We must make a study of bodily defects. We must find out how to make better animals of these future citizens of the Republic. We must know when a certain muscle or limb is weak and must know how to strengthen it. We must find out and do the things that will make our girls plump and elastic, our boys fearless and tough.

What are those things, do you ask? You know them as well as I. The way to improve any part of the body is to use it. Running, leaping, climbing, the dumb-bell, the wand, movements of the body in time to songs and music are as old as Grecian civilization, and were necessary to make the magnificent men and women of Athens twenty centuries ago. Never a book catalogue but contains manuals for calisthenics, gymnastics, drills, motion songs; never a normal school that does not acquaint its pupils with these things; never a teacher but can absorb them and leaven his school with them if he has but the grit to try.

We must see that the children get the right kind of exercise outside as well as inside the school-house. Get the trustees to put up a few pieces of gymnastic apparatus, which can be added to from year to year. Give an entertainment, the proceeds to buy foot-balls, lawn. tennis, archery, calisthenic-appliances. It will pay us even to invest some of our own earnings in making our school grounds attractive.

Let us take more pains with our girls than our boys. Boys naturally take to such things; girls need urging at first. The future lives of girls will be largely spent indoors; their occupations will require stooping positions and exercise but few muscles. Surely we can do no nobler work for the race than to improve the carriage and physique, train to correct ideas and healthful habits the mothers of the next generation.

Of course there are some exercises not suitable for girls-but they are few. Girls can work on parallel bars just as well as boys and like it just as well. They can perform some exercises on the high bars, swing in the rings and trapeze, play foot-ball, drill with dumb-bells and wands, run, climb, play tennis and ball-they can and should do most of the exercises prescribed for boys: "and they will thereby acquire a plumpness and roundness of figure, an elasticity of movement, an ease in performing the duties of life, and, above all that bodily vigor and health that is absolutely necessary for them in after life," whether their lot is cast in palace or hovel, whether they marry the prince or the pauper.

The importance of taking our exercises out of doors should be emphasized. Their value is certainly doubled by so doing. Away with.

the stuffy school-room with its second-hand air for physical exercise ! There are not half a dozen days in a California school term when the weather interferes with out-door training. The past winter is the exception that proves the rule. Exercise and fresh air belong together and what God has joined together let no man put asunder.

A cheap, strong, out-door gymnasium is the thing for California grammar schools!

Why cheap? So every school can have one. There isn't one that can not spend $30 or $40 toward toughening and strengthening the youngsters crossing its threshold.

Why strong? So it can stand the wind and the weather and belong to the children; so that it does not need to be handled with gloved hands and mocassined feet; so that everybody is free to go at it, rough and tumble, when they please and as they please. It may look crude and coarse to a luxurious gymnast, it may be scratched and scored by hob-nailed boots, it may be whittled by the vandal penknife-but it will give to the community a heritage of bolder, more active, more efficient citizens-it will reach the people; not only some of them but all of them-rich, poor, girl, boy, primary, high-school, slow, quick, good, bad-which is more than can be said of elegant gymnastic halls fitted up with elaborate apparatus and accessible only to pupils of responsible age who have leisure and means to don a costume before and take a bath after their exercise.

Why out-door? Because it is in keeping with this land which is meant for an out-door life: because out doors is the best place for mankind to dwell, because out doors is where the children love to be and ought to be.

Fellow teachers, let us use our brains, our hands, our ocean winds, our mountain breezes and every means which the God of Nature has put in our power for the building of a strong, free, brave and glorious people, in this, our home by the Western sea.

EDWARD HYATT, San Jacinto.

NOTE. Another article by the same writer, descriptive of an out-door gymnasium

in practical operation, will appear in our next number.

THE EXPERIENCE OF ONE.

While at a gathering of highly educated ladies and gentleman lately I was much interested by the remarks of a lady who was speaking of her girlhood experiences with much vivacity. She said:

"My teacher, for some unknown reason, looked upon me as one that needed watching. It amused and annoyed me. I felt really disposed to do some trick just to keep up the reputation I had obtained. As I was trusted perfectly at home, I was tempted to feel indignant; I finally concluded to feel a pity and disdain for her.

"One day she was obliged to be absent, and another teacher was sent into the room. I saw her point out to this teacher those who would need over-sight, and I was selected as one; they both looked at me and talked; then other pupils were pointed out, and then she left. This new teacher had learned that bad pupils must be employed, so I was called upon to bring a glass of water!

