The sun was setting, giving a rosy glow to all the trees standing tall black against the faintly tinted sky.  Blue, pink, green, yellow, like a conglomeration of paints dropped carelessly onto a pale blue background.  The trees were in such great number that they looked like a mass of black crepe, each with its individual, graceful form in view.  The lake lay smooth and unruffled, dimly reflecting the beautiful coloring of the sky.  The wind started madly up and blew over the lake’s glassy surface making mysterious murmurings blending in with the chirping songs of the birds blew through the tree tops setting the leaves rustling and whispering to one another.  A squirrel ran from his perch chattering, to the lofty branches—­a far and distant hoot echoed in the silence, and soon night, over all came stealing, blotting out the scenery and wrapping all in restful, mysterious darkness.

     VALUE 90

Oh that I had never heard of Niagara till I beheld it!  Blessed were the wanderers of old, who heard its deep roar, sounding through the woods, as the summons to an unknown wonder, and approached its awful brink, in all the freshness of native feeling.  Had its own mysterious voice been the first to warn me of its existence, then, indeed, I might have knelt down and worshipped.  But I had come thither, haunted with a vision of foam and fury, and dizzy cliffs, and an ocean tumbling down out of the sky—­a scene, in short, which nature had too much good taste and calm simplicity to realize.  My mind had struggled to adapt these false conceptions to the reality, and finding the effort vain, a wretched sense of disappointment weighed me down.  I climbed the precipice, and threw myself on the earth feeling that I was unworthy to look at the Great Falls, and careless about beholding them again.

A scale for measuring English composition in the eighth grade, which takes account of different types of composition, such as narration, description, and the like, has been developed by Dr. Frank W. Ballou, of Boston.[27] For those interested in the following up of the problem of English composition this scale will prove interesting and valuable.

Several scales have been developed for the measurement of the ability of children in reading.  Among them may be mentioned the scale derived by Professor Thorndike for measuring the understanding of sentences.[28] This scale calls attention to that element in reading which is possibly the most important of them all, that is, the attempt to get meanings.  We are all of us, for the most part, concerned not primarily with giving expression through oral reading, but, rather, in getting ideas from the printed page.  A sample of this scale is given on the following page.

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SCALE ALPHA.  FOR MEASURING THE UNDERSTANDING OF SENTENCES

Write your name here............................... 
Write your age.............years............months.

SET a