The pollen said, 'I'll decide what the color of the cobb shall be and I'll decide what the color and characteristics of the grain shall be.' But that old corn stalk said, 'I'll decide what the size of the ear as a whole shall be."" The boy reversed the experiment and had the same story to tell concerning it. The best thing about the experiment was that all the boys and girls in that country learned all about it. And this is only one of hundreds of experiments that these boys and girls have performed.

The study of plant life offers boys and girls a great help in composition work. Ask a boy or girl to write about life, success, or character, and he doesn't know where to begin or end. He searches through the encyclopaedia, the dictionary, and all kinds of books to find something on the subject. But if a child is asked to write about a plant, the seed of which he has put into the ground-a plant for which he has cared-a plant that he has studied for a whole year-then he was something concerning which he knows and concerning which it is a pleasure to write. There is a natural and logical order in the growth of the plant that furnishes the child a foundation for composition work, and when he forms a habit of using this logical order it will stay with him for life and help to influence his whole life, even if he becomes a minister, lawyer, or farmer. You will understand the point I am trying to make more clearly if I give you a composition written by a little country girl, not more than ten years of age and who had never seen the inside of a high school. Her teacher had heard several talks on the teaching of elementary agriculture and had read a large number of pamphlets sent out by the Iowa Agricultural College and by the U. S. Department of Agriculture.

AN INTERESTING PLANT

In this great wide wonderful world of ours there are many kinds of flowers. Some are not so pretty as others, but each has its mission to fill.

To me one of the most beautiful and interesting plants is the aster, so called from the close resemblance of its expanding leaves to a star. It is a native of America and Eurasia. Last spring we tried to improve our school surroundings, and so we made flower beds and planted seeds and as these flowers grew we carefully studied them.

I chose the aster because it has flowers of many rich colors and is a late-flowering plant, blooming throughout the fall.

One morning in June, when it looked like rain, I, together with some of my schoolmates, spaded up a circle ten feet in circumference; then filled it with rich, black soil, carried from the roadside, and around it we placed green sod.

Shortly afterward some aster plants were given me and I planted them in the bed eight inches apart.

The plants were about an inch in height and had three or four small leaves. At first they had but one large and two or three small roots, but soon other little roots kept growing out from the large one, until there were about twenty or more, each made up of little cells held closely together.

The roots kept growing into the rich, moist, warm earth and the little cells took up the rich juices, and then the moisture and food was pushed up into the stems, which are the tubes that carry the food and moisture to the different parts of the plant.

The little cells could not take up the mineral food the plants required just as they are found in the earth, but when the rain came down and sank into the earth a kind of sirup was made and furnished food for the plant.

When the little cells had taken up all the minerals they would hold the leaves threw off the water that was left and gave it to the sun.

As I lived just across the road from the schoolhouse I was able to give the asters proper care during vacation and almost every evening after sunset I watered them. I was also careful to keep the weeds out of the bed, so they would not absorb the moisture the plants required.

And when school began in the fall the asters were beautiful full grown plants one foot in height and at this time very beautiful and commanding and covered with white, pink, purple, and scarlet blossoms.

There they grew and blossomed through the long bright summer and autumn hours, casting sweet perfume on the air, nodding in the breeze and cheering the passers-by. And above all together with other flowers, our school yard was prettier and more attractive than ever before.

Please remember that this little composition is only one out of hundreds and thousands of similar compositions that were written by the boys and girls in one county.

