his right to make these reductions he appeared before the Senate postofflce committee and came away, as The Journal’s Washington correspondent says, “with flying colors.” Senator Hoke Smith, a member of the committee, is quoted as remarking that the new order “will greatly facilitate the use of the parcel post, will lessen the cost to the people from one-third to one-half and that before the post master general can be interfered with in this matter, the law must be repealed.’* Some of the railroads appeared somewhat dis turbed when it was announced that the maximum weight now allowed for parcels to be delivered within the one hundred and fifty mile zone would be increased from eleven to twenty pounds and that at the same time the charges on such parcels would he reduced. The carriers figured tuat this would en tail upon them an extra burden without extra pay. But the general public welcomed the announcement with enthusiasm; certain it is that whatever crit icism^ of the order may have developed in Congress did not spring from a popular source. The reduced rates and more liberal provisions will obviously benefit the public and, in the long run, they will benefit the postal department as well. For, it is evident that Increased business will mean increased revenues, under a competent ad ministration. The more parcel post stamps the gov ernment can sell the more profitable the service will be to the postofflce. The Important thing is, of course, that this service be furnished at the lowest reasonable cost to the public. It was eminently proper that the postmaster general reduce the charges when he felt warranted in doing so. The present ocale of rates within so-called “local” zones is five cents for the first pound and one cent for each additional pound; the maximum weight al lowed is eleven pounds. The new rate for “local” zones will be five cents for the first pound and one cent for each additional two pounds; at the same time the maximum weight will be increased to twen ty pounds. For the second zone, which comprises territory within a hundred-and-fifty mile radius, the present charges are six cents for the first pound and four cents for everj additional pound. This rate is to be lowered to nve cents for the first pound and one cent for eacn additional pound; in this zone also a maximum ot twenty pounds to the parcel will be allowed. The new order,-which becomes effective August the fifteenth, will considerably extend the useful ness of the parcel post. Many parcels which be cause of their weight can now he sent only by ex press may be mailed and the reduced rates also will offer a distinct advantage. The postoffice administration has effected a num ber of improvements in the parcel ; jst service and will doubtless effect many more that experience will suggest and circumstances permit. Instead of being hindered or interrupted in this good work, it should be heartily encouraged. The Supremely Important Duty Now Before Congress. The supremely important duty now before Con gress is the enactment of a currency and banking law that will meet the country’s urgent business needs. The tariff bill is assured of passage. The far-reaching changes which that measure will bring about and the readjustments it will necessitate de mand an accompanying revision of the hanking and currency system. Indeed, these two issues are so closely interwcfven that they cannot be logically or safely separated. Tariff reform and currency re form must go hand in hand, if either is to yield satisfactory results. By reducing and, in some instances, removing the tariff taxes that foster monopoly and stifle the spirit of free enterprise, the Democratic Congress will re lease new forces of commercial and industrial life. But unless this fresh freedom is given the means of sustenance and of practical operation, it will be a blessing more shadowy than substantial; for, “the tyrannies of business, big and little, lie largely with in the field of money and credit.” Should Congress adjourn without enacting a currency bill to give bal ance and guidance to'the tariff bill, it would leave its great task only half complete and its great pledge to the nation but partly redeemed. The effect of this upon business interests would be distinctly disappointing and unwholesome. The country expects banking and currency reform as con fidently as it expects tariff reform; and it feels the need of the one as sharply as of the other. Until these two related issue- are settled, business will stand in a temper of suspense. Everyone realizes that we are at the threshold of important economic changes. No one fears the step that will be taken but everyone dreads delay and uncertainty. There fore, for the sake of business stability and progress, some adequte measure of banking and currency re form should be agreed upon and put into effect at the earliest possible day. It is continued suspense and agitation that are dangerous and hurtful. But so soon as Congress enacts sutffi a bill as will be even fairly satisfactory, business will move promptly and hopefully forward, knowing the path it is to fol low and the means at its command. It is not to be expected that a final and perfect law of this character can be secured within a single session of Congress or within any definite period of years. Nor will it he possible to secure a law that will completely reconcile all differences of opinion, even though they are honestly entertained. In this, as in all matters of far-reaching legislation, there is a wide diversity of judgment. The most and best that can be hoped lor is a measure that will approx imately meet the needs of the time and relieve the oppressive sense of uncertainty that now prevails. The errors which such a law might tjntain could be corrected and woul- be, as occasion and experience would warrant; but failure to enact any law at all would be a serious anu inexcusable mistake. It is imperative, therefore, that the Democrats in Congress get together