41. The Value of a Diary.—The diary is the simplest form of writing, for you are writing for yourself, making for yourself a record of your life. What do you think should go in a diary? If your parents had kept one when they were your age, what would you have found most interesting now? A great many things which they would have taken for granted would seem odd to you, i.e. no telephone, big stoves in the class room, different studies, etc. If a boy in China kept a diary, what would you find most interesting? Some account of his games, of his playmates, of the look of the streets he passed through, of how he felt towards his teacher, etc. Bear these points in mind, for when you grow older, though you will not live in another land or another generation, you will be very far from your school-days, and your diary should make a picture of them for you. If you had been able to keep a diary when you were six or seven, what would you now read in it with most interest? The ideal is to set down at the end of the day a reminder of it, so that when you look at it you will remember what made that day different from every other. This is not possible always, but as a matter of fact every day has some special features, if it is only the weather.

From a practical point of view, the diary is a great aid to letter-writing, since it really forms the notes for a narrative of your life. It often settles disputes about the date on which something was done; it furnishes data for calculations in planning; i.e. you wish to have an early spring picnic, and, consulting your diary, find that on the 20th of March of the year before you were in the woods without an overcoat and found arbutus; or you wish to get up an entertainment, and turn back in your diary for the description of one you saw during the summer. It gives you material for writing exercises for your English work; for instance, the entry, "To-day we went to Aunt Julia's to help pick cherries; I was almost bitten by their dog when we came down from the tree," is really the outline for a short story, if you make your note on it sufficient to bring the picture up before your mind.

42. Contents of a Diary.—No two diaries should be alike, but certain things should always be noted so as to make a continuous record, even if they do not seem of special interest; i.e. the weather (very briefly if it is nothing unusual), the movements of the family (if any one is away or just returned), the health of the family (this only if any one is ill), what the general news of school is (if any special event of school life has taken place), and what you yourself have been doing. You may sometimes think that you have done nothing worth putting down, but anything that has made the day different from the day before is worth writing. Do not try to make entries for different days of same length. Try to cultivate the ability to pick out the details of an incident which will make you remember it most distinctly. Later on, in letter writing and description, you will have to select details which will bring a picture most clearly before the minds of other people, but in your diary you are freer. In your entry after an afternoon's sledding, for instance, it may be sufficient for you to say: "Went sledding on Holmes's hill. Weather very cold, with a high wind, that sent the snow flying. Broke my sled, trying to make the corner curve too fast. The whole crowd of us come home together, taking turns in pulling each other and playing Eskimos, and I almost frosted my nose." If those were the important events of the afternoon to you, they should bring up the whole picture before you, so that you could see it clearly enough to remember all the other details that would be necessary to give any one else an idea of what the expedition was like.

It is absolutely essential that the entry for each day should be made while it is fresh in your mind; do not wait for several days, and then "write up" your diary. A short entry on the day of the occurrence is worth more than a page written a week later.

After the school news, and what you yourself have done, enter anything unusual which any one you know has done, or any change of conditions at home; i.e. that it is preserving time and the house is full of odor of cooking fruit; that it is near Christmas, and you worked with the others on making wreaths for the decorations of the church. You will find that a brief record of your work at school, how you succeeded and how you failed, what you found hard and why, is of real use to you.

43. Imaginary Diaries.—After you have formed the habit of making every day a picture of your own actual life, try making a similar picture of the life of an imaginary person. Take any period you have studied in your history and try to make a diary of a boy or girl who lived in that time.

Exercise 77.—1. A Puritan boy in the first winter of the stay of the Puritan fathers in New England; choose a week when they first land, and a week when spring begins to come. Bring out the difference in his feelings.

2. A girl in Dutch Manhattan. Tell the story of the taking of Manhattan by the English as it would have appeared to her. From your study of the customs and habits of the time, write a week's entries of her holiday week, Christmas customs, etc.

3. An Indian boy: a week's diary in the West, on the plains, etc., and then later, a week's entries after he arrives at the Indian school and is being taught the customs of the white men.

4. Diary of a week spent as you would like best to spend it. Diary of an imaginary week in the country; in the city; in South America; on an ocean voyage; during a week's illness.

5. Diary of the inhabitant of any country you are studying in your geography lessons.

44. The Class Diary.—If there is not already such a custom in your class room, it is a good thing for you to start a class diary, or record of the year's school work and activities. This aims to do the same thing for the class that your personal diary does for your own life, and in it should be written all that makes the life of each school day or week distinctive. This book is left in your class room, to form one of a series of such records, which will be of increasing interest as the years go on. Any large blank book may be used for this purpose, and great care should be taken to keep the record very neatly written. Nothing should be entered until all corrections have been made, so that a fair copy may be written.

Sometimes, when only the larger events are to be chronicled, it is better that this record be set down by weeks, rather than by days. A good plan is to divide the class into committees of four or five each, who take charge of noting down the happenings of the week. They write the entry, read it to the class for suggestions and criticisms, and set it down in the class diary.

It is well to have fixed a certain number of items which are to be noted regularly, and these may be divided among the members of the committee for the week. For instance, one may make it his business to note the weather, the temperature, the wind, or any unusual conditions out of doors; another, the advance of the seasons, the day when the first robin arrives, or when the first definite signs of winter were seen, whether this be the falling of the last leaves, the first snowstorm, or the fact that the street cars are heated; another may take as his share the state of the studies of the class, unusual lessons, if any, and the progress made in the regular ones; another, any items of general interest in other classes in the school. A record of all manner of items may be kept here,—facts which the class is interested in keeping, such as the attendance for each day, or the average attendance for the week, the average percentage of the class in any study, etc.

For special events,—entertainments, debates, excursions, etc.,—there may be a member of the committee delegated to report, or the accounts may be written as an exercise, and the best one selected by the committee or teacher.

The entry for the week should be made up of these various reports, entered neatly in the class diary, and signed by the pupils composing the committee.