accomplished in the required time'; and whether I could do that was asked over and over again. . . . The greatest trouble" (referring to the days before they had a printing-press) "was the lack of printed matter, I met no criticism from parents and much praise. Especially was this true of the work in literature. . . . The criticism oftenest given by visiting teachers is on the 'big words' as they call them." Elsewhere, in regard to these "big words" she says: "They" (the children) "were proud of their new possessions, and lost no opportunity to use them and use them correctly. The so-called 'big words' when they express a definite idea, are remembered with ease, while their humbler sisters which express nothing tangible are more readily forgotten. . . . We can say emphatically that the work can be done in the public schools, and that both teachers and pupils are benefited thereby."
Another Englewood teacher wrote me: "The teacher gains an impetus in searching for and assimilating real truth to give to the waiting little ones. . . . I believe the parents of our children are becoming awakened, for children tell me of searches made at home to answer whys and hows, whens and wheres, that have been raised in the work at school."
Miss Walter, critic teacher at the Oswego (New York) State Normal School, after a visit to Englewood in February, 1890, wrote me: "It has been my good fortune to see within the last week some of the best school work I have ever seen. . . . It was in the rooms of Miss MacChesney, Miss Quackenbush, and others that I saw such admirable work. . . . Miss MacChesney is carrying out, in a wise and careful manner, an ideal line of work."
In closing this account of the new work at Englewood I can not do better than to give quotations from two letters received from Mr. Orville T. Bright, the superintendent under whom all this experimental work has been done. He says:
December 15, 1889.—"We are now harder than ever at work studying how to make observation a living element in our schools. . . . We have thirty—yes, forty teachers now who are thoroughly in earnest in the matter."
March 9, 1890.—"It is about three years since Miss MacChesney began the work. Miss Quackenbush soon followed, and the next year Miss Phelps, all in the Lewis School; . . . and the fact was demonstrated beyond a doubt that fifty children are no bar to the success of a teacher in training little children to observe in subjects pertaining to science.
"All our primary teachers slowly wheeled into line. We had numerous meetings and discussions on the subject, and every one who tried the work was convinced. The stand of the superintendent had been misunderstood from the first, but he did not think it wise to force matters. He wished teachers to undertake
