TO TEACHERS.

Highly competent teachers are the very ones who receive most kindly suggestions meant to be helpful.  For such these words are intended.

The local organizations are so related that it is advisable for all classes to consider each of them.  Especial attention should, however, be given to the organization (town, village or city) in which the school is.  Here considerable time can be profitably spent, and the matter in the book may be much amplified.  Here must be laid the basis of future study.

Certain typical instruments deserve careful study.  For a student to have made out understandingly an official bond, for instance, is for him to have gained greatly in intelligence.

It will be of great advantage to the class for the teacher to have a complete set of the papers whose forms are given in Appendix A. These may be obtained at almost any newspaper office, at a cost of about 50 cents.

A scrap-book or series of envelopes in which to file newspaper clippings illustrative of the every-day workings of government, may be made very useful.  Pupils should be permitted and encouraged to contribute.

One good way to review is for the teacher to give out, say once in two weeks, a set of twenty-five or more questions, each of which may be answered in a few words; have the pupils write their answers; and the correct answers being given by teacher or pupils, each may mark his own paper.  Each pupil may thus discover where he is strong and where weak.

The questions given for debate may be discussed by the literary society.  Or for morning exercises, one student may on a certain day present one side of the argument, and on the following day the negative may be brought out by another student.

A student should not be required to submit his good name to the chances of answering a certain set of questions, however excellent, at the examination, when from anxiety or other causes he may fall far short of doing himself justice.  One good plan is to allow each student to make up 50 percent of his record during the progress of the work, by bringing in, say, five carefully prepared papers.  One of these may be a resume of matter pertaining to his local organization; another may be an account of a trial observed, or other governmental work which the student may have seen performed; a third may be a synopsis of the president’s message; the fourth, a general tabulation of the constitution; the fifth, a review of some book on government, or a paper on a subject of the student’s own choice.

Among reference books, every school should have at least the Revised Statutes of the state and of the United States, the Legislative Manual of the state, a good political almanac for the current year, the Congressional Directory, and Alton’s Among the Lawmakers.

A Teachers’ Manual, giving answers to the pertinent questions contained herein, and many useful hints as to the details of teaching Civics, is published in connection with this book.