Montclair, N. J., Edna H. Jones, teacher, Watchung School.-Every pupil has saved one year and without exception they are doing well in the sixth and seventh grades, where they now are. There is some question as to whether their immaturity will prevent them from keeping up in eighth and ninth grade work though.

Montclair, N. J., Alfreda M. Miller, teacher, Maple Avenue School. I believe a teacher might advance too far with her class. For example, a teacher who is an excellent first-grade teacher and a natural first-grade teacher would, I believe, be in very much the wrong place if she were to continue going up much beyond the fourth grade. Some teachers seem made for primary work and some for grammar work; such teachers, I think, should be careful not to get out of their proper sphere.

Montclair, N. J., B. H. Wetherby, teacher, Maple Avenue School.-It seems to me that in cases where a teacher is particularly fitted for first-grade work she would lose by advancing to the upper grades. The same would hold true of grammar-grade teachers who may not be in sympathy with the younger children.

This system has been especially advantageous in our school as the majority of the children are foreign. To advance with them means a helpful acquaintance, for they are usually reticent and most individual. It is, therefore, a great saving of time, and means a better understanding of each child.

Syracuse, N. Y., Helen Curtin, teacher, Croton School.-Many times within the last few weeks I have heard teachers say many pleasant things about being able to go on with their grades. It is very necessary that the teacher be pleased with her work. This plan gives the teacher an opportunity to know the child. She can not deal with him intelligently unless she knows how to approach him.

The child is given an opportunity to know the teacher. Unhappiness in teaching, as in many other things, often results from a lack of understanding on the part of both teacher and pupil.

Much more freedom can be allowed. Children will realize that we are social beings after all and not "just school-teachers."

More guidance for their reading, and outside interests can be given.

A teacher said to me a few weeks ago at the beginning of this term, "I can not understand what it is that makes me so fond of my class this term. They are so much better than they were last term." Still they are about the same children. Now she knows them.

Syracuse, N. Y., Matilda Miller, teacher, Prescott School.-Pupils become so well acquainted with the teachers that the second term they feel free to ask questions concerning their work which they would not do the first term. In the seventh grade the individual work becomes easier, for the teacher knows just which pupils require special help along certain lines.

I am heartily in favor of this plan of promotion, for it makes both teacher and pupil happy in the work.

Syracuse, N. Y., M. E. Whan, teacher, Prescott School.-At first I did not like it, but now I would feel lost if the system were changed. Time is surely saved, and there is no question in the mind of the teacher about the ability of each pupil. She knows the unruly ones and they know where the line is over which they dare not step. They give up the idea of trying the teacher for they know her as she also knows them.

Morganton, N. C., Mrs. W. R. Marbut, teacher, Morganton Grade School.-Whenever I have entered a room full of children that were strangers to me, I have found that I lost a good deal of time in finding out the exact needs, difficulties, and characteristics of each child. Without this knowledge, I felt that I could not do my best work and might fail to really reach the child at all.

The children must become well acquainted with the teacher and her methods before they can do their best work.

An atmosphere of sympathy and understanding must be established and it takes some time to accomplish all this. Once well done, however, this understanding lasts as long as the relations of teacher and pupil continue.

Newbern, N. C., Mollie H. Heath, teacher, Newbern Graded School.—I think the plan of semiannual promotions especially good for the backward pupils, as it gives them an opportunity for promotion in four months, if they can remain with the teacher who has learned their limitations. There are advantages and disadvantages in semiannual promotions. The teacher can not be with both classes, but I think the backward pupils would suffer most if she should leave them.

Newbern, N. C., Eleanor E. Marshall, teacher, Newbern City School.-As almost all teachers are more interested and successful with children of certain ages, I think that a continuous promotion of the teacher with the pupils for a time longer than two years might prove hurtful to both pupils and teacher.

McAlester, Okla., Mary White, teacher, Second-Ward School.—With a strong teacher adapted to her work it is a most excellent plan, but with a weak teacher I think a change might be better, certainly for the children.

Tulsa, Okla., Gail D. Swartz, teacher, River View School.-I might say, if the teacher should be all that is desirable, the affection and respect which increase each semester for "his ideal" would tend to mold the child much more firmly in proper habits than should his teacher change and thus give him new phases to look at. I approve of both methods, but I'd want the teacher to be almost perfect should he have charge of children for consecutive years.

