If you have confined the pupils to the flat copy, break away from it; allow them to create. Let them see the beautiful things all about them. They will respond. Let them draw from nature and still life. Train them to observe. The early summer days, just before school closes, with their bright sunlight and strong shadows, make many subjects interesting as light-and-shade drawings. Fall, with its brilliant coloring, gives us a chance to use the color-box, while the early winter twilights will bring many an interesting silhouette before our boys and girls, and next day during the drawing hour these impressions may be carried out in pen and ink. The most successful teacher will be the one of sympathetic nature whose love reaches out to the boys and girls, as well as to all things beautiful. The most successful teacher will be the one who endeavors to place the children where they may view nature sympathetically and in the most intimate relationship. LEAFLET XXXI. FOUR APPLE TWIGS.[42] BY L. H. BAILEY. [42] Teachers' Leaflet No. 3, March, 1897. [Illustration] As I walked through an apple orchard the other day for the first time since the long winter had set in, I was struck by the many different shapes and sizes of the limbs as I saw them against the blue-gray of the February sky. I cut four of them in passing, and as I walked back to the house I wondered why the twigs were all so different; and I found myself guessing whether there would be any apples next summer. I have had pictures made of these four little apple limbs. Let us look them over and see whether they have any story to tell of how they grew and what they have set out to do. I. One of these twigs (Fig. 216) was taken from a strong young tree which, I remember, bore its first good crop of apples last year. This simple twig is plainly of two years' growth, for the "ring" between the old and new wood is seen at B. That is, the main stem from the base up to B grew in 1895, and the part from B to the tip grew in 1896. But the buds upon these two parts look very unlike. Let us see what these differences mean. We must now picture to ourselves how this shoot from B to 10 looked last summer while it was growing. The shoot bore leaves. Where? There was one just below each bud; or, to be more exact, one bud developed just above each leaf. These buds did not put out leaves. They grew to their present size and then stopped. The leaves fell.