in a spirit of party faith and workmanly patriotism and agree upon a hanking and currency bill. Dispatches indicate that there are sharply drawn differences among the members of the House committee. It is the duty of the Democratic members to harmonize those differences as speedily as possible. Certainly no member should oppose his particular views to the party’s general will to such an extent as to destroy the chance of passing a fairly acceptable 'currency bill and who ever does so will prove himself unloyal to the party and the country as well. The measure which the committee is now consid ering and which, in the main, has the administra tion’s approval was not introduced as an ideal one, but rather as a practical basis and starting point for constructive legislation. That it is open to improve ments, no one denies; sympathetic criticism of any or all of its provisions sjhould be welcome. But it is none the less apparent that the Democrats must rally around the basis principles of this bill, if they are to accomplish anything in the way of currency and banking reform. They must get together and stick together oh the principal issues of this bill, if they are to serve their party and their country as they should. Surely, there is a broad Common ground of belief upon which the Democratic members of the commit tee and of Congress as a whole can meet, if they are not unduly insistent in particulars and in their personal views. All the essential provisions of the pending bill are thoroughly sound and are evidently acceptable to the rank and file of business men. It provides, for one thing, that the control of the sys tem of currency and banking shall be public instead of private, in order that it may operate for the in-' terests and the rights of the country as a whole rather than for the special advantage of particular groups and centers. Furthermore, provision is made for a currency that will be elastic and responsive to the needs of sound credit, instead of rigid and unre sponsive as now. And provision is also made to pre vent the undue concentration of the nation's mon etary resources at particular points or by particular interests. These are the broad principles embodied in the present bill. They afford, as we have said, a practical basis and starting point for legislation of which the country is in vital need. They should have the hearty support of every Democrat and, for that matter, of all Congressmen who are sincerely inter ested in currency and banking reform. A law framed on these lines will prevent financial panics. It will give us a flexible currency. It will give us a banking system under the impartial and responsible control of the Government. It will estab lish certainty and order where uncertainty and dan gerous confusion now exist. It will relieve the busi ness mind of that disquieting suspense which will continue to spread and deepen until Congress speaks the word which Business is waiting anxiously to hear. Democracy now faces its crucial test of statesman ship. Shall it falter and fail as Republican Con gresses have done, or move unitedly forward in the performance its great task. President Wilson insists that an adequate currency and banking bill be promptly passed. In this, as in the tariff issue, he is backed by public sentiment and public judg ment. The country is watching Congress, demand ing that it be given a practical measure of banking and currency reform with the least possible delay. By guerilla warfare in Mexico is not meant mon key business. Between two evils it is better to marry for money than for a chance to get even. The enterprising summer girl has no use for the young man who wastes his time kissing her hand. A successful financier is one whom everybody claims to have, known when he didn’t have a dollar to his name. ■x Advantages of Growing Old BY DR. rBANX CRANE. (Copyright, 1913, by Frank Crane.) Sensible people when they grow old find a great many compensations. Crossing the line of fifty, one moves up a little closer to the heart of the world. Youth is a good deal of a stranger and pilgrim in the uni verse. The ageing man discov ers a realness and a homliness in men and things. Youth has no sense of pro portion. He must hasten. Re forms cry out. Up and at them! He tears his shirt. Then when he gets old he begins to say, with Emerson, “Why so hot, little man?” He sees that the only dependable improvement in so ciety is that which grows, not that which is forced. The youth’s optimism is a kind of enlarged egotism; the optimism of old age is an appreciation of the friendliness of nature. Young men are dazzled by institutions, imposed upon by organizations, overawed by the presumptuous authority of the past. Old men come to value per sonality more than these things. There Is nothing worth while but to express one’s self; it takes years of experience to realize th’at. « Old age learns how to “come down’’ without “giv ing up,” to use the words of The Country Parson.” The old man quietly adjusts himself to the stubborn inevitable. Young people waste infinite effort in fuming and useless strenuousness. To youth success seems a matter of laboring hard at the oar; to the wis© old man it is a matter of setting one’s sails. The winds of heaven, if we get at the proper angle to them, will do more than all our muscle. The conscienc of youth is usually morbid. Many of his reddest sins and most shining virtues tone down with years. He learns tolerance. He believes legs and less in prohibitions and punishments and more and more in the creative virtures such as love, courage, and lend ing a hand. To a normal old age comes a consciousness of the real jdy of living, of the little thingi that compose life. The youngster is so whirled in high enthusiasm that h© forgets or has no time to see how good life is, mere existence. Old people come back to eating, sleeping, walking breatheing, all the common ingredients of the day, not sensually, but with spiritual gratefulness. Young