of the child, the great value of this occupation lies in the the relation gave a power to the teaching which no meoriginality of design made possible to the worker. Designs chanical system could ever attain. It was the method for oilcloth, carpets, tiled flooring, inlaid woodwork, cur- which the experience of the world, from Socrates down, tains, towels, all fabrics, are repeated in the simple weaving has shown to be the only effective one-the method of dimat of the kindergarten, opening the child's eyes to these rect impact of one mind on another. forms and arrangements of forms all about him. Under the system, which was no system, the mind of the "Weaving gives the child an understanding of many in-pupil blossomed out into the most vigorous growth of dustries now performed by machinery, and acquaints him which it was capable. It never got the ruinous notion with processes now employed in the production of many that a machine was going to do its work for it; there was articles, thereby relating him to much that surrounds him." no machine. If the teacher had anything in him it was It is one of the most appreciated occupations in the kinder- called out by the fresh, unspoiled enthusiasm of the "getgarten, and weaving time is ever greeted by the children ting through" the country school. The pupil went there with beaming eyes and words of welcome. Why? Because term after term, year after year, simply demanding, as did it is a play work which gratifies his innate longing for the pupils of ancient Greece and those of the fair early days knowledge, as each step is a development in form, color, of the medieval university, whatever new the teacher of the and number, the manipulation of which is a delight to moment had to give. There was no "course," because every child. there were no limitations of subject or of time. In that Many children in their third year have overcome the procession of active youth coming from the larger life of difficulties to be met in this occupation, after the prelimi- the college there was sure to be, sooner or later, some repnary play lessons given with other material. Parents of resentative of every subject of study. The strain on the mother's classes find it a practical occupation; they see at personality of the teacher was immense, and it produced once its intellectual value and a happy medium for instruc-a response. Individual answered to individual, and out of tion and entertainment for their "overactive" little ones. It this give-and-take came originality. is a good plan to commence with the four-by-four mat of Then there was a change. All this was found to be unbroad and narrow strips, using the term during the first scientfic. The method must be made conscious of itself. lessons-"over the mother (broad) strip, under the baby There arose a being whose shadow has since darkened all (narrow) strip." the land, the "educator." To be simply a teacher was no Notwithstanding that weaving is one of the most enjoy-longer enough; we must have educators, and that quickly. able occupations, it is the most difficult for the child to grasp This hodge-podge of pupils of different ages must be brokas a whole, and requires continued patience on the part of en up into "grades." Every pupil belonged in a grade, the kindergartner and mother; but when onced started and and there he must go and stay; if, at the given time there the situation mastered, all goes well ever after.-MARIA was no grade in which he precisely fitted so much the worse BERTRAND GROSS, in Kindergarten Magazine. for him; away with him into the outer darkness.-Atlantic Monthly. THE OLD-FASHIONED COUNTRY SCHOOL. It is probable that the next session of the Southern Edu. They had no curriculum, no notions of "time allot cational Association will be held in Galveston, Texas, durments" and "harmonious development" and "logical se-ing the winter holidays. It is expected that a midwinter quence," and the rest of it, but only a simple and direct meeting in the South will attact a much larger attendance way of getting children to read, write, and cipher at a very than a mid-summer gathering. early age, and to be ashamed if they did it badly. Thenand here was the great unconscious principle that the Visitor-I suppose you have a great deal of poetry sent country school was demonstrating-wherever any pupil in to you for publication? had a point of individuality to work upon, some taste or Editor-No, not very much poetry, as a rule. Some of some talent, there the teacher found his opportunity. The it is verse, and some of it is worse.