that come from swollen tonsils and from adenoids, and the handicaps of those who hear and see defectively. In case there is no school physician he diagnoses the most flagrant cases, and urges upon the parents to seek a specialist's advice. Likewise he has an eye and ear for coughs and colds; he spares no effort to apprise the parent and to point out their dangers if protracted. He, furthermore, makes all these subjects of hygiene a part of daily lessons in the school.

He teaches children to preserve their teeth, by frequent, regular brushing and by semi-annual visits to the dentist. Perhaps he sets aside a day each year on which he has a tooth brush drill. A regularity in voluntary riddance of waste materials, as well as temperance, regularity, and proper mastication in the eating process he seeks to have his pupils aspire to and attain habitually. In short, he seeks to have his children live, as well as know, the fundamental laws of health.

One of these laws most miserably violated by the average country person is perfect posture. The name of this law rarely graces country folk's vocabulary. The country school child is seldom troubled with its meaning. Where is the country school where children sit and stand erect? Some there must be, but they are exceptional. The average country child is allowed to sit and stand, and lean and lounge almost as he chooses; neither is he taught to be physically alert and to respond quickly to commands that evoke concerted action. Perhaps some good habits of physical alertness would induce mental alertness. However, prompt reaction from the country child is slightly out of keeping with the individualizing atmosphere in which he grows. The country school needs a standard system of "setting up" drills somewhat after those of the New York City schools. The country child therefore is sorely in need of physical education. To many country people such a statement seems absurd. The pitchfork and the plow, the axe and saw, they say, give ample exercise for any man. Quite true! Their contribution is more than ample oftentimes; but the abundance is of exercise and not necessarily of physical culture. Few of the farmers's tasks encourage perfect posture; most, on the other hand develop posture that is most imperfect. The fatigue of limbs and body makes him

tend to relax. Therefore when he rests, as well as when he works the farmer is not naturally induced to keep his head up and his shoulders back. Furthermore the social expectation in the country does not always stimulate a perfect posture. These errors could be corrected by the proper mode of exercises. The country schoolmaster has the greatest opportunity. While in his school the child should develop habits of physical erectness that will abide with him through life. Moreover, a strong, well shaped physique is an ideal the teacher constantly should hold before the growing child. Thus with the world of truth about them, the good food available, the pure air to breathe, and the many chances to develop a body perfect in health and form, the country boys and girls need to be taught in school how to grasp these opportunities most effectively.

To be continued.

American Notes-Editorial

Hon. P. P. Claxton, the United States Commissioner of Education, has made an admirable constructive suggestion in relation to the food shortage resulting, in part at least, from the war conditions in Europe and affecting our own country as well as those more directly involved in the conflict. Noting the fact that most articles of food are consumed far from the place of production, thus increasing their cost to the consumer by the amount of the charges for storage, transportation and the profits of the middlemen, he suggests an economy that is "so simple and close at hand that, as is so frequently the case, it is overlooked." This economy is the employment of approximately 6,000,000 boys and girls between the ages of nine and sixteen, who shall be carefully instructed in practical agriculture, by putting into the schools, for every hundred such children, one teacher skilled in gardening and paid for all the year. For 4,000,000 of these children, the commissioner says, there is access to back yards, side yards and vacant lots which might be cultivated as small gardens; and many live where space is available for chickens, ducks, or pigeons. He figures that an hour or two per day, of work for the boys and girls,-and adult men and women also, in many cases,-would be at once recreation, rest from routine, highly educational and productive of an enormous total in food

values.

"With some intelligent direction," he says, "these school children and older boys and girls and men and women might easily produce on the available land an average of $75 each in vegetables and fruits for their own tables or for sale in their immediate neighborhood; fresh and crisp through all the growing months and wholesomely canned and preserved for use in winter. This would add $750,000,000 to the best form of food supply of the country without cost of transportation or storage and without profits of middlemen. The estimate is very conservative, as has been shown by many experiments."

The commissioner figures the cost of hiring the 40,000 teachers required by his plan, at $500 a year each, at a total of $20,000,000. He adds: "There would be some cost for seeds and some for fertilizers and tools, but after the first year the cost of these last two items would be comparatively little. The proceeds would represent profits to a greater extent than in any other kind of production. The miracle of it is in bringing together idle land on the one hand and idle children and tired people on the other. Alone, neither is productive, but all would be benefited by the combination even if the vegetables and fruits produced had no value: the land

by the cultivation, the children by the health-giving, educational labor, and the older people by the hours outdoors and the contact with the soil."