men are eager for knowledge, greedy for the equipment of facts, of skill, and of efficiency. Old men have seen the weakness of these; they prefer wisdom and philosophy; they prefer the expert soul to the ex pert hand and mind. Love means more to old people than to young. To youth it is an adventure, to age it is the color of ex istence. To young persons it is a dangerous madness, to the old it a conservating, universal, ever-present force. The unwrecked personality ought to be am usually is happier after fifty than before. A Ray of Balkan Peace. If It be true, as the dispatches indicate, that the Powers have auuiorized Russia to occupj Armenia and compel Turkey to cease her recent aggressions, one of the gravest perils of the new Balkan war has been averted. So long as the larger nations act In concert, there Is hope of not only confining the Balkan problem to the peninsula but of also solving that problem itself. The danger has been that Austria’s ambitions would set her at cross purposes with Russia and that an open clash would come be tween the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente. Russia is the logical peacemaker in a war that so largely concerns Slavic interests. Her diplomacy should be particularly effective with Bulgaria and Servia and, if given right of way by the other Powers, she can doubtless do much to put an end to the present strife. It is especially Important for the sake of all Europe’s peace that Turkey be checked In her plans to reoccupy all the territory she lost In the war with the Allies. She has already taken possession of Adrianople and threatens to seize other territory which was allotted to the Al lies in the London treaty. But if Russia Is author ized to force compliance with the terms of treaty and drive the Turks back across the Enos-Midia boundary, this particular menace will vanish. It Is likely, indeed, that an ultimatum from Russia would send the Turks packing. The prospects for a cessation of the war among the Allies is brighter than it has been since the re cent outbreak. Austria Is reported to have cast her influence for peace. Bulgaria is evidently ready for a truce; the Greeks and Serbs have little to lose through negotiations. It Is possible, if not probable, that the war will soon be at an end. Lo, the Rich Indian. Secretary of the Interior Lane makes the wise suggestion that the Government gradually cease its policy of paternalism toward the American Indians, leaving them free, as a race and as individuals to follow their own bent and work out their own for tunes. Some decades ago such a proposal would have been Ill-considered, but today it enlists wide spread and merited approval. The Red Man of this generation is as far re moved from the “poor Indian,” of Pope’s conception as a Henry James novel from a Leather Stocking tale. Of the three hundred thousand Indians on federal reservations, fewer than ten per cent are still primitive in the manner of living; and those are so largely because they have been treated as segregated tribes rather than as individuals. Many, if not a majority, of the Indians on reservations are adjusting themselves to twentieth-century life. They are learning the use of tools, the ways of commerce and industry; they farm and trade and, when educa ted, they easily earn a respected place among Americans at large. The Indians, taken as a whole, are the richest people per capita on the earth. The Osage tribe, numbering some twenty-two hundred persons are the joint owners ol nearly two million acres of rich farming land. Their property is no"- being turned over to them as individuals. Their “ready-money” funds, according to Mr. Haskins, amounted to nearly nine million dollars. • "Under the law,” he says, “each Indian has been permitted to take four hun dred and eighty acres of land and has been given nearly four thousand dollars in cash. Such a policy is manifestly wiser than that of holding the Indian in permanent tutelage. It would not do, of course, to remove the Government’s pro tection and fostering care and protection all at once; but the more individual responsibility the Indian can be given the more surely and rapidly will he take his place among the nation e wealth producing citizens. In time, i.s Secretary Lane suggests, there should be no such institution as a government In dian bureau. 'i 'O - THE NEW RURAL SCHOOL II—now IT WAB BEGUN. BY FREDERIC J. BASKIN. The experimental rural school at Rock Hill was planned not only to discover a method of curing: the ills of the ordinary rural school, but also to find a itiethod that would be within the reach of any country school dis trict. Therefore, much thought was given to its equipment, as being the necessary first step that, once taken, might perhaps determine the whole future of the school. To get as far away as possible from the traditional school room idea it was deter mined to have no desks; to have three rooms, each to be used for a different purpose; and to make the physical surroundings of the children as home-like as might be—banishing every suggestion of the jail-like school house with its rows of desks and its prison discipline. As the in tention was for this school to multiply in the coun try districts, a farm house was desired for the first home of the new school. One was found, as mentioned in yesterday’s article, on the edge of the campus of Winthrop college at Rock Hill, S. C. It was a typical Carolina farm duelling with a large veranda, clustered over with vines and roses. Flowers grew in profusion all about it, there' were plenty of trees for shade and a few for fruit With a little work the house was given an attractive homelike appearance, both inside and out. There was a well for a water supply, and ground enough for the necessary garden. • • • Three rooms were fitted up. The first and large:- 1 ' one was furnished with a long table covered with bur lap and was christened “Teacher’s Room.” Curtains of scrim softened the lines of the