"Now I do not hesitate to say that I wasted my time then and feel the loss to this day. The truth is that none of those teachers really taught, so to speak; they went through with a certain routine of hearing lessons; but that I was not taught, I will maintain. Then the useless things we learned in history and grammar! Why, they. must have been useless, for I do not remember one of them. I have never had a clear idea of American history, the cause of the war, the consolidation of the states into one government, the method of government, and yet we labored over the subject a good deal. The evident reason is that the teacher only knew the book and that none too well.

"Now I am pretty bright, yet for years I could not tell what two and a half yards of ribbon would cost at eleven cents a yard without long study; yet I was four or five years in arithmetic.

"On the whole, the effect of going to school was quite stupefying to me; it actually made me dull; it seemed to 'stunt' me. The reason was that a repetition of what was in the book was required, and no attempt made to see whether it was understood.

"As I grew older I saw clearly what was needed. The work of the school must have some relation to life, then it will be understood. When I was in P- -I visited a school with my cousin. The teacher had strips of paper, and a girl would come and ask for 234 yards of ribbon at 6 cents a yard. A pupil would measure it off, and then the cost must be calculated. I was surprised to see how quick they were. Then they bought (or pretended to buy) oranges, potatoes, beef,

butter, eggs, etc.

All this they put down in a little book and thus learned accounts and arithmetic.

"At this school there was a time set apart for criticisms and suggestions, by the pupils; I was present. One pupil said, 'Miss G-I don't think you did right to keep Mary Boynton in because she came late; her mother sent her to the dressmaker's and that made her late.' Another pupil said 'I don't think it does me any good to study grammar, I don't understand it, I know.' The teacher listened and gave her views. They were very respectful pupils; but they had a desire to exhibit their side."

I was really sorry when this lady (quite a noted literary woman) was drawn from this line of thought.

R. E. GILLESPIE, in the School Journal.

TEACHING GEOGRAPHY.

From the report of the meeting of the State Board of Education, there seems to be some hesitancy about the propriety of issuing a two-book series of State geographies. It seems to me that there may well be serious thought of making one good book cover all the ground and time advisable to give to a subject as important as geography.

The demand, among progressive teachers is growing for more general information among the pupils of our schools, and I think you will have observed that there is a great lack in this direction.

How shall we, teachers of California, meet this just demand, that the youth of our schools shall not be in ignorance of the great events of the world, taking place in our own time?

Prof. Childs, in the Normal School, devotes fifteen minutes a day to the discussion of current events and seems to find the time well spent.

In ungraded schools in the country where everything must be taught from the chart to High School studies, this time cannot be spared.

To assist in solving this problem, allow me to give some of my own devices, taken in part from the Popular Educator, a most excellent teacher's aid, but in all cases modified to suit my class of pupils which has been principally of the primary and intermediate grades.

Monday morning the children find upon a certain board some

thing which seems to interest them very much, judging from the crowd about it; as much as bulletin boards interest voters the morning after election.

Sometimes they find an Historical Anagram. They know well what this means as few words are used, that have not been talked over until the youngest know what is being discussed.

In this case they have a week in which to solve the riddle, and after finding out the name, to learn all they can about the noted person and get their knowledge ready to produce for the benefit of the school, on Friday afternoon.

When one has told his story another takes up the subject with added items of information either overlooked or omitted by the first story-teller; questions are asked by others which bring out new facts of interest, these being answered if possible by the older pupils, if not by the teacher who gives incidents or puts a question now and then to guide the story. All this is done with a good map before the school to which frequent reference is made to locate the scene of the story, followed by an imagined journey to make the whole as much of a living fact to each pupil as possible.

If the questions on the board were of current events then the newspapers were in demand. If the pupils are too young to read the papers, they are encouraged to carry the questions home to parents or older brothers and sisters. It has been my experience that members of the home circle, especially in the country, like to have questions brought by the little ones, as it gives subjects for conversation other than the neighborhood gossip, the stock or farm's labor.

And it has been my experience also, to have questions returned to me from unexpected and not very promising sources, to which I was obliged to answer, "I do not know. I will look that up" and look it up I did. So the good work spread and as Longfellow said of love,"Effort never is wasted." If it enricheth not the heart for whom it is made, back it returns in blessing to the one who made it.

As a reward for extra good lessons, frequently on Friday afternoons a story is read, a map hanging before the class, to which during the reading frequent reference is made, locating the scene of the story. We learn the best route we could take to reach the place, through what cities we should pass and over what mountains and water, and if in a foreign country, among what people we should be.

Thus the pupils learn history and geography besides having a very valuable lesson in language all as unconsciously as the flower