He claims that most of the 6,000,000 boys and girls who are to do this work are now idle more than half the year. "They are in school less than 1,000 hours in the year, and allowing 10 hours a day for sleep, are out of school more than 4,000 waking hours, more than an average of nine hours a day, not counting Sundays. National and State laws make it impossible for most of them to do any profitable work in mill, mine or shop, and many of them are forming habits of idleness and falling into vice. Even during the vacation months only about 10 per cent have any profitable employment; only about 5 per cent. of them go away from their homes except for a few days. Still, they must live and be fed and clothed."

The honorable commissioner's plan as thus outlined reads exceedingly well. His presentation of the facts is certainly impressive If the people can get seven hundred odd million dollars worth of crisp, fresh, nourishing food, with a lot of good health, fresh strength, good habits, and wholesome fun thrown in, and all by the expenditure of a comparatively small sum of money and a little strength that is now being wasted, why, then, let us thank God and take courage. We can rout "the high cost of living" "horse, foot and dragoon," and defy even the German submarines to starve us out. We honestly believe that the commissioner has said something well worth saying, and well worth trying. But we should advise caution and conservation in experimentation, for a time; and without at all wishing to pose as incredulous critics, we would like to fully face a few difficulties likely to be encountered in carrying out the plan.

First, where are we to find the 40,000 skilled teachers of gardening who will enter upon this service at a wage of $500 a year? Secondly, is there any available means of commanding the services of the 6,000,000 boys and girls for an hour or two a day? Suppose they would rather play ball or go a'fishing! Or, if the work is substituted for regular classroom work are the school plants to be kept running through the long vacation? And if so, will there not be a much larger cost than that for the special teachers referred to?

Thirdly, Is not the cost for tools, fertilizer, etc., passed over rather lightly? In some parts of the country the soil may be so virgin, so mellow and rich, that but little labor or expense will be necessary to secure good crops. But as a rule we cannot in agriculture "take out" without we "put back." In New England we are quite apt to put in fully as much as and oftentimes more than we get back, especially in our backyard farming.

Once more no account is taken of such things as bad seasons,

droughts or floods, excessive heat, early frosts, insect pests (whose name is legion) and a thousand and one other disheartening conditions with which the farmer and the gardener are forever contending. It is common experience to put in a certain crop one year and get splendid results; and then to do exactly the same thing next season, but have a very wet season entirely spoil the crop; and the third season may exactly reverse this and parch the earth into a barren desert until nothing can grow. It is easy to sit in one's study and figure out millions of dollars in hens or onions, or black foxes. But to materialize either is another proposition. Nevertheless the commissioner's plan is so plausible that it deserves a hearing and some careful experimentation.

The long voyage of the pupil through the grades, the high school, the university is fraught with dangers, and the shores are strewn with wrecks, many of which are distinctly attributable to poor seamanship. These tragedies are most lamentable. They are difficult of tabulation but we venture to say that if one of our great educational foundations should undertake a painstaking and thoroughgoing investigation and should give us the results in tables showing the number of pupils actually dropping out during a given year, grade by grade and class by class through the elementary, the high school and the college courses, with the real reasons therefor, we would be astonished by the result. And the tragedy would be intensified if we could add to the number those who just rub through, but who at the end of the course can show only a bare pass-mark and no real and adequate preparation for the work of life. This insufficiency, or inefficiency, of much of our schooling is due to such a complexity of causes that it is exceedingly difficult often times, to determine which one or which ones have been the determinative reason for a pupil's not doing well. Sometimes the fault is altogether with the school; and sometimes it is altogether with the pupil; and often it is partly the fault of both. Whatever the fault is and at whosesoever door it lies, the responsibility should be fixed wherever possible, and the remedy found where there is a remedy. Poor scholarship,-at any rate such as to necessitate positive failure and dropping out of school, should not be tolerated. It is a reproach to the whole educational system, a menace to society and it spells a ruined life to the individual. We believe that four-fifths of these lamentable wrecks might be prevented.

There are many varieties of pupils who present themselves for admission to our schools. The positively subnormal, defective ones may be disregarded in this brief discussion. They are soon strained out and should receive expert attention in classes or institutions by themselves. There are a few upon the border line of subnormality