beech and a maple; an evergreen oak and a eucalyptus. Use manufactured articles in the same way, choosing, at first, things of the same genus: a wagon, a carriage; a spade, a hoe; a book, a newspaper; a cap, a hat; a silver cup, a china teacup. For older pupils, select, after practice in such as the preceding, very different kinds of comparison, as, for example: Appleton's "First Reader," "The Eclectic First Reader"; Higginson's "History of the United States," Barnes's "History of the United States "; Longfellow's Evangeline," and "The Courtship of Miles Standish "; a sonnet of Lowell, and a sonnet of Longfellow; any two odes; any two elegies; two authors, if any pupils are able to take such a subject. Other subjects: City life and country life; a country boy and a city boy; a country home, a city home; a cooper shop and a tin shop; a street in town and a country road; a home on the mountain and a home in the valley. Read: Mrs. Gildersleeve's "Mrs. Lofty." CHAPTER XIV. DOMESTIC MANUFACTURES. N country districts, especially, but also in town IN or city schools, good material for compositionwriting may be got out of well-managed lessons in domestic economy. Most children in such schools already know in a practical way something of the manufacture of the commoner sorts of homemade articles, as bread, butter, cheese, canned fruits, jellies, pickles, rag-carpets and rugs, patchwork quilts, stockings, and other clothing, and of mending and darning. To have these things talked of and written about, and then illustrated by actual articles brought in and exhibited as their own work, will give pleasure and encouragement, besides furnishing opportunity for intelligent telling of processes. For the country girl to see her friends, among them her teacher, enjoying and praising a loaf of bread of her own making and butter of her own churning, turns a little of the prose of making it into poetry. Nor is the idea of dignity which attaches to such work, and which is thus seen and appreciated, of small value to her. When it is proposed to use this material for composition exercises, introduce, say, the subject of bread-materials. In one or two of the first lessons take up such topics as the bread grains, their manufacture into flour and meal (illustrate with specimens), of bread-grains in other countries, cost of a loaf, its size and weight, and what determine these; specimens of grains and plants (which treat as in Chapter III.). When these, or such of these as are chosen, have been disposed of, take up the details of bread-making in its various kinds. What is good bread? Poor bread? What makes the difference? Importance to health of the household? Adulteration of flour and bread. When these, together with others that may occur to the teacher, have been exhausted, recipes for the common kinds of bread may be written explicitly, by those who have actually made bread, and then may be criticised as to clearness by the class. Soon after, on an appointed day, pupils may bring specimens of their own making, to be tested at the noon luncheon. Boys may do this as well as girls and not be harmed. A bread-exhibition on a Friday afternoon may thus add something to the interest of exercises of another nature, common on that day in many schools. Suggestions: (1.) Varieties of bread: From yeast,-white, graham, rye, corn-pone, rolls, rusk, coffee cake "salt-rising"; griddle-cakes,-corn, white, graham, buckwheat, and oatmeal; soda biscuit, waffles, muffins, corn-bread, etc. (2.) After lessons in descriptive composition, the literal description of a loaf of bread, inside and out, may be attempted (crust, crumb, shape, color, odor, general appearance, weight, taste). (3.) Other subjects: Butter-making, jellies, jams, preserves, canned fruits, and dried fruits, pickles, pies, cakes, puddings, roast meats, broiled meats, boiled meats. An imaginative mind, in directing these exercises, if fortified with practical knowledge of the subjects, may get some very pretty story-sketches written by pupils on some of these topics. Example.-Canning Peaches: Kate and John help mother; go to the orchard for peaches; beauties; odors; select fine ones for mother and father; back porch; clean aprons; John puts on one of mother's aprons; cut yellow peaches; great white bowl; a double peach; Kate helps to prepare the jars with hot water, etc., mother goes in and out, tells a story of peaches,-" When I was a little. girl," etc., etc. The practical telling how to can peaches may precede all this, or it may be omitted entirely. (4.) Mending and darning. Necessary articles with which to work; how to put on a patch; to mend a plain gingham, or other plaid; a figured calico, a white dress, or other garment; a rip, a coat-sleeve, a fray, a burn, etc., etc. How to darn a heel, a toe; a torn cloth coat, a woolen dress, a lace curtain, a lace frill, a knit shawl; French darning of stockings by knitting in new to replace the old, worn-out stitches. Specimens of this work and also of ingenious methods of managing accidental damages to good garments may be brought in and shown at recess to those interested. These, as some of the preceding subjects, may be "romanced" about, in the simple way possible to a child's or youth's imagination. NOTE. The value of these lessons from an ethical point of view is not small. Where the habit of observation concerning material and external things is wanting, there is often a corresponding lack in the perception of those conditions which make the moral and spiritual environment. Much that is profitable is possible, therefore, through such lessons and through others which are founded on what lies near to the child's life on the side of the feelings and affections. To many a child, all belonging to home-life may seem too commonplace and uninteresting to write about; yet to many a thoughtless son and daughter such a school-exercise may teach the lesson of noticing how many things mother does for a hitherto unnoticing, if not thankless, child; of appreciating that the father, who clothes, feeds, |