omoe children never scrawled on other people's walls or on the road. That was because they had ample opportunity for doing it at school.

During music periods in the Assembly Hall, the headmaster would give each child a piece of white chalk. They could lie or sit anywhere they liked on the floor and wait, chalk in hand. When they were all ready, the headmaster started playing the piano. As he did so, they would write the rhythms, in musical notation, on the floor. It was lovely writing in chalk on the shiny light brown wood. There were only about ten pupils in Totto-chan's class, so when they were spread around the large Assembly Hall, they had plenty of floor on which to write their notes as large as they wanted without encroaching on anyone else's space. They didn't need lines for their notation, since they just wrote down the rhythm. At Tomoe musical notes had special names the children devised themselves after talking it over with the headmaster. Here they are:

(musical symbol) was called a skip, because it was a good rhythm to skip and jump to.

(musical symbol)was called a flag, because it looked like one.

(musical symbol) was called a double-flag.

(musical symbol) was called a black.

(musical symbol) was called a white

(musical symbol) was called a white-with-a-mole, or a white 'n' dot.

(musical symbol) was called a circle.

This way they learned to know the notes well and it was fun. It was a class they loved.

Writing on the floor with chalk was the head-master's idea. Paper wasn't big enough and there weren't enough blackboards to go around. He thought the Assembly Hall floor would make a nice big blackboard on which the children could note the rhythm with ease no matter how fast the music was, and writing as large as they liked, Above all, they could enjoy the music. And if there was time afterward, they could draw airplanes and dolls and anything they wanted. Sometimes the children would $$$join up their drawings just for fun and the whole floor would become one enormous picture.

At intervals during the music class, the headmaster would come over and inspect each child's rhythms. He would comment, "That's good," or "it wasn't a flag-flag there, it was a skip."

After he had approved or corrected their notation, he played the music over again so they could check what they had done and familiarize themselves with the rhythms. No matter how busy he was, the head-master never let anyone else take these classes for him. And as far as the children were concerned, it wouldn't have been any fun at all without Mr. Kobayashi.

Cleaning up after writing rhythms was quite a job. First you had to wipe the floor with a blackboard eraser, and then everyone joined forces to make the floor spick and span again with mops and rags. It was an enormous task.

In this way Tomoe children learned what trouble cleaning off graffiti could be, so they never scribbled anywhere except on the floor of the Assembly Hall. Moreover, this class took place about twice a week, so the children had their fill of scribbling.

The children at Tomoe became real experts on chalk--which kind was best, how to hold it, how to manipulate it for the best results, how not to break it. Every one of them was a chalk connoisseur.