d.

To-day arithmetic begins with life. The teachers at Gary organize games
in which the children are divided into two sides. Some of the children
play the game, while others keep score. Unconsciously, under the stress
of the most gripping of impulses--the desire to win--these little
scorekeepers learn addition. As they advance in the work, they take up
practical problems--measure the room for flooring and measure the school
pavement for cementing. At school No. 4, in Indianapolis, one of the
teachers wanted a cold-frame and a hot-bed for use in connection with
her nature work. The class in mathematics made the measurements; the
drawing class provided the plans; the boys in the seventh and eighth
grades dug the pit and constructed the beds.

The higher grade mathematics work in Indianapolis is extremely concrete.
Prices and descriptions of materials are supplied, and the children are
asked to compute given problems involving the buying of meats,
groceries, and other household articles; the cost of heating and
lighting the home; the cost of home furnishing; the construction of
buildings; cost-keeping in various factories; the management of the city
hospital; the taxation of Indianapolis; the estimation and construction
of pavement; and, generally, the mathematical problems involved in the
conduct of public and private business.

Mathematics is alive when it is joined to the problem of life. Well
taught, it becomes a part of the real experiences of childhood and
furnishes a foundation for the knowledge of later life.

IV A Model English Lesson

Of all subjects taught in the schools, English is the most practical,
because it is most used in life. We buy with it, sell with it, converse
with it, write with it, adore with it, and protest with it. English is
the open sesame of life in English-speaking countries. In some classes
the English period would be fascinating even for adults.

What experience could be more delightful than a visit to a third or
fourth grade room in which the children were writing original poems,
fables and stories! The monotony of routine English work was completely
broken down; the children were enthusiastic,--enthusiastic to such a
degree that they had all written poetry.

Just before Halloween the teacher had distributed pictures of a witch on
a broomstick, with a cat at her side, riding toward the moon. Each
child was called upon for an original poem on this picture. One boy of
eight wrote