It may be an unusual thing to hear boys and girls give from memory compositions that have been written on such subjects as wheat, corn, fern, potato, tomato, sweet-pea, aster, peanut, watermelon, bean, rose, pumpkin, or cabbage, but no one who has ever listened to such a program will question the good that comes from it. If this idea could be incorporated into some of our commencement programs, the people would be better satisfied than they are sometimes and the boys and girls would gain some information that would be valuable to them all their lives, no matter what their life-work happened to be. I can never forget some of my experience with such programs. I remember one program in particular when a number of boys and girls were on the platform. They had done their best and they had done well. Mr. Joe Trigg was present. Mr. Trigg was known all over Iowa and even throughout the nation as a writer on agricultural topics. His paragraphs in the newspapers became so famous that they were nicknamed "Joe Triggers." While the judges were deciding which pupil had made the best effort the boys and girls asked Mr. Trigg to talk to them. Mr. Trigg was a man who had always taken a great interest in school work and in boys and girls. He knew what a good school was. He knew what good school work was. He was a man of many years' experience and his hair was white with age. What he said on that occasion ought to have some weight. I will remember it all my life. Here it is: "Whenever the time comes that a little girl, nine years of age, curls hanging down on either side, coming from a rural school district, can get up on a high platform like this and grow eloquent as she tells of the life of a simple cabbage plant that she has studied and cared for through the long summer, something valuable has been added to our school system." That was the introductory part of his talk.

Each year it has been a part of my work and a pleasant task to send some kind of seeds to the school boys and girls. Hundreds of letters have come to me and many of them have had the characteristics of the following one:

NORTH ENGLISH, Iowa, Oct. 28, 1905

DEAR SIR: I would like for you to tell me what I am to do with my corn. How much I am to send to you and how to send it. I have seven bushel from 1,170 grains and my sister has three bushel from 350 grains. [Here is a chance for the teacher to find some problems in arithmetic that will be better than most of the problems that are found in the textbooks. Many problems can be framed from the efforts of these two girls in their study of plants.] The wind blew my corn down and it was not as good as it might have been if it had stood up straight. Yours truly,

Care of N. S. Jones, North English, Iowa

MINNIE JONES

Let me take a few sentences from a compostition that was written by a little girl on the subject of peanuts. These are her words: “My peanut bed was so small that the weeds were easily kept out by the use of my hands. I counted on one vine ninety-seven peanuts. I planted about a pint of peanuts and raised a gallon, and selected peanuts for study because I had planted them and observed them carefully." It is an inspiration to listen to such compositions. Sometimes our boys and girls read them in the class recitation and often they commit them to memory and give them as a part of some school program. Their teachers always require that they bring with them to the class recitation or to the platform the product that goes with their composition. And as this little girl held the peanut bush and many of the nuts in her hands, she went on to explain to us things of this kind, “On every branch there are just four leaves-never fewer. The flower is shaped something like a yellow violet."

THE VALUE OF EDUCATIONAL CAMPAIGNS

J. L. MCBRIEN, STATE SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION, LINCOLN, NEBr. The value of educational campaigns must be measured by the importance of the questions at issue and the ability and integrity of those who take part in their discussion

and promotion. Once in four years our great quadrennial election comes off, and during the campaign pandemonium reigns from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the Lakes to the Gulf. Some say these wild excitements are not wholesome. In my opinion they are the best things that can happen to the country. The best speeches of the ablest statesmen of all political parties scattered through the land by the press in pamphlets, heard on the platform, and in debate, discussing the tariff, finance, taxes, immigration, child labor, ship subsidy, regulation of railroad rates, pure-food laws, imperialism, the Isthmian Canal, and our foreign policy, are the education of the common people, and they learn more in a year of universal debate than they would in twenty years of reading and thinking without such help.

I do not mean to say that educational campaigns must partake of the noisy turbulence which marks political campaigns in order to be valuable. But every educational campaign must have an issue before any value can come from it. That issue may concern but a single school district, and yet to the people of that district be a question of greater importance than any of the problems in the domain of national politics. Suppose it is the voting of bonds for the erection of a new school building in a district of not over 3,000 population. You often see such a district shaken from center to circumference in the boisterous storm of public discussion. The value of such a campaign must be judged by the ultimate success of those in favor of progress.

