=The voluble teacher.=—­And while she rambles on in her aimless talking the children are bored, inexpressibly bored.  It is axiomatic that the learning process does not flourish in a state of boredom.  Under the ordeal of verbal inundation the children wriggle and squirm about in their seats and this affords her a new point of attack.  She calls them ill-bred and unmannerly and wonders at the homes that can produce such children.  She does not realize that if these children were grown-ups they would leave the room regardless of consequences.  When they yawn, she reminds them of the utter futility of casting pearls before swine.  All the while the twenty minutes are going and the pupils have not yet learned how to divide fractions.  Over in the next room the pupils know full well how to divide fractions and the teacher is rewarding their diligence with a cookie in the form of a story, while they wait for the bell to ring.  Out of the room of the thirty-minute teacher come the children glowering and resentful; out of the other room the children come buoyant and happy.

=The test of teaching.=—­Not alone did the former teacher use the time of her pupils for her own ends, but, even more, she dulled their interest, and the damage thus inflicted cannot be estimated.  Many a child has deserted the school because the teacher made school life disagreeable.  She was the wet blanket upon his enthusiasm and chilled him to the marrow when he failed to go forward upon her traditional track.  The teacher who can generate in the minds of her pupils a spiritual ignition by her every movement and word will not be humiliated by desertions.  Indeed, the test of the teacher is the mental attitude of her pupils.  The child who drags and drawls through the lesson convicts the teacher of a want of expertness.  On the other hand, when the pupils are all wide-awake, alert, animated, eager to respond, and dynamic, we know that the teacher has brought this condition to pass and that she is a ten-minute teacher.

=Meaningless formalities.=—­One of the influences that tends to deaden the interest of children is the ponderous formality that sometimes obtains.  The teacher solemnly calls the roll, although she can see at a glance that there are no absentees.  This is exceedingly irksome to wide-awake boys and girls who are avid for variety.  The same monotonous calling of the roll day after day with no semblance of variation induces in them a sort of mental dyspepsia for which they seek an antidote in what the teacher denominates disorder.  This so-called disorder betokens good health on their part and is a revelation of the fact that they have a keen appreciation of the fitness of things.  They cannot brook monotony and it irks them to dawdle about in the anteroom of action.  They are eager to do their work if only the teacher will get right at it.  But they are impatient of meaningless preliminaries.  They see no sense in calling the roll when everybody is present and discredit the teacher who persists in the practice.