At this season of the year, while "Johnny" is reading the books that his teacher thinks he ought or ought not to read, and and his teacher, too, is reading some of those books she wanted to read if she just only could get time, it is a good time for the teacher to think of the value of a suggestive, voluntary, pleasure list for "Johnnys" special benefit this fall and during the long winter evenings. Many of the real live, interested teachers have waked up to the value of such a list. Have you? If you have not, get up one for your school or your classes this year, and do a little experimenting with it.

So many uses can be made of the reading list that it is necessary only to suggest a few to the enthusiastic teacher. Write it on the black-board at the beginning of the term and suggest that if the boys and girls cannot think of an interesting book to read that they try one from your list. Give them a brief, spicy summary of two or three of the more popular books or ask some boy or girl who has enjoyed a book on the list to tell why he liked it so well. Put it on a card or in a little note-book and hang it by the door,

as a reminder. Post it at the library and ask the librarian to co-operate with you and see that a sufficient number of copies of each book on the list is provided. Let the children make oral or written reports on the books read occasionally, or ask them at the end of the week or month the number of books they have read and what ones they enjoyed most or why.

If you are interested, start at once to get your list ready, as it takes considerable time to make a good one. Make, first, the best list you can of your own, being careful not to forget the books that you enjoyed when you were of the age that your pupils are now. If there are more teachers of English than yourself, or if you have an organized department in your school, all the teachers should hand in their lists and from these a final list should be selected by a committee. But before you choose that final list, get suggestions from other teachers, history teachers, science teachers, all the teachers, from librarians, interested citizens, and, most important of all, from the children who are to read the books themselves.

This will give you a very long preliminary list and plunge you at once. into the problem of determining what to keep and what to cast aside. Do not make the list too long. Ten to fifty

books are enough. See that the list is properly graded to suit the development of the reader. Remember that these books are read without the assistance of the teacher. See that all the books are good literature, but not necessarily classics or standard works. Include some of the best, popular books of the hour. Here, in Indiana, include, by all means, some of the good books by our own Indiana authors, of which the children, as well as we, may justly be proud. If poetry is included, choose only the simple, narrative poems that do not require the assistance of a teacher in interpretation. Have an abundance of short stories and novels, as the child has a natural and just preference for fiction.

By way of suggestion, for the benefit of teachers who may be interested or at work in preparing a voluntary reading list, we print, herewith, the Shortridge High School (Indianapolis) list, which was prepared for the purposes and in the manner just stated. It is printed as a part of the course of study in English and is entitled: "A Suggestive List of Outside Pleasure Reading." Teachers will note that it is made. up almost entirely of fiction and that it is graded to fit the four years of the high school course.

A Suggestive List of Outside Pleasure

Reading.
-First Year.-

Alcott-Little Women.

Aldrich-The Little Violinist; The Story of a Bad Boy. Browning-The Pied Piper of

Hamelin.

Clemens (Mark Twain)-Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court; Tom Sawyer; Huckleberry Finn; Life on the Mississippi.

Cooper-The Last of the Mohicans; The Pioneers.

Howells-A Boy's Town.
Hughes-Tom Brown's School Days.
Kipling-Captains Courageous.
Lamb Tales from Shakespeare.
London-The Call of the Wild.
Palmer The Odyssey.

Pyle-Men of Iron; Merry Adventures of Robin Hood.

Roosevelt-African Game Trails.
Saunders-Beautiful Joe.

Scott-Quentin Durward; The Tal

isman.

Stevenson-Kidnapped.

Thompson-Seton-Wild Animals I Have Known.

Van Dyke The Other Wise Man.
Warner-Being a Boy.

Wiggin-Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm; The Birds' Christmas Carol. -Second Year

Allen A Kentucky Cardinal.
Churchill-Richard Carvel.
Connor-Black Rock.

Cooper-The Deerslayer.

Curtis-Prue and I.

Davis Soldiers of Fortune.

Dickens-A Christmas Carol.
Eggleston-The

Master.

Hoosier School

Harris-Uncle Remus Stories.

Jackson-Ramona.

Johnson-The Varmint.

Nicholson-A Hoosier Chronicle.

Rolfe The Boyhood of Shakespeare.

Scott-The Lady of the Lake.
Smith-Colonel Carter of Carters-

ville.

Stockton-Rudder Grange; The Casting Away of Mrs. Lecks and Mrs. Aleshine.