windows without cutting off the light, potted plants were placed before the windows, and the room given a cheerful air. Broad shelves were built for writing and drawing materials, scissors, modelling clay, and sewing implements. A few chairg were grouped about the big table. Only the blackboard gave a hint that this was a school room. • • * On the table were displayed the books, the school books, such dull and dreary enemies of childhood as Mother Goose, Pinafore Palace, Robinson Crusoe, Lang’s Fairy Tales and the like. * • * The next room was turned into a carpenter’s shop. There were two benches, very simply made, and such ordinary carpenter’s tools as saws, hammers, chisels, a square, a brace-and-bit—nothing not easily to be had in any farming community. Care was exercised not to furnish too many things, or tools that would be unavailable to the children at home. A blackboard again was the only typical school room device. • • • The third room was dedicated to cookery. There was a big coal range, two kitchen tables, the cooking utensils and dishes. Again care was taken not to have things that were not a part of the most ordinary kitchen equipment—special devices of the domestlo science schools being barred in favor of the ordinary implements of the common farm kitchen. And here also the inevitable blackboard. Seats were placed on j the veranda, and here, near the pump, were hung the drinking cups, one for each pupil, on numbe. ,. pegs. Such was the house. The garden and the play ground were there, and with the exception of a toolj ■" house In the garden for the wheel-hoes, rakes, hand hoes and trowels, they were much as nature furnished 1 them. • • ■ On March 21, 1911, at 9 o’clock In the mornnig, the Rock HLi school ceased to be a project and became a fact. The experiment was launched. Mrs. Browne found eight children, two boys and six girls, ranging) from six to nine years old, for her first human mate- j rial. The first thing she did was to sbo B them through the house and exhibit the wonders IpM re sources of Its three rooms. Then everybody went to the garden. IB* There the children were delighted to find that each of them was to have a garden for his very own, and', ^ they wanted to begin work instantly. A three-foot ‘ walk had been laid off down the middle of the garden. By measuring, the children helping, it was found to be forty feet on either side from this walk to the fence. So each garden was to be forty feet long, and now it must be decided how wide each was to be. Each child wished for a very large garden, but the teacher limited their zeal to a width of seven feet so as to leave room for new pupils. • • t Walks were laid out, one foot wide, separating the children’s gardens. Difficulty was found in getting the sides straight and one of thet boys suggested the use of a garden line. A piece of twine was found and the children, after much measuring, finally laid off their own gardens and began to dig with pride of ownership. That was the first day at school and not a child would go home when school was out! * * * But some of the children had forgotten what gar dens were their own, so they Insisted that the gar dens be marked. ~ut how? Each child was asked to go to the blackboard and draw a plan of a marker. They all agreed on a stake with a cross-piece ...at should bear the name of the owner. After much dis cussion, each child giving his defense of his own plan, it was decided that the upright pieces should be eighteen Inches long by two Inches wide, and that the cross-piece should be three Inches wide and twelve inches long. So the whole school went to the carpen ter shop, demolished an old dry goods box for lumber and went to work measuring and sawing and nailing. Not one of them so much as suspected that he had had a lesson in drawing, a lesson in arithmetic and a lesson in manual training. Of course, they talked all the time, to each other and to the teacher, but the talk was all of what they were doing. One boy perhaps vaguely feeling the influence of past generations of school children, asked If he might whistle as he worked at the carpenter’s bench. "Certainly," said the teaoher. And no one thought it at all surprising that Mclver should whistle in school! • • • Each part of the work of making the stakes was assigned to a particular child. The assignments were written on the blackboard by the teacher. No word was spoken. The older children read their own or ders, or whatever they may be called, and read the others to the younger children. Ambition to be able to read their own orders made it necessary for the tiny tads to learn to read. They simply couldn’t get along without it. So a little sentence appeared on the blackboard: “I have a garden.” And It was read aloud, and then everybody made the word “seed” with the cut out letters on the table. But there was no class in reading and no recitation in arithmetic, or no semblance of the conventional school. (It may be mentioned here that this first session of the school was begun and held before the publication in America of the first exposition of the work of Mme. Mon- tesorri). * * * On the third dly it was too wet to garden, so grains of corn were put in wet blotting paper to ger minate and some beans that were put in damp earth on the first day are examined. They have sprouted! Tiie teacher speaks of the baby bean, the seed coat, the two leaves, the stem and root, and she writes the word “see” on the blackboard. Then “see the pota to.” and then they model a potato in clay, and they draw pictures of u.e bean on pdper and color them— a very fine game. * * * At 10:30 the teacher announces recess, for even this teacher was not able entirely to rid herself of the conventional ideas of the old school. But before the fifteen minutes was up the children had slipped back to their work. It wasn’t long until the “recess” had to be abandoned because the children said they couldn’t afford to take the time from what they Were doing. 0 *