suppress.  When the children return to their homes in the evening they should have clearer and larger conceptions of the things that animated them in the morning.  If they come into the school all aglow with interest in the great snowstorm of the night before, the teacher does well to hold the lesson in decimals in abeyance until she has led around to the subject by means of readings or stories that have to do with snowstorms.  The paramount and common interest of the children in the morning is snow and, therefore, the day should hold snow in the foreground in their thinking, so that, at the close of the day, their horizon in the snow-world may be extended, and so that they may thus be able to make contributions to the home on the subject of snow.

=Real interests.=—­In the morning the pupils had objective snow in which they rollicked and gamboled in glee.  All day long they had subjective snow in which the teacher with fine technique caused them to revel; and, in the evening, their concept of snow was so much enlarged that they experienced a fresh access of delight.  And that day was their snow epiphany.  On that day there was no break in the stream of life at the schoolhouse door.  There was no supplanting of the real interests of the morning with fictitious interests of the school, to be endured with ill grace until the real interests of the morning could be resumed in the evening.  On the contrary, by some magic that only the vitalized teacher knows, every exercise of the day seemed to have snow as its center.  Snow seemed to be the major in the reading, in the spelling, in the geography, and in the history.

On that day they became acquainted with Hannibal and his struggles through the snow of the Alps.  On that day they learned of the avalanche, its origin, its devastating power, and, of course, its spelling.  On that day they read “Snow Bound” and the snow poems of Longfellow and Lowell.  Thus the stream of life was clarified, rectified, and amplified as it passed through the school, and, incidentally, the teacher and the school were glorified in their thoughts.

=Circus day.=—­But snow is merely typical.  On other days other interests are paramount.  On circus day the children, again, have a common interest which affords the teacher a supreme opportunity.  The day has been anticipated by the teacher, and the pupils have cause to wonder how and whence she ever accumulated such a wealth of pictures of animal life.  All day long they are regaled with a subjective menagerie, and when they attend the circus in the evening they astonish their parents by the extent and accuracy of their information.  They know the animals by name, their habitat, their habits, their food, and their uses.  In short, they seemed to have compassed a working knowledge of the animal kingdom in a single day through the skill of the teacher who knows how to make the school reenforce their life interests.