e interested to know that the pupils
in the early schools studied their reading aloud at
the top of their voices. They learned reading by
singing "ab," "ba," etc. Later, when geography was
taught, the capitals of the states were sung.

FRENCH LIFE IN THE NORTHWEST

BY JAMES BALDWIN

You will recall that the French explorers
Marquette, Joliet, La Salle, and others established
missions and trading posts in the Illinois country.
It was due to these early explorations that the
French got control of a large part of the Northwest
Territory.

The following narrative tells of the simple life of
the French settlers in that territory.

It is interesting to learn how the French people in the
Illinois country lived in friendship with the savage
tribes around them. The settlements were usually small
villages on the edge of a prairie or in the heart of the woods.
They were always near the bank of a river; for the watercourses 5
were the only roads and the light canoes of the
_voyageurs_ were the only means of travel. There the French
settlers lived like one great family, having for their rulers
the village priest and the older men of the community.

The houses were built along a single narrow street and so 10
close together that the villagers could carry on their
neighborly gossip each from his own doorstep. These
houses were made of a rude framework of corner posts,
studs, and crossties, and were plastered, outside and in,
with "cat and clay"--a kind of mortar, made of mud and 15
mixed with straw and moss. Around each house was a
picket fence, and the forms of the dooryards and gardens
were regulated by the village lawgivers.

Adjoining the village was a large inclosure, or "common
field," for the free use of all the villagers. The size of 20
this field depended upon the number of families in the
settlement; it sometimes contained several hundred acres.
It was divided into plots or allotments, one for each household,
and the size of the plot was proportioned according
to the number of persons in the family. Each household 5
attended to the cultivation of its own ground and gathered
its own harvest. And if anyone should neglect to care for
his plot and let it become overgrown with weeds and thistles