anation, and illustration of single words and
phrases, and in questions and answers upon the lessons, and in
communications of every kind to which the stock of language already
acquired may be adequate."[11]

[Footnote 11: _The Use of the Manual Alphabet_, by S. Porter: Proceedings
of the Eighth Convention of American Instructors, pp. 21-30. Copies of
the Proceedings which contain this extremely valuable paper may be
obtained of R. Mathison, Superintendent of the Ontario Institution,
Belleville, Ontario.]

All who have anything to do with the school instruction of the deaf may
well bear in mind the matured opinion and wise counsel of Professor
Samuel Porter, of the National College, the Nestor of American
instructors. In this connection, Professor Porter says:

_In short, let the gestural signs come in only as a last resort, or, so
far as possible, merely as supplementary to words, re-enforcing them in
some instances, or employed as a test of the pupil's knowledge of words,
but always, so far as possible, falling behind and taking a subordinate
place. And let the pupils be required, in what they have to say to their
teachers in the schoolroom or elsewhere, to employ the finger-alphabet
instead of natural signs to the utmost possible extent, and this by
complete sentences and not in a fragmentary way_.

JOSEPH C. GORDON, M.A.,

_Professor in the National College, Washington, D.C._.

* * * * *

FRUITS AND SEEDS FOR DRESS-TRIMMING.

The use of natural flowers for decorating the person is instinctive among
certain peoples, and a question of fashion among others. It is in
Oceanica especially that this taste seems to be nationally developed, and
from the narrative of Cook we know that the Tahitian belles use in their
toilet the perfumed flowers of the pua and tiare (_Carissa grandis_ and
_Gardenia Tahitensis_), whose dazzling whiteness renders still more
marked the ebony blackness of their wealth of hair.

In Europe this custom is traditional in many countries. Women of fashion
scarcely ever appear at a soiree or ball without wearing a camellia or an
exotic orchid on their breast or in their head-dress, and so, too,
gentlemen of "high life" do not go out without a boutonniere of white
violets or Cape jasmine.

But natural flowers, being ephemeral, were once replaced in the toilets
of ladies by artificial ones. The artificial flower industry originated
in China, and from thenc