"Time is a measured portion of eternity." "Time is money." "Time is so precious that there is never but one moment given at once." Teachers will sometimes write such statements as these on the board in the morning and then disregard them all day. A volume might well be written on time in its relation to the school.

The promptness that simply avoids tardiness is not all there is of the subject.

"The man is yet unborn

Who duly weighs the value of an hour;
Who murders time crushes in its birth
A power ethereal, only not adored."

In business we expect a definite amount of work to be done in a definite period of time. It should be so in school.

Accuracy first, and then rapidity. There is no credit even in doing a thing well if it takes forever to do it.

If teachers would ponder this matter of promptness, of time in its relation to the school and its work, they might be able to discover a remedy for many evils.

It is between acts that mischief begins. A superintendent of a large factory can often save for the company much more than his salary

by simply looking after the fragments of time and seeing that every movement counts for something. The superintendent or the teacher of a school may do the same. Arrange your program to the best advantage.

Begin promptly, close promptly, and fill up every minute of intervening time with well-chosen work, and the school will accomplish its purpose and children will learn the value of time and acquire the habit of promptness in all things.

"Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for they are gone forever."

5. The Habit of Reading Good Books.

The teacher will impress his predominate idea upon his school. If he loves nature, his pupils will soon learn to observe and love nature. If he loves good books his school will soon be absorbed in books. If he loves society and amusement the attention of his school will soon be directed to the same things. If he is a specialist in mathematics he will soon have his school measuring everything by that standard. If he is totally absorbed in his own profession he will soon be running a sort of normal school rather

than a school to fit pupils for the work of life that most of them will have to do.

It is well for the teacher to look over his school occasionally and ask himself what he is really working for.

What we put into our schools we shall soon have in character and in society.

Of the many habits that demand our attention at school there is none of more importance than that of reading good literature.

The arithmetic, the geography, the chemistry, the Latin may never be taken up again after school days are over.

But not so with literature. Every one reads more or less, and what we read and how we read depend largely upon the reading habit that we acquired at school.

We enjoy history, or science, or fiction largely as our interest has been awakened at school and as our habit has been directed.

The thoughts, the aspirations, the materials for character building come largely from good books.

Every school should have a library even if it be only a box nailed to the wall and a few books in it that you yourself furnish, or that you may get

from your patrons. If your pupils have access to a library, teach them how to use it. Teach them to love it. Read to them, talk to them, get them interested in books and you will have done for them a lasting good. One big library is not enough for a school or for a community any more than one big light is enough for a whole city. Encourage the children to build up a library of their own. Bring a few books into your schoolroom, establish this habit of reading good books, and ere long the children will rise up to call you blessed.

THE IMPORTANCE OF STUDY.

The true university of these days is a collection of books.— Carlyle.

Teaching is causing the pupil to study.-Compayré.

The purpose of incentives is to cause the child to study.

The purpose of the recitation is to find out what and how thoroughly he has studied. Study in its true sense means more than to investigate and find out. It means to bring all the powers of the soul to bear upon the subject under consideration, to look at it with the mind's eye in all of its relations and in all of its bearings. It means to exercise the powers of observation, of memory, of imagination, and especially of reasoning.

Study is the key that unlocks the stores of knowledge.

It is the magic wand that calls forth the hidden powers of nature.