Tarkington-Wilson-The Man From

Home.

-Third Year.—

Arnold-Sohrab and Rustum. Blackmore-Lorna Doone.

Briggs-Routine and Ideals. Dickens-Nicholas Nickleby; Old Curiosity Shop; Pickwick Papers.

Fox-The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come.

Goldsmith-She Stoops to Conquer.
Hawthorne-The Marble Faun.
Irving The Sketch Book.
Kipling-The Brushwood Boy.
Smith-Caleb West, The Master

Diver.

Stevenson-Will O' The Mill.
Tennyson-Enoch Arden.
Thoreau-Walden.

Van Dyke-Fisherman's Luck; The Blue Flower.

Wallace-Ben Hur.

-Fourth Year.—

Fox-The Trail of the Lonesome

Pine.

Gaskell Cranford.

Goldsmith-The Vicar of Wakefield.
Irving-Life of Goldsmith.
Kipling-Kim.

Lee-Life of Shakespeare.
Marlowe The Jew of Malta.
Peabody-The Piper.

Reade The Cloister and the Hearth.
Scott-Guy Mannering; Kenilworth.
Shakespeare The Tempest.
Sheridan-The Rivals.
Tennyson-The Princess.
Thackeray-The Virginians.
Zangwill-The Melting Pot.

Everyman.

NATIONAL COMMITTEE OF SPEECH
TRAINING HEARD FROM.

At the meeting of the National Council of Teachers of English, in Chicago, last November, considerable interest was aroused in the need of greater effort in the schools along the line of speech training. As a result, a committee was appointed to study and report the possibilities of doing something practical in the schools to

meet the need. This committee has recently sent out a letter for the benefit of those teachers who wish to improve their own speech during the summer months.

In speaking of the aims of speech training, the committee gives some suggestions that should be found valuable by all our English teachers: "What most teachers of English need is instruction in fundamentals, in the production of tone, placing the voice, that is, for the right use in conversation. With poor tone, work upon pronunciation, articulation, phrasing, interpretation, etc., is relatively unprofitable. It lacks foundation, and will not be assimilated. On the other hand, once make your tone right in your conversational voice, and you will have much less difficulty in improving enunciation and pronunciation."

Perhaps the best part of the letter is the suggestion that whoever the teacher may be, the pupil must keep his own aim in view and use his own good judgment:

"Whoever the instructor, however, the teachers of English, in their vocal study, should remember that their object is the improvement of the voice for everyday use in ordinary conversation. Achieve this, and other desirable features; increase of power, clear articulation, correct pronunciation, graceful and varied modulation, may later be added, either by study with teachers of expression, or, if this cannot be had, by one's own patient effort. If English teachers bear this fact diligently in mind, and use their common sense, they may study voice-placing with almost any reputable, teacher, either of singing or expression, avoid any personal extravagances of their instructor, and profit by the really helpful part of his instruction.

"Be what you would have your pupil become." The heart of every true teacher has an echo for the sentiment of that quotation. There can be no hypocrisy in the real teacher, no double life, nothing that is not altogether genuine and of good report. Teaching is a serious business.

"Rub a boy with a positive rule, and you develop a negative boy." Every student of "Boyology" knows thatbut there are some teachers who are very poor students of "Boyology."

"In conduct and in discipline, the teacher gets the best results who furnishes the best models." That is saying a thing that every wise teacher knows, saying a thing that has been said many times in many ways, saying a thing that touches the fundamentals in life and conduct.

The teacher, principal, or superintendent who can not be loyal to his superiors and his profession would confer a favor on both by resigning

ness.

Do you have a school community in which the parents will not attend parents' meetings unless there is serving of refreshments on the program? Something wrong, either with the parents or the meeting!

The county institute season begins early in August and will last till October. The earnest, sincere teacher will endeavor to get out of the lectures everything possible. He who takes nothing to the institute will take nothing away-that much is certain.

Is your school plant as wide as your communty? Does your school touch and serve all the life of your community?

South Carolina and Texas have joined the list of compulsory school attendance states. Alabama, Georgia, Florida and Mississippi are still out of the fold. The states of our country will be a unit in time in demanding that all children shall go to school.

Complaint comes from Harvard that not all the students are proficient in spelling and English in general. The elementary and secondary schools must see to it that all their pupils learn to spell and to use ordinary English correctly. Until these schools do their duty in this direction, there will be complaints, plenty of them, loud and long complaints.