There are many questions any one of which is of sufficient importance to justify an educational campaign under the direction of county and state superintendents in their respective fields. Take the question of free textbooks for a state. This is a question of great importance to every county superintendent and the state superintendent where a campaign is to be made for such a law. If such a campaign is to result in good to the commonwealth, its advocates must be able to show its advantages if enacted into law. Briefly stated, these advantages are: It is a logical sequence to the free-school idea, diminishing still further the barrier between the rich and the poor, removing an obstacle which stands in the way of attendance of the very class the common schools were chiefly designed to reach; it reduces largely the cost of books to the community as a whole; it enables the management of the schools to secure more satisfactory and modern books and materials; when properly administered it promotes the free use of books which are needed for study at home, and helps the teacher to inculcate habits of neatness and care in the use of books. The chief objections to the system come from two sources: First, from those who oppose all taxation for school purposes; second, from places where carelessness in the administration of the law has resulted in unnecessary destruction of books and in careless habits on the part of pupils. It is safe to say that wherever proper attention has been paid to the administration of the law the results have been highly gratifying to school authorities, teachers, and patrons. It is furthermore safe to assume that having once come to understand the advantages of this logical extension of the free-school idea, the people of no state will ever willingly go back to the system of individual purchase and ownership with all its perplexing problems in gradation and classification, and the absolute inability of thousands of the children of the poor properly to supply themselves with books.

In Nebraska we have had a free textbook law since 1891. We do not believe in state uniformity, state ownership, or state publication of textbooks. Neither are we in favor of county uniformity, where a small committee selects the textbooks for a county. Such selection too often smacks of graft. The Nebraska law makes district ownership and uniformity mandatory. Before any publisher of school textbooks is permitted to enter into contract with any school district he must file with the state superintendent of public instruction, to be approved by him, a good and sufficient bond in the sum of from $2,000 to $20,000 for the faithful performance of the conditions of the contract; and such publisher must also file with the state superintendent a sworn statement of the lowest prices for which his series of textbooks are sold anywhere in the United States under similar conditions. So much for those who contemplate an educational campaign for such a law.

In those states having such a law it is incumbent upon county superintendents and the state superintendent to make a campaign for the care of school property with special reference to textbooks. Experience proves that where proper care is exercised by the school board and teachers the free textbook law is popular and satisfactory; but it becomes a detriment and a nuisance wherever pupils carelessly soil, mark, deface, or destroy books. See that teachers appeal to the pride of their pupils; that they insist on habits of neatness and cleanliness; that they make a regular inspection of books, at least once a month. No other agency is more effective than a regular book inspection. In every session of the legislature since the passage of our free textbook law, an effort has been made by lobbyists to repeal the free textbook law and enact in lieu thereof a law providing for state uniformity, state publication, and state ownership, under such nefarious plans as to bankrupt the state with reckless expenditure and graft. Be it said to the credit of every Nebraska legislature that all such cunning schemes have been promptly and emphatically exposed and denounced and rejected. At the last session of our state teachers' association a committee on school legislation was appointed, one from each congressional district and three at large, to represent the school people before the legislature on matters of school legislation. This committee at a recent meeting unanimously passed the following resolution: That it be the sense of this committee that Nebraska has the best free textbook law in the United States and that we are unalterably and unqualifiedly opposed to any amendment thereto.

There should be an educational campaign waged by every county and state superintendent in the United States for at least a five-dollar library in every rural school. The value of such a campaign can be measured only by the value of the books which it will place in the hands of the rural pupils. Their value cannot be estimated. To inspire in pupils a love for good books is to fill them with a desire to frequent the company of their betters. They learn to note what great men and great women admired. They learn to admire and worship rightly, and thus are proper ideals placed before them.

Several states now have excellent library laws. There is a measure now pending before the Nebraska legislature which has passed the house and has been recommended for passage by the senate committee on education. This bill makes it mandatory upon every school district-except in districts appropriating at least $300 per year for the maintenance of a public library-to set aside annually from the general funds of the district the sum of ten cents per pupil for the purchase of books for the school library. The author of this measure, Hon. Trenmore Cone, is also the author of Library Day, observed on the Friday nearest October 21. The observance of this day was inaugurated by the Nebraska state teachers' association on a resolution introduced by Mr. Cone in the year of the Columbian Exposition. This day is now celebrated in many states of the Union and will no doubt, like Arbor Day of Nebraska origin, be celebrated in a short time in every state in the Union.