-Somerville Journal. college youth, himself just waking up to the charm of literature or the fascination of scientific experiment, was led instinctively to pass on to his inquiring pupil some spark of the divine fire of original study. The close personality of University. Mrs. Nellie Grant Sartoris' eldest son is now seventeen years of age. He will complete his education at Oxford 648 RATE OF SUBSCRIPTION. (Postage prepaid by Publisher.) Single Subscription, per year, in advance, Entered at the Post-Office at Philadelphia, Pa., as Second-Class Matter. Office 1020 Chestnut Street, Room 2. Editor $1 50 EDITORIAL NOTES. Some paper has said that Hon. Chauncey M. Depew lately delivered an address in the Bowery, and that he first went down to the boys and then brought them up to Depew. If this be correct he illustrated in person his aptness in the management of men and at the same time gave a valuable lesson to teachers. No man is so successful in the work of teaching as he who brings himself down to the level of his pupils and by proper methods and management brings them up to his level. This is especially true in the actual work of imparting instruction. If we hope to make our work valuable it must be presented in such a way that the learner will understand and be interested. Too much of our teaching, though probably less now than a few years ago, is beyond the comprehension of We give below the names of twenty-six extra good stand- the child and is therefore valueless. Nothing so ard books, any one of which will be sent free as a premium quickly distinguishes the true teacher from the prewill send $1.50 in advance for the paper for one year and 10 tender as the ability to interest pupils by having them cents to pay postage on the book. SEE THIS OFFER. PREMIUM BOOKS. to each subscriber to the WEEKLY EDUCATIONAL NEWS who 1. Robinson Crusoe. 2. Arabian Nights Entertainments. 8. Swiss Family Robinson. 4: Don Quixote. 5. Vicar of Wakefield. 6. Dickens' Child's History of England. 7. Last Days of Pompeii. 8. Ivanhoe. 9. Tom Brown's School Days at Rugby. 11. Grimm's Household Stories. 12. Pickwick Papers. 13. Speeches of Webster. 14. Life of Daniel Webster 15. Lifeof Washington. 16. Life of Patrick Henry. 17. Jane Eyre. 18. Lucile. 19, Anderson's Fairy Tales. 20. Tom Brown at Oxford. 21. John Halifax, Gentleman. 22. Tennyson's Poems. understand. The Educational Journal of Toronto says, "Distance lends enchantment to the view even in educational matters. Probably many of our readers may be accustomed to regard Prussia as the ideal country, so far as its public schools are concerned. Closer inspection would probably dispel the illusion. An illustration is afforded by the statement of a Prussian teacher, who has made a close study of the system. Though the inspection of schools is supposed to be entirely in the hands of the state, this writer says that, as a matter of fact, the country school inspectors are almost everywhere clergymen, whose pedagogical outfit is usually of the most meagre kind. The teacher, dependent on the good will of his clerical superior, is often obliged to perform menial services. Only since last February have the country teachers been released by ministerial ordinance from the performance of such duties as the sweeping of For $4.00, we will send the Forum and the weekly church floors, the tolling of bells, the lighting of fires, EDUCATIONAL NEws one year, the cash must accompany the order. 23. Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 25. Swineford's Literature for Beginners. Box 1258. EDUCATIONAL NEWS CO., Philadelphia. For three dollars, we wiii send the EDUCATIONAL NEWS weekly for one year, and Macaulay's History of England vola., cloth, worth alone $3.75. 5 etc." We cannot help thinking that often the matter of illustration in teaching runs wild. It was our fortune several years ago to listen to the experience of a may draw, but to call a school open chiefly in the teacher who explained to a Teachers' Institute her evenings, which teaches arithmetic, bookkeeping, method of presenting the subject of number to a class millinery and dressmaking, art needlework, sketching of little folks. So thoroughly was she convinced that and cooking, sets one to doubting as to whether there the only proper plan was the objective method of is not an effort to sail a very large kite on a very teaching that she had her pupils illustrate every prob- slight breeze. lem on paper. Instead of the child's being permitted to say that four chairs and five chairs are nine chairs, We find our new plan of allowing a free copy of he was required to write out the question, How many the NEWS to every one who sends us a club of four chairs are four chairs and five chairs. Four chairs and subscribers at our lowest rates, is working well; many five chairs are nine chairs. In each case instead of the of our old subscribers are renewing and sending other italicized words he was required to draw the pictures names with their own. of four chairs omitting the words, and then of five chairs; also of four chairs, five chairs and nine chairs in the anA full half hour was required to answer a question which should have been answered in less than ten seconds. The poor deluded girl who gave the lesson believed that she was doing the work in the only orthodox way according to the new education, and she had been so taught by her superintendent. swer. We are willing to pay agents a reasonable commission for securing subscribers for us anywhere in the United States, and every one who