aningless formalities.=--One of the influences that tends to deaden
the interest of children is the ponderous formality that sometimes
obtains. The teacher solemnly calls the roll, although she can see at a
glance that there are no absentees. This is exceedingly irksome to
wide-awake boys and girls who are avid for variety. The same monotonous
calling of the roll day after day with no semblance of variation induces
in them a sort of mental dyspepsia for which they seek an antidote in
what the teacher denominates disorder. This so-called disorder betokens
good health on their part and is a revelation of the fact that they have
a keen appreciation of the fitness of things. They cannot brook monotony
and it irks them to dawdle about in the anteroom of action. They are
eager to do their work if only the teacher will get right at it. But
they are impatient of meaningless preliminaries. They see no sense in
calling the roll when everybody is present and discredit the teacher who
persists in the practice.

=Repeating answers.=--Still another characteristic of the thirty-minute
teacher is her habit of repeating the answers that pupils give, with the
addition of some inane comment. Whether this repeating of answers is
merely a bad habit or an effort on the part of the teacher to
appropriate to herself the credit that should otherwise accrue to the
pupils, it is not easy to say. Certain it is that school inspectors
inveigh against the practice mightily as militating against the
effectiveness of the teaching. Teachers who have been challenged on this
point make a weak confession that they repeat the answers unconsciously.
They thus make the fatal admission that for a part of the time of the
class exercise they do not know what they are doing, and admitting so
much we can readily classify them as belonging among the thirty-minute
teachers.

=Meanderings.=--Another characteristic is her tendency to wander away
from the direct line and ramble about among irrelevant and
inconsequential trifles. Sometimes these rambles are altogether
entertaining and enable her pupils to pass the time pleasantly, but they
lack "terminal facilities." They lead from nowhere to nowhere in the
most fascinating and fruitless meanderings. Such expeditions bring back
no emoluments. They leave a pleasant taste in the mouth but afford no
nourishment. They use the time but exact no dividends. Like sheet
lightning they are beautiful but never strike anything. Th