In a campaign for free textbooks and school libraries let us not forget to caution every school district board and every teacher against purchasing any books whatsoever from traveling agents. Many school districts in Nebraska have been imposed upon by chart sharks and fake agents. A traveling agent cannot pay his railroad fare, hotel bills and livery hire, allowing him nothing for his salary, and visit rural schools at an average cost of less than five to ten dollars per district. Then such agents are usually paid two prices, and oftentimes four prices, for their books, which are, as a rule, not suited to the average rural school. The actual expenses and profit of the traveling agent would secure for any district a good library by dealing direct with reputable publishing houses. These companies are ready and anxious to furnish state and county superintendents with price lists of their books, carefully graded. Books will be sent in a single parcel, transportation prepaid, by publishers to any teacher or school officer in any state on receipt of the money for the books offered. County superintendents should furnish their teachers with price lists of library and textbooks from reputable publishing companies. In states having a

public-library commission a graded list of school libraries may be secured by addressing the secretary of the public-library commission. In the same campaign it is a duty incum bent upon state and county superintendents to warn their teachers against being duped by the oily-tongued swindler who is abroad in every state seeking whom he may devour. In the most courteous language he presents to teachers his reference book prepared especially for teachers, so he claims, but if his siren song fails to coax the teacher to subscribe for his book, he then endeavors to scare her into it by calling her a back-number. One of these sharks called at our office last fall. According to his insidious story he had the most wonderful offer ever made to teachers. He was selling a six-volume concern on which he claimed to make a special rate of $32.70 to teachers on the instalment plan, taking the teacher's note therefor. In the upper left-hand corner of the note were the figures $55.00 in bold black-faced type, which were red-lined out and underneath printed $32.70. Across the note were printed the words “Fifty-five dollars” in bold black-faced type and under them printed the words "Thirty-two and 10% dollars." This reduced rate was for Nebraska teachers only. The $55.00 rate represented the price in eastern and central states like Maine, Vermont, Indiana, and Ohio, if the agent told the truth. But it was on its face a lie. I told him so in just these words and sent him on his way lamenting.

In every state there is a demand for a campaign on compulsory education, better qualified teachers, better paid teachers, certification of teachers, the normal-school idea, professional training for teachers, beautifying of school buildings and grounds, heating, lighting, and ventilating of schoolhouses, consolidation of rural schools, transportation of pupils, free high-school privileges for rural-school pupils, and the organization of boys' and girls' industrial associations with especial reference to agricultural instruction, manual training, and domestic science; but to properly discuss any one of these questions would take more time than is allotted to me for this entire paper. I am compelled to pass these by for want of time and for the reason that many of them have been the subjects of hackneyed discussions in teachers' associations throughout the country for the past five years. However, they are none the less important. I would that I had time to discuss the value of an educational campaign for normal training in our strongest high schools, and the importance of modernizing our high-school course of study. I believe with Commissioner Draper of New York that "The true high-school course is four years in duration. It not only covers classical and mathematical instruction and prepares for entrance to college, but high-school courses have widened out from the old classical lines and have gone into about everything that can aid one to earn a living." Normal training in high schools is no longer an experiment or a temporary expediency in New York, where it has been tried for nearly three-quarters of a century. This is evidenced by the opinion of Commissioner Draper in his annual report for 1905. He says on this subject: "For a long time the state has maintained training classes for teachers in the high schools and academies. These were in charge of the board of regents until 1889, when, by voluntary action of the board and then by legislative act, their management was transferred to the state superintendent of public instruction. These classes are not intended to do the work of the normal schools. They are expected to provide limited instruction in pedagogical courses for beginners in such work who reside in their neighborhood. If often happens that students who begin in these classes acquire an interest in the subjects in which they have been drilled to an extent which leads them to go to the normal schools or to pedagogical courses in the colleges and universities. There are over one hundred of these training-classes in the better academies and high schools in various parts of the state. They are distributed under appointment by the commissioner of education, with some reference to the ability of the schools to care for them and to the convenience of intending students. The expense of these classes to the state is a little more than $100,000 annually. In the last year they instructed 2,921 students." In his annual report for 1906 Commissioner Draper says of this work in the high schools of New York: "The most fruitful if not the most hopeful source of good teachers for the district schools is found in the training-classes. It is