pleases may act as agent. Most of our subscribers have paid very promptly, and for this we are grateful, but there are a few who It was a case of objective teaching gone wild, as is have been reading the NEWS at our expense for sevevery other case that presents numbers only in con-eral years. nection with objects, after a child has had even a very slight experience with nature. By some mistake or paper merchant has sent us a There is strong hope, however, that such child quality of paper inferior to what we have before used. study as will enable the teacher to learn something of It is too expensive to throw away, we therefore ask our the child's mode of thought, or such as will carry her patrons to bear with us till the supply is exhausted. back to her own childhood, may be beneficial in eradicating these false notions of teachers. Some one has said, and said wittily that to require children to sketch from buttercup plants completeroots, stems, leaves, buds, with one flower of five petals on each, to teach four times five, is about as Chinese as burning one's house to taste roast pig! Personal Items. Dr. J. W. Wright of Talladega, Ala., one of Alabama's most prominent teachers, died lately. Miss Sade R. Hemperly, a graduate of the Lock Haven State Normal School, and formerly a teacher in Dauphin county, now teacher in the Schofield Nor If illustrations must be used let them be of the simplest character, for surely the child it he is re-mal School at Aikin, S. C. quired to sketch chairs, shoes, flowers, bonnets, etc., as we have seen done grows more and more careless as his work on a problem nears completion, and after all there is so much work done to impress a single idea probably already understood that it reminds one of using a ten-pounder to kill a fly. Night schools are good things in the city, and so are industrial schools, but why dignify them with the name College? Probably it is correct, and the name Prof. Edwin H. Foster, the Secretary of the Alabama Educational Association, and for four years Associate Principal of the South Highlands Academy, Birmingham, has resigned this position to accept a similar one in Washington, D. C. Prof. David Swing, the eminent divine, died Oct. 3. He had been suffering for a week from acute jaundice. Prof. D. C. Williams, of East Lake, Ala., is Principal of Wilcox Institute at Camden, Ala. 650 Miss Jane B. Dearborn, of the Dearborn-Morgan Berlin. Later he filled professional chairs at Konigsschool, is soon to be married to Mr. James Ellison berg, Heidelberg, and Berlin. His greatest work was a treatise on "The Conservation of Force," published Mills, State Geologist of California. in 1847, which set forth, for the first time, the interchangeability and indestructibility of all the manifesiations of force in nature, such as light, heat, electric Prof. J. B. Murphy is President of the Union Springs Male and Female Institute, Union Springs, Ala. Miss Mary Sandford, a pupil of Ypsilanti Normal, and also of New Britain Normal, is teaching at Chap-ity, chemical action, and animal vitality. He showed inville, Conn. Prof. J. F. Gillis is Principal of the High School at Lower Peach Tree, Ala. Of the new teachers at the Platteville Normal also for the first time a difference in chemical composition between the active and quiescent muscles, and proved by means of ingenious devices, that thought is not instantaneous. C. H. Wood, formerly superintendent at Winchester but for several years past superintendent at New Harmony, has been elected superintendent of the schools at Valparaiso, Ind., to take the place of W.H. J. L. Brouse, West Alexandria, has been called to School the Grant county Witness says: Prof. George the principalship of the high school al Franklin, O. P. Coler, who takes charge of the department of pedagogy, graduated with the degree of B. A. at the University of Ohio in '82. He was principal of the Toledo High School, and later occupied a position in his alma mater. After two years of study at Johns Hopkins, he became principal of the Baltimore School of Technology. Three years of work in Leipzig and Halle followed, Prof. Coler returning to this country to accept the chair of Philosophy in the University of Ohio. Prof. D. A. McMillan succeeds Prof. Carrington as superintendent of the Mexico public schools, Mo. On August the 6th, at the regular state election, Prof. John O. Turner, of St. Clair county, was elected Superintendent of Education of Alabama, for the next two years, beginning December 1st, 1894. Banta, who resigned. Supt. J. R. Bevis, of Seven Mile, Ohio, has been elected superintendent of schools at Naperville, Ill. Miss Eleanor Beebe, for many years directress of the work for the blind, at Louisvlle, Ky., has retired from the same for a year of rest and recreation. Miss Sarah E. Sprague, so long and so well known for her educational work in Minnesota, is to be Professor of Literature in Thorp Polytechnic College at Pasadena, California. Prof. A. A. Shawkey, formerly of Sigel, Pa., last year Principal of the Ashland, Ky., High