Harrisburg, Pa., L. LaVene Grove, teacher, Camp Curtin School.-Personally I feel that the method of advancing teachers with pupils is a good one providing a teacher is many sided in her teaching and does not produce a pupil who gained power in one or two subjects or whatever subjects the teacher considered most essential.

Again, from year to year the same crowd of pupils would not care to hear the same illustrations, would not enjoy the monotonous voice or peculiar mannerisms or wornout methods of a teacher.

In other words, this method is good only when a teacher is a real teacher in every sense of the word, when she has exactly the right attitude and viewpoint of her pupils and of her subjects, when she is a well-balanced, broad-minded, progressive, youngspirited person; otherwise, if I were a parent myself, I should prefer my child to have the education in which a number of amateurs had a hand rather than one.

Harrisburg, Pa., Ruth K. Wells, teacher.-If a teacher loses dignity as she becomes more intimately acquainted with her pupils, then discipline is hard. But if, on the other hand, she has dignity, with intimate acquaintance, she has solved the problem of discipline. The child obeys not only from love of the teacher, but out of a desire to stand well in her opinion.

The attention is given to the child rather than the subject. The child and his needs become uppermost in the teacher's mind and she considers the subject as related to him.

With this system you very readily recognize difficulties of other teachers. I am thinking especially of the beginning of the year. Children forget a great deal during vacation and a teacher is so apt to blame this lack of knowledge on the former teacher. This is not so when a teacher rises with her school. She discovers to her horror that they know just as little when she herself has been the previous teacher.

When you have become intimately acquainted with a pupil, he becomes freer in his conversation with you. He speaks of his desires and likes and dislikes. These little conversations aid you in understanding the child and his motives for doing many things. With this understanding you are more able to develop his character.

By acquaintance and understanding of individual traits of each pupil, you gradually begin to punish unruly pupils according to their individual traits. When you punish

in this manner you have reduced to a scientific plan the management of unruly children.

I think the system is excellent for the teacher. There is, nevertheless, another side to it. If a teacher goes the entire course with her school, the pupil may become onesided. I mean by this that a teacher may emphasize one branch of study, while another teacher would emphasize some other branch. A child who was placed under one and then the other would see the difference. A child who had remained under one teacher would be developed in one branch only.

There is another feature that appeals to me and which is due to the grouping of grades as is done in Harrisburg. The second grade runs into the third, the fourth into the fifth, and sixth into the seventh. It makes it possible to take a bright class of pupils through two grades in one year. I have done a great deal of this work and my ideas are formed accordingly. Last year from a class of 45, 17 skipped a grade. Logan, Utah, Ethel Hill, teacher, Woodruff School.-Too many backward pupils might discourage a teacher.

Portsmouth, Va., Mrs. L. M. Weaver, teacher, High Street School.-During the 20 years I taught four different schools, some of my advanced pupils following me from school to school. In those schools I did not have just one or two exercises each day, but from 20 to 25 classes comprising all the studies in the curriculum from the first to the eighth grades.

Promoting teachers with pupils prevents experimenting upon pupils. It helps to avoid injustice in discipline. It prevents loss of time and opportunity. The teacher's moral influence is better felt. The teacher can set up for the pupils a reasonable and consistent standard. It gives skill in managing children.

No teacher can thoroughly become acquainted with her pupils in five months. Having the same pupils makes clearer the relative value of the work in each grade and makes it much easier to understand the weak points that need special emphasis in each grade.

Richmond, Va., S. B. Robinson, teacher, Baker School.-With the promotion-ofteacher plan the bright pupil has the advantage of being advanced into the next grade's work as far as the teacher thinks he is capable of going. The average pupil has a chance to at least complete course. The bright pupil having been taught to work independently, and with skillful guidance of the average pupil, the teacher can find more time for individual work with dull pupils. A pupil deficient on one subject but "up" on the general work of the grade may be allowed at the end of the term to pass to the next grade if he is to have same teacher in next grade.

Richmond, Va., Irene E. Walton, teacher, John B. Cary School.-Often a weak pupil who would otherwise be retarded may be advanced with the teacher because she understands his weak points and the method of dealing with him and is so enabled to give him special attention in the next grade.

Richmond, Va., Mabel Glinn, teacher, Fairmount School.-If a teacher is advanced with her pupils she is bound to find her work easier the last half-term; time is saved for both pupils and teacher by this more intimate acquaintance which can not be gained during a single half-term; the teacher is compelled to be a stronger, broader, more alert teacher by this method than by the old method which allowed four and onehalf months in which she was to labor with a class and then to begin with an entirely new class for another four and one-half months of the same work.

Richmond, Va., Ola Lee Abbitt, teacher, Ginter Park School.-The system is praiseworthy in that it enables the teacher to get a better understanding of the child's strong and weak points, both mental and moral, and in so doing help the child to the best possible advantage.

On the other hand the system may prove narrowing to the child even though the teacher be of the best. The child is being governed by one individual opinion and ways of looking at every thing.

Richmond, Va., Mamie L. Daggett, teacher, George Mason School.-The children know just what and how the teacher wants them to do their work and they will go right on with the work without having the teacher to stop and tell them how to do the little every-day problems of school.

Richmond, Va., E. M. Boyle, teacher, Nicholson School.-The best feature of this work is the aid given to children who are physically defective. After they are once understood there is more sympathy and assistance rendered by the teacher who has learned to appreciate the difficulties under which they labor.

Richmond, Va., Mary Dickerson, teacher, John Smith School.-Although I wish to continue teaching 1A (6-year-old pupils) I must acknowledge that advancing with the class for one session (not more) saves time for the pupil (probably one year in the district school) and also saves time for the teacher. In visiting homes I hear the cry that I wish the teacher could go up with the class.

Richmond, Va., Sarah A. Forbes, teacher, John Smith School.—I have had pupils in my grade in the first part of the term that would not have been promoted had they been sent to another teacher, but as I was to take the class through the next grade and knew the weak points of these pupils I have carried them along and they have done excellent work.

Richmond, Va., J. H. Halloran, teacher, Springfield School.-The ability of very good students can be developed to a greater extent by this system than by any other method that has come under my observation. I do not believe in "slipping" a child over a grade unless he is an exceptionally bright one, as the skipped student usually shows weakness later on. But I do believe that if classes were so arranged that all bright or very good pupils rather, could be in the hands of one teacher in one year, she could accomplish work that would otherwise take a year and a half, and no grade be skipped.

Richmond, Va., R. Estelle Shackelford, teacher, Springfield School.-I am not familiar with plan of teacher keeping a class throughout a year only. In my own experience of handling a class through two entire years the greatest pleasure is in learning to really know the children, which I can never do in the first grade or half term. Almost all misunderstandings occur there and the friendship of parents won there means support and confidence through the rest of my dealings with that class through two years.

ADVANCEment of TEACHER IN FOREIGN SCHOOLS.

It seemed best to study foreign school procedure also with reference to this plan, and a considerable body of information was obtained, for the most part through the courtesy of the State Department and its representatives in foreign countries, who, during the pressure of an unusual period have found time to give painstaking effort in behalf of this educational problem.

These foreign reports indicate that the advancement plan has been more extensively applied in foreign countries than in the United States. The opinions of many leading foreign educators are clear-cut and positive in its favor, and in the principal countries of the Old World it would appear that school authorities recognize that the plan is formed on the deepest educational principle and apply it wherever conditions permit. France is a notable exception.1

1 See letter and note, p. 61.

Brief tabulation of the foreign reports.

[The "Yes" and "No" statements indicate the attitude, favorable or unfavorable, of the school authorities in regard to this plan.]

Inasmuch as the above tabulation is very inadequate, and as a more minute summary would be unsatisfactory on account of the great variety in the replies, it seems best to give the letters themselves as far as they refer to this topic.

It should be stated that only a few foreign correspondents received copies of the questionnaire.

LETTERS CONCERNING THE ADVANCEMENT OF TEACHER WITH CLASS IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES.1

BRUSSELS, BELGIUM.

The primary studies are divided into three grades and two years of study are necessary for each grade. When a young teacher enters into one of the schools, he is put in charge of the first year. He keeps his pupils two years, that is, during the first elementary grade. If the circumstances allow it and if he shows that he has the true qualities of a teacher and if he has been able to win over entirely his little pupils and if the results obtained justify it, he continues on with the same pupils for the next elementary grade and is their teacher for the third and fourth years. After this period of four years he starts back again at the first year and does the same thing with another group of pupils.

1 For other letters, see Addenda, p. 79 et seq.