School, is now in Delaware, O., pursuing further his course of Col. E. D. Yutsy, one of the strong friends of education died at his home in Somerset county, Pa., Sept.29. He was a graduate of Mt. Union College, Ohio, and study of the sciences and languages, in the Ohio Wesfor several years taught school in the South. At the leyan University. outbreak of the war he was a student at law in Somerset, but abandoned his studies to recruit a company, of which he was elected captain. He was afterward promoted to colonel of the 54th Reg ment, Pennsylvania Volunteers. After the war he engaged in railroad contracting at which he was very successful. He represented the Somerset Bedford Fulton District in the State Senate for three consecutive terms. Hints. A Proof of Appreciation. A teacher, who had endeared herself to her pupils, was giving up her duties to take up other and more important work. It was generally felt that she could not be allowed to go away without some tangible proof of appreciaProf. Hermann von Helmholtz, the celebrated physi-tion, so a collection was set on foot, with a view to making ologist and physician, died of paralysis in Berlin on her a presentation. The little ones were much excited over Sept. 8. After studying medicine he became,in 1848, the fact that the last teacher had gained a distinction which professor of anatomy in the academy of fine arts in some of them were proud to have merited themselves. One little miss went straight home and turned out the contents of her money-box. "What are you going to do with your money?" asked her mother. "Please, mother, teacher has won her prize, and I am going to help to give it to her," the child sweetly replied. Educational Intelligence. opposition candidate in The instructors for the Dauphin County Institute which convenes Nov. 12, are Dr. T. B. Noss, Dr. E. T. Jeffers, President York Collegiate Institute, Prof. L. I. Handy, Newark, Del., Dr. J. P. Welsh, Dr. E. O. Lyte, Dr. G. M. D. Eckels, Dr. A. E. Winship, Editor Journal of Education, Boston, Prof. A. M. Lindsay, supervisor of music, Steelton, and Deputy John Q. Stewart. The lecturers are Prof. A. M. Hammers, Superintendent of Indiana County, Col. L. Emma F. Bates, the nominee of the Republican and F. Copeland, Prof. L. Irving Handy, and Major Henry C. Prohibition parties of North Dakota for the office of Dane, of Boston. Supt. McNeal's program for Directors' in that State, Day is specially practical as may be seen by the following Superintendent of Public Instruction is said to have promised her hand in marriage to an ing subjects: "Is the Establishment of Rural Central order to retire him from High Schools Desirable and Practical?" "How Should the field. This story was lately denied. Miss Bates Visiting by Directors be Conducted?" "To What Extent woman of strong character and are School Directors Responsible for the Moral Training?" is spoken of as exceptional ability. She was preceptress for the school "To What Extent is Vocal Music Taught?" year of 1863-94 at the Valley City (N. D.) Normal School, in the classes of English literature, language and Latin. a The instructors for the Delaware County Institute, which She is a native of Chautauqua County N. Y., educated convened this week were Prof. John B. DeMotte, Camat Foretville Free Academy and Union School and Alle. bridge, Mass., Miss Gertrude M. Edmund, East Stroudsgheny College. She took special training in elocution burg Normal, Prof. H. W. Elson, Philadelphia, Prof. I. D. under Professor Boice of the National School of Oratory, Gresh, Milton, Dr. E. O. Lyte, Dr. Geo. M. Philips, Dr. of Philadelphia; was two years in the Seminary of Western Nathan C. Schaeffer, and Dr. Arnold Tompkins, Chicago, Pennsylvania, at Clarion; was principal of the graded school III. Evening program: Prof. John B. DeMotte, Cambridge at Collins, N. Y., for one year; teacher two years in the Mass., Will Carleton, Brooklyn, N. Y., Wallace Bruce, High School at Clarion, Pa; two years in the Normal Broooklyn, N. Y., and Rutgers College Glee Club, New School at Milnor, N. D., and three years in the Normal School at Valley City. She is well and favorably known throughout the State as an institute conductor and lecturer for the W. C. T. U. The Association of Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations meets in Washington, Nov. 13-16. Brunswick, N. J. Supt. Smith has also arranged for the The school board of Jacksonville, Fla., has made a radical change in the management of the public schools of The Association of Colleges and Preparatory schools for Jacksonville, and to this end it has abolished the position the Middle States and Maryland meets at the Johns Hop-of superintendent of the five city white schools, and will kins University, November 29 and 30. instead place each of the schools in charge of its own prin. cipal. In addition to this, Mr. Mead, the County Superintendent of Public Instruction, will give a large share of his attention to the schools. The instructors for the Lancaster County